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alternativewinxcontinuity · 5 years

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Driven Mad Driving Lessons at Alfea bring an issue to light. Stella Centric, Winx friendship Centric Surprise angst with a happy ending.

Palladium tapped his classroom's board, and a list scrawled itself down one side.

“Alright girls, it's second semester, which means that-”

“Driving!” Whooped an excited blonde fairy, and Palladium sighed.

“Yes Stella, driving lessons are now in session.” The professor pointed to the list on the board, “I've broken you up into smaller groups and scheduled you all on different days, please check your times carefully and report to the training tracks for your lessons.”

He fixed a meaningful look at Stella, who giggled nervously.

“Don't worry professor, I'll do way better this year.”

Palladium sighed, “please do, I doubt even your father will be happy to replace another training vehicle.”

Stella sniffled as she sat in her bathrobe, Bloom brushing her hair. Flora handed over a cup of floral scented tea, which Stella accepted with a quiet 'thanks'.

The door of the Dormitory opened and the rest of the Winx entered.

“The good news is that it can be fixed,” Musa answered before they could ask.

“I've volunteered to help with the repairs,” Tecna added, “but the damage is mostly aesthetic.”

Aisha stepped forwards and knelt before the miserable princess, “how are you doing?”

Stella sobbed, “I just don't know what happened! Everything was fine and then! Then... boom!?”

Aisha put a comforting hand on her knee, “well, this is what the practice is for.”

“I know but...” Stella sniffled again, gratefully accepting the tissue Bloom handed her. “This keeps happening! Last year was even worse!”

“Oh, we know,” Musa said, “they showed us the pictures.

“It does seem odd that Stella's so bad at driving though,” Flora commented.

“Oh, I know!” Bloom said, “what if we asked professor Palladium if we could use the Magical Reality Chamber instead, that way if something goes wrong, at least we won't have to worry about a real car.”

Tecna considered the idea and nodded, “the simulation should be easy enough to program, and it would be... more efficient.”

“Yeah...” Stella said in a lacklustre tone.

With a gentle hand Bloom pulled Stella's head back as she leaned forward so she could look her friend in the eye. “Hey, what's wrong?”

Stella let out a heavy sigh, “I just... I'm starting to feel like I'm cursed. I know driving shouldn't be this hard, I know I can do it, but every time I try...”

“Huh,” Flora said, “it's not like it's outside of the realm of possibility.”

“We can look into it at the very least,” Aisha agreed, and Stella looked at her friends in surprise.

“Really? You... you don't think I'm just... making things up for attention?”

Musa snorted, “Stella please, we know you, you don't need to make things up to ask for attention, why would you make shit up about this?”

“Stell'?” Bloom said, concern in her voice when Stella didn't immediately reply. The blonde hunching in on herself instead. “Who said what?” Bloom asked in a tone that made it clear someone was about to make her shit-list.

Stella shook her head, “It doesn't matter.”

“Bullshit,” Bloom said as she moved to sit next to her friend, “in the words of a very wise witch: 'if it matters to you, it matters.'”

“What witch said that?” Aisha asked.

“Pheobe Halliwell, she's a good witch from an Earth show,” Bloom answered before turning her attention back to Stella, “and this seems like it matters to you.” The rest of the Winx made sounds of agreement.

“Tayla, my dorm mate last year, we were, well, knowing you all now I can see we weren't friends, but we were kind of friends, at least, kinda?” Stella made a face as she tried to decide what to say, but Bloom slid an arm around her shoulders and Stella realised she could tell them everything.

“She acted so nice, she had this thing though? Where, in the lead up to asking me for a favour, she'd start laying on thick with the compliments? And you know how I like to keep my closet arranged?”

“In that alleged order that doesn't make any sense, but you definitely know where everything is supposed to go?” Musa asked.

“Actually,” Tecna said, “it does have a specific logic to the sorting... it's just not one most people would use.”

Stella gave a small smile which slipped quickly from her face, “right, that. I kept noticing clothes move or disappear, and Tayla would always say she didn't know anything about it, or that my clothes were probably in the laundry or... and my jewellery too, my books, everything, kept moving, or vanishing for short periods, and my perfume kept running out way too fast. And the thing is, it was usually around the time Tayla had a date with someone.”

“You think she was stealing your stuff to wear to her dates?” Flora asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Stella admitted. “But she had this one dress she always wore to her dates, she's a serial dater, no boy twice, kind of deal, but I just... got this feeling. And it wasn't like my stuff would go missing on the day of the date, or even just for the duration,” Stella shook her head. “Sometimes it was a day, sometimes it was almost a week, but after the date my things would come back. Never on a set schedule, so I couldn't prove they were linked. I told Griselda once, but, well, nothing came of it.”

Bloom's embraced tightened around her friend's shoulder.

“It's weird though,” Stella continued, “after that I kept noticing people refer to me as 'scatter-brained', like, I don't have info-graphic charts but it was suddenly from nothing to really frequent, and not in that, I heard a word now I'm hearing it everywhere kind of way either.”

“If there was no evidence to pin the theft,” Musa said, “she might have tried to throw Griselda off the scent even further by saying you were 'scatter-brained' and just kept misplacing things.”

“Maybe threw out a few mentions here and there to the rest of the school,” Aisha added.

“I...” Stella hesitated, but Bloom's arm was around her, safe and secure, and her friends were on her side. “I wouldn't put it past her. Every time I started doing well at something, or I started getting along with someone... it was like someone sabotaged me, I suddenly couldn't find my pens, my schedule was full of errors, just here and there and always so slight I didn't notice until I showed up for something and was late. And there was Tayla with a spare pen, or notes for the things I missed, or to tell me the boy I liked wasn't worth it if he didn't want to wait for me.”

“That's really creepy,” Bloom said, her mind connecting things in ways she hoped were wrong. “Was she like that with the driving lessons too?”

Stella shuddered so faintly Bloom only knew because she was holding her.

“Yeah,” Stella admitted, “I'd run the curb or hit a post or something would run in front of me, it was like the car was fighting me. Palladium never seemed to notice, and whenever I told Tayla she'd laugh it off, tell me I was 'being dramatic' or 'looking for attention'. When I told her I was worried about failing to qualify for my driver's license she said I was a princess, I could just have a driver take me everywhere, if she was in my shoes, that's what she'd do. She told me I was lucky like that.”

Stella paused as something occurred to her, frowning she went on, “she said that a lot know that I think about it. Mentioning how lucky I was to be a princess, what she'd do if she we in my shoes.”

“Bloom?” Flora asked, and everyone turned to the paler-than-should-have-been-possible ginger.

“Bloom, what is it?” Stella turned to her friend more fully.

“I... I don't want to freak you out,” Bloom said as she tried to swallow back a wave of bile, “but you know how I mentioned Pheobe Halliwell before? Form the Earth show?” The Winx weren't sure where she was going but nodded anyway, because they did remember Bloom mentioning it mere minutes ago.

“Okay, so the show follows three sisters who happened to be good witches, only the oldest gets this cool job and she gets an assistant or something, I haven't seen it in ages, I can't quite remember, but... and oh God I hope I'm wrong to relate this to that but, the assistant becomes obsessed with the eldest sister, she wants to be the eldest sister, to the point where she steals her clothes and wears them and kidnaps her at one point so she can literally take over her life and replace her.”

“Oh,” Musa said faintly, “and there was me thinking this bitch was trying to make Stella reliant on her for 'normal' stalker reasons.”

“Okay,” Aisha said sternly before they could all start freaking out. “Where is this girl now? I don't recognise her name.”

“She dropped out of Alfea,” Tecna said, a device in her hand, information scrolling rapidly across the screen. Stella nodded, seemingly aware of that tid-bit of information. “Looks like she moved to Solaria with her family and applied to join the Royal Solstice Academy.”

Stella whimpered, “I was supposed to go there after I got myself kicked out of Alfea.”

“I'm sorry,” Flora said with a frown, “'got yourself kicked out'? It wasn't about a new shade of pink then?”

Aisha frowned, not having been around to hear about Stella blowing up a lab.

“So why come back then?” Musa asked.

“My parents really wanted me to be an Alfea girl,” Stella said, pulling her hair into her hands to give herself something to do with the nervous energy. “I didn't want to, and they agreed to put me into Solstice, but then my friend Varanda was supposed to go here this year, and while she was on campus for tour, someone mentioned that Tayla had left the school not long after me, and Varanda mentioned it to me because 'hey isn't that weird, both dormies left around the same time.' So I thought I'd be okay to come back.”

“Well I'm glad you did,” Bloom said, colour returning to her face ad she cuddled her best friend.

Around their lounging area the rest of their friends agreed.

Except for Tecna who had gone very still.

“Stella,” and that was all it took for them to realise there was bad news. “She transferred back at the start of this semester.”

Kiko leapt onto their table, and made a small shriek of protest, swiping at the air like he was fighting off an enemy.

“Kiko's right,” Flora said, “we can stand by and do nothing, this girl has to be stopped.”

“Can't let her follow you around forever,” Aisha agreed, “we need to take this to Griselda and Faragonda and make sure they understand how serious we are about this.”

“But last time...” Stella's protest trailed off as Tecna fixed her with a look.

“They know us now, they trust us and our opinions, if we set everything out for them, even they can't deny there's something not right going on.”

“They'll need evidence to do anything about it though,” Musa said with a scowl.

“So we make a plan,” Bloom said, “we figure out how to prove something is happening. Griselda herself taught us a lot about battle tactics, Tayla is the enemy, waging guerrilla war fare on us. So... how do we track down our enemy?”

Stella looked nervous as she made her way to the car, Palladium waited patiently beside the vehicle.

“Are you alright to do this?” her asked.

Stella nodded, “let's do it, the worst they can be is wrong.”

Palladium hummed quietly in agreement as they got in the car.

As always, Stella ran through all her checks and gave a wave to the Winx Club who were sitting in the waiting area for their turn. Bloom waved back and gave her a hand sign, which Stella returned with an 'understood'.

Pulling out onto the training road, Stella double checked the road and her gauges.

'All clear,' she added some speed, keeping a close watch on everything. The road ahead was clean and clear as she turned into a corner-

The car slid, the air cushion between vehicle and ground warped like the car had physically hit some kind of oil slick. The body tilted, and Stella tried to correct, but the vehicle refused to respond.

'CRUNCH!'

Stella could hear ringing in her ears, a glance at Palladium told her he was rattled but alright.

Magic swirled around Stella as she sought any trace of magical interference she could.

'There,' she didn't bother to undo her seat belt, her form collapsing into a sparkling ball of energy she raced after her prey.

The invisibility spell was good, but not good enough to fool her.

“You made me look quite the fool last year, young lady,” as she drop the glittery form and returned to her normal body, Griselda reached down and clamped a hand around the girl's wrist, breaking the invisibility spell as she pulled Tayla from her hiding place in the bushes.

“Huh? But you?” Tayla looked confused, stammering excuses as Griselda dragged her away.

“I should have taken Miss Stella seriously last year when she came to me, but you hide yourself well enough to get away with it.” Griselda said, the anger evident in her voice. “I do hope you realise that your little curses with the school vehicles could bee seen as an attempt at murdering a member of the Solarian Royal Family.”

Judging by Tayla's sudden wailing, she had not realised.

two months later

Stella was crying as Palladium handed her the certificate of completion. She'd done it, at last, she could now apply for a Dimension wide driver's license.

Behind her the rest of the Winx were cheering loudly, when Stella returned to them, Bloom swept her into a fierce hug.

“How does it feel?”

“Like freedom?”

“Well then,” Tecna said, breaking up the jubilation, “shall we change into something more comfortable so we can head to the lecture hall, I have the show set to play, and I just got a text: the food has arrived!”

“Show?” Stella asked, she'd been aware they were getting celebratory food, but she hadn't heard about any show.

“Oh, yeah,” Bloom shrugged, “you remember that show about the good witches I mentioned? I got the DVDs, and Tecna managed to make them compatible with the lecture hall projector. I finally get to share all my favourite Earth movies and shows with you all!”

“Ohh! Do they have any fashion shows?” Stella asked as she let herself be pulled along.

“Oh, my mum mentioned something new called 'Project Runway' that you might be interested in?”

“That does sound like my kind of thing,” Stella grinned.

They had to restart the show only ten minutes in when other students heard about the screening and asked to join in. Rapidly the lecture hall filled with students in pyjamas, bringing blankets and pillows and all kinds of snacks, some of which were technically contraband.

Not that the teachers did anything about it as they sat up the back sipping also technically contraband beverages.

Snuggled in a cuddle pile at the front, Stella felt cherished, and so lucky to have found her friends. As they'd been changing in their PJ's and collecting their blankets, she and Aisha had shared a silent moment as they placed their certificate of completion on the bench.

As princesses, they were always going to belong to their people, their own wants and needs a secondary concern, but this, the ability to drive, to take control and get where she wanted under her own power? It was freedom in a way every girl felt.

As the trio of sisters came together on screen, Stella quietly thanked the universe for every drop of luck, good or bad, that had brought her to this point. (That had brought her home.)

#winx #winx club #winx club stella #Winx Alt Con #oh my god the screen refreshed at random as I was editing this 2700 word fic #Stella-centric #bullying #this was supposed to be fluff but I wrote angry #fanfic #fanfiction #I was meant to be finishing off another project but this happened

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sarahlwlee · 4 years

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31 Stories in 31 Days: Name

What is this? As part of celebrating Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May), I am writing a story every day about my experiences as a Chinese Malaysian immigrant in America. My friends and family have provided numerous one-word prompts to help me create these stories. Today’s word prompt was contributed by Meg B. and the word is “Name”. Thank you Meg for your contribution and thank you everyone who stopped by to read my story today.

I was born in Malaysia with the name “Sarah Lee Ling Wei”. On my birth records, it’s only “Lee Ling Wei”. The name “Sarah” was considered a nickname growing up and my mother was concerned that I wouldn’t like my selected English name. She left it out of my birth records so that one day if I truly didn’t like it, I would choose a different English name for myself. According to my mother, this happened to my older sister where my mother gave her the English name Elaine, but she chose Hannah as her preferred English name when she was older.

Little did she know, nor I, how much the name Sarah would become a significant part of my identity.

Throughout my schooling years, I have always introduced myself as Sarah Lee Ling Wei. My teachers would make a note in brackets on the class registrar that my name included “Sarah”, even though it wasn’t officially on my birth records. Every time when a new teacher would read the class roster for attendance, I would say, “Teacher, my name is Sarah Lee Ling Wei and I’m present.” I am sure those teachers were annoyed at some point due to my obstinate behavior of getting my name right when all they had on record is my Chinese name.

When I was 14, I was baptized in a Lutheran church and they provided me with a baptism certificate that included my English name. I was so elated to have a piece of document that had my whole name and I kept it in a bright neon orange plastic binder to ensure it was kept in pristine condition. This document became critical when I joined an American transfer college degree program in Malaysia.

During my first semester in college, I failed my first 100-level class in Computer Information Systems (CIS). I remember viewing my results online at a computer lab in college and feeling shocked as well as owning my failure -- that I deserved this grade. I have never failed a class or test before, neither was I an A student in all my years of schooling, but somehow in that moment I gave in to my inner doubts and told myself I wasn’t cut out for college. After viewing the results, I drove to the nearest movie theatre to catch an international movie and cried in the theatre by myself.

I knew eventually I would have to drive home and tell my mother the bad news. When I got home my face was red and swollen from crying and my mom asked me, “What’s wrong, Sarah? Why are you crying?” I tearfully told her that I had failed my CIS class and that I wasn’t cut out for college. She sternly said to me, “Sarah this can’t be right. You poured all those late nights into building that website for your group project -- you did the whole thing. Also, you’re good at computers, how could you have failed?”

My mother, who has always come to my defense whenever she perceived some sort of injustice has occurred to me, took the car keys from my hand and told me to get in the car. She drove me to the college and asked me where is my CIS professor’s office located at. I walked my mother to my professor’s office and feared the potential retaliation from this professor. Every time my mother intervened with a teacher as about my studies or well-being as a child, it has been my unfortunate track record that those teachers end up hating me and finding ways to make my life a living hell. You can imagine my trepidation as we walked to my professor’s office.

My mother knocked on the door and the professor stepped out to talk to my mother, while my face was still puffed up red from crying. My professor was puzzled by how I looked and asked my mother, “What’s wrong? Why is Sarah crying?” My mother calmly explained to the professor what had happened and inquired why she had given me a failing grade. To my professors shock and surprise, she said, “Sarah didn’t fail. In fact, she was the only student in class who understood the material and mastered it quickly. I didn’t give her a failing grade.”

The professor looked up the class registrar on her computer to find my grades and she couldn’t find my name. What we found out was the name on record is “Lee Ling Wei” and she couldn’t remember anyone in class with this name. Thus, she gave a failing grade to a student’s name she didn’t recognize. After the professor figured out what had transpired, she immediately fixed the grade to an A and apologized to me for the distress she had caused. She continued to speak highly of my academic performance to my mother and as both of them continued to talk about me, my mother called me a silly girl for not double checking with the professor.

It was a huge relief that I didn’t fail the class, but it was also a turning point for me that I couldn’t continue existing on paper as “Lee Ling Wei”. So from that day onwards I researched the process for changing your name legally and of course similar to most bureaucracy it wasn’t an easy process. You had to show proof as to why you were changing your name. A few of the examples of proof included marriage certificate, adoption papers and as I read through the complete list, there was only one option that I would qualify to show as proof -- a religious certificate. In this case, a baptism certificate that illustrated my complete name “Sarah Lee Ling Wei.”

I wrote a statement, had it notarized, filled out a lot of paper work, waited in several lines, swore before a judge that the information I provided is true, and paid a lot of fees for every paper work I had to file -- until finally I received an official letter in the mail that the government had officially approved my legal name change. With that letter I was able to show proof at the Identification Card department to produce a new MyKad (a Malaysian government issued form of identification) and subsequently took my new MyKad to the Passport department to issue a new passport with my new legally changed name.

Ever since then, I never had to worry about my name being incorrect or being misidentified as someone else. This was a defining moment for me because it shaped my character to never accept a fate that wasn’t created by me.

When I completed the Malaysian portion of the American transfer degree program, I was ready to take on the next chapter of my education in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I had all my immigration paper work with my correct name and I had a student visa reflecting the same. It was a very exciting time for me -- traveling overseas and to be away from home for more than just a couple of weeks.

Arriving in Kalamazoo was quite an experience. I remember the first time I set foot on Western Michigan University’s (WMU) campus and feeling so lost. Part of our itinerary when we arrived in Kalamazoo was to figure out our living accommodation at the dorms and attending the international student orientation. The international student orientation was filled with Bronco spirit and it was awkward. International students like me who didn’t know the fight song were in quiet observation because we just didn’t know the culture and practices that many other WMU college students have become accustom to.

In addition to experiencing a different campus cultural experience, we were also provided a letter from the Offices of International Student Services to apply for a Social Security card. We also had to apply for a Bronco Card and also a Michigan Identification Card in order to access a variety of benefits on campus. At this point I felt comfortable navigating bureaucracy and paper work to ensure my name was legal and also that I was on legal standing in this country.

I filled out all the paper work for a Social Security card, had money on hand to pay the application fees as well as this letter to prove that I was a student at WMU who might be applying for employment on campus. The paper work part was easy, what I didn’t anticipate was the interview with the Social Security staff who was processing my paper work. First of, they were confused about which part of my name was my last name when they looked at my passport. I told them it’s Lee. Then they asked me which part of my name is my first name. I told them my English first name is Sarah and my Chinese first name is Ling Wei, all of that is part of my first name. At this point, I thought to myself that they were clearly not reading the paper work I had filled out because it was laid out very clearly on paper.

What came next defined the rest of my existence in America of how I talk about myself. The Social Security staff person who was processing my paper work was baffled by my explanation regarding my name. He then explained to me that he is going to hyphenate my Chinese name (Ling-Wei) and my Chinese name is now my middle name. I had never heard of a middle name before and that wasn’t what I was raised to understand as my identity or how identify myself. I didn’t know how to respond at the time and just nodded in agreement thinking to myself, “If this is the only way I am going to get my social security card, then my name has to be listed this way.” This is how my name on my current official documents are listed, “Sarah Ling-Wei Lee.”

A part of my identity changed due to this act of simplification. However, I didn’t think very much of it at the time because I knew who I was and the order of how my name was just the nature of different naming conventions and cultural systems. Reflecting back on this experience, I realize I had changed the way of how I introduce myself to people over the last 17 years in Kalamazoo. More specifically, I have dropped my Chinese name completely, or now my middle name, from conversation and leveraging the levity of a renowned baked good called “Sara Lee” as part of my introduction spiel. Anything else would be a pronunciation or hearing test for the recipient and there is nothing worst than having someone butcher your name in public.

Today, I am extremely comfortable with just Sarah Lee and it doesn’t diminish my pride for my Chinese name or my identity, even though not many people call me by that name in America. My mother from time to time calls me by my full name, especially if she is upset with me. She enjoys regaling me of how I got my Chinese name. I was born during the first Uber Cup badminton competition in Kuala Lumpur and it was featured on the television that my mother was watching after she gave birth to me in the hospital. The renowned women’s badminton player at the time was Li Lingwei and I was named after her that year. Unfortunately, I can’t play badminton well for the life of me but I can hit a birdie from time to time.

If you would like to read more stories about my lived experiences as a Chinese Malaysian immigrant living in America, check out the full list of “31 Stories” project I did in celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander month in May 2020.

#aapi #asianamerican #immigrant #america #short story #name #heritage

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