(fallen london stamps by 
been thinkin a bunch today about writing some speculative vignettes about the OC crew set in a post-Liberation-of-Night London. there's just so many tasty transhumanist and queer surrealist themes I could really get my teeth into and bites bites bites
pardon me for reblog chaining from my afterdark blog but I'm just thinking again about how I keep unconsciously writing so much of my own transness into the doctor through the lens of transhumanism.
because like, he has modified himself. it would be unbearable for him not to. but they're all subtle, invisible changes. a more sophisticated liver, for metabolizing esoteric poisons and other Neathy substances. (invisible to the outside eye.) a patch of skin on his right forearm that has a similar constitution to the skin of a Rubbery Man, so he can identify nuances in deep amber with a touch, or understand the subtleties of Shapeling conversation contained in the chemistry of the skin. (easily hidden with a wrapping, easily overlooked.)
London's tolerance for the unconventional has grown, but this is still, after all, the city where simply shaking hands with a Rubbery Man is scandalous. where having an intimate relationship with one gets you chased off to the tomb-colonies. where it's legal and ordinary to permanently kill sapient rats. people are, for the era, quite chill about race and gender and sexuality - but that's because they've switched to using "humanity" as the arbitrary social yardstick instead.
the doctor is blithe. but he's not oblivious. he knows that he's already on thin ice as a charred foreign madman, and that he's tolerated in part because people are too afraid to fuck around and find out with Correspondents. he's not going to push the limits of that tolerance with fur and tentacles and extra eyes and hands, no matter how much he wants to. (not right now, at least...)
and it took me until tonight to be like, oh. this is a parallel to how we've modified our own anatomy, but only in ways that are easy to hide, huh