This is an alternate branch of the storyline continuing from [4] with different events (Inspired by readers on [1], especially LunaSoleil. I will try to include all readers and commenters who offered inspirations. Please correct me if I miss or mislabel. Thank you!)

The Tall and Short Problems of a Cute Gamer Girl

[5A]
For the Primary Branch [5]

Rachel recited what she was going to say to wake up her husband/wife and try to reign together all the confusing elements of this into something that made sense. The seat was missing a part it needed. And Giselle‘s parents seemingly now believed she’d always been the woman she was now. However, she realized they were better ways to deal with that than just saying, “Hey, wake up! Everything is screwed up”. Simultaneously, she remembered how crestfallen Jeremy was on days when she just let him sleep at the point of exhaustion when he felt like he needed to push himself. All that time lost. But he’d gone through the weirdest, most extreme transformation. Needing a nap was not unreasonable.

She checked the living room and saw that Herschel and Giselle were in the same place. They were so cute together and she couldn’t bring herself to wake up either one, not yet. Besides, she still had a veritable mountain of work to get through relating to the most recent plush and making sure all the videos were arranged for the website and those who supported her. Her list had only grown longer this week and she still felt like she wasn’t making any headway. Not to mention the commission work they had to do with graphical elements. She told herself just to seize the opportunity to do a little bit of work while Giselle just took it easy for once.

Giselle existed in a void, fortunately without dreams, but with a stifling feeling like she was roasting over a volcano. Dimly, she realized it had to be Herschel not realizing how much he was smothering her. She coughed and quivered and the cat begrudgingly crept over to the next cushion.

The immediate relief was palatable, unfortunately soon to be replaced by an urgent realization. Her much tinier bladder was screaming. She had to go right now, and she had no idea if holding it the old way still worked and she didn’t wanna test it.

The master bathroom was technically closer but the one upstairs didn’t have a cursed toilet seat. She would have to get around all the junk and cat things, but she considered that a small price to pay. Giselle took the steps two at a time and basically vaulted herself from the rail.

It was not ideal, and she nearly tripped coming in for a landing, but she managed to get down and on without making a mess. She scowled privately at the flow into the bowl and how messy it felt between her legs. She vaguely remembered some emergency urinary attachment advertised many years ago for women. She might have to ask Rachel about that. Rachel had taught her how to clean up afterwards and she followed those instructions to the letter because she didn’t want more problems than she already had.

The toilet was, of course, an absolute pain in the behind when she tried to flush it. It just circled ponderously as though trying to decide whether it wanted to go down or not. She wielded the plunger aggressively and was able to keep the flow down, but it still didn’t wanna clear.

They had the landlord and those he hired up here several times to see what was wrong with it but the entire house, despite just being a few years old, felt like it was constructed from the worst materials and pipes. It was still the best option in the area and a magnificent workspace from home, but not without its frustrations.

After what felt like a war wielding the plunger, the toilet finally decided to suck things up and leave the bowl basically dry. Now, it would take an hour before it decided to refill. Her forehead ached with tension and the light in her eye through the window pulsed.

After washing up, she eyed her computer in sleep mode and considered jumping back on it. In a minute, she resolved. First, she wanted to check and see that Rachel had switched the seats. It came as a relief that no one was in there, but some parts were tucked to the side. She felt red-faced to imagine if she just ran in there and her wife didn’t even have a seat on the bowl. Their evening and morning had been unusual and squirmy, but not like that.

It was an entirely different matter to pee herself in front of her like that. They had both resolved not to feel embarrassed about anything and be with one another no matter what came, no matter what challenges. And with a nosy cat, some accidents sure happened. But, silly or not, she felt like that would be the coup de grace to any trace of her masculinity. It was all because of this seat!

Good deal or not, she was immensely frustrated. The signs in the bathroom seemed to show that Rachel had attempted to remove it earlier but unsuccessfully.

In her head, she knew she should’ve waited or walked over to ask her wife but just looking at that accursed seat flashed so much anger through her being. It had utterly emasculated her, it had taken away her height, and it had unfairly penalized her.

Without thinking, she kicked it. The seat barely even budged, and her foot took the brunt of it. Whirling around, she smacked it with the other one, and this time it wobbled and tilted up. A puff of ozone and a sudden static flash burst out and leveled her to the floor. Rachel arrived through the doorway just a few seconds too late.

“Be careful! Oh no, oh shoot!”

Rachel gazed on in shock as the small figure sprawled out on the master bathroom floor no longer quite looked like Giselle.

She was still a girl and about the same size but with a clenched, youthful face. Her hair was full, thick blonde with some light curls, the kind of fair hair Jeremy had until high school. The girl definitely didn’t seem like she was even that old.

Helping her up, Rachel noticed that her clothes still fit, even though they now seemed a little loose in places. Her chest was much less developed, practically flat. Faintly, Giselle murmured, “I’m okay, I think. Maybe that was a bad idea. I kicked it. I was mad.”

Unsure what to say, Rachel just hugged the young girl. It didn’t take long before Giselle caught sight of herself in the large mirror.

The good news was she looked about the same height, perhaps just a few centimeters smaller. But the problem was she looked almost exactly like her mom when she was growing up. Checking the toilet seat, Rachel soon determined that the display had shorted out and wasn’t giving any readings. She feared this was some tamper protection. Try to break the seat and it turns you into a kid. Although, if Rachel were designing it she felt becoming an incontinent baby would make more sense. Not that the darn thing needed any ideas.

Giselle almost seemed like a robot in the mirror, probing her cheek and arms as though trying to catch the forgery in her shape which would restore her to some level of normal. But no trick of the light resolved her as anything but a young girl now.

Breathing and swallowing carefully didn’t prevent what came next as she coughed into the sink and lost a little bit of lunch and most of her popsicle. Rachel went over to her side quickly and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

Piecing together from the paper and the details on the seat, Rachel determined that it was now broken. That allowed it to be unscrewed without any trouble and set on the other side of the room. Going through the directions, Rachel eventually found some fine print detailing “hostile protection”. It apparently defaulted to several modes, one that did include baby, while another reduced the perpetrator to 1/3 of their age. That meant Giselle was just under 12 years old. Barely a junior high kid.

Her husband found a clear space to lean against the wall on the floor and did so with her head back and her eyes closed. Rachel wished she knew what she could possibly do to help. And there was more looming beyond that with those text messages.

Although, she wondered with what the seat had done as a final countermeasure that perhaps those didn’t even matter anymore. The problem was she couldn’t figure out how any of this made sense. Was her husband actually her daughter now? Her face didn’t seem any different. She still looked like a version of her parents rather than anyone in Rachel’s biological family. She had a lot more emails to send the company, possibly even a lawyer to contact. But foremost was making sure shell-shocked Giselle was alright.

She grabbed her something soothing to sip while she remained on the floor, mostly staring at the tiles. Her gaze seemed distant as a lower lip dangled and she wrapped her arms around her midsection as though she were constructed out of loose puzzle pieces which would simply fall apart if she didn’t hold on tight.

Giselle‘s long, blonde hair dangled brightly like trapped sunbeams, but she didn’t feel invigorated. Her features weren’t really that different, but they appeared so pubescently young. She’d been through one puberty with her legs acting like ambitious bamboo. What kind of hell would follow with a second? Not requiring the bra was the vague bonus at the bottom of a whole mess of concerns. The seat was broken, but they also had no idea how long it decided to punish her for vandalism. Giselle morbidly assumed it was for keeps.

Sure, the aches in her body after three decades of dealing with her spindly limbs and necessary crouching lessened so far today, and being younger wasn’t the worst thing in the world. But she had a life. She had the woman through stresses, pains, and whatever unimaginable trials that they would lean on each other for support and walk together for the rest of their lives. What now?

What could she possibly do? Well, no matter what she did, she knew that just sitting here and sulking about it all wasn’t going to change anything. Despite the fact the ground felt better than anything else, she got to her feet, took a deep breath, and put her hand in Rachel’s. No matter what…

Together.

[Since this is meant to be interactive, feel free to suggest ideas and prompts for future/alternate branch storylines. Some branches are already written but this will allow me to best pick new/alternate ones. I'm currently just rolling dice.]

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