I knew this shit would happen to me. All the worst and most traumatic bullshit fucking does. But no, cunt, this time I’ve been planning for it. Training for it. Like a fucking samurai from one of my gay little animes, I’m ready.

It’s been a while since I did anything for LFA, but we’re back with a very, very horny bit of transfem science fiction! Trans scifi is something I’ve been getting massively into lately — there’s something about the sheer weirdness of it that I find deeply compelling as a surrealist-horror nerd, and ‘Roko’s Basilisk Slut Era’ certainly delivers.

But, some background first. You’ll get a lot more out of the story if you’re familiar with the idea of Roko’s Basilisk ahead of time. It’s a quasi-religious techbro thought experiment coined on LessWrong, in which it was theorized that a future artificial superintelligence would possess the means to go back in time and punish anyone who knew of but did not directly contribute to — or actively impeded — its advancement. For some reason, it gets into certain people’s heads pretty badly, whereas other people (like me, to be honest) shrug it off. I imagine it has to do with the amount of religious paranoia each person has.

Anyway, ‘Roko’s Basilisk Slut Era’ is part erotica, part science fiction, and part fourth-wall-breaking metafiction. It’s ranty, but in a way that flows exceedingly well; and it’s funny. The wry humour adds to the sincerity of it, and a little bit of poking fun at LessWrong never hurt anybody. The Basilisk itself is an adorably shy little monstrosity (my favourite kind) and the specificity of Stoff’s self-insert’s clothing choices had me cackling.

My one criticism, if it can really be called that, is that I get a little twitchy every time someone refers to Isabel Fall as ‘dead’, but it’s just as likely to be an artistic turn of phrase here so that’s on me. (She’s very much alive and well, just working under a different name — and that doesn’t take away from the excellent point being made, I’m just sensitive about this.)

Linking once more – check out ‘Roko’s Basilisk Slut Era’ on Maddison Stoff’s Patreon!

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