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arjaandsimoni · 1 year

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Call me Tex

Stephy awoke with a start that morning, grunting and sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes. From the living room he could hear his father cursing at the TV. The same damn thing every day. Wake up, watch 24 hour news networks, drink, curse, repeat.

He got dressed, then opened his window carefully, looking down. The house was two stories, but that was less of an issue than it used to be. He whistled as softly as he could and the air swirled below him… the boy sticking his legs out the window, then pushing and landing on a cushion of wind, bouncing to his feet. “Oof…” he winced, rubbing his tailbone. “Almost…” he muttered, then started to walk towards the street. He wished he could be wearing something other than a beat up teeshirt and jeans, but he wasn’t ready to try that in the daytime yet…

Covington was busy as it always was this time of day, lots of foot traffic since the city streets were laid out before the big automobile boom of the 1950s when cities were actually designed for foot traffic and people could get to places without having to buy a car or memorize a bus schedule. He couldn’t get that Tex boy out of his mind. Something about his smile just seemed so inviting…

Stephy squirmed at the thought. Was he gay? Was he straight and transfem? Was… was he… he groaned, he wished Stephanie was here. She know tons more about this than he did. His father was so dismissive of his needs that he didn’t even have a phone, or internet access, or even a computer, or anything. He had to use the library for anything like that and over the years their content blockers had gone from laughably simple to casting such a broad net it was a wonder he could even look up cat memes.

He shrugged, walking along. He didn’t have any money today, but maybe he could scrounge some change. People dropped a lot more than one might think…

Tex was out as well, the young man wearing bluejeans and a red teeshirt today. He’d foregone the cowboy boots this time however, just wearing a pair of construction boots instead. The cowboy boots were fun for nostalgia’s sake, but he had to admit they made him stick out like a sore thumb around here.

He was bored more than anything. Their internet and cable TV hadn’t been hooked up yet and in any case he was more used to physical labor on his family’s ranch back in Texas, but times had been hard and so his mom had taken a job up in Cincinnati so she could send money back home to help make ends meet for the family.

Still, living in the city wasn’t so bad. Always something neat to see at least he thought as he walked down the road.

Stephy walked up Madison, keeping his head down, partially in the figurative sense, partially to keep an eye out for loose change. He’d already gotten together enough for a hamburger at McDonald’s, all he needed now was another couple quarters for a drink and he at least wouldn’t go hungry today.

Idly he turned a corner leading towards the public library, there were always kids dropping pocket change there… and suddenly…

“OOF!”

“ACK!”

He walked headlong into someone! The boy fell to the ground and rubbing his head, “Owww… shit sorry, I didn’t see you…” he looked up, then felt his heart jump up into his throat.

“Nah, its okay buddy… I was just admirin’ the architecture n’…” said the other person, sitting up, blue eyes meeting brown, “… hey hang on… you’re that girl from…”

Stephy felt his forehead break out in a cold sweat. “Girl? What girl? No girls here! AHAHAHAHAH!” he laughed, his voice going rather higher than intended on the last bit.

Tex blinked, looking him over. He was definitely the same person he’d seen last night, just… not in a skirt now… but… “Son of a gun… you’re…” he started.

Stephy froze, realizing he was putting the pieces together, and inside his head an invisible hand reached for the lever between ‘fight and flight’ and slammed it to the latter with excessive force! Stephy scrambled to his feet, turned and bolted back across Madison Avenue, the main street through the city, and down the street opposite!

“… like me…” finished Tex, blinking, “Crap! HEY HOLD UP!” he shouted, getting to his feet and rushing after Stephy.

Stephy raced blindly through the town, thinking ‘crap crap crap crap crap’ to himself, his heart hurting at that. Dammit he thought he was cute, he thought he actually looked like a girl, and now he knew the truth and he’d just be like all the others! He gritted his teeth, his legs pounding. He was never athletic or strong, but if there was one thing he could do it would be rabbit the hell away from anyone trying to hurt him.

Then he risked a glance back and saw Tex gaining on him. Stephy let out a strangled cry and his excessive knowledge of escape routes took over. He jumped a fence, then scrambled between two broken fenceposts, then dove to the ground and rushed under a busted wire fence, quickly slipping sideways and shimmying between two close together houses, and then turning again and rushing back across Madison, down a deserted alleyway. He cleared the flight of stairs in one go, then slumped down next to what looked like a bare patch of wall. “… whew…” he gasped, looking up…

Grinning down at him was Tex’s face, “Not bad, but I had ta catch calves that ran off fer years now 'n girl, ya'll can’t run HALF as fast as a scared moocow.” he chuckled.

Stephy was halfway up the stairs before Tex ducked infront of him and cut him off. “Now hang on! Just cool your heels a minute girl! Its okay! I know whats goin’ on!” he said, holding out his hands. “I getcha, you’re just like me but from the other direction, its alright!” he added in a soothing tone.

Stephy backed up to the wall, then paused, “… just… like you?” he asked.

Tex nodded, “Yeah, transgender.” he replied.

Stephy blinked, “… uh… w-what?” he asked, his eyes going up and down Tex’s body. All boy as far as he could tell…

“Yeah, s’why my mom and I left Texas… well, part of why… ol’ bastard in th’ governor’s chair decided to make kids like me a target and someone had to go get a job elsewhere anyways to help my family’s ranch, so we got the hell outta Dodge before stuff started gettin’ really bad. Mind ya’ll, Kentucky ain’t doin’ a TON better, but we can’t afford California or somethin’ like that ‘n those people are a bit too…” he made a wibbly-wobbly gesture, “Wishy-washy for my tastes…” he nodded.

Stephy blinked slowly again, “… what?” he asked, his voice still shaking a bit.

Tex tilted his head, “C’mon now, its fine! I know it was you I helped out the other night. Don’t worry, I get it, you’re still too anxious to go full time. Heck I was scared too.” he grinned.

Stephy felt his heartbeat slow down from ‘I cannae take much more Capt’n’ to ‘I may not be in immediate danger of a heart attack,’ but still…

Tex smiled and went to put his hand on Stephy’s shoulder, “Hey now, jus’ relax I…” he paused. As soon as he got close Stephy immediately cringed and shrank down. He was fine around Stephanie and most girls, but anyone else was 'enemy until proven otherwise.'

Tex stared, looking at his hand, then back at Stephy. “I didn’t even touch ya’ll…” he muttered, “… this ain’t just about those assholes I beat up last night is it?” he frowned.

Stephy looked away, “I just…” he shrugged.

Tex nodded, “Ya’ll don’t gotta say no more… yer ma or yer pa the one doin’ it?” he asked.

Stephy blinked, looking at him, “Huh?”

Tex nodded, “Someone is abusin’ you. I can see all the signs. The second you thought I was gonna do something ya bolted. I tried to touch your shoulder ‘n ya’ll curled up like I was gonna smack ya.” he frowned, “I used to go to a support group fer trans kids back in Texas, there were more than a few of us who were like that.”

Stephy winced, his head pounding now. He shouldn’t tell him. Stephanie and her family knew but he couldn’t stand to say it because it meant acknowledging it was real. That he was terrified to go home some nights for what might be waiting for him there, that he’d genuinely wondered if letting Isolde take him might have been better than staying with his father, that his father and most of his family thought he was a runt, a worthless mongrel runt who wasn’t fit to be part of their clan, to be part of their family. The words pounded in his head, he felt himself start to shake…

… and then a gentle hand cupped his chin.

“Its alright…” whispered Tex’s voice.

Stephy froze again, then replied in a very small voice, “… my dad…”

About a half hour later, inside the Speakeasy Hideout

“… and ever since mom died he’s just been worse and worse! All he ever does is just drink and watch TV and whenever he’s out of beer or the TV isn’t holding his attention he comes after me! I have to hide out in Covington all day long just to keep from being a target! I don’t DARE let him find out! He already hates me!” he spat out, sitting on a barstool.

Tex was on the one next to him, the boy nodding slowly. “Yeah, sounds shitty-…” he started

“NO HE DOESN’T! HE ALWAYS HATED ME!” Stephy shouted, shaking his head frantically as memories of all the adults he’d tried to tell about his father went across his mind. Everyone he’d ever asked for help who had either been dismissive, patronizing, concerned about what his father might do, or who knew damn well what his father WOULD do… “EVER SINCE HE KNEW I WASN’T GOING TO BE LIKE THE REST OF THE FAMILY HE…” he paused, blinking slowly as Tex’s words caught up with his brain, “… you didn’t say what I thought you would…” he mumbled sheepishly.

Tex smirked, “Lemme guess, ‘I’m sure he loves you deep down?’” he asked.

Stephy chuckled, “’He does, he just doesn’t know how to show it properly’ is another one I get a lot…”

Tex nodded, “Mmmhm… people don’t get it. I lucked out, my parents split up when I was real young but it wasn’t anything major. They just realized they didn’t work out and that was that. Kinda glad, I don’t like stories about people who ‘stay together for the kids.’” he rolled his eyes, “Just been me ‘n mom growin’ up and she did fine.’”

Stephy shook his head, “Bull. People think just because someone has a kid that it makes them love them no matter what… My father is a monster, an ogre. If I could leave, I would.” he nodded.

“Guessin’ child services ain’t an option?” asked Tex.

Stephy shook his head, “Eight people hospitalized total, even say the name ‘Fullmoon’ and they hang up now.” he replied.

Tex let out a low whistle, “Shitty situation darlin’…” he muttered.

Stephy nodded, flinching a bit as Tex put an arm around him, then blushing, “Sorry, reflex… I’m just… yeah…”

“Girl, its alright… yer not the first remember?” he smiled, “Wish I could do more, but hey at least ya’ll got a pretty neat hideaway for him. Set up a cot down here, maybe get some lights strung, ya’ll be all set!” he grinned.

Stephy shrugged, “Yeah, but I’m broke…” he muttered.

Tex smirked, “I ain’t.” he said.

Stephy blinked, “Huh?” he asked.

“I got a cot back home, brought it with me just ‘cause it’s a useful thing to have handy, and a generator that can fit in a wheelbarrow easy enough. Runs on diesel, but it doesn’t use a ton of it. Get those down here, get a mini-fridge maybe, ya'll could live here!” he nodded.

Stephy blinked slowly, “I… could, couldn’t I?” he looked around, the idea had never occurred to him. “Nobody knows this place even exists anymore but me and my cousin…” he muttered.

Tex grinned at him, “Sounds good to me.” he nodded. “Set you up down here ‘n your dad can go twist in th’ wind for all we care.”

Stephy nodded, “Yeah… we could…” he muttered.

One week later

“Aaaaaand… BANG!” he grinned, yanking the pull-chain. The generator started up, vibrating slightly, and the lights overhead came on one by one. The bar had been cleaned up, a cot set up next to the wall, he’d even rigged up the toilet area into a makeshift outhouse that just dropped straight into the sewer system. Tex knew a lot about jury rigging, came with living on a ranch. Power goes out and the weather is bad, sometimes you just had to make do.

Stephy stared, looking around. There was a mirror set up, along with a clothing rack where the hand-me-downs his cousin gave him now hung, there was even a pride flag hung up on the wall behind the bar. “Cleans up nicely don’t it?” grinned Tex.

“I…” he stared, his eyes huge. He was in the same outfit Tex had seen him in the first night now, having worked up the nerve to put a girl’s outfit back on. “Its… Tex I…” he shook a bit, then turned and grabbed him around the middle, burying his face in the boy’s chest.

“OOF! Hey now! Still somethin’ under there!” he laughed as Stephy eeped and stumbled back, his face red.

“S-sorry! I forgot… I mean…” he glanced away.

“HAH! Don’t apologize cutie-pie! If someone who knows they’re there forgets I have ‘em then that’s a GOOD thing!” he grinned. “Means someone who don’t know won’t see ‘em to begin with.”

Stephy blushed brightly at that, but nodded, “Really though, I… I never had somewhere genuinely safe like this before…” he replied, “I really don’t know what to say…”

Tex smirked, then cupped his chin and planted a kiss on his forehead, “I find ‘thank you’ works just fine darlin’.” he nodded.

Stephy froze again, staring at the floor, that time he couldn’t deny it felt good… really REALLY good… he leaned slowly into Tex, the taller boy giving him a gentle hug. Tight, but not too tight so he could pull back if he wanted to.

He felt his eyes welling up, for the first time in his life he genuinely felt safe somewhere. He had someone who actually could understand what he was going through and what it meant for him… “Mn, sorry… I… just won’t stop all of a sudden.” he blushed, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

“Then don’t force it to lil’ filly, let it out… Ain't nobody to see it but me.” he whispered, stroking a hand over Stephy's head.

Unfortunately for them, Tex was wrong... they had an audience watching from an angle he couldn't even perceive. In the mirror set up next to the cot, a pair of black eyes were taking in the scene.

Arcadia, the Toyland realm of the Everblooming Rose

“Well well well… the Fullmoon boy has found his prince charming!” smirked Isolde, “Oh dear oh dear… happily ever after is soooooooo close for him now…” she giggled, standing up and walking to the mirror held infront of her throne by one of her dolls.

“So lovely, true love is beginning to blossom…” she cooed, then scowled, “But that boy doesn’t DESERVE to be happy!” she snarled, spinning on her heel, “That foul demon-claimed grownup Nelen doesn’t want me coming back… but if I’m not there then that still counts.” she giggled, snapping her fingers as one of the dolls walked over with almost mechanical precision in it's steps.

“YOU! Get my soldiers ready! Tomorrow night I’ll be playing the role of the Faerie Queen who steals away Prince Charming and denies that Wicked Witch his happy ending!" she grinned, her dark eyes narrowing in malicious glee.

#supernatural adventures #modern fantasy #fiction #lgbtq #faeries

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somnilogical · 4 years

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transfem protestors released info that moved 350000$ of donations from miri. because miri is an evil org, they decided to lie about why they think it happened and say its really confusing. i know the answer to this ~mystery~, i know why this year was different; i can talk about it in public, they cant. cuz im freeee from CDT PR. i can decide to lazily choose an algorithm that optimizes utility in multiverse, not just institute whatever choice seems to give most utility "going forward".

<<Our fundraiser fell well short of our $1M target this year, and also short of our in-fundraiser support in 2018 ($947k) and 2017 ($2.5M). It’s plausible that some of the following (non-mutually-exclusive) factors may have contributed to this, though we don’t know the relative strength of these factors:>>

https://web.archive.org/web/20200214061634/https://intelligence.org/2020/02/13/our-2019-fundraiser-review/

they then go on to list eight pretty thin excuses. you know perfectly well why this year is different from all other years, MIRI. your ""speculations"" are fake.

a small group of transfems moved ~350,000$ from your ineffective charity.

i suppose eight of these factors also account for why CFAR extended their fundraiser 5 days longer than announced after donations were super low?

or maybe there is a more compact generator for both of these events: whistleblowers protested what you have been doing releasing lots of marginal information and donors saw this.

i know why this year is different, you know why this year is different. Colm Ó Riain you are facilitating MIRI lying, hoping that if one doesnt mention something, people wont pay attention to it.

like lying in such a way that you wouldnt be held legally culpable, because you could say in front of a court with low schelling reach "you cant prove what i was thinking". except i dont care about legal culpability, i care about causal entanglement. you heard about the protests (or, much less likely, were kept from hearing about these protests somehow by a distributed version of this algorithm set one personstep back), you have > 1/100 intelligence. your omission of this is deception.

is <<In past years, when answering supporters' questions about the discount rate on their potential donations to MIRI, we've leaned towards a "now later" approach. This plausibly resulted in a front-loading of some donations in 2017 and 2018.>> really more plausible than "there was an entire protest against MIRI and CFAR's support of UFAI. people reacted strongly to this, it shows up in the donations.¹"?

it would have come up on a list that scrapes the bottom of the barrel for plausible causes in a counterfactual world in which you werent optimizing for good PR. an AU in which you were searching for and publicising how things were causally entangled.

¹see, for instance, the Patrick LaVictoire who had aggregate donations of:

25,885$ november 26 2018

35,885$ august 29 2019

117,199$ february 14 2020

giving diffs of 10,000$ and 81,314$ to estimate 2018 and 2019 donation periods. iirc at some point the diff was 81,000$, id guess at some point afterwards they donated \floor{100π}$. https://web.archive.org/web/20200601000000*/https://intelligence.org/topcontributors/

and then went on to do the standard antitransfem thing calling ziz a "gross uncle" style abuser who just wants status like brent.

https://pastebin.com/TUZ7EThz

with their evidence being someone kaj said it, and kaj's evidence being that ziz said:

<<> I asked Person A if they expected me to be net negative. They said yes. After a moment, they asked me what I was feeling or something like that. I said something like, “dazed” and “sad”. They asked why sad. I said I might leave the field as a consequence and maybe something else. I said I needed time to process or think. I basically slept the rest of the day, way more than 9 hrs, and woke up the next day knowing what I’d do. [...]

> In the case that I’d be net negative like I feared, I was considering suicide in some sense preferable to all this, because it was better causal isolation. However, despite thinking I didn’t really believe in applications of timeless decision theory between humans, I was considering myself maybe timelessly obligated to not commit suicide afterward. Because of the possibility that I could prevent Person A and their peers from making the correct decision for sentimental reasons. [...]

> I was very uncomfortable sharing this stuff. But I saw it as a weighing on the scales of my personal privacy vs some impact on the fate of the world. So I did anyway. [...]

> I tried to inner sim and answer the question. But my simulated self sort of rebelled. Misuse of last judge powers. Like, I would be aware I was being “watched”, intruded upon. Like by turning that place into a test with dubious methodology of whether I was really a delusional man upon which my entire life depended, I was having the idea of Heaven taken from me. [...]

> I made myself come up with the answer in a split second. More accuracy that way. Part of me resisted answering. Something was seriously wrong with this. No. I already decided for reasons that are unaffected. that producing accurate information for person A was positive in expectation.>>

which doesnt sound at all like brent or other people ive encountered who were chronically angsty about status.

im going to write more about this and others in another post but like okay:

[1] ppl with high current or natal testosterone (centrally but not exclusively cis men) keep doing this thing where they mind-project that everyone else has the same degree of status sensitivity and unreflecticity upon it as them when actually this is hormonally mediated.

ziz has a natally & currently estrodized brain and from my observations doesnt have that submodule testosteronized. people with PCOS like ilzo have mentioned that they had masculinized status sensitivity modules, lex somni and some cis guy all tried increasing testosterone and noticed status-sensitivity went up, without looking for this effect in the first place. there are papers on it. your experiences are not universal.

[2] but also this isnt really a "belief", its a coordination mechanism. in the same way "its in black peoples nature to be servile" was a coordination mechanism for slavery rather than a "belief". humans actually can use evidence efficiently and see, for instance, in the antebellum south that black people were human just the same as anyone else. but the local social positionality and what they valued made it more advantageous to verbally report otherwise.

similarly for any minority. "*phobia" is the wrong word, its not fear its a schelling coordination mechanism that humans can expect most of society to have their backs on when bad times happen. which tracks what social justice theorists mean by this stuff being "structural". its not about some emotion of hatred or fear against the specific phenotype of "black skin" or "gender divergence" its about what humans can coordinate against.

hence the use of "antitransfem" instead of "transphobia", i picked this up from ziz and gwen and later noticed it mirroring the form of "antiblack". i wonder if antiblack was coined after encountering a similar issue.

[3] you parted with a marginal 71,000$ (compared to what id expect in a counterfactual world without a protest given your lifetime donation total was 35,885$ and you donated 10,000$ last year.) to protect a UFAI org. is this not an amazing amount of "subservience" to MIRI? anarchotransfems getting together to protest the present omnicide isnt "subservience". the transfems protesting against google being evil werent "subservient", but the employees at google who fired them out were.

its amusing watching this one narrative being tiled everywhere, but with different targets. the authoritarians did the same thing to emma goldman. ▘▕▜▋ says emma and somni are haxing a clueless ziz to "bully" people, linta said somni was infohazardously corrupting people, CFAR affiliates say ziz was 'whipping people into a frenzy' and 'demanding subservience' from them. im going to write a post about this.

#more institutional gaslighting #justice justice #这个时候你在路上遇到的所有人都是向你索命的孤魂野鬼 #why is this year different from all other years #lots of people at miri besides this person looked over their post and did nothing

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