"It's tradition," Lisa insisted.

"We could be watching the Spanish dub of Mobile Suit Gundam right now," I protested.

"We can watch that anytime," Lisa said. "We can only watch the ball drop at midnight on New Year's Eve at midnight on New Year's Eve."

"Yes, but I don't want to."

"You've been outvoted," Nicky said.

"Ugh," I said.

It was twenty minutes to midnight on New Year's Eve, and we were all in the living room, sprawled across our particularly large and spacious couch. Despite having room for four people to have a sprawling cuddle-pile with space leftover, we actually didn't use this couch for fucking- we had semi-frequent houseguests, and so, in the interest of hospitality and hygiene, restricted our fucking to private areas of the house where guests would not risk sitting on a biohazard that we'd failed to adequately clean up.

"Fine," I continued, "but you can't stop me from watching it on my Virtual Machine and getting more immersion in."

"You are already fluent in Spanish," Lisa protested.

"Yes, but," I countered. "Fluency needs to be maintained."

"Not that often," Akane said. "I only need to watch Hindi soap operas like once a month to stay fluent."

"Hey, Roxy," Lisa said, blinking with realization as she connected some dots. "You told me that you learned Spanish by watching a bunch of Spanish-language media."

"Correct," I said.

"And that you can learn any language with vocab flash-cards and lots of media in that language."

"Indeed."

"So... why didn't you learn Japanese? You claimed it was because you didn't have practice partners, but it sounds to me like your method doesn't require those."

"...The answer is, in all honesty, that I bounced off French and Japanese before I found out how language acquisition really worked, and after attaining fluency in Spanish, decided that it was primarily worth the effort because it enabled me to talk to Spanish-speakers, and didn't care to repeat the process with French or Japanese, on account that the only benefit would be consuming cultural exports that already have a very well-established localization industry, and which I'm not really all that into in the first place."

"That's only true of Japanese, though," Nicky said.

"That is correct," I said, nodding. "French would have even fewer benefits, because I have zero interest in French culture or cultural exports, and the only reason I'd want to know it is to satisfy the little itch in my brain that proclaims that, as a Cajun, speaking French is my birthright, but I don't give a shit about Cajun culture either. I don't like seafood or excessive spice, and everything outside of food?" I shrugged. "Literally zero idea. Besides the French Catholicism, and quite frankly I converted to Judaism to get away from the Catholicism."

"We feel very differently about our cultural heritages," Lisa said.

"Mhm," I said, nodding. "And neither of us is wrong about it, because it's a deeply personal matter of opinion and what we value. Also a matter of what's there to be evaluated in the first place- Tejanos and Cajuns are by no means one-to-one identical." I reached over and rubbed her ears. "You're still my little pogchamp, even though you're coercing me into being present for very boring television for a cultural ritual that holds zero significance for me."

"You are such a shithead," Lisa said affectionately.

I leaned over to kiss her, then sighed contentedly.

"So," Akane said. "Now that you have a Japanese girlfriend, why are you not starting to learn Japanese?"

"...Point," I admitted. "Ugh. Okay, I'll find some flash cards for Japanese vocab and watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam."

"Isn't learning Japanese from anime kind of a major no-no?" Nicky asked.

"Only because weebs are cringe," Akane said. "Anime is still in perfectly intelligible Japanese that native speakers don't have to learn to understand; it's a bit over-the-top, but honestly, in ways that are helpful, like being very clearly enunciated, and also including some cultural archetypes that native speakers sometimes evoke in real life for jokes."

"I've been told that it only takes a few weeks to go from anime-fluent to real-speech fluent," I added. "Also, I'm not much of a weeb, so I'll probably watch some Japanese soap operas too, not just cartoons about child soldiers and whatever the latest formulaic Isekai trash is."

"Bold words for someone who has three girlfriends in another world full of superheroes," Lisa said.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Fuck you."

"Hey now," Nicky said. "You might get gender euphoria out of being someone's wish fulfillment waifu, Lisa, but that doesn't mean Akane and I do, too."

"What, and you're just like that anyways by coincidence?" Lisa asked.

"Kinda," Nicky said. "The question of what gives me gender euphoria is a complicated one, but I think it's related to how I present myself? But it's not really about being someone's dream girl, I don't think. It's more... I think, it's more about being... It involves some degree of antagonism, I think."

"Oh?" I asked, and then vocalized the thought I just had because it was too funny to not just say out loud. "You mean your specific gender identity has enemies-to-lovers built into it?"

"That and brat-taming, yes," Nicky said primly. "But I also do get gender euphoria from being seen as cute, which, while not really possible with these-" she gestured at her, to use the technical term, Fucking Enormous Titties. "-is in fact perfectly achievable with my vtubing stuff. There, people see me as a mousy little brunette catgirl who plays games that require spreadsheets and wikis to be good at, and I actually really like that perception."

"I get gender euphoria from being a hot babe," Akane added, because she was feeling left out. "It's just not super integral to my personal identity to the same extent as my scholarly pursuits."

"I've been meaning to ask, actually," Nicky said. "Since you're experimenting with identity-transformation, does that mean you'd be willing to temporarily turn into someone who gets gender euphoria from being a hot guy? Because I am bisexual, and would appreciate a little more variety in my eye candy."

"Hrm..." Akane hummed quietly. "I'm not sure Roxy would appreciate her work being befouled by heterosexuality like that."

"As a transgender lesbian, I am in fact perfectly fine with my work being used to support transing someone's gender," I said. "Also, what I'd use to make you into a trans man isn't even my work, it's Skinner's work, repurposed and rebound to myself. Also, more importantly, turning into a dude so you can fuck Nicky wouldn't be heterosexual, because Nicky is not heterosexual, she's bisexual, which is only 'half straight half gay' when she says it is, usually for the purpose of a joke."

"Thank you, Roxy," Nicky said, nodding.

"Of course," I added. "Akane pretty clearly still doesn't want to, so..."

"Kiiiiiinda, yeah," Akane admitted sheepishly. "Sorry, Nicky."

"Worth a shot," Nicky said with a shrug. "As much of an absolute pain in the ass as these things are, it's hard to give them up when you're getting so much mileage out of them, isn't it?" She glanced down at her boobs.

"Actually, my tits used to be way more of a pain in the ass," Akane said. "I only really got superscience solutions for them a few months ago, and the problem only really got solved, like, last month, when I wove the idea of durability into every cell of my body. You, though, got gravity powers when you were twenty."

"Also another growth spurt," Nicky added. "These used to be more reasonably-sized, back when I was nineteen. I mean, still big, but not, like, the size of my head." She hummed appreciatively. "Huh. Wow, you really have just always had it worse than me when it came to the inconvenience of fat honkers."

"They were a bit more than an inconvenience," Akane said. "But yeah, I'll admit I never really considered getting a reduction, partly because I wanted to stay differentiated from my mom, but mainly because I did still really enjoy the gender euphoria of being a hot babe. Which, y'know. I did still get plenty of, even when it was just us sharing an apartment in college."

"Um," Nicky said, intelligently.

"I did notice you checking me out, and I did appreciate it," Akane said solemnly. "I was in fact constantly adjusting my tank tops in your presence on purpose."

"Now you know," I said, looking at Nicky. "Now you know what it was like for me, living with Akane before I admitted defeat and started fucking her."

"Three minutes to midnight," Lisa announced.

"Huh," I said. "Wow, we really have just been bullshitting for seventeen straight minutes. I could've gotten through most of a Gundam episode in this time, if you three could've restrained yourselves from being the wonderful people I love and will cherish spending the rest of my life with."

"Gay," Akane said.

"Gay, gay, gay," Nicky added, putting on a deep voice. "You're all gay. None of you are free of homosexuality."

"May Jack Chick's memory continue to be a public urinal," I prayed.

"I wonder," Lisa continued. "How many people around the world watch the ball drop, live?"

"Around a hundred fifty million people," Akane said. "Spread out over the whole world, but mostly localized to the United States. More than who usually watch the Super Bowl every year, but nobody really thinks about it when it isn't December."

"Boy, am I glad Skinner can't mind control people through television," Nicky said.

"...She can," I said with quiet horror. "Skinner absolutely can mind-control people over live broadcasts, it's not even hard."

"Oh no," Nicky whispered.

"Also," I continued, turning to look at Nicky. "Remember what Akane just said about the Super Bowl? And how Skinner said she'd conquer America by Valentine's Day? And how Tooth and Nail were invited to watch it with Skinner, who, much like me, does not actually give a wet fart about sports? And how nobody could shut the fuck up about how unusually hype this upcoming Super Bowl would be, and how even more people than usual are going to watch it live?"

"Oh no," Akane said.

"Congratulations, Nicky!" I said. "You've cracked the code and figured out that Doctor Skinner is using wide-scale crowd control to build up hype around the Super Bowl, in preparation for hijacking the halftime show to permanently enthrall everyone who watches it live- which will include more than a third of the population of the United States. And now, we just need to figure out how to stop her. Any ideas?"

Nicky sighed.