...already labelled as voluntary monsters
Insomnia.
I thought it was vending anxiety, but that's not it. Not really.
Part of the reason has to do with playing the storygame Monsterhearts wherein one of the characters is a 16-year-old transsexual. Her (first? only?) story arc completed tonight. She (1) probably avoided getting sent off to military boarding school and (2) managed to cease being the Xander/Bella/Tara/background/target in the group by "getting some fucking powers already," or at least not having to worry about further experiences with the wrong puberty sans access to (much) social or (any legal) medical support. Which is to say she became undead.
Which is icky, but not as bad as the alternative. Probably. As in "she probably became undead." In a scene that is vaguely reminiscient of being put under for surgery. The last words of the session were "and Alice... dies."
Whether the story will continues or not is unknown at this point.
We rarely see transsexuals on TV, or read about ourselves in speculative fiction, and when we do, the view is ciscentric and we're the strange perhiphery. Or simply written wrong.
But storygames let you tell your own stories, write your own heroes.
So this was the first time I saw speculative fiction where a transsexual character with depth apply transhumanist thinking to hard-bargain her way out of a shitty situation. And just because I was one of the people telling the story, that didn't make it any less vivid than if it came in a DVD boxed set. It's nice to see someone get fucking saved once in awhile and have things work out. Even if it leaves her with other problems. Even though she'll still have to deal with transphobia. But the big hurdle of having to choose between becoming homeless youth and being sent off to her end is avoided.
Yeah, it's too easy. I tried not to make it easy. If you're in a world where your girlfriend can turn someone into a toad, maybe she can help you with your bodily dysphoria - y'know? That would be easy. But I decided that would pull at something inside of me that I and others spent too much time wanting to be true when I was her age and I deliberately let that prospective solution wither, its story untold
But this out I could take. Because it's a sacrifice. Because I keep watching shows with cyborged *survivors* and *involuntary* vampires and mutants-*by-birth* and other semi-human/post-human/de-humanized beings who can never say "I made this happen" and wondering why don't people ever deliberately seek out these changes? Especially people who are already labelled as voluntary monsters? I mean, what would have have to lose?
I could take it because it's fake, but it's real. Looking at your options and knowing that your best option, your only option, is to become "a monster?" I know that.
I know that in the real world, Alice would not be so fortunate as to have the third choice of just being undead. She might be okay in the long term, but scarred. Or she might not make it.
So fake, yes. But the news for her was not being fired. Nor harassed. And not having an awkward conversation. Not going stealth and cutting off ties to her old friends, especially those with less passing privilege. Not being broke. Not having mental health problems. Not developing a drug problem. Not getting beaten up. Not sitting at home wondering if your roommate is coming home tonight, or ever. Not having bits of you fall off. Not wondering if you can use the washroom. Not being kicked out of shelters. Not being denied education. Not wondering if you're going to get rejected. Not being blocked into the wrong puberty by your guardians.
Not realizing that the above paragraph is both a little too long and waaay too short.
And definitely not watching this shit happen to other people and trying to feel good that "at least they have someone who can listen," when I want this injustice to stop. Not in a decade, yesterday.
I mentioned vending earlier. The relation? In part because I'm covering this hurt with ambition, and dreaming that with some money and power, maybe I can help fix things. Or at least fight harder. Or prove something.
Or distract myself?
But last night, I could step into someone else's skin. And forget.
And then be up until sunrise, my mind rehashing weird notions of vending, transsexuality and storygame teenagers. Going for a walk. Writing it down.
It's a story. It's not real. Maybe, on some level, it's unhealthy.
Or maybe, when reality fails, we need stories.