Otherworldly Gender-Inclusive Story Time

What if there were a place where you could listen to haunting tales bedecked in unearthly music without ever smacking into language that breaks the spell of the story by pretending that people outside the gender binary don’t exist?

You’ve found that place. And I’m so glad you’re here.

This is Liminal Flares – weekly bedtime stories from beyond and in-between.

Join me, Maika, your queer, trans, nonbinary narrator, as I read pieces of eldritch literature drawn from the public domain and amended to be gender-inclusive.

Story time begins on Thursday, November 3rd.

Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and please share Liminal Flares with your friends.

Writing & Narration by Maika

Music by The Parlour Trick

Audio Engineering by Meredith Yayanos

Cover art by Daniel Kern

More info at liminalflares.com

Transcript

Speaker: 00:00:05

Gather round and welcome

Speaker: 00:00:07

This is Liminal Flares

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bedtime stories

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from beyond and in-between

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readings of eldritch literature

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drawn from the public domain

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and amended

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to be gender-inclusive.

Speaker: 00:00:23

Needlessly gendered

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heteronormative language is everywhere

Speaker: 00:00:27

summarily excluding

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anyone who isn't

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a woman

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or a man.

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If you exist somewhere beneath

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the vast and kaleidoscopically beautiful

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nonbinary umbrella

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there are so very many ways

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the world repeatedly

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that you don't merit consideration

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let alone inclusion.

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That will not happen to you

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here.

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Here stories spill out of the darkness

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a thick blanket of fog rolling endlessly

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across a twilight deamscape

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carrying haunting whispers

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plaintive echoes

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poignant lullabies

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and hypnotic incantations

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intoned in unfamiliar tongues.

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Brooding shadows

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and beguiling will-o'-the-wisps

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turn the unremarkable

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into the uncanny.

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This would be an easy place

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were it not for another

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luminous linguistic liminal flares

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sent up to signal that you are seen.

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You belong.

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You matter.

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Because you do.

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And you deserve stories

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that include people like you.

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Join me

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Maika

Speaker: 00:01:51

your queer, trans, nonbinary narrator

Speaker: 00:01:55

as I read gender-inclusive revisions of

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Gothic horror stories

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weird fiction

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folk tales

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science fiction

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poetry

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and more...

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I am here to remind you

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that the relentless heteronormativity of this world

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is a falsehood.

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That we cannot assume to know

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a person's gender

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or their pronouns

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based on our own perceptions.

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But more than anything

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this is a place for haunted

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gender-inclusive story time.

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Gender neutral language creates room

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for everyone

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which means that you are welcome here

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no matter what your gender.

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And I do hope that you'll join me.

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Subscribe on your favorite

Speaker: 00:02:45

and please

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share Liminal Flares