Fanfic / Connect Four

'Three plus one' doesn’t always equal Four.

Three Mantle natives, and an Atlesian elite. Three independent Huntresses-in-training, and one future Military Specialist. Three romantic partners, and the odd-one-out. Three girls, and a guy. From the outside, that’s just how it looks – an insurmountable divide – but not everyone’s happy to leave the equation unsolved. When years of mounting pressure finally come to a head one dark, dreary night at Atlas Academy, an unexpected discovery kickstarts a team’s efforts to welcome their fourth member into the fold… From acceptance, to support, to maybe, just maybe, falling a little bit in love.

Connect Four is a RWBY fic by Badendchan. It follows May Marigold, the oldest child of the prestigious Marigold family, as she comes out as a trans woman to her teammates, Robyn Hill, Joanna Greenleaf, and Fiona Thyme. In the aftermath of that, the three teammates try to help their friend embrace herself as best they can, and maybe even start to develop feelings for her.

The fic is part of What Are THEY So Happy About?, an anthology of (occasionally NSFW) RWBY fics following the Happy Huntresses. See also Blackened Bluebird, another, much Darker and Edgier fic described as "The less-fortunate flipside of Connect Four."

Connect Tropes

• Alternate Timeline: A minor example. According to Kdin Jenzen, May's voice actor, May did not realize she was trans until after graduating and moving to Mantle, where she met the Happy Huntresses, having spent some time in Ironwood's good graces before leaving Atlas. In this fic, she comes out as trans and starts dating the future Happy Huntresses during her time in the Academy.
• Appearance Angst: Not surprising, but May's self-image is so bad that she can't see herself as someone anyone could be attracted to, much less three lesbians.
• Big Damn Kiss: In chapter 10, after getting back from their first date, May complains that she feels like they're supposed to finish the night with one. The others squabble briefly over who gets to kiss her first, until May takes matters into her own hands and kisses Robyn, immediately after getting kissed by Joanna and Fiona in that order.
• Butch Lesbian: Joanna is noted to be the most muscular of the polycule, and tends towards masculine clothing. She can still rock a dress, though
• The Charmer: Robyn is cocky, confident, and a real hit with the ladies. After they learn May's real name and Robyn calls it a "pretty name for a pretty gal", Joanna remarks that she's only known May is a girl for minutes and she's already flirting.
• Child of Forbidden Love: To avoid May being outed after a classmate spots her wearing feminine clothing, Robyn employs Exact Words to convince the classmate that the person she saw was not the Marigold she knows, but a secret half-sister bastard. Said rumour proceeds to spread across Atlas, giving May all the alibi she needs.
• Coming-Out Story: May comes out as trans in the very first chapter, following some prompting from her unaware teammates who knew she was struggling with something, but didn't know what.
• Didn't See That Coming: The three girlfriends are rather surprised when May's first reaction to them asking her to join their polycule is "no". They strongly suspected that May liked them (which is true) and that asking herself would be fairly straightforward just like when they asked out each other. They didn't realize that May is dealing with a lot of internalized transphobia and self-loathing, which prevents her from believing that a group of lesbians would actually like her.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Joanna claims that Ironwood has a pet bird, since she saw him conversing with (or rather yelling at) a corvid which didn't seem scared of him. To be fair, pet bird is a more logical conclusion than "person who can turn into a bird because magic is real."
• Exact Words: After a less tolerant classmate sees May wearing feminine clothing, Robyn resolves the situation by placing herself under the effect of her semblance and saying that the person they saw was not [May's deadname] and not "the guy you're thinking of". The semblance reads this as true, and the classmate is convinced.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: May's self-loathing is so bad that she genuinely has no idea what her friends see in her, seeing herself only as someone who can never really be a girl and at one point nearly calling herself "not a real girl" before Joanna stops her.
• Hurt/Comfort Fic: The story depicts in detail May's deep self-loathing and dysphoria, and how her teammates help her through it.
• Last-Name Basis: Prior to her coming out, May's friends all refer to her as Marigold.
• Living Lie Detector: Robyn's semblance, which functions as a lie detector, is brought up, and it's noted that she also has an uncanny ability to discern lies even without it. It's also not quite that limited, being also a potent tool to encourage people to be true to themselves.
• Meaningful Rename: Initially the narration refers to May as simply Marigold. After she comes out and says her real name, it shifts to calling her May instead.
• Oblivious to Love:
  • Robyn, Joanna, and Fiona have all developed a crush on May that comes to light after she comes out, but it takes until Joanna asks them outright for any of them to acknowledge it.
  • Played for Drama with May, who likes her teammates and is jealous of the relationship they have with each other, but has more or less discounted the possibility of dating anyone, much less them, entirely because of her self-loathing. Even when the three tell her directly to her face that they want to date her, she assumes they're just being nice or joking.
• One of the Girls: Originally this was what Robyn, Fiona, and Joanna treated May as, a guy whom they get along great with and include in their girls' nights (or rather "girls' and one guy's"). After May comes out as a woman, of course, this shifts to including her on girls' nights because she is a girl.
• Polyamory: Robyn, Fiona, and Joanna are in a relationship at the beginning of the story, it being mentioned that Robyn and Fiona started dating first, then both fell in love with Joanna later. After May comes out as trans, all three also start to realize that they have feelings for her as well.
• Queer Romance: The fic is the story of how May Marigold, a trans woman, comes out and becomes part of a polycule with three other women.
• Side Bet: Robyn mentions that she made a bet with someone that she'd end up on a team with only girls. She initially lost because of Marigold, but now that she has come out as May, Robyn intends on taking the money back with interest.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: May and Winter have a bit of a rivalry going on, and their relationship is mostly snarking back and forth, but they know each other better than anyone, and Winter is the first person May goes to when she needs makeup help for her date.
• When She Smiles: All her teammates are deeply enamoured by May's rare genuinely happy smiles.

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