Astra Blueflower

This post will serve as a sort of headquarters for my fiction, You’re Not Supposed to Be Here.

Here, I will provide links to the entire series on both Scribble Hub and Royal Road, and I'll reblog this post with every new chapter posted! You’re Not Supposed to Be Here on Scribble Hub You’re Not Supposed to Be Here on Royal Road (or click the images)

Chapter 2 has been published. Yay! As always, read it on Scribble Hub or Royal Road Expect Chapter 3 in two weeks, on July 28th, and Chapter 4 one week after that, on August 4th! Scribble Hub: https://www.scribblehub.com/read/2411528-youre-not-supposed-to-be-here/chapter/2446155/

I just published the first chapter of my newest fiction, You’re Not Supposed to Be Here. It's a sci-fi fantasy story, and I've had a lot of fun writing it so far. Synopsis:

In twenty twenty-five, Evelyn Farrier is in a car accident. Her life flashes before her eyes, and she assumes it’s the end. She is certainly not expecting to wake up as a robot—but that’s exactly what happens. Her body isn’t the only thing that changed either. Things are very, *very* different than they once were. And with dark clouds looming on the horizon, she won’t have much time get used to it.

But—hey. At least her robotic frame is pretty gender affirming. I posted it on Scribble Hub

And I also posted it on Royal Road

We're still expected to act like a third gender. Sure you fall more into the group of "woman" than the average born male but a lot of the time there's still an implicit understanding that you are to not push too hard on being a real woman. If you talk about the misogyny you face, the ways you enjoy engaging with womanhood, or start happily taking up space, people will often get weirded out. They'll look at you funny, or they may verbalise disgust. A trans woman might be a woman, but it gets awkward when it becomes apparent that the woman in question genuinely believes it to be true and doesn't just want to be humoured.

-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)

-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt

-ayran: yogurt, water, salt, mint

-sees the reports of the heatwave in Europe-

[the camera moves to behind the mirror, revealing it to be a one way mirror]

panel of emo girls: [leaning in] alright, do the next one. gosh, none of these are landing are they? looks like focus groups just don't like what we're doing anymore

single radical emo girl whos new to the firm and has the potential to turn this thing upside down: i know what we're missing... [leaning back in her chair and pressing the button on her microphone] make her fat and autistic.

panel of emo girls: [stunned silence]

me: okay, so she's fatter and more autistic. does that change anything

focus group: wow i really like that

focus group: thats huge. im so excited about this. my perception of your image just went up 20 points

focus group: fuck, pardon my french, that's awesome

me: [looking back at the window] girls.. i think we have our puppy...

"The simultaneous borrowing of French and Latin words led to a highly distinctive feature of modern English vocabulary: sets of three items, all expressing the same fundamental notion but differing slightly in meaning or style, e.g., kingly, royal, regal; rise, mount, ascend; ask, question, interrogate; fast, firm, secure; holy, sacred, consecrated. The Old English word (the first in each triplet) is the most colloquial, the French (the second) is more literary, and the Latin word (the last) more learned." (Howard Jackson and Etienne Zé Amvela, "Words, Meaning and Vocabulary: An Introduction to Modern English Lexicology." Continuum, 2000)

via ThoughtCo

Though I like how John McWhorter phrases it better:

But language tends not to do what we want it to. The die was cast: English had thousands of new words competing with native English words for the same things. One result was triplets allowing us to express ideas with varying degrees of formality. Help is English, aid is French, assist is Latin. Or, kingly is English, royal is French, regal is Latin – note how one imagines posture improving with each level: kingly sounds almost mocking, regal is straight-backed like a throne, royal is somewhere in the middle, a worthy but fallible monarch.

“No age gap??!?!?”

“And no non-con elements”

“NO NON CON?”

“And no coercion or otherwise manipulative behaviors”

“Joe they want a vampire with NOTHING”

Then he says, “I mean, the problem isn’t the gender thing. The problem is four words: she, her, he, and him. We got rid of stewardess and turned it into flight attendant. It doesn’t matter if the flight attendant is a man or woman, so we got rid of it. We just need to get rid of those. I don’t need to know.”

“You don’t need to know… people’s gender?”

“No. I don’t care, I don’t need to know, and I don’t want to remember it.”

"Taxonomy" does not inherently refer to biology. Because I'm a weird nerd on the internet and was thinking about the science of inventing systems of classification, the word happened to come to mind when I was firing off this post waiting for a tram or some shit.

IN PARTICULAR, I do not mean that medical transition makes you bIoLoGiCaLlY fEmAlE. Insofar as sex is a meaningful set of traits, transition can change all the ones that matter, and I don't give a shit. I mean the un-transitioned trans women too. I mean the trans women who never realize. I mean the young trans girls who know they're different, but don't know why yet. Every trans woman is a woman, for real, and is marginalized as a woman by a society that hates women.

"More than any other group" in the sense that if you're going to group trans women with anyone, you're grouping them with other women. Not in the sense that trans women have The Greatest Claim To Womanhood, you clowns.

The context of this post is that I am making a point about how ostensible allies to trans women will analyze trans women like weird type of she/her man instead of type of woman, and reach completely wrong conclusions through that analysis, which they then INSIST on despite evidence to the contrary. Whether it's employment, medical risk factors, mental health profiles, you will be wrong about your guesswork on all of them when you work from a starting point that isn't "trans women are a type of women".

It's radical because it addresses the root cause of an issue, which is that significant portions of society, including other queer people, have the wrong fundamental conception of trans women. It's also radical in the other senses of the word.

Finally: This is inward criticism. I am expressing frustration with other queer people. I don't care what Jeremy, 57 at the pub, has to say about my identity. I care that Elliot, 23, thinks I don't belong in lesbian spaces while he does.