This was originally written on Twitter, for our old community there, so we’ve kept the original format so that it flows in its original manner. Maybe, someday in the future, we’ll rewrite it to work better in a macro format. It has nothing to do with the Sunspot Chronicles, besides a reference to Fenekere, so we’re putting it here in our blog. CN: non-sexual transformation kink, cognetohazards, twitter.
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“Can you turn our chair around for us?” we ask Julie Caspiern, the reporter for the Fairport Fishwrapper.
We’ve returned to our home town since our discovery, and she contacted us shortly afterward.
It’s hard to hide what we are, after all.
1/X
Julie obliges us while we needlessly explain, “It’s a bit heavy now, you know. Heh.”
She smiles, of course, and then moves to sit opposite us at the cafe table, pulling out a small notepad and pencil after putting our drinks down.
2/X
Just so you can visualize our perspective, the seat of the chair is just above our eye level when we’re on the ground, now. But we’ve gotten pretty good at hopping.
You can look forward to this too, if you read our book, by the way.
3/X
We could probably make it all the way to the top of the chair back in one good jump, especially with assistance from our wings, but we might spill drinks that way. So we take two hops, using our claws on the edge of the seat for control.
4/X
She got us a napkin, like we asked.
That’s going to be important later, after we’ve drunk some of our mocha. That kind of thing is a little messy now.
“Maybe we should start from the beginning,” she suggests.
“Sure!” we chirp.
5/X
She doesn’t even need to prompt us. We’ve worked for a newspaper before.
But we get a mouthful of mocha first, tilting our head back to swallow it, & then wipe our face with the napkin. A demonstration for the reporter.
She waits patiently.
6/X
“So, I guess, our name is the Inmara. That’s, uh, ‘hey, Inmara’ in second person, or ‘there’s the Inmara’ in third. We’re plural. Some people call it DID, but we don’t. Not for us. Anyway, they/them for pronouns, as a group,” we tell her.
7/X
She takes a few simple notes and then looks up (not all that far) and asks, “And before this, you were?”
If she was interviewing us as for a trans bit, we’d be annoyed. But we expect this, this is our story.
We say, “The same, but taller.”
8/X
“I mean,” we add before she can ask another question, “we couldn’t lay eggs before, and now we do. Like, we’re pretty sure, people will be interested in that. Our book is a bit of a choose your own adventure, that way. 31 endings, though”
9/X
“Why 31?” Julie asks.
“We like giving people lots of options,” we reply. “Also, the math of Fenekere is base 31 for some reason, so it just sort of lent itself to that.” We shrug, “Any bigger & the cost to print the zine goes up too much.”
10/X
“So, how did you discover that… Fenekere is it? How is that spelled?” she asks.
“F-E-N-E-K-E-R-E,” we tell her.
She nods, “How did you learn Fenekere can do this…?” she gestures at us.
“Well,” we say, bobbing our head for more mocha.
11/X
“We should probably start by telling you what Fenekere is,” we tell her.
“OK!”
“First of all, it’s a language we discovered in 2014 while bored at work. Like, people aren’t going to believe this, but read our book and you’ll see…”
12/X
“Anyway, this was right before we came out as trans, and our dysphoria was really bad, and work was getting so slow. So, some of us were poking around in our inworld,” we explain. “Now, most people think that’s just our imagination, but…”
13/X
“We think you can see with your own eyes that that is a gross simplification,” we say, spreading our wings to show off our plumage.
She nods with a tight lipped knowing grin. “Go on,” she says.
“So, our Poet finds these dragon scales…”
14/X
“Huge things! 31 of them, of course. And they’re etched with these weird characters on them, and arranged in a semi circle. Fenmere found that if you look at them in order, slowly, they teach you Fenekere. It’s pretty neat,” we say.
15/X
“And this was all in your head?” Julie asks.
“No,” we say, lowering our body so that we can put our chin on our foreclaws. “That’s a simplification.”
“Right,” she says, making a note.
We do wonder how this is going to look in print.
16/X
“Anyway,” we say, trying to keep this short so we can get to the good stuff. “It turns out that Fenekere is like the coding language of reality. You can use it to *change* things, including yourself. So, after experimenting with it…”
17/X
“Well,” we say, thinking of another tactic. “Are you familiar with TF kink or cognitohazards?”
Julie frowns & shakes her head.
“OK, so, among a certain demographic of people, there’s an intense sensitivity to, well, being something else.”
18/X
“Call this demographic ‘webcomic readers’. Not every one is susceptible to this, but a higher percentage are. And there are certain webcomics that get passed around. I mean, OK, we’re being funny, & this is serious,” we say, rethinking it.
19/X
“Look, it’s not necessarily linked to any other demographic, but there are a number of people in this world who aren’t really people. Not human, anyway. They just know it, and always have. And there’re overlaps, but…”
20/X
“If you call it otherkin, therian, alterhuman, whatever, the key is that it is kinda its own neurotype. Whether it comes from trauma, some kind of weird evolutionary glitch, something spiritual, it doesn’t matter. It’s a thing,” we grunt.
21/X
“And people like us have this need to feel right. It’s kind of like being transgender, but not. And until now there was no way to, well, transition like this. So, instead, we’ve all been flocking to TF kink and cognitohazards…”
22/X
“There are these stories, often comics, that tell of someone being transformed into another kind of being, and having to learn how to be that being,” we tell her. “And they get passed around. So, if you pay attention to Twitter closely…”
23/X
“If you pay attention to the right corners of Twitter, you can see it in people’s profile pics. Yinglets, drekir, protogens, sergal, even D&D kobolds. You’ll see them spread in waves in tweets saying ‘oh no.'” We take another gulp of mocha.
24/X
“That’s why they’re called cognitohazards,” we note. “Here’s the thing. Most of the stories that get passed around involve involuntary transformation. But we’re not about that. It’s fun, but not right. Not good. We like consent, options.”
25/X
“But!” we interrupt Julie’s next question. “People are really drawn to that involuntary irreversible disaster of a transformation. It’s part of what the need. Sort of takes the responsibility away. So they can say, ‘too late now, oh well!'”
26/X
Julie knows what our book is about and what it can do, so she cuts to the relevant question, “So, how did you solve that? How did you give people choices, but still no choice?”
We grin in the only way a microraptor can grin.
27/X
“Well, for one, the cover of our zine does say, ‘There’s no turning back.’ And, we’re doing this interview to inform people. But, it *is* ultimately their choice to pick it up and read it when they find it,” we say.
“Hmm…” she frowns.
28/X
“Do you do anything more to make sure it’s informed consent, if there’s no turning back?” Julie asks.
“Yes, absolutely,” we tell her. “Most of the book is just informing the reader of the risks, really. It’s just…”
29/X
“For the right kind of person, each drawback just makes the transformation all that much more enticing, and knowing that there’s no counterspell, so to speak, (even though there is) just sort of clinches it. It works,” we say.
“OK, but.”
30/X
“If there is a counter spell, then how come we imply there isn’t?” we ask for her.
“Yeah.”
“Well, it’s simple, really,” we tell her, winking. “Once you’ve become a dromaeosaur, you don’t *want* to go back. It’s just better this way.”
31/31