449:Lady

Author Notes
Well played, Vincent. It's good to laugh. I find having a good sense of humor has been kind of crucial to my transition. It helps separate the innocently uninformed comments from the malicious ones, and prevents unnecessary fighting or dysphoria. I speak purely for myself, of course, but being able to laugh is much preferred to feeling like I have to cry. But if you can adopt such a philosophy, I do think it's worth it. :)

Anyway "Ryan", Aiken, and Kellen's designs here are all loosely based how they looked on the first page (mind you, this is technically even before that). Again, this became tricky as even a year or two can be a big difference when kids are that young. Especially in the case of little "Ryan."

But actually, the most troublesome one here was Kellen. Quite inadvertantly, the ponytail she sports on the very first page is almost exactly the same as how Chanel wears it. I decided to move Kellen's ponytail up to a higher point on her head as a result. I mean, obviously Chanel wouldn't be here (she wasn't even born yet!), but I was worried about someone being confused, especially given the monochrome.