On Earth C, post-game (my own version, non-post-canon compliant) the Nannasprites and Jane discuss Hercule Poirot, with sprinkles of queerness surprising building to a big boatload.
Characters: (Nannasprite) from the Gameover timeline, Nannasprite from the Collide timeline, Jane Crocker. Jane uses she/her and he/him alternating pronouns. 652 words.
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"The first book I read was The Murder on the Links. It was just before I turned 13, if I remember correctly." Nannasprite mused.
"Was it really?" (Nannasprite) asked. "Mine was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, I'm certain of it."
Nannasprite turned to her alternate self. "Are you sure? That was the first book published, but it came out in '20. Did you read it when it first came out?"
"Oh no, I read it when I was 12, I know that much, because I tried to read it with Jake. He much preferred the adventure tales in magazines. The only full books he liked were those one's with the big game hunter." (Nannasprite) said.
"I remember those, he left a few behind after he went off with dear Halley." Nannasprite said. "What about you Jane? What was your first Poirot book?"
"Hm?" Jane looked up. She had been keeping her eyes and hands busy by slowing rotating her coffee cup around on the table they were seated at. Perhaps he was the only one actually seated, since the sprites seemed to always drift off of surfaces every once in a while. "Um, my dad bought me a collection of short stories, I don't remember what it was called. I mostly liked watching Poirot on TV."
"That show was great fun." Nannasprite said.
"Agreed." (Nannasprite) said. She turned to Jane. "May I ask dear, if that was your inspiration for growing a moustache?"
Jane coloured a little. "Uh, a little I suppose."
Jane hadn't taken to defining her hair on her upper lip as a moustache. Sure, he would call it that, but it didn't resemble the types of moutaches on the idols of his youth. It's thin, and sparse, with little in the middle, most of it's growth is above the corners of her mouth. He didn't mind how it grew, he thought it was unique. Growing up she dressed up with a Poirot-stache, and a Clouseau-stache. Roxy opined that now he had a Crocker-stache, and he snickered at the idea at first. But after a while, she started to think of it more earnestly. He shaved it on-and-off, depending on her mood, but right now he sported her fuzz.
"It's a great look." Nannasprite said. "I'm proud of you for living so truly."
"As a young girl, I was forced to shave my peach fuzz." (Nannasprite) said. "After leaving home I was able to grow it out again. January liked it a lot."
"Oh yes, she did." Nannasprite added.
"Who's January?" Jane asked.
The Nannasprites turn to Jane simultaneously. They are not quite mirror images of each other but they are dissimilar in so few ways that the synchronized motion was still a bit uncanny. She swore that their ghostly eyes glanced at each other before they looked back at her.
"She was my roommate." Nannasprite said.
"The sister of my late husband." (Nannasprite) added.
"My most intense love, if I do say so myself." Nannasprite said.
"In that way, yes, but my greatest love was my dear son." (Nannasprite) said.
"Ah yes, my darling son. I miss him very much." Nannasprite sighed.
Jane blinked a few times. "She was your what?"
"We never wanted to pin you down with comparisons of your life to either of ours," (Nannasprite) explained. "January, Paula Egbert, was my partner in my youth before I married her brother."
"How long?" Jane asked, astonished.
"Six years." Nannasprite said, taking a bite of a cookie.
Jane was still trying to let the information sink it when (Nannasprite) added, "You know it was a lavender marriage."
"Huh?" Jane noised, unfamiliar with the term.
“He was gay, silly!” Nannasprite said.
“Hoo hoo!” (Nannasprite) sung with a grin.
“What!?” Jane raised his eyebrows, as his alternate selves chuckled. Apparently there was a lot she didn’t know. He had more similarities with these kooky ghost versions of himself than he thought. The revelations were nonetheless surprising.
--The End--
Suggested complimentary reading is last years writing for Queer Jane Week which mentions Paula “January” Egbert more:
💬 0 🔁 2 ❤️ 2 · Day Three of Queer Jane Week, Family · Family Photo Album
Nannasprite and John (pre-June) talk, Nannasprite reminisces.
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Nannasprite and John (pre-June) talk, Nannasprite reminisces.
This is just the beginning of the gender journey for John/June, hence the pronouns and names used. Expanding on my scrawlings. Wedding photo of Nanna and Mr Egbert that is also in this photo album.
Approximately 1776 words.
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John Egbert exits his father's room. It had been a long time, since his birthday many years earlier. They had been on Earth C for more than three years now. It was a particularly hot day in the summer, and somehow John found himself in that previously mythologized place. With the curtains drawn, the heir laid on the floor, stretching out on the carpet. It wasn't that much cooler in here. Under the bed something glinted. John awkwardly contorted and squeezed himself under the bed and pulled out a a small, thin book.
It's a photo album, faded red with shiny gold details and lettering. In a lovely, curly font on the front, the book is titled: Family.
After looking through it a bit, John shuffles out of the room, faster than usual, and heads up the stairs. Entering his room, he finds hanging up by his desk a circular white pendant with a green spirograph embossed on it.
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JOHN: hey, nanna?
NANNASPRITE: Hello, John!
JOHN: could you come to my house?
JOHN: i had a question about some stuff. about you.
NANNASPRITE: Oh? Well, I am flattered, but I don't know what you could want to know about me. Regardless, I'll be on my way!
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Barely two minutes had passed before Nannasprite oozed through the kitchen door.
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NANNASPRITE: Hoo hoo! Hello?
JOHN: in here, nanna.
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She floats, gently aglow like neon, into the slightly darkened living room. She flips on a light switch with her disembodied harlequin hand. Her ectobiological son, her grandson, sat on the far left side of the couch, a book in his lap. Red, with shimmering gold details. He looks tired, hair a bit long, most likely unshowered, sparse facial hair populating his features.
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NANNASPRITE: You are sitting in the dark, dearie! It's not good for your eyes to read in the dark.
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Nannasprite floats over in front of John. His fingers feel the corners of the photo album and he's looking at it. It's open to a familiar section.
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JOHN: ...
NANNASPRITE: I am talking to myself?
JOHN: oh, sorry nanna!
JOHN: i found this today, in my dads room. it's pretty old looking.
NANNASPRITE: It is old, at least compared to a youngin' like you! I put this photo album together when I was pregnant with your father.
JOHN: when was that?
NANNASPRITE: I got the album itself Christmas of 1953, and I started to put it together right away.
JOHN: i hadn't finished going through it.
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John flips through the pages to the end.
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JOHN: i don't see any pictures of my dad in here.
NANNASPRITE: There aren't any in there, and I'm afraid many of your father's childhood pictures were lost when you were born and I died. I loved to keep pictures at work.
JOHN: oh, sorry about that, nanna.
NANNASPRITE: Hoo hoo! It's not your fault, love. And there still are some pictures, you should check his study.
NANNASPRITE: Was that all you wanted to ask me?
JOHN: well, I just wanted to know who the people in here are.
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John flips to an early page of the album. Centred in the middle of the page is a photograph of two young children and a large dog.
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JOHN: i can tell that's jade's grandpa. and that's your dog?
NANNASPRITE: Yes, that's Halley. He was a very good dog.
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John flips forward several pages and a few decades.
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JOHN: who's this?
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Nannasprite settles onto the seat next to John, and John slides the album over. Nannasprite holds the right hand side, while John holds the left.
The photograph is unlabeled like all the rest, but Nannasprite remembers everything about it. It was 1936, Nanna was still Jane Crocker, and she is standing with her arm over the shoulder of a woman. The two were on a beach, a sandy hill with tufts of marsh grass rises behind them. Jane has her hair cut very short, no fluffiness or thickness to it. She's wearing an old style swimsuit, boxy striped shorts with a neat string strap top, conservative by today's standards. They were emerald green and white, Nannasprite remembered. She was holding her glasses in her free hand.
Her companion is also attired for swimming. She is wearing a one piece, covering the very top of her legs, with wider straps and a v shaped collar. She is wearing a round, white sunhat, and her wavy hair just brushes the top of her shoulders. It's mousy and if the photograph was in colour, it would be dark blonde. She's holding onto Jane's hand over her shoulder, while with her other hand she's pulling Jane closer to her around her hip.
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JOHN: nanna?
NANNASPRITE: That is your father's aunt. The sister of his father.
JOHN: i didn't know i had a great-aunt. what's her name?
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Nannasprite places a hand on the bottom of the page. It was so long ago.
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NANNASPRITE: She didn't like her name. She said 'no looker was ever named Paula.' Of course, that's not true, but she insisted that we not call her that.
JOHN: great-aunt paula. well, it does sound like an old lady name. no offense, nanna.
NANNASPRITE: HOO HOO! John, I am old. And being a sprite, I'm only going to get older.
JOHN: what did you call her if you couldn't call her 'paula'?
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She remembered that day the picture was taken, not the exact date, but the events of the day. They packed up early in the morning and hiked to the beach. It had been particularly hot the previous day, and they planned to take advantage of the heat and sunny weather. They took the Brownie with them, carefully wrapping the camera in an extra towel. They asked someone passing by to take a picture of them, and he obliged. After, they spent the day floating and splashing in the water. They had ice cream for lunch, and didn't get back home until the sun was close to setting. They were starved, but they were used to it. They opened all the windows to let the night air in as they ate biscuits, corned beef and pickles for dinner, close to nine o'clock at night.
Jane and Paula worked in clubs and on stage, Jane, as a comedian and performer, while Paula was a dancer and actress. They didn't often work together, instead they would watch each other. They shared a small apartment, a small kitchenette and living area, with common washrooms shared with other tenants of the building. That night they slept without any covers, just them in their nightclothes.
It wasn't until the fall that they had taken enough photographs to get the film developed with this photograph. They divided the photographs between the two of them, and this was one of the ones Jane got.
There were many more photographs, but most were with Paula, the lost flame of her youth. Some others had been lost, like those in the jokeshop when John arrived on his meteor, and Jane met her temporary end. Jane only displayed a couple of the photos she had, ones where the two of them appeared simply as dear acquaintances. But she wasn't called Paula...
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NANNASPRITE: John, she was called John.
JOHN: what?
JOHN: wait, really??
NANNASPRITE: HOO HOO HOO! No, you silly goose. I got you! Hoo!
NANNASPRITE: ...
NANNASPRITE: She liked to be called January.
JOHN: like, the month?
NANNASPRITE: Yes, it was her birth month.
NANNASPRITE: It was also very unconventional. 'No looker' might've been called 'Paula', but there certainly were no lookers called January, because no one used that as a name.
JOHN: it is a bit strange.
NANNASPRITE: It was a lot more strange in the thirties.
JOHN: that's when this is from?
NANNASPRITE: Summer of '36.
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Nannasprite took a last glance at the faces in the photograph and then tenderly turned the page.
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NANNASPRITE: Now, in this picture....
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John and Nannasprite spent the rest of the day visiting. It had been a while since the two of them had. From his doomed timeline, only he, Roxy, and Nannasprite remained. Now there were two, but the alpha timeline Nannasprite had lost her John many years before, and was closer with Jade because of it.
Nannasprite adds tantalizing hints about the past, about John's dad's dad, about Betty Crocker, about life all the way through the 1910s to 1990s. She wouldn't go into detail, changing the subject, throwing in some jokes, redirecting the conversation. She skirted around great-aunt Paula, January, the most.
She prepared a homecooked meal for John, schnitzel and casear salad, she had John help her make some simple apple muffins for breakfast.
It was a lovely day, it left John feeling recharged. That evening, he got out his razor and shaving cream, and trimmed down the hairs on his face and neck. After rinsing, he rubs his hands over his face, hands still catching
He settles into bed, window open to let the night breeze blow in. The unfamiliar stars of this new universe sparkle in the sky. His thoughts drift back to the pictures in the photo album. Pictures of Nanna as a child, a young woman, a marriage portrait with a man who looked very similar to his dad. And those couple of photographs of his previously unknown great-aunt. January.
John imagines that It must have been even more unusual back then to use 'January' are a personal name. In modern times there were people with months as names, but only a few.
January sounds like a huge mouthful, John thought. Something with one syllable might flow easier. There weren't many single syllable months though, in English at least.
March, sounds a bit rough. May, probably the most common name, nice, but not for me.
John's looks out the window, the glow of distant city lights present on the horizon.
That only leaves...
"June." John breathes silently. It's a little bit old fashioned, but it's certainly not over used. Not a mouthful like 'January'
Nannasprite floats unseen in the open bedroom doorway. She gently runs her hand over the scruffy hair of her grandchild. She smiles, giving a gentle pat on the arm. Something was bothering her grandchild more than usual, but she would be ready to talk when John was ready. She hangs the sprite pendant from a peg near the desk, and silently floats out and down the stairs, waiting until morning to spend more time with her ectobiological child, her grandchild.
That night, in her own mind at least, Jane would spend some time with January. The jokes, the antics, the dancing, the holding, the loving, quietly, the two of them.
Bios for fics if I ever write the fics. I spent a few hours typing this up, lol.
Jane Egbert (née Crocker)
Born: April 13th, 1910. Died: April 13th, 1996.
Jane Crocker was raised with her brother, Jake. Jane and Jake took after their deceased father, Colonel Sassacore and studied prankstery, jokery and japes. After Jake turned 13, he ran away with the family dog, Halley, on an adventure. Jake encouraged Jane to join him, but Jane was too afraid of her adoptive mother, Betty Crocker, to join him. Betty took to teaching her daughter all the skills of baking and pastry making, looming large over Jane.
On her 16th birthday, Jane brought up Jake and her mother revealed Jane and Jake's true origins, as adoptive siblings, who one day were to have two children that would save the world. Betty was determined to prevent this from occurring. Jane took up her baking lessons with fierce determination, hoping to one day dismantle the Betty Crocker corporate empire. Over the years, Jane learns more about Betty, including the fact that she is not human!
Right before Jane was to expose Betty in 1934, Betty Crocker disappeared. Her corporate empire was left to her eccentric adventurer son instead of her smothered daughter, although Jane inherited a generous sum of monies. Jane debated searching for her long-lost brother, but instead she began establishing herself in the entertainment scene as a comedian and drag king. Here, she became acquainted with Paula Egbert, a popular dancer and stage actress. Jane and Paula had a somewhat tumultuous on-and-off personal relationship between 1935 and 1941. Through Paula, Jane was introduced to Harry John in 1940, and shortly afterwards the two were married. Jane recognized it as a lavender marriage, but Jane and Harry John were still very close and affectionate with each other.
After marrying, Jane began to set up her store, Prankster's Gambit, establishing it in 1943. After having her store well established, Jane and Harry John welcomed their only child in 1954. Their son was raised in the store learning all the secrets of a good prankster.
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Jake Harley (ne Crocker)
Born: April 21st, 1910.
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Hieronymus Johannes Egbert, Harry John Egbert, H.J. Egbert
Born: January 16th, 1910. Died: 1970's.
Born in The Netherlands, the Egbert family emigrated to the United States in 1912, eventually settling in the Seattle area. Hieronymus Johannes is the fraternal twin brother of Paula Egbert, and commonly used the name Harry John. Harry John becomes a minor business executive, and although he struggled to maintain employment throughout the Great Depression, he maintained his signature gentlemanly look.
In 1940 Harry John was introduced to Jane Crocker through his sister. In June of 1941 Jane and Harry John were married. Harry John received a few promotions throughout his career, and helped to assist his wife's dream of opening a joke-shop. In 1954, Jane and Harry John welcomed their only child. Harry John took to teaching his son the art of being a gentleman.
A tragic accident takes the life of Harry John in the 1970's.
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Paula Simonetta Egbert, nickname "January"
Born: January 16th, 1910.
Born in The Netherlands, the Egbert family emigrated to the United States in 1912, eventually settling in the Seattle area. Paula worked as a typist before losing her job at the onset of the Great Depression. Paula preformed in low-paying gigs in speakeasies, and eventually legal bars. She relied on her fraternal brother financially through the early thirties, but she was eventually able to attain legitimate contracts and was a member of the Federal Player's for a short time. Jane and Paula had a somewhat tumultuous on-and-off personal relationship between 1935 and 1941. Paula introduced Jane to her brother, Harry John in 1940 and in 1941, Jane and Harry John were married.
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(Dad) Egbert
Born: 1954. Died: April 14th, 2009.
Jane and Harry John Egbert's son was raised in Jane's joke-shop, learning all the secrets of a good prankster. He also learned key lessons in the arts of being a gentleman from his father. After his father's death in the 1970's, Mr. Egbert inherits various items that belong to his father.
Short-eared dogs or jungle dogs (Atelocynus microtis) are a unique and elusive canid species endemic to the Amazonian basin. Since short-eared dogs favor undisturbed habitats, wild sightings are rare. What is known about the species is due mostly to a semi-wild animal named Oso (bottom photo) who was the subject of a ten-year study. The species is threatened by feral dogs, habitat destruction, and diseases like rabies and distemper. (x x x x)
