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

[aldersprig]

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)

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Comments

[elfling_eryn]

Why do your prompt entries always draw out the most bizzare prompts from me?

A cat that can change your gender is only fun as long as other people are petting it.

[aldersprig]

Sugar was a good cat. She never woke me up at night, she caught the rare mouse that wandered around, and she always peed in her box. She was a sweetie, too, cuddly and affectionate. It was just...

...well, I could forgive her that, I suppose, although it made for some tricky explanations at work, now and then, when she was feeling fussy. But after I invited Mr. Hendricks, my boss's boss, home for dinner that once, nobody asked questions anymore. Least of all Mr. Hendricks. Um. Ms. Hendricks. Kay.

Zie did have a habit, after that, of sending me little notes. I got one on Friday, when I'd been ruefully looking forward to a weekend alone with Sugar and a good book: "James in the mailroom has been rather difficult lately. Why don't you invite him home for dinner, then take her out clubbing? My treat."

Zie even included a dress for Janie. Now... let's hope that James-in-the-mailroom liked kitties.

[elfling_eryn]

Great writing

I really like what you made out of this prompt

Sugar sure is a good cat

[aldersprig]

*grins* Thanks! This one was fun... I kind of want to see more of Sugar-kitty.

[meridian_rose]

Fantastic :D

[aldersprig]

*bow* thank you!

*laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith]

I love this cat. Kinda makes me want to take her to a pro-life protest.

Re: *laugh*

[aldersprig]

Hee, I want to take her to a frat party :-)

[meridian_rose]

Great theme :D
Maybe something about royalty and succession. What do you do if there aren't enough princes/princesses to go around, and/or they're gay or asexual or infertile? What new paradigms do you develop to replace or adapt the old patriarchate models?

[lilfluff]

Probably says something about me that I misread 'infertile' as 'infantile' the first time around.

So I suppose a royal succession in which *everyone* agrees the prince/princess is simply entirely too spoiled to pass the crown to.

Hmm. Royal Reform School?

[meridian_rose]

LOL, Royal Reform School :D Very suitable for spoilt brat princes/princesses. None of that 'I can't sleep because there's a pea under my mattress' crap :D

I was thinking more of a 'non-patriarchal. non-monogamous structure'; maybe allow gay couples to take the throne - allowing for treaties between their families - and make various arrangements about children for inheritance purposes.

[lilfluff]

Hmm. I don't think I ever got very far with one setting, but I vaguely recall once coming up with the idea of a royal family where part of the rules was that 2nd, 3rd, etc children were for forming alliances but that the heir was to marry a commoner to ensure the first loyalty remained with the country.

Or at least that was the public explanation, I suspected that the non-public reasoning was something along the lines of, "Have you looked at those countries with their inbred idiots on their thrones? Now go on, borrow the stable boy's clothes and go out and find someone to marry because you actually want to live with them."

[clare_dragonfly]

Ever read any Mercedes Lackey? That's pretty close to the main story of Arrows of the Queen--the princess, who should be the Heir, is way too spoiled and bratty to inherit, so they need Talia to whip her back into shape.

[meridian_rose]

I've never read Lackey, but many people have rec'd her. I really ought to read her work.

Royal Reform!

[aldersprig]

The princess Serafina had been kidnapped, and nobody seemed to care.

Indeed, outside of the Princess herself, nobody even seemed to know. There was a TV outside of her prison, and she could hear it prattling about the banal, not-Sera-related news of the day. As far as the morons on TV seemed to think, the Princess was on retreat in the country, relaxing on a horse ranch. That had, indeed, been her plan, a vacation suggested by her mother. But instead, she'd been body-snatched and locked in this barn, with straw on the floors and nothing but a stale bowl of water to drink. She could hear people walking by, talking; she could hear the TV. They seemed immune to her shouting - and to her powers of charm. She kept shouting, anyway.

She'd been there for what she thought was three days when the door finally opened. She flung herself at the large, burly man who walked in, reaching out with her hands and with her power. "Let me out, let me out, send me HOME!," she screamed - croaked, rather; the water had been gone for a day.

She was so wrapped up in her panicked attack that she barely noticed the collar he locked around her throat until it was closed.
~~~
Tir na Cali... I always wanted to slap Sera after I made her. She's a bloody unpleasant woman.

[aldersprig]

Stole the theme from ysabetwordsmith :-)

posted here: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/100478.html - too long for a comment.

[clare_dragonfly]

Ooh.

1. Linden: puberty and/or the Change. Possibly both at the same time? :D
2. A female Cali-slave who really wishes she was a male Cali-slave. You pick the reason.

[lilfluff]

Just kicked in a donation on the grounds that A: giraffe print carpet sounds awesome and B: all the above ideas sounds fun.

[aldersprig]

*grin* You're fond of this giraffe, aren't you? (me, too!!)

[aldersprig]

How would you like me to divvy the wordcount, or dealer's choice?

[aldersprig]

Meckil woke to a cold morning in late December in his maternal grandparent's home, his joints screaming in pain. He cried out, to hear his voice an unmelodic squawk where, yesterday and the days before, his voice had been high and perfect. Nobody heard, or nobody came. With his parent and his parent's parent, it could have been either. They had, he had been told, wanted a female child. Female children made better daeva; males didn't even always Change.

Author's note: this comes a while before Rainfall
He pulled himself from bed, slowly, wincing at the pain in his feet, in his feet and up his legs. They didn't want to work right. Was this... no, of course not. he was too young for it to be his Change; it had to be some sort of illness.

"Tell?" he called for his maternal parent, hating the ungainly squeak. Nobody came, so he struggled to the door, reaching for his vest and breeches.

His shirt buttoned strangely, over small bumps on his chest, and his pants seemed to fit oddly. He glanced inside his pant, curious as any boy...

"Te-eee-eeelll!" he shouted, his voice cracking with the effort. "It's GONE!"

[clare_dragonfly]

Aww, poor li'l Meckil! But yay that he got to be more like his parent wanted! :D Though it's hard to say how happy he is about that...

The idea that female children make better daeva is interesting, since Meckil apparently started male and Jamian always, at least, identified as male.

[aldersprig]

Cali-verse, in the same household as the Harem stories

Jassa showed up for duty Tuesday morning early; she always showed up for duty early. She'd found that waking up before the rest of the household help meant she got warm water for a shower, and showing up for breakfast before the rest meant, even if she did have to help with the prep, she got the best food. So by the time the sun was rising and their duties began, she was already awake, fed, clean, and in livery.

"Jassa, that's boys' livery," the Châtelaine, Amber, reminded her patiently. She was staring at the house slaves over her mug of coffee, bleary-eyed, her own uniform cap off-center. Unkindly, Jassa wondered if it had been one of the lordlings, or Amber's special friend the Groundsmaster, who'd kept her from her sleep. But she was still, as if talking to an idiot, explaining things. "You are a grown woman now. I know it hasn't been long, but you have graduated to the women's livery." She plucked the front of the jacket thoughtfully. "Although you don't fill this out at all. I thought you'd been growing."

"I prefer the boys' uniform, ma'am," she answered quietly. She'd convinced the mistress of clothing to get this one for her, and to find her the long strip of cloth she had wrapped over her breasts. "They're... more comfortable."

"Hrmf." The Châtelaine gulped her coffee; when she set her mug down, the look she gave the littlest maid was a bit more sharp. "Well, you've got a few more years, I suppose. We'll cut your hair to match, and none of Themselves look too closely at a boy cleaning floors, anyway. Be a bit trickier should you want promotion, though."

Jassa relaxed. She was going to get away with this. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you."

[clare_dragonfly]

Aww, nice of her boss to go along with it. :D

[kc_obrien]

"Not every pack Alpha has a bitch. Sometimes it is the bitch."