Soo…. What do YOU want me to write today?

Taking prompts again… on a general theme of gender, sexuality, and how they go funky.

I’ll write at least 150 words on everything I get between now and this time tomorrow. And, as always, tipping guarantees more wordage – and helps me buy the lovely giraffe carpet. For more information, my Donor landing page is here (and on LJ)




This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/100478.html. You can comment here or there.

114 thoughts on “Soo…. What do YOU want me to write today?

    • Melchior sat uncomfortably at the dinner table between Jamian and Dagny while, across the table, Yngvi and Cay smirked at him. Dagny’s hand was high on his thigh, her fingers tracing circles. By what passed for human law in these parts, he belonged to her. She’d bought him from the slavers, and she’d never manumitted him. Jamian’s hand was under his shirt, the hard callouses against his skin in sharp contrast to the softness of his – of her skin, earlier that afternoon. When she’d writhed under him, her body smooth and female, so much like he’d remembered her from school, it had been easy to forget that she, by fae law, Owned him. Her touch, after all, had always felt good, even back in school. Here, her-his-Jamian’s hand tugging just a bit possessively on Melchior while his daughter’s hand climbed up Mel’s thigh, he couldn’t forget he was property. He found himself wondering, idly, if Dagny had the same ability to genderswap as her father. He wondered, too, when he had started thinking of Jamian, and not just the female half, Jaya, as his lover.

    • Jordan’s older sisters had all, when they were young, old enough to be maidens but still pure, gone down to the river. Each of them, in turn, had received the unicorn’s bloodly blessing, as did every girl of the village, their village and every hamlet along the Pure River. Their blood blessed the fields, kept the water clean despite the factories upstream, kept the crops coming. Their blood made their bellies rise with unicorn babies; there wasn’t a household along the river that didn’t have a white-haired child in their midst. Every spring, the girls who had come into their womanhood went down to the river. Every spring but this one, when there were no new maidens, no fresh pure blood to shed. The water was beginning to show the taint of the factories; the crops were slow in coming up. And their town had no virgin girls to give. Girls bleed in the water, men sweat in the fields. So he had always been taught. But there were no girls, and Jordan was still pure. His beloved, Daisy, had died, as girls did, now and then, of the blood she had given to the unicorns and the small child she had born. In her memory, in the need of the fields and his family, the needs of her tiny changeling baby, Jordan went to the river in the moonlight, and knelt before the unicorn he found there. “Take what you will,” he told the beast – a mare, he saw; weren’t they always stallions? Stallions, to leave their changeling children. “Take what you need.”

  1. What happens when someone is genderqueer, but due to innate flexibility (such as having memory of other lives and/or being a shapeshifter of some kind) does not have their life ruined by it … and therefore other genderqueer people don’t believe that this person is “really” genderqueer on the premise that the shear between identity and physique is always life-wrecking? Also, I have pimped the heck out of your post because this is a favorite theme and I like your writing in general.

    • Also, I have pimped the heck out of your post because this is a favorite theme and I like your writing in general. I see this! Thank you very much!! 😀

    • Woosh, I might get a second piece out of this one. Author’s notes: Ty is a character from Addergoole, a true, functioning hermaphrodite, half-breed fae, with the ability via Glamour to appear as one gender or the other. This is set a couple years after the story, in the mid-2000’s. And I feel like there should me more to it, so I might go back and continue it tomorrow. It took a night of drunken confession for Ty/a to fund trouble in the outside world. “You’re not…” Huni looked up from between Ty’s legs, a look of something like betrayal on her face. “You were a girl, last time, really a girl, all the way. And now there’s a cock.” Ty winced, not willing to admit that he’d forgotten he’d been a girl when the two of them had made love the last time. “I do that?” he offered. “Here, I can be a girl for you again.” Some sober part of her brain suggested that was a horrible idea, but there had been a lot of tequila, and Huni was very pretty. “You can just switch. Like… like a lightswitch?” “I told you I was gender-fluid,” Ty tried, albeit a little weakly. There had, of course, been no mention of half-breed fae genetics in the conversation, of two parents who were biologically as gender-fluid as they came. “I thought you mean, you know, socially. In your brain. You can flip, at will?” “It’s… yeah.” Easier than explaining the whole truth. And still harder, it seemed; Huni’s face had shut down. “Thousands of dollars of surgery. Legal battles. Social fights with my mother, who STILL calls me Fred. I thought you said you understood me, Tya?” “I…” What could she say to that? “I do?”

      • Oh dear. Yeah, Ty really does have no idea how good it has it, compared to someone who had to really struggle for gender.

        • Ty is pretty perpetually spoiled, yes. Hrmm. I feel this needs more, because I don’t think either party here is in the right. (I have a trans friend who is having trouble being accepted in the trans community, because she has no intention of undergoing surgery or hormones)

          • Plus there is the issue of what you tell someone, and how, and when. Because if you tell — and the more you tell — usually the more you lose, unless you’re exceptionally lucky. But if you don’t, then people tend to feel deceived and betrayed, and sometimes turn violent. It’s a very, very touchy issue in the trans community. And yeah, I’ve known transfolk who didn’t intend to transition for whatever reason, and that tends to be a whole nother kettle of very smelly fish.

          • How horrible for your friend! I know someone who is happy with just hormones, but does not want the surgery. People are very binary about things.

      • This is awesomely, achingly apt. Thank you so much for sharing. I would enjoy seeing more, if more arrives. I think you’re right about this scenario having further potential. And of course, I linked this on my LJ.

        • Thank you! Ty is a character that hurts to write, because h’s honestly not a bad person, just so very short-sighted and self-centered.

  2. As a heterosexual, or even a heteroromantic asexual, it’s one thing to be an LGBT ally. It’s another, though, when a hetero becomes romantically involved with someone whose gender is transitional. For example, I’ve often thought about whether or not I could fall in love with someone who was postop male-to-female who appeared/felt sufficiently female to me. However, considering pre-op puts me up against a brick wall. Yes, I recognize it may be just one organ difference, but in the back of my reptile brain, someone pre-op would simply not register as sufficiently female for me to fall in love with her. The same would hold true if it was someone who was anatomically female, but insisted on being identified as male. Normally, one encounters people who are settled in their gender, both physically and mentally, but what if one is/gets involved with someone for whom the situation becomes fluid and crosses the line of perceived gender?

      • Well, I imagine the same sort of issues could occur for someone who is homosexual/romantic asexual, too. It might be less of an issue for someone who’s bi, but not necessarily.

        • It went something like this… but not entirely… We had been dating – and fucking – for two months when George told me he was a girl. One of our friends was going through the transition, male to female, and so my thoughts immediately went there, full, post-op. We were naked at the time, so I took ahold of the organ in question. “George…” I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to be supportive. But… not having words, I kissed him. She kissed me back. “I don’t really want to go through the surgery,” she admitted. Even her voice was shifting. younger, more kittenish. Not quite a caricature, thank god. “I don’t know if I can handle being ostracized in yet another way. But here, in bed with you, alone with our friends…” “Honey…” I didn’t want to admit how relieved I was to not give up her cock. “If you want to be a girl, I’m not going to stop you.” I smirked at her, needing to lighten the mood. “Heck, maybe you can teach me to put on makeup.”

        • Or there’s this… Loosely Stranded world, or, at least, the Theatre Club of one of my Stranded World seasonal siblings Okay, theatre = gay, right? Especially in college. Everyone is sleeping with everyone, and everyone’s a little camp, a little over the top, and more than a little genderfunky. It’s kind of how it goes. Me, I was a straight guy in the middle of the gayest theatre club ever to grace a college, surrounded by gorgeous women that only wanted to neck with each other in front of me and rather-attractive men that were very cer that if I ever wanted to change teams, they were there. I didn’t mind – I did my share of drag roles with the best of them, and I’m not, well. I’m a theatre guy, not a frat guy. But it did get a little maddening. I should have expected something was up with Maura. She was, let’s be straight about this, gorgeous. She went straight for Summer, of course, they all do, but Summer was still working out her Brigid nonsense, and I didn’t take it hard when Maura turned her eye on me. One thing led to another at a cast party, and we were fourteen shots and two bottles of beer in when Maura said, quiet as anything, “Pat, I’ve got to tell you something.” Give me credit, okay? I didn’t blow my top I didn’t flip out. I like girls. I really do. And I’m not sure that I can handle this. But, like I said. Fourteen shots in, and Maura is damn hot, even if he’s – she’s hiding a penis under that skirt. I took a fifteenth shot for courage, and noticed she did the same, and we’re heading upstairs. I’ll tell you how it works out.

          • I love this. There’s an annoying trope about queer people becoming not-queer for “just the right person.” But I do like the reverse, the idea of someone becoming flexible for just the right person, because … sometimes sexuality is more fluid than people think, until they meet someone who makes them melt in more ways than one.

            • I’ve felt that way for a while, actually. It’s never yet come up, but I’m pretty sure that, even though I consider myself straight, if I met the right guy, I could be comfortable with it. Here via ysabetwordsmith‘s link as well, BTW, and I’ve been quite enjoying all of these.

              • Hmmm… I’m not sure I would. I have a girlfriend whose somewhat genderfluid in how she dresses and such. She’s biologically, and currently identifies as, a woman, but, to be honest, and I’ve told her such already, I would have real difficulties if she began identifying as a man. I just really need to be able to see my romantic partner as a woman.

                • Not everybody has to be willing to do everything. If you’re genuinely straight, there’s nothing wrong with that. Even for me, I’m cool with it now, but it was actually kind of a shock when I first realized that I was open to that possibility, and took several years before I was really comfortable with it.

          • >>I took a fifteenth shot for courage, and noticed she did the same, and we’re heading upstairs.<< I like to get into a character's headspace. This line really did that for me for both the characters involved.

          • One other thing I like about this piece – the main character is clearly challenged in his perception of gender and is expressing uncertainty about the situation.

        • True. There’s more than one type of bisexual. Some like men for one set of reasons and women for a different set of reasons. There are others who like a person (or don’t) because of who they are and regardless of gender. There’s even some who are attracted specifically to people of ambiguous or complex gender.

    • Running the other way from this — Dealing with the lack of reassurance on the acceptance of a newly asserted gender identity for someone making a transition and involved romantically or sexually with someone whose finds sex and gender of no relevance in selecting partners.

    • The Smiths had been living next door to us for several months before my daughter informed us, in that snotty way of children everywhere, that we should stop calling them “Mister and Missus Smith,” that “Cxaidin and Zizny” was correct. Sage and I spent an uncomfortable half-hour trying to explain to her that, while the Smiths may have urged her to be familiar with them, the honorifics were still correct, that manners were still important. Finally, in tears, Juniper declared “but Mister means ‘guy’ and Missus means ‘girl’ and they’re not either!!” Egg on our face (We’d learned the complex honorifics the brownies used; why had we assumed dragons would use human terms?), we soothed her with ice cream and asked her to explain. Dragons, she snuffled, don’t have gender. Baby was really an it, and so were Jimmy and Cthannie, who had gotten names based on their childhood personalities, and Cxaidin and Zizny, whose names were more traditional. She trill-lisped the proper honorific with an ease that surprised us, but said, after that (and we forgave her the snottiness this time), that it was kind of a tricky word, and the Smiths had said they certainly didn’t mind using their familiar names instead. Much humbled, we managed to salvage this into a teaching moment, talking about the different titles used by many of our neighbors, human and non. It wasn’t until we went to bed that night that Sage and I wondered out loud: then where had Baby come from?

    • I shall do my best, although both are a bit outside my personal experience. Friended your journal, btw – intrigued by conlang and I grew up in Rochester.

    • Author’s note: I “cheated” in using the same gender-swapping race I used in a few other stories here. Manuel/Manira is a character in Addergoole; this is set some time after that serial. The dumpster was full of dresses. Manuel had had enough of being a girl for the next seven or eight centuries (maybe nine or ten) and had tossed every remaining shred of evidence that there had ever been a Manira. He had found a place in the city where no-one knew his former self, where he had no chance of “hey, you look a lot like a girl I used to know,” and focused a body that had, for nearly a millennium, been female until it bore no shred of femininity. But he was still, at the core, an succubus-cum-incubus, and he still liked boys (four years of school had reminded him that he liked girls now and then, too… but not right now). Ithaca, he’d been told, was a great town to be gay in, and he was pretty sure he could find a date. He was used to being looked at. He had been looked at for a long time. But, he realized, he had no idea how to pick men up as a man, no idea how to interpret those looks he was getting without dipping into powers that were rusty from disuse. Well, there was always the old favorite of… “Hey haven’t seen you around before.” The hand on his shoulder interrupted his train of thought. He smiled, slowly, as he turned. There was that, too.

      • >>an succubus-cum-incubus<< That should be "a" rather than "an." Also, there's a neutral form, leccubus, for a sex-demon. It can be used for one that switches, or one that's in neuter or hermaphrodite form. Very malleable creatures, leccubi. I like the ending on this story.

        • I did not know about leccubi! That is an awesome new word to learn! *bounce* (My daeva are actually leccubi.) Thank you!

      • Wow, I knew Manira was a Daeva, but in the serial she always seems to think of herself as very firmly female. It was interesting to read about Manuel! Especially a Manuel at a loss for finding a date XD

  3. The members of a M-F-F triad come “out” to one of the women’s parents’…and things get rather interesting.

  4. Two people of opposite gender identities living in the same body, fighting over the body’s gender expression.

    • Abby woke on Saturday to find herself sleeping on the couch again, and swore, the quiet, nonsensical swearing she preferred. There was a pile of clothes on the armchair and, somewhere in the midst of the clothes, Jimmy snoring. She unburied him carefully, hanging up the clothes Todd had left unsullied and tossing the rest in the hamper, then tucked the couch-blanket over Jimmy’s sleeping shoulders. He had a growing bruise on his left cheek – what had he gotten into last night? What had THEY gotten into last night? She checked herself in the mirror – one small nick, and at least half a day of stubble. Todd was getting stronger, staying out longer. She showered, finding the scented shampoo he’d thrown out again, shaved their face as smooth as she could get it, and spent a satisfying hour with the tweezer pulling out every stray hair. Everywhere. Jimmy was awake by the time she came out, made up, properly dressed, and ready to face the day. “Oh, good,” he smiled. “You’re you again. I know it’s his body…” “Only when I let it be,” she lied. “Come on, baby, let’s get breakfast.”

  5. Anything featuring an aromantic asexual that *doesn’t* involve them realizing they were wrong about their orientation. (Here via Ysabet’s link)

      • Sure! I will add the caveat that as a romantic near-hypsersexual, I will do my best at this prompt, but please be patient.

      • This is… well, it’s the same character as this drabble: http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/225587.html – Lyuda, a sword-fighter in early-era Reiassan, a Roman-esque fantasy setting of mine ( http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/tag/reiassan ). I’m not entirely pleased, truth be told, but there’s something there. “Never married?” Alekoya was not, as travelling companions went, that annoying, and the sword didn’t talk when he was around. But after seven nights on the road, out as far from civilization as you could get , or near to, he was beginning to give Lyuda thoughtful looks that she didn’t quite appreciate. “Never married,” she agreed. “Took up the sword at that age.” By which she meant, the age when the other girls and boys in her village had, mostly, been taking up with each other. Now his look grew thoughtful. “Still that age, aren’tcha?” There was no point in bristling; she was still young, for a contractor. Lyuda nodded. “If I was interested.” The purse she could bring to a partnership would probably balance out the scars, especially near the borderlands (the war was never really over). He seemed to be thinking the same thing for a moment, and then he shook his head, and ran a cloth over his sharpened sword. “I see.” His look, now, was calmer, and less intrusive. “For some it’s not the right road.” She eyed him quietly, stripping off the bravado so many of the male contractors wore, and really looking at him. “Ah,” she nodded, agreeing. “For some it’s not.”

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