AnimeCon Harem 14: Girl Talk

   “How do you even talk Brian down on the whole us being mind-controlled slaves thing, without bringing up the magic powers?!” Emily asked. “I bring it up, and he’s like magic powers? What do you mean magic powers? Steph—are you for real?!”

   The mismatched pair were walking through the crowds of AnimeCon attendees in the vendor’s room, wandering in aimless fashion down one of the rows of exhibitor booths stacked high with cases of anime DVDs and boxed statuette collectibles. With her fluffy pink hair, Stephanie could easily be mistaken for a cosplayer when wearing the oversized button-up shirt borrowed from Brian’s Lance outfit. In contrast, Emily’s blue pixie cut and the more relaxed hoodie with the forklift slogan emblazoned across the front was punk casual, and she hugged a plastic sheath containing the poster print from earlier against herself while leaving one hand free for the exasperated gestures she needed to express bewilderment with her friend.

   “W-we’re not mind-controlled slaves!” Stephanie insisted. “The, the issue isn’t, um, the real issue with this is—”

   “I mean, it's totally cool with me if we are slaves, ‘cause that’s my thing and I’m down, but like,” Emily gestured with her hands. “That’s not Brian’s thing, y’know? Like, he’s not into that at all. At all.”

   “We’re not mind-controlled, or slaves, or anything like that!” Stephanie repeated, swatting at Emily’s nearest hand. “Why would, why would you keep saying that when you know how much that idea upsets Brian?!”

   “How DARE you say something that upsets THE MASTER, the strange magic compulsion in your head demands,” Emily said, rolling her eyes. “Like, Steph, do you even hear the way that sounds?”

   “I-it’s not like that!” Stephanie grabbed Emily’s forearm and pulled her to a stop. “I’m, I’m being serious. Emily, please—it’s really not like that.”

   “Well hey, wasn’t me you hadta convince,” Emily gave her an expressive shrug. “So what did you even say to Brian?”

   “I, um,” Stephanie let go of Emily’s arm and wore a pensive expression. “I talked about, uh, tried to explain this, this blind spot I think he has. That affects the way he’s thinking about… all of this. The problem, to me, I mean not to me but the problem as I see it, or-or I mean the problem for him, with all of this, it’s that he has this big blind spot when it comes to relationships with other people.”

   “Huh,” Emily quirked her lip. “Blind spot? Okay, yeah, I guess he’s gotta have some huge blind spots or how could the whole being with Chloe thing even happen?”

   “It’s trust,” Stephanie explained. “Trust. Trust is a, a huge blind spot for him. He’s been, um, conditioned his whole life to, to just assume no one should trust him. So, so it’s like he just assumes that there’s no reason to trust him. When, when in reality, he’s—well, he’s Brian. He’s…”

   “Yeah, I get it. He’s like, the only person I completely trust,” Emily nodded in agreement. “Trust that I can just be me, that I can just completely be myself. He’s the super dependable one. Like to a fault. Like I think if he ever really let us down, let any of his friends down, it would really mess him up. And that kinda shows, in like, what all he does, who he is. What that makes him. You know?”

   “But, he doesn’t see that,” Stephanie pointed out. “He’s, it’s, to him it’s this big blind spot.”

   “A blind spot that Chloe totally exploited,” Emily’s expression soured. “Like she found this hole in Brian’s perception of things, and decided to sit herself right there in it so that she could push all his buttons and play with all his little psychological levers with impunity.”

   “Yes! Exactly,” Stephanie’s voice rose and she began speaking faster. “She, she saw that he was, was damaged, that he had this painful hole inside of him, and instead of, of healing, filling it in and trying to complete him, make him whole, she—she just kept, um. She was instead… eroding him. Taking that, that psychological wound and just making it all so much worse, and. I, I can’t even put into words how angry, how, how, how fucking furious she makes me the more I put all these things together!”

   “That shit all started with his psychotic control-freak parents, they weren’t ever going to give him any trust,” Emily spat. “They gave commands and they gave him punishments, there was no slack or leeway at all because they didn’t give a shit about him. I might still hate them even more than Chloe, and I only met them like, two times total back in those years he was forced to live there.”

   “So, so in regards to the… harem, Brian has this mental… thing, where he automatically thinks he can’t be trusted to have any power over us, over anyone,” Stephanie continued. “Because of Chloe just, just feeding into his blind spot and encouraging him to believe that it was right, that men don’t deserve trust, ever. The charm thing—it terrifies him. I was, um, was trying to impress on him all the positives, and how we do have every reason to trust him. I, I don’t think I convinced him, exactly, but it was like even just introducing him to the idea that he’s someone worthy of all the trust and love we can give him—just introducing that sort of derailed all his thoughts. Because, he, he needed to just. Process that. For a bit. If that makes sense?”

   “It does,” Emily considered it all for a moment. “Yeah.”

   Before saying anything else, Emily stepped forward and grabbed Stephanie up into a hug and squeezed her tight.

   “Um?” Stephanie nearly had the breath pushed out of her.

   “I’m just, uh,” Emily let out a sheepish laugh. “Damn. I’m really glad you’re with us. That we’re doing a harem thing, and all together on this. Like, that we have these different perspectives and angles we can untangle all this mess with. It’s this total team effort unfucking all of our lives, kinda?”

   “Yeah,” Stephanie smiled. “It can be.”

   Emily squeezed tight, smooshing herself against Stephanie as best she was able, and then finally released the girl with a laugh. After spending most of the afternoon with Kelly and realizing how similar they were in being real fuck-ups at life, finally getting some time in here with Stephanie like this was this brighter, more innocent end of the spectrum where they could gush and fangirl over Brian without feeling like either of them would judge.

   “Alright, cool. You, uh, you wanna hold hands while we walk?” Emily offered. “No homo, or anything.”

   “No homo—?” Stephanie gave Emily an incredulous smile. “Holding hands isn’t—”

   “Cool,” Emily interrupted with a roll of her eyes, grabbing Stephanie’s hand. “I mean we can hold hands all gay later on if you want, but for now let’s just hold hands. ‘Kay?”

   “Okay,” Stephanie giggled. “I’ll… I guess I’ll hold you to that? It’s a promise?”

   “Cool,” Emily bobbed her head in casual agreement. “I get to walk around all showin’ off with Brian’s girlfriend. Nice.”

   “Well, so do I!” Stephanie declared in a sweet voice, swinging their joined hands forward and back between them with their steps. “And—it is nice!”

   The two headed along together at a slow pace in the middle of the lane, each pausing on occasion to glance at some of the merchandise passing by whenever it became visible through the press of more committed shoppers along all the booth edges. There was a lot of cool stuff, and a few she couldn’t help but point out out loud, but nothing that was worth letting go of Stephanie for. Even if Emily wasn’t overwhelmed by all the other circumstances going on right now—she honestly was too broke to punish herself by looking through things she wouldn’t be able to buy.

   “You know, when I first realized how I felt about—” Emily paused, grabbing her phone from the front pocket of the oversized hoodie as it throbbed in vibration with an incoming call. “Uhh hold on one sec.”

   “Of course,” Stephanie said, thoughtfully taking the print from Emily so that her hands were free. “Go ahead.”

   Emily’s first thought was that maybe it was Brian, and she was forced to mentally kick herself in irritation at remembering his phone got snatched by Queen Psychobitch. Unlocking the screen, she instead discovered it was Rebecca calling, and a wave of annoyance washed through her before she could stifle it.

   No, Rebecca, you are SO in trouble with me! Revealing a slight scowl, Emily stepped off to the side of the aisle where she’d be out of the way of traffic, clamping her free hand over her opposite ear so as to drown out the noise of the vendor’s room as she accepted the call.

   “Hi, Emily! Wanted to check and—”

   “Rebecca, no— what the fuck, you went and told Brian about everything?!” Emily growled, unable to keep the bitterness of the accusation out of her tone. “Why? Whhyyy?! Whyyyy would you do that?! Why would you do that?!”

   “Language, Emily!” Rebecca sighed over the phone. “I told you I wasn’t going to lie to him! And—I didn’t tell him everything. I only told him as much as I had to, and… it was so darned difficult exercising restraint, you have no ide—”

   “You didn’t have to say anything, though!” Emily all but yelled. “Way to send me into like, my third complete freak-the-fuck-out for today! You didn’t have to tell him anything at all, so—”

   “Emily!” Rebecca snapped. “Brian isn’t stupid.”

   “I, I know he’s not!” Emily stammered, feeling herself falter. “I never said he was stupid, just—”

   “I’m not going to judge whatever it is you and that Kelly girl had to do to pull Stephanie out of her… her thing she was caught up in,” Rebecca continued in a terse voice. “Because, it seemed to work out, and maybe you two doing whatever it is you did is what she needed. However, when you put yourself in Brian’s shoes for all of that, and realize he was still in a very different frame of mind, and remember that he isn’t stupid… Emily, how was I supposed to explain why everyone was acting so strangely?”

   “Fuckshit,” Emily swore. “Shit. Fuck!”

   “Emily, he looked so… so lost when all of you took off like that,” Rebecca said, ignoring Emily’s bad words for once. “He’s not ignorant of what’s been going on, he just doesn’t—well, he didn’t—have all the pieces. Once I hinted at some things, he pretty much connected everything to what’s been going on with the hair colors and the way everyone’s been acting right away.”

   “I-I know that, I know, but—agggh!” Emily made a noise of exasperation. “It was just gonna freak him out, and until we figured out how to, um, how to break it to him, we—”

   “Brian isn’t stupid, Emily—” Rebecca began.

   “I know Brian isn’t stupid so stop saying that over and over!” Emily interrupted. “I’m not saying Brian’s stupid, I’ve never said that! So quit saying it like—”

   “Then why did you think you could hide all of this from him?” Rebecca demanded. “Emily, this isn’t an anime. Brian isn’t some, some super dense anime protagonist who doesn’t pick up on everyone’s feelings or what’s going on around—”

   “—I-I know that, just—” Emily tried to say. “Just—”

   “He just got out of a… difficult relationship, and then suddenly found himself in four new relationships at once, he’s completely overwhelmed and feels like he’s in over his head. He is in way over his head, all of you are. All of this, this, these things you’ve all involved yourselves in, they’re moving very very fast. You need to understand that. It’s been one weekend.”

   “Geez, I’m not dumb, Rebecca!” Emily shot back. “I know all of that, okay? We’re all just—we’re doing the best we can, alright? It’s a lot to handle for all of us! Even if— wait you said four relationships, what do you mean four relationships? Three relationships. Stephie, me, and Kell make three.”

   “Sooooo, listen,” Rebecca sighed again. “About that…”

   “Rebecca…” Emily growled. “There’s no way that—”

   “I know, I know!” Rebecca exclaimed. “Just… we got to talking about, well. How he’s maybe been repressing a lot of his issues, and then I told him my whole story, you know, the one from when I was little and had that big fight with my grandmother…”

   “Th-there’s no way,” Emily retorted. “Kelly and I weren’t even gone that long, it was like— Rebecca, it was like, not even twenty minutes!”

   “So anyways, I told him about that, and we had just the most amazing swordfight… Mmm, I wish you could have seen it. He’s, ah, he really is something else, you know? Then when we got to talking afterwards, I, well, I wanted to make sure he didn’t have any nasty bruises, sooo I had him take his shirt off and—”

   “Rebecca that’s not funny!” Emily exclaimed. “There’s no way any of that happened, so don’t go tryin’ to mess with me when—”

   “I started kissing him right away,” Rebecca revealed in a wistful voice. “Whew boy, that might have been a mistake, but you know, when he took off his shirt it was just like, like something came over me! I was, well, I’m not proud to say it, but I was all over him.”

   “Not funny, Rebecca!” Emily blew a raspberry at her. “I’m, I’m hanging up! If you’re just gonna be a stupid jerkface about—”

   “Okay, okay! I didn’t kiss him on the lips,” Rebecca clarified with a cute huff. “So, you can note down in your… whatever it was you were collecting information about all of this. I just kissed all over his chest and then maybe a teensy bit down his abs. It didn’t give me any streaks of color in my hair or seem to have an, um, an effect.”

   “Rebecca,” Emily warned. “Dead serious, now—are you messing with me?”

   “...I’m not,” Rebecca let out a slow sigh. “Are you… cross with me?”

   “I—no, I’m not mad or anything, I just—” Emily managed to sputter out. “Just. Jesus. Didn’t you say you were gonna try to, like, be cautious with all of this? Like, what, an hour ago you said that?”

   “I did,” Rebecca admitted. “I… was going to be careful and keep my distance and wait and see how things went. But then, this whole big dreamscape problem came up, and I had to step in to help him calm down, because of the Stephanie thing! Whatever that was. He’s… I don’t know how to explain Emily, he’s different than I thought he’d be. He’s… he’s really kinda…”

   “Ohhhh, fuck me you are telling the truth!” Emily clapped a hand over her own forehead. “Rebecca—”

   “I’m sorry!” Rebecca let out an uneasy laugh. “But, yeah. There were all of those circumstances, annnd, well now wow, I’m really interested in Brian too!”

   “Shit,” Emily swore. “Okay, I’m not mad, I just—this is weird and I’ve gotta wrap my head around it I guess. Where’s Megan? Is she with you? She’s our last, uh, control case I guess. Our… designated non-charmed person.”

   “Uhhh, no, she’s not with me,” Rebecca answered. “Didn’t she leave with you guys?”

   “She… okay, she did, yeah,” Emily remembered. “She was here with us, and then… she went off to do her own thing at some point. It’s been—I’ve been—it’s weird and distracting here and there’s a lot going on all at once. I guess. You still have the harem charm, right? It’s safe?”

   “Yep,” Rebecca reported. “It’s still safe and sound.”

   “Okay. Okay,” Emily took a deep breath. “Rebecca—I don’t think I can kiss you. That’d be too weird. I… we all need to, uh, well I need to like, sit down and digest some of this.”

   “Why would—” Rebecca laughed. “Why would you need to kiss me?!”

   “It’s—it’s a harem thing, I swear,” Emily panicked. “I’m not gay. You know I’m not gay, Rebecca. Just, so far with Stephanie and Kelly, things have been… weird. You know? I don’t think I can kiss you, though. You’re like… like the big sister I never had, or something.”

   “I… see,” Rebecca said. “So there’s some possible… influence? On sexuality?”

   “I don’t know!” Emily answered honestly. “It’s… weird. Maybe yes, maybe no? It’s weird. Both the me and Stephie thing, and the me and Kelly thing. I, uh, I don’t really want to get all into it right now. I’m here shopping with Steph.”

   “Okay,” Rebecca agreed. “We can talk about it later with everyone at some point. I don’t have any problems kissing you, I don’t think. Well anyways, I’ve gotta go help everyone start to tear down the event here, so—”

   “Uh??” Emily sputtered. “Are you, uh? You know? Bi? I, I like, never got any sort of…?”

   “My interests predicate more on certain personality types than gender, or anything like that,” Rebecca said in a dismissive tone, as if she were discussing something not terribly important. “We’ll talk about it later, I’ve gotta go help. I assume you’re going to ride home with Brian?”

   “Yeah, uh, with Brian and Kelly,” Emily said. “Kelly’s moving in with him.”

   “Right,” Rebecca let out a small laugh again. “See what I mean about how fast all this is going? I—well, anyways, I’ve gotta go. We’ll talk soon. Be careful and call me if you need me, okay?”

   “Yeah,” Emily said. “Uhhh—bye.”

   “Byyyyee!” Rebecca drawled out her goodbye before the line went dead.

   Emily sagged in place where she stood, tilting her head the whole way back until she was facing the distant light panels and ductwork of the vendor’s room ceiling far above. If this were an anime, here she would be letting out such an aggrieved sigh that a tired little Emily-shaped ghost would be escaping with it. To her dismay, life still wasn’t an anime and somehow the complexity of weird semi-polygamous relationship she’d tangled herself up in had gone from algebra straight to trigonometry when she wasn’t paying enough attention.

   I like Rebecca, Emily told herself. No—really, I love Rebecca. She’s always been, like, solid. A total bestie. Her being around the periphery of the harem felt like kinda a given, but somehow… her being like IN the harem for real is still… kinda weird? I don’t know. I’m not against it. I guess. It’s just— it’s just a lot right now. It’s a lot.

   “Rebecca, too?” Stephanie asked with a sheepish smile.

   “Yeah,” Emily let out a breath. “Rebecca, too. It’s— I don’t even know. We all saw it coming, I guess, but then it actually just happened, and… I don’t know. I like, just finally felt like I’d uh, emotionally come to terms with being in this long haul with both you and Kelly. Which is already weird. Now, it’s—”

   “I know what you mean,” Stephanie nodded, biting her lip. “Hug?”

   “Fuck yes,” Emily said, accepting the girl’s arms around her. “Sorry. Probably sound like I I’m being a total baby about it. Just, ugh. Man. I don’t know, too much to wrap my mind around really, and it’s happening all at once, it feels like.”

   “Everything’s been crazy!” Stephanie agreed, patting Emily across the small of her back. “Not in—well not all in bad ways. The good is so amazing I can’t even describe it and the bad is… well the bad has been awful!”

   “Yeah,” Emily chuckled. “Just—yeah. Phew.”

   “What do you want to do?” Stephanie asked, pulling back to hold Emily at arm’s length.

   “Uhh. Right now? I dunno,” Emily shrugged. “Were you wanting to actually even buy anything, here?”

   “Um, maybe?” Stephanie quirked her lip in thought. “I did see that one place with all the little plushie dolls, they had one hanging up that looked just like Brian’s cosplay yesterday.”

   “Ah yeah, the little Skullfies?” Emily nodded. “Or, Darkmasks or Darukumasukus or however you wanna call ‘em? From Hero Hero Haruki.”

   “Yes! Those,” Stephanie grinned. “I definitely want one of those, so I can just… I mean it’s super silly, but I thought…”

   “So it’ll be like you have a little Brian along with you?!” Emily clapped a hand on either cheek and bounced on the balls of her feet. “Steph that’s awesome and brilliant and just—fuckin’ adorable!”

   “Do you think so?” Stephanie asked in a small voice, blushing furiously.

   “Hell fuckin’ yeah,” Emily grabbed the girl’s hand again. “C’mon, let’s go get one.”

   “I was, um, I was also looking and looking, and I saw some of the other Fantasy Wars characters had plushies, but I couldn’t find one that looked like what Brian wore on Friday,” Stephanie admitted in embarrassment. “Maybe I just… maybe I didn’t recognize them right, since I haven’t actually played the game myself, or—”

   “Nah, there’s a bunch of Lance plushes around, but they’re all the stupid shitty Ordinal uniform version they keep trying to push from the Fantasy Wars movies everyone hates,” Emily griped. “Brian rocks the classic Cardinal uniform from the original game, we’ll havta ask if they have any plushies of that version.”

   “O-oh,” Stephanie remarked. “I, um, do you think I should try playing? I don’t have any game systems right now but I know it’s supposed to be on the—”

   “Hell yes, you should play!” Emily lit up. “Damn. It’s on the older console I don’t even use anymore, so like—gimme your address and I’ll just send you my old deck and the game and everything. You’ll be super hooked, I promise you. Then, for next year’s AnimeCon… we could maybe do a big Fantasy Wars group cosplay! You’d make a kickass Elaine, Brian’s already got his Lance, I could Enid. We’ll get Kelly in with us as Sophia, this’ll be so badass…”

( Previous: Persistent Boyfriend | AnimeCon Harem | Next: 14 pt 3 )

///  Chapter size rather than teaser size this time. Think we're finally back in business and readers can expect regular chapters again. Rough... well, rough entire season. Huge thanks to everyone who moved mountains and sent so much support, I'd have had to give up on this if not for you guys. Also don't blame any of you if you've unpledged, I had to drop the few I was pledged to myself and dial back the game dev budget a bit and tighten expenses. I know what it's like, and also I basically have gone all of 2022 while posting zero content. I've always tried to keep my tier pricing at rock bottom so that no one feels shortchanged, but when I'm not putting up content at all you're getting shortchanged despite that and it makes me feel miserable.

Spent the last few weeks back and forth getting stuck on an AH section (Kelly & Brian) and the RE:TT segment and feeling like I was getting nowhere with both.

Things are going much better here. Found a home for the final kitten I took in (Cassie) with my ex-girlfriend. I'm told she's very happy and a total sweetie, though unfortunately my ex renamed her from Cassie to Aki for some baffling reason. The two strays (Jasmine and Ruffian) I had in the pet pen in my kitchen have been released back outside, since it's warm enough now that I don't have to worry about them getting frostbite or hypothermia. Jasmine seems relieved to be able to roam free again, Ruffian will miss being able to bury herself in blankets. My trailer's in... better repair than it was, and will probably be fine for a good long while. Finally got our reliable forever character artist locked in for the game project, and it was YeMcBear all along.