Archive | August 9, 2011

Variations on a Theme – Genderfunky Giraffes of Two Varieties

This is for twisted_times‘s prompt in my call for prompts (posted here:
Most media depictions of bisexuals are that they are:

1. always promiscuous
2. sexually greedy
2a. necessarily dating persons of both genders simultaneously
3. just going “through a phase”
4. actually going to end up reverting to just being gay/straight (delete as applicable) by the end of the story.

I’d like to see writing that deals with bisexuality without managing to make use any of the above incorrect tropes.

*throws down the metaphorical gauntlet*

This was trickier to pull off in 150 words than you’d imagine, so I took two stabs at it.

Shiva and Nikita are from my webserial Addergoole, and the icon is of her.

Basil is from Stranded World ((and on LJ); he’s in the theatre club with the guys from 14th Shot and, of course Summer, from Meet the Parents

Story One:

“Do you miss being with a girl?” Niki curled up against Shiva’s side, nuzzling sleepily at her shoulder. He’d been peaceful, quiet lately, and today he couldn’t keep his hands off her.

She rubbed his back sleepily. It had been a busy, stressful week and she’d been grateful for his quiet. Now she wondered if it had been on purpose. “Miss being with a girl? That’s… well, that’s an odd question.” She shrugged, and kissed him behind the ear. “I’m with you, now.”

“Yeah… but do you ever wish I was a girl?”

She propped herself up on an elbow to study him, and wondered what had brought on this rash of insecurity.

“No, my darling dear. You’re plenty of handful as it is,” she teased, and then, seeing his expression fall, hurried to reassure him, first with a kiss, and then with a hand wandering down his body. “I’m with you, now, and you’re all I need.”


Story Two:

“So.” Alex sat on the prop couch Basil was busily staple-upholstering. “Straight now?”

“Nope.” Basil resisted the urge to staple Alex’s pants to the couch. He was a bad enough actor to start with.

“I heard you and Summer…”

“Nope.” Thanks, in part, to Alex, but Basil liked being Summer’s friend.

“Damn. And she’s damn hot, too. So still gay.”

Maybe he could staple his leg to the couch instead. “Nope.”

“So that rumor about you and Caleb the Green…”

“Depends on the rumor.”

“You know, you two were…”

“In a long-term monogamous relationship?” He placed a staple precariously close to the actor’s calf. “We were.”

“And you’re not with Summer.”

“She’s kinda busy.”

“And you’re not gay.”

“Does this involve ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ somehow?”

“Well, the blonde playing Abby is pretty hot, but I heard you and she…”

“Amber? No.”

“No, not her, um… Krista.”

“She’s playing Elaine Harper. And yes, we are. Since the close of Much Ado.”

“So like months. And still gay?”

“Nope.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/103207.html. You can comment here or there.

Vocabulary! New word of the Day – Uxoricide

I took this vocabulary test, and was, being me, a bit miffed at the words I didn’t know. But I wrote them down, so I have a new word-a-day for the next month!

Today’s word is Uxoricide:

1: [Medieval Latin uxoricidium, from Latin uxor wife + -i- + -cidium -cide] : murder of a wife by her husband
2: [Latin uxor + English -i- + -cide] : a man who murders his wife

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/uxoricide


I asked myself, “in which setting would a character kill his wife? Tir Na Cali!

“What got you here?” Only two types of slaves ended up working for the Agency: really exceptional ones, and convicts deemed not yet releasable into the general public. Camden was betting the new guy was the latter. Something in his grey eyes shouted trouble.

“Uxoricide,” he answered, in a voice as dead as his eyes… and no wonder.

“Ux… fuck, man.” Camden took a step back, in case crazy was catching. “You’re lucky you’re still alive.” Grey eyes like that, no way his wife had been anything but a royal.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/103011.html. You can comment here or there.

Sniffing it Out

This is for [personal profile] lilfluff‘s commissioned prompt in my call for prompts which, loosely, was for more Cali Catpeople/Bay-the-catgirl.

This also includes the “vibrassa” story-bit, and the character from the story to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt on a Cali slavegirl who wants to be a slaveboy.

Tír na Cali has a Landing page (and on LJ)

Bay was discovering the advantages to her new form, as well as the strange disadvantages. Shoes no longer fit comfortably, but her walking was getting smoother and easier. She liked the claws; always a small woman, she had learned early to fight dirty, and liked the added advantage of a hidden weapon. She liked the teeth, too, although they took some getting used to, to talk around, to eat with. But the vibrissae, as their handlers insisted on calling them… those took more than a little adjustment. They felt as if the whole world was pulling on her face with every move. And, while they gave her a sense of body space that was new, and windflow, she wasn’t sure they were worth the drawbacks.

She had discovered, while experimenting with this form, that her sense of smell was a lot sharper, and her hearing clearer and more directional. She could swivel her new ears to find secrets whispered behind corners, and smell out strange and new things.

In the deep-underground facility where the Agency was training them, there shouldn’t have been much to smell out. Most of their confined world smelled very carefully neutral; as if anticipating their noses being sensitive, the slaves who cleaned this area used very mellow chemicals, and their handlers did not wear perfume or cologne. Nothing was there to distract and offend their noses, nothing but dinner… and the people themselves.

After she’d gotten her nose bapped once by a handler, Bay had stopped sniffing the royals and free-citizens who trained them, but they didn’t seem to mind if the cats sniffed each other, and her nose was un-attacked when she started sniffing the slaves who took care of them. People smelled fascinating, each one a new bouquet of hormones and sweats and the food they’d had for dinner the day before. The tall one with green eyes and red hair liked her food very spicy. The one with the short-cropped black hair and blue eyes was fond of mint – and was dressed as a boy.

Bay waited to get her alone, which took some doing, and cornered her in a room, barely resisting the urge to pin her to the wall. “Why?” she demanded.

“I told Em you wouldn’t like the curry,” she grumbled. “Sorry, it won’t happen again. You can tell the kitchen staff yourself, you know.”

Bay shook her head impatiently. “Not that.” Three weeks in, and she was still fighting to make her new mouth use words properly. “You’re a girl.”

“You’re mistaken.” The slave shook her head. “No. I’m Jas, and I’m a boy.” Now, she stank of panic, as well as the underlying smell of girl. Bay curled up on the bed, still between “Jas” and the door, but trying to look less threatening.

“This nose can tell,” she explained, or tried to, pointing at her face with one hand-paw. “You’re close, but you still smell like a girl. Why’d you want to be a boy, anyway?” Bad enough, being a girl slave. Why downgrade even further?

Jas sat down, looking pale. “You won’t tell anyone?”

“Handlers won’t get it. Dunno about slaves. The other cats…” she tapped her nose again. “The smell will tell them. Why?”

“It’s… it’s complicated,” she said weakly. “But the Lords at my former Mistress’ House…”

“Ah.” Bay understood that. Some of the high-bred men would leave you alone. Some made it the Lady’s blessing, and it was lovely, and proper. Some were just ham-handed and mean. “But you’re not there anymore.”

“No.” She shook her head slowly. “I’m not. You think I can mask my scent?”

“May-ay-be. The curry covers everything. And then some. But this place… there’s no Lords, not like that.” There were always Lords and Ladies, but the Agency tried to stay outside the hierarchies.

“No,” Jas admitted, “but I got to like it. I feel more at home as a boy than I ever did as a girl.”

“We..e..el,” Bay pondered. “You’re not the only one down here pretending. And if they can turn us into cats..”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/102656.html. You can comment here or there.

Summary-to-date of the GenderFunk Giraffe Sale

FIRST: Go check out EllenMillion‘s free abstracts day!

SECOND: Go check out all the awesome (and on LJ) I linked yesterday. (I won’t take it amiss if you save me a buck or two 😉

THIRD: This is a summary of all the microfic & drabbles I’ve written so far (Still have several prompts to go!) for my recent call for prompts on Gender-funk:

New/random settings:
Sugar was a good cat…, from [personal profile] elfling_eryn‘s prompt “A cat that can change your gender…”
In Search of an Heir (LJ Link), to [personal profile] meridian_rose‘s prompt on gender and succession.
Down to the River…, to cluudle‘s prompt “Female unicorn, male virgin.”
It went like this, from the_vulture‘s prompt on a hetero being involved with a gender-fluid individual
Waking Up…, to fayanora “Two people of opposite gender identities living in the same body…”

Tír na Cali:
Royal Reform
[personal profile] lilfluff‘s take off on [personal profile] meridian_rose‘s prompt on gender and succession.
Changing pants, to
[personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt “A female Cali-slave who really wishes…”

Addergoole: 3 Daeva* and a hermaphrodite…
Meckil woke… to [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt “Linden: puberty and/or the Change”
Dinnertime, to rix_scaedu‘s prompt “Jamian, his daughter and Melchior?”
Secrets, to ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt on acceptance
Going out, from doni_dyke01 “Transman’s first attempts at… gay dating scene”

Stranded World:
14th Shot, from the_vulture‘s prompt on a hetero being involved with a gender-fluid individual
Spring Equinox, from morrigans_eve‘s prompt on someone with cyclical gender
Meeting the Parents (LJ), to wolfcatt‘s prompt “The members of a M-F-F triad come “out”…
Having Fun, to flutterbychild‘s prompt “I’d love one on being female and heterosexual :3”

Dragons Next Door:
Being Polite, from eseme‘s prompt on the nogender dragons

Reiassan:
“Never Married?”, to corona_rift‘s prompt “Anything featuring an aromantic asexual that *doesn’t* involve them realizing they were wrong about their orientation.”

Vas’ World:
Perspective Shift (LJ), to @SharonTheRose’s prompt “a misogynist funds himself in a woman’s body…”

If you want more information about any of these settings, they each have a landing page, indexed here (and on LJ).

As always, you can request a continuation/longer story for any prompt, at the going rate of 80 words/$1. I’m still working on prompts, probably through the end of tomorrow, looking at my list.

Let me tell you a bit about this giraffe. See, we’re in the final stages of buying a house, a real fixer-upper, our first home. The bedroom is the only room we plan to carpet long-term, and I fell in LOVE with this giraffe-print carpet. Lush, beautiful carpet, for a teeny, tiny bedroom. A luxury, yes. But a small one, in a house we will spend the next decade working on.

Incentive goals: for every $50 from $75 ($125, $175, $225, etc) reached, I will write and post publicly another short story as an expansion of one of these drabbles.




This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/102329.html. You can comment here or there.