Dream: Console Cowbois Hacking Gender

[the_fantastic_ms_fox]

There was a cover of an Archie comic, or something like it. And Betty had fallen in love with another girl.

We sit at a long wooden table, appys finished, amongst friends. Betty, on my left, is engaged in conversation. Another woman across from me, making flirty eyes with Betty. I recognize her from the cover, except here she is flesh, not ink.


So, did you do this? She asks

What? I wonder what exactly, taking off my cowboy hat and flipping my thin long black ponytail. Checking my reflection in the mirror-wall across the restaurant. Lean. Male. An outfit that screams Console Cowboy.

Does she mean did I Set her and Betty up? I suppose that may have occurred - and they seem so happy.

I'm glad Betty finally 'straightened' out her romantic ambitions. This girl across from me, maybe she could do better, but she seems happy now.

Or maybe that is not what she means. She... smiles, waiting for my response, but is her tone accusatory?

Embarassed, afraid, I slink down under the table.

Fuck. Did I set them up on a higher level? Mess with their orientation? I mean they're in love, but did they ask me to do that? Am I being paranoid?

Concealed under the table, I access her dossier. It fills eighty percent of my vision; grey-on-black text.

Name. Basic demography. How she swings is in there. Did someone edit it? Edit her?

Wait. A dossier. I can edit people's dossiers?

I guess that makes the accusation sensible.


But what am I doing playing cupid? Excuse me a moment.

Search. Data flies in front of me.

Aaaaaand... here's my dossier. We'll set that to... female.

The interface has some cis assumptions about bodies and genders, but I can let that ride.

Save, update.

I slide back up again.

Excuse me a minute.

I stand. There's my reflection again. My hair is shorter, unbound, thin and chin-length. I still look like I did, only a cissexed girl version. Fuckin' A.

Well, that was easy. Let's think as I slide across the restaurant.

Full transition in under a minute. Retroactive in all databases.

It's... nice. But I'm working on too small a scale. I should help other people.... How?

I could perform a major edit, but what if I fuck it up? Rope in (i.e. "edit") someone who doesn't want to be roped in?

What if I die? Will the hope for an edited world die with me? I'll have to work around that.


Write it in so it runs itself without me. Snip snip and the blackout cloth of reality seams open. Make a change, sew it up.

A new world. Like the old one but with one new development.


Slide up the right sleeve of my worn leather jacket and there's the oblong rectangle patch on my forearm. I slide the skin back over the lumps and extract two gelcaps: magenta and cerulean. I grow these things on me. We all do. Once a week. We have for about three weeks now - everyone whos been affected that is. No-one knows who subject zero was. Supply of these pills is still short, so there's a seller's market, but it won't last.

Slide the sleeve back down. Stride my worn leather cowboy self out into the night.

Blocked. A man on his way in. The journalist wants the "story now. A cis guy, about my new lanky height. Dyed black hipsterhawk, pale euro. Flannel shirt. He... means well?

What's with the transgender thing? He asks.

Seriously? Do I have to give "gender dysphoria 101" to a guy whose is trained and paid do research? On the biggest story of the year?


Fuck it. We're a few months from having a good chunk of our problems solved.

I roll up my sleeve, peel down my skin, and extract a magenta capsule. I hold it up in front of him.

"This will counteract the effects of androgen. Not just currently, but retroactively."

The cerulean cap palmed between my thumb and forefinger.

"This will generate estrogenic effects."

"So.. If I take these, I'll understand." he asks.

A cis guy, thrown into the wrong body?

Understand better that you do now, my friend.


"You'll probably have a psychotic break" I say with a laugh, one hand cupping the back of my head through my cowboy hat.

The guy behind me knows what I mean. He's been trying to hide both his smirk, and his stern judgment of my recklessness. He's been through this, only in reverse. And now his body produces the opposite compliment to mine.

The journalist doesn't take me seriously. I pass the pills into his palm. He studies them. Pops them down the hatch.




Three weeks later. The journalist comes back. Shorter. Female. With the dye out of his now-blond hair. Bags under his eyes. Bulky clothes. Shuffling. Sour-faced.



"Well. You look fucking miserable." I say with a silent cackle.



We'll have to set him up with some pills. But there's a high demand right now, and supply is short.








Waking seeds:

(One week earlier) A going away picnic:
- Joyee asked "What would you do if you knew that supernatural human-like creatures (with supernatural powers) existed?" and I answered "Publicize how it worked first, then find a way to use it to help people. Especially trans people."
- I met a man described as a cowboy, who I would like to place Case in a scene study from Neuromancer. In the dream (at least at first), I look kind of like him and kind of like Ed from Northern Exposure.

(Six days earlier)
Watched Transfer.


(Five Days earlier)
Purchased an extendable table

(Four days earlier)
Started listening to Neuromancer on Tape


(Previous Night) Watching Red Dwarf:
- Lister edits Rimmer's memories and his own (S2E3)
- Lister screenwrites the world on a typewriter (S9E3)
- We see Lister's ex (she is the woman I speak to in the dream)


Notes:

As expected from previous dream/media analysis, the demography of this dream in terms of body-types and race was affected by reading and watching spec-fic with characters who don't look like that overplayed particular subset of wealthy American actors. All, save the 40-ish judging FtM guy at the end, were 20-36 yearsish, as can be expected.