This was written for urisarang for the 2023 Battleship Exchange. The title comes from a poem by George Gordon Byron.
CW: Mind control and implied death
AO3
FFN
SquidgeWorld
Claire swung aer staff at Jim, and he parried it away from his head.
"This isn't you!" Jim said.
"The Pale Lady showed me the Eternal Night," Claire said. Aer voice sounded like ae was in a trance, like ae wasn't fully there. And how could ae be? Claire would never agree to any of this.
"She's going to kill all of us!" Jim raised his shield and adjusted his footing, trying to gain the upper hand. He didn't want to hurt his datemate, but he had to find a way to disarm aer. Maybe that would break the Pale Lady's hold on aer? Blinky had warned Claire multiple times that the shadow Staff was imbued with dark magic, but surely it hadn't corrupted aer so fully that there was no way to save aer.
"Not everyone. My family will be safe. Maybe Toby, your mom, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH!, too, if they surrender. I really wish you weren't the Trollhunter, Jim. Then you could see the glory of the new world. Instead, you're going to have to die to bring it about."
"You know they'd never agree to that." He dismissed his shield and tried to reach for aer staff. Ae fell backwards into a portal and reappeared above him, twisting in the air to try and impale him from above. Jim dove out of the way, rolling back to his feet.
Ae landed delicately and shrugged, a cruel smile on aer face. "More's the pity, then, that they won't see the Eternal Night either." Ae ran towards him, and when he tried to dodge out of the way a portal opened in front of him. Ae reached through a second portal and grabbed his amulet from his breastplate, his armor fading away. Ae thrust aer staff through another portal, and Jim felt something sharp pierce through his abdomen.
And Claire's eyes remained gold. Disarming aer wasn't the way to save aer. Jim tugged at the staff, groaning in pain. His mom had told him, once, that removing an impaling object usually made things worse, but he couldn't do anything when pinned down like this. This was no happy dagger, and he was no sheathe.
The staff didn't budge no matter how much Jim pulled.
The amulet wasn't supposed to return if it had been stolen, but Jim had called back the stolen amulet to himself for Claire's sake before. Doing that had removed all the goblins from him, so maybe this would remove the staff so he could retreat. He could find another way to save Claire after he had stitches. "For the Glory of -"
The daylight-blue stone of the amulet turned gold, the same gold as Claire's eyes. A ghostly hand reached through it, shattering the stone, and Claire laced aer fingers through it. "Pale Lady, it is done."
@yellowmagicalgirl may not have been in a mood for angst, but I am certainly in some kind of mood today. I feel like Claire is a person who was probably aware of their sexuality and gender for a while, but I also feel like they weren’t free to be that person.
Claire grew up knowing their needs and their happiness always was going to come second to their mom’s campaign and their family’s expectations. Claire had grown up with babysitters and nannies while their mother was at campaign rallies. They had grown up with their parents missing important events, birthdays, plays, track meets, while they were busy trying to garner support.
Ophelia Nuñez needed her family to be perfect. She needed to look perfectly electable, she was already facing a steep climb because she was a Latino woman, so there could be nothing else that might impede her progress.
And that meant that Claire had to be perfect.Claire was involved in clubs, sports, and ahead of those their age in school. All of that from the pressure of having a politian as a mother. When Darci and Mary helped Claire bleach and dye their hair for the first time she was furious. It ruined her image of a perfect family.
Claire is smart. They knew at a young age that they weren’t straight. They guessed when they started highschool that they didn’t feel like a girl. Or a boy for that matter. They tried to subtly find out what their parents would say, how they would react. They would bring something up at the dinner table, or on the way to school.
Each time the reactions were the same. Quiet disapproval. No daughter of theirs would be one of those gays. So they kept quiet. Told Mary and Darci through tears in their eyes, that their parents would never accept them. The two girls did the best they could to comfort their friend.
After they became a Trollhunter, Claire started to feel that they might have found some people who would support them. And they were already well practiced with keeping secrets from their parents.
Claire told Jim while they were traveling through Arizona. He held them while they cried. And promised to always strive to refer to them correctly. Blinky easily changed lexicon to support them. The rest of the trolls followed their leader and their Trollhunter. The only person who at first refused was Merlin, but Jim had a serious word with the wizard away from the rest of Trollmarket, and after that he worked a lot harder with their pronouns.
When Claire returned to Arcadia after getting to New Jersey they finally came out to their parents and gave them the simple options of accept them as they are, or never know them. It was easy for their parents to see how serious they were so they told them how much they loved them and that they would try their best.
As people who have been reading my writing for years know, I've received several anonymous hate comments on FFN about how, when I write Claire as explicitly nonbinary, I use ae/aer pronouns for Claire. Every time I get one of these comments, I write another nonbinary!Claire fic out of spite.
Today, though? Today I got a comment from a guest about my usage of ae/aer pronouns, and it wasn't a hate comment. Instead, it was
I don't understand why anyone should have a problem with the aer pronouns. I think ist is normal and no one has the right to complain about that. However, I think the story was good.
Guest user, if you're seeing this, you've made my day.
Bisexual. When writing Claire, I tend to swap between cis (or at least going by she/her pronouns and using feminine terminology) and nonbinary and using ae/aer pronouns. The label of agender probably fits aer better, but I like the colors of the nonbinary flag better. The purple, black, and white fit aer so well, and then you have yellow for those wonderful Clairegana vibes.
6. fixing the other’s clothes from Casual Affections
This takes place post-RotT, and has references to that one screenshot of Krel that got released as well as the trailer. However, the spoilers are under a cut. Claire's nonbinary in this, and Jim remained a half-troll.
CW: Claire's mental health/self image is kind of shitty in this... that and/or ae're just being overly dramatic
~
It wasn't that Claire disliked dresses and skirts. It was just that, when going to the press conference, ae wanted to fit in with aer team, and apparently wearing armor wasn't something welcome because it sent a message that they were inherently dangerous.
Ae was inherently dangerous, why should ae try to disguise it? Ae was an actor, but ae had also fought eons-old demigods and won. Ae was every dark shadow to be feared, and ae was thankful that aer family and friends didn't seem to recognize that, because they knew aer. But the world didn't know aer.
Then again, ae understood why everyone else wanted to be seen as non-dangerous. They had been at war for a minimum of two years, longer for the trolls and older wizards. If they could get humanity to trust them, they could finally have peace.
However, why did Krel have to give them suits that had ties? Sure, he had figured out how to 3D-print them, but couldn't he have figured out a different suit style? Granted, he was just going to be wearing Akiridion clothing the same as Aja and Eli. Not that ae wanted to figure out how Akiridion clothing worked, but ae was still annoyed.
Ae had made aerself into a weapon. Ae had taught aerself trollish in a month. Ae had done well in acting. Ae had graduated high school in two years. Ae had used a staff before ae even knew ae was a wizard and lived.
Despite how many different videos ae had watched, ae could not teach aerself to tie a tie.
Maybe ae should have opted to be the stand-out. Wear a dress. Or a pencil skirt. No one expected someone to wear a tie with a pencil skirt. But, ae had wanted to dress more masc and fit in. Ae would already stand out with the way aer shadow was a fickle thing and all the highly visible cracked scars that adorned aer body.
There was a knock at aer door. "Can I come in?" Jim asked.
"Sure."
Jim was so handsome in a suit. Then again, Claire would have to admit that ae was biased and ae almost always thought aer boyfriend looked handsome. What could ae say, ae really liked his eyes and horns. But Jim looked so put-together.
Ae was pretty sure ae was not put-together at all.
"You need some help?" he asked, looking at the way aer tie had become tangled around aer hand.
"Yeah," Claire said. "I'm pretty sure in my hands it's gonna turn into a noose. That or I'll get frustrated enough to throw it into the Shadow Realm."
"Here, let me." He knelt next to where ae was sitting and took aer tie from aer. He then, in a few swift, dexterous motions, tied it perfectly around aer neck.
Ae blinked. Ae blinked again.
"How?" ae asked. "How did you do that so fast?"
"Practice," he said before giving aer a brief peck to the lips. "You ready to go face the crowds?"
37 and 51, for the trope mashup. And ship- Jlaire '-' and, how many times can one participate in this game?
Feel free to send as many asks as you want. How long it takes me to get to them is dependent on my school schedule.
37. Coming Out Fic
51. Accidentally Married
CW: accidental misgendering
So, between trolls, a wedding occurs when one troll places a wreathe of flowers/other vegetation upon the other's head, and the troll who got the wreathe now has one week to challenge the one who placed the wreathe to a cage match. After the cage match, they're married, with the loser becoming a member of the victor's tribe and going to go live with the victor.
On the road to New Jersey, Claire forgets about this bit of troll lore and makes a flower crown for Jim. A few days later he challenges Claire to a spar.
Oops.
After they learn that they're now married, and when they're alone, Jim admits to Claire that while he didn't plan on doing anything like this so early, he's really happy that she's his wife.
Claire freezes up, posture becoming guarded. Jim asks Claire what's wrong, and Claire bursts into tears and confesses that ae's nonbinary. Jim soothes aer, and then tells aer that he's really happy that ae's his spouse.
This fic is dedicated to every single Spivak pronoun user who has ever received a flame comment about how a nonbinary character in your fanfic should just use they/them pronouns and not Spivak pronouns. If that sounds oddly specific, well, that's what happened to me, and to spite that jerk I wrote this fic.
Takes place sometime between the end of Trollhunters season 3 and the start of Wizards.
Title is from The Maine's “(Un)Lost”, aka a song found on a nonbinary pride playlist.
CW: references to past canon-typical trauma/injury.
AO3
FFN
Claire was woken up by the sound of aer phone ringing. Ae glared at it. For once ae had been sleeping peacefully, undisturbed by a too-uncomfortable ground or the nightmares ae’d been having since aer possession. Ae had truly hoped they would stop when ae was no longer living in aer house, but ae had been wrong.
Ae continued glaring at aer phone. How long would it ring for? Ae could probably roll over, try to ignore it, and go back to sleep. But what if Merlin or one of the trolls became too annoyed by it? They might try to break it just to make it be quiet.
Claire groaned and answered aer phone.
Immediately, the video call function opened to reveal Mary and Darci’s smiling faces, backlit by sunlight. Behind them was the tree in Mary’s backyard that had led to Claire having aer arm in a cast during fifth grade graduation. Ah, simpler times, with simpler injuries.
“Hi Claire-bear!” Mary said, too cheerful and loud.
“Mare, it’s one. It’s too early,” Claire groaned. Ae kept aer voice down as to not wake anyone else in the cave.
“One in the afternoon; that’s not early at all!” Mary said. Claire glared at aer phone screen. Slowly, a sheepish look dawned on Darci’s face.
“Mare, ae’s nocturnal now. Sorry, Claire!”
Despite aer annoyance at being woken up, ae found aerself smiling ever so slightly. Ae hadn’t initially meant to come out to aer friends, but things had been tense between Claire and the two of them during that seemingly peaceful period between rescuing Jim from the Darklands and finding out that Gunmar had escaped. Mary and Darci had wanted to know what Claire was hiding, and it wasn’t like ae could have told them about trolls!
(Looking back, maybe aer friends were more trustworthy than ae had given them credit for. It wasn’t like trollkind had been trending all over social media or anything like Claire had feared they would within ten hours of Mary finding out. But hindsight was always 20/20, whether it be about trusting people, not using dark magic, or trusting people when they told aer not to use staves reeking of dark magic.)
And so, ae had come out to aer friends. Ae didn’t know what ae had been expecting at the time, but it wasn’t the sheer determination Mary and Darci had to retrain themselves on Claire’s pronouns. Granted, the two of them had nearly outed aer to aer mom because they hadn’t wanted to misgender aer, but one quick look from Claire had the two of them quickly changing their way of referring to Claire once more.
(Claire really wasn’t looking forward to coming out to aer parents. That may have been another factor in why ae had decided to uproot aer entire life and move across the country with aer boyfriend.)
Now if only aer friends could remember aer new schedule.
“What did you want to talk about?” Claire sighed. Hopefully this would be short and ae could go back to sleep.
“We just missed you,” Darci said.
“And you and Jim took all the cool stuff out of Arcadia away with you,” Mary said.
“Not everything. There’s Toby! He’s a third of the action,” ae said. Darci nodded appreciatively; now that he was no longer lying about trolls all the time their relationship had been going better.
“Yeah, sure,” Mary said, “but Toby’s, y’know…”
Darci raised her eyebrow, and Claire felt aerself do the same.
“Not you?” Mary finished lamely. Darci rolled her eyes, and Claire smiled. Ae hadn’t realized just how much ae missed aer friends. Ae opened aer mouth to ask about how boring Arcadia was without aer, but what came out was a yawn instead.
“You need to get to bed, don’t you?” Darci said.
“Yeah, I do. Are you two up for a three-way video call tonight?”
