got no pride, got no place, i just want access to your face

"What, all of a sudden you figured out how to turn in an assignment? Y'know, the big blue button's been there the whole time, Mythra."

As if the problem has been opening Canvas and hitting Submit. No, of course not! The problem doesn't have rounded bevels and bright white text like that.

The problem has a sharp jawline and sharper eyeliner all in dark browns and blacks, somehow unsubtle and dead serious all at once.

Dead serious? Try deadly serious. Try a professor who doesn't screw around, but also couldn't give less of a flying Fiyero about intimidation as a teaching tactic. Also never does a single thing by accident, either.

(Mythra still has vivid memories of the supply teacher that accidentally-on-purpose accused Nia of having ADHD in front of the whole class. And yes, that was ten years ago. Doesn't mean it didn't happen.)

Nia's taking Theatrical Theories of Gender because it's part of his major. Mythra's taking it because the prof is hot.

(And also because any elective like this is going to be a collegium class in its first semester run. Right? Probably?)

Lots of observation projects, gallery walks, essay-format opinion pieces of no less than a thousand words. Some forum posting, but not too much - not biweekly, that's for damn sure.

A thousand words? Sure, sure. Mythra doesn't use AI. Instead, they put their own brain on a sort of autopilot and churn out the information the same way. Malos calls it rawdogging; he can type just as many words per minute, but he needs a lot more prompting. Mythra, meanwhile, will go on forever unless they're stopped.

So the opinion pieces, easy. Mythra's heuristic is to pick the side that they can most easily reason toward. If they contradict that the next assignment around...shrug. Maestro Minoth hasn't picked a bone with them about it yet.

(It's a survey class, right? They're supposed to be all over the place. This isn't law school, for crying out loud.)

It's the extra credit that isn't really extra that has Mythra's noose on a hook. Maestro Minoth calls them microplays, as a parallel to microfiction. There's an exact rubric of balance between dialogue and stage direction, set description and inner turmoil, which Nia can rattle off in her sleep. Her beloved gender engineering at work, of course. Mythra's never bothered so much as looking at it, because they'd memorize it an instant, and heaven forbid that.

That would be embarrassing. That would be uncool. That would be like kissing the professor's desk-perching ass.

So Mythra's sitting at a comfortable, calculated low C. Never mind the near-perfect scores in Calculus of Complex Variables and Materials Science for Structural Engineering; this is liberal arts, and liberal arts is not the place for try-hards. Not unless you've got a chopped post-bleach haircut and more jibbits than keychains on your messenger bag.

Mythra, more combat boots than birkenstocks, has an underdye and a backpack studded with carabiners. That's different, right? Right?

"All great works take time to mature," they quip, scissoring shut their ThinkPad and shaking the miserable ice mourning the remains of their afternoon dirty chai.

"Yeah, but, he's gay, right?"

He's gotta be gay - in this universe or any other. He's got everything but the limp wrist, and he's even got that sometimes.

Perfect makeup. Perfect skin. A Barbie doll of impossible proportions. Snatched waist and everything, except he's got big shoulders too.

Nia and Mythra should feel guilty for scrutinizing the body type of some untenured individual with a bizarre fashion sense, but it's college and he's older than them, so they figure they can do whatever they want.

"I think maybe he's bi," says Mythra, as casually as they can. Let's not be erasurists, now!

(They can practically hear Maestro Minoth saying it - proclaiming it, rather. Once, somebody had actually tried to call him Professor. His reply had been to "call me Maestro, or don't call me anything at all," and that night they had dropped the class. Or so it appeared. Maybe they'd been kicked. Who was to say?)

Nia rolls his eyes, of course, at that. "Say what? Imagine him," he indicates with a massive jerk of his head, "kissing a woman. Really! I just want you to think about that."

In return, Mythra pinches her sarcastic, tiger-striped cheeks (temporary tattoos, or something else - not just too-pale powder and concealer, anyway). "And why, dear Nia, would you want me to think about that? Are you fetishizing straight people, now?"

Nia wrinkles her nose, slapping Mythra's hand away. "You sound like him. Are you bi?"

They could go on like this for hours, and they often do. Now a retort about framing any discovery of sexuality as an accusation, implicit or explicit. Now a chiding of stereotypes. Now an argument for the signals we project, directly or indirectly. Now a low blow about whose microplays and associated research could even hope to inform such a discussion.

Rather than engage in any of that, Mythra just stares out the library window at the dismal quad between this and the next asbestos-filled building.

"Why do you think he's even here?"

"...to be gay? Or bi. Or unlabeled. I think a lot of us are here to be unlabeled."

"Let's be unidentified," Mythra agrees morosely. "I liked that one that you wrote."

Why are we here - just to suffer? Just to engage in the thousand natural shocks of disappointment as we flit from one empty moment to the next?

Unfortunately, Mythra needs to latch onto something, and they're pretty sure they need it bad.

"Maestro Minoth?"

"Mythra!" He says it without looking up, then suddenly his white-hot attention is on her. "One of the great minds of our forthcoming generation, though their taste in epistles is...slow-drawn."

Geez, okay. You attack all your slacker students this way? In front of female God and everyone?

But Mythra shakes themself off, tries to ignore it. This much is impossible, but, y'know. Great minds often fancy themselves just so capable.

"Not to go all elementary school on you, but...when are we actually gonna use this stuff? Like literally, what good does it do anyone for us to be all theory and no practice?"

Minoth looks her over. "You're not practicing?"

Mythra says nothing.

"We are all ever in the process. So long as we haven't actively given up, that is - and have you?"

But he doesn't actually wait for a response.

"By your very face, asking this question, you demonstrate that you desire some kind of staying power. You desire to stand against the path of conformity, conservative misanthropy, conventional hells and ills."

In general, Minoth seems to regurgitate a ton of anti-stereotypes, leaving anything academic to the wayside with an unspoken derision. He would cry out, subsequently, that it is pervasive to dare to pinpoint for study those queer individuals who are ever performing themselves. He's got a defense for everything.

But, then again, it is theatrical theories that he purports to profess. It is emphatic defiance in a fashion somewhat plainly digestible by the layperson. It is the living character that he seems to embody.

"I just wonder if this class is sort of an echo chamber."

Agate whispers something conspiratorial to Adenine, just then. Maybe it's excitement. Maybe it's ridicule. Maybe, whatever it is, that confirms it.

Minoth stares at her, lips closed. Purposefully, he sneaks a glance to one corner of the room.

"I invite you to create your own meaning in this course. I invite you to be as effective as you could want."

And if you don't want...wander.

So, their story so far: Mythra, who originally didn't care about SOCI-307 any further than they could throw it, which wasn't really all that far considering that there was no actual textbook or physical pamphlet to represent the seminar section beyond a single-sheet sans-serif flyer, now has the tips of their teeth sunk into wanting to prove their worth to the professor whose sexuality they relentless question just because college is all about curiosity and wanting to know.

Isn't he gay? Nia had queried. Nia hadn't soured all over Mythra's own self-determined morale by reminding them that they, too, were supposed to be gay, and not fold all over when a man in a fringed paisley shirt stalks brocade boots over to their middle row of desks to prop and lean all up in their bad-skin face.

Students who have affairs with professors are often depressed and lack a social support network. Maybe Mythra has support, nominally, and the rich guy funding their bachelor of science does seem to have at least half a heart beyond the scholarship that Mythra had earned from his capacious pockets without really even having to try, but it's the desperate search for something that means anything that has them looking at Minoth, and looking, looking, looking.

Coffee chats - networking, you know. Excuses to socialize with people who are either way too personable or entirely closed off.

Minoth is both. Minoth is neither. Minoth is bi. Minoth is gay.

Mythra buries their head in their pillow and lacks the energy to scream.

Their first concept for a microplay had been a commentary on perceived social value as a currency vis-à-vis the amount of self-expression broader society is willing to tolerate, shot through the lens of artificial beings engineered (yes, this) for superintelligence.

But Maestro Minoth had stipulated that the play must be based in some specific current or historical period of something recognizable as a strain of modern society; namely, the social issues must not merely be replicated in allegory but actually redistributed across tangible personages.

"Your purpose," he'd instructed, "is not to obscure and paper away the simple human uglinesses of what it means to be queer. Also, our beauty."

(Nia had cringed. Mythra had cringed too, but swiftly covered over any associated visceral reactions by way of receiving Nia's enthusiastic elbow.)

"You must find deft, artistic ways to represent yourself. Really get it across to your audience. We are not just a concept." He'd levelled a glance down the center of the auditorium. "We are everywhere."

"I'm only a woman because I have to be. Because it's faster. Because, for other people, it's easier. I think a lot of women probably feel that way, but they don't know it."

The author's thinly-veiled personal soliloquoy? Probably. But Mythra has found success working with the rhythm of an idea over the melody.

What's the big difference between rambling in sentence fragments to yourself and the eloquent, scripted dialogue of a play? What even is a play? More than a musical without lyrics, or maybe less.

It's something about rising versus falling action, exposition toward development toward climax toward restatement, and maybe Minoth had gone over such basics as a way of blending his passions, but if he had, Mythra hadn't listened. Nia hadn't listened either, but she submits plenty enough of the little manuscripts to get feedback pointing her in the right direction again.

Mythra's sort of missing the regular beat of their pace - shticks and tricks - for informative essays, and they begin to wonder just how polished they really have to be. For this assignment, of course, and for all.

Now, they have to position the other actor (either two or three players, not more) to receive this information, misconstrued. The opposite party will have heard "I'm a woman" and stopped listening. Mythra's changed the characters, but the conversation remains the same.

This is their intent. But instead, the masculine voice replies, "Well, who says you have to be?"

Mythra's not sure they want to submit this. Still, whatever's easiest...

Why do you think they're even here?

They're not going to the professor for help. Absolutely not. Not even if the office of financial aid has just delivered the news (Addam could have just texted them, really, but maybe the university does try to protect its students, once in a blue moon) that without at least a B to keep their semester average at a 3.6, their full merit scholarship will be revoked without ceremony.

They're not going to the professor for help because if they do Nia will have ammunition for the rest of their academic career, and that'll make it more advantageous just to drop out, actually, without letting this term's transcript hit the books at all.

Ugh. It's a perfectly normal excuse. It's a fine reason. It's, like, reasonable. You want to do well.

So busy chasing their grungy performative mediocrity that Mythra forgets: it's okay to want to do well.

But to want to do well just because the professor does it so well?

It's November. Way past drop-add, but not yet past the withdrawal deadline. They'd be below full-time. Maybe the office of financial aid has something to say about that. Maybe they don't.

Mythra really doesn't feel like going to ask.

So at this point, it's about pride.

(Oh, yeah. It's always about pride.)

Minoth's office is somewhere in the other asbestos building. Mythra won't pretend like they don't know.

What they didn't know is that all visitors with dust allergies will be treated to a swifter demise than even the proto-fiberglass in popcorn ceiling could hope to deliver over a generous strategically-planned span of fifty years when they dare to knock on Maestro's door.

He doesn't cough. It seems to Mythra that he defies the dust to attack him.

Mythra coughs, though, and has to do it again when their "Excuse me?" comes out coarse.

"Excuse me? I mean, excuse me- um-- Hi."

Minoth stares at her the same way he always does, right through the flip side of his untamed ponytail. Nervously, Mythra reaches back to fidget with theirs.

When it's clear that the host isn't going to advance the dialogue, Mythra tries, "I need help."

Now the eyebrow goes up. "What could you possibly have done to get yourself kicked out of campus housing?"

Lots of things. Weed, for one. But that's a story for another time. Oh, yeah, the school'll keep them. It just won't keep them for free.

(Never mind the...innuendo tucked in there.)

"I need a good grade in your class. A B, anyway."

The weight of Mythra's backpack is suddenly woefully apparent as they watch Minoth let go of the door and lean on its empty frame. His entire body arranges itself in perfect service of effect. Hips out. Bold lines. Ankle over ankle.

"You finally read the syllabus? Poor thing was getting lonely."

Mythra sputters. "N-no, I--"

Minoth holds up a hand. "Calm yourself. I know you didn't read it, because if you did you'd know that the microplays are graded on effort. Not quality. Not quantity, either," he adds to the side.

Of course they read it. Obviously they read it. Obviously they're not so stupid as to go on a wild horse chase over credit they can just pull out of their ass, or else thin air, by pouring out their dysphoria-addled brain onto word processor whitespace until the cows come home.

Mythra watches Minoth watch them and feels a frown overtake their entire miserable body. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"You want to talk through it?"

Yeah.