thank you for being so patient!

"Okay, so, thoughts?"

"You have a talking notebook."

"Yes, thank you, Gabe, for this brilliant contribution to the conversation."

"Don't be mean to him."

"You have a talking notebook and she has freaked you the fuck out to an extent not adequately explained by a talking notebook," Vivian proposes. "Also technically she doesn't talk."

"Okay, yes, there is absolutely a fuckton of extra freaky shit going on here I just wanted to get the talking notebook part out of the way. It's all downwards from here."

"I still think a talking notebook is, ahahahah, pretty freakout worthy?" Gabriel himself looks like he's trying to not freak out and not quite succeeding.

"She's offering me magic powers."

"See, this is what I mean. Gabe, if you found a sentient notebook and it offered you the Wizard's Oath I'd expect screaming. Pete should be bouncing off the walls and he is instead repressing a nervous breakdown. I'm waiting for another shoe."

"We, um, may all be in a story? Or fictional or something?"

"...see that just makes no sense."

"Also the magic powers are, um, I, I may be having some gender feelings because they are very gender."

Vivian sighs, scootches over to Peter, and hugs him for probably the second time in their acquaintance.

"If you're a girl I will help you find a name and help you find an endocrinologist that doesn't suck and probably go thrifting with you out of solidarity even though fuck shopping. Unless magic makes the endo irrelevant in which case I want magic. I'll get to the epistemology but first things first."

His sister is definitely joining in the hug, too.

"I'm not a girl!" he protests, but he leans into the hug anyway. "I just... may not be... as much of a boy as I'd thought.

"The notebook says she was sent by the Spirit of Femininity Unleashed, and that she was metanarratively guaranteed to arrive to the right person. Or, it was metanarratively guaranteed that the first person to write on her would be the right person. As for the actual powers, they're formatted like a CYOA to give people the powers of becoming a Mary Sue."

"'CYOA'?"

"'Choose Your Own Adventure', it's a sort of character creation, uh, framework? You have a list of powers and limited budget to choose from the list and then you make a character with those powers."

"Often made by closeted trans girls who want something beyond their control to turn them into a beautiful woman without it being 'their fault'," Vivian notes. "- uh, not calling you an egg, just. Context."

"'Egg'?"

"Closeted trans girls. Because they hatch into a chick, see."

...she starts giggling.

"So, we're a story because...?"

"...well because this doesn't happen in real life. People aren't visited by notebook-shaped avatars of the Spirit of Femininity Unleashed offering them CYOA-shaped Mary Sue flavoured super powers saying that they want you to be powerful and beautiful and special in a feminine way. While being metanarratively guaranteed to succeed."

Marcus starts giggling too, partway through that.

"I mean, I'm operating under similar principles, witness me saying we're YA not SCP, I just... don't give a shit? Or as much of one, at least."