« Back
Generated:
Post last updated:
a kink in this plan
Sybil and a Jaromira in Milliways
Permalink Mark Unread

The door opens. A faint yet pleasant fragrance wafts through, and a woman(?) steps inside. She has long blonde hair in a loose braid, and is wearing a sarong and some kind of wrapped tube top, as well as a stud in each earlobe and three cartilege piercings in her right ear.

"This," Jayithasi says thoughtfully, "is not my studio."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Nope. Magic bar. Surprise." Blue jeans, black T-shirt, no ear piercings, rattan cane dangling from her arm where she sits at the bar.

Permalink Mark Unread

She inhales deeply, then frowns in puzzlement.

"Magic bar. Curious. I am Jayithasi Yasmara, and who do I have the pleasure of meeting?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm Isabella. Pleased to meet you."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Pleased to meet you. Sorry, but is your scent unusually faint or something, I can't quite place you."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I'm not following you."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I can't smell you? So I'm not sure what gender you are."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"Interdimensional magic bar."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah. And people where you're from don't smell as strongly?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It is not customary to discern any features about other people by scent where I'm from. Except, like, 'do they shower', 'have they encountered a skunk'..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Peculiar. Where I'm from it's an important secondary sex characteristic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We've just got minimally-smelly anatomical differences. Plus role, which is communicated by presentation details of haircut, outfit, body language, and speaking style, but does not have a biological basis."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Role? You mean like--" she tugs on her right ear. "Anyway, I can tell you're hari by your visible anatomical differences, but I can't be sure of more--I'd guess haran, but the other two aren't impossible."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Whatever that is isn't translating, and neither are your earrings."

Permalink Mark Unread

"The earrings communicate that I'm both a sadist and a masochist, but more the former than the latter."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Role is - related to but not exactly that. Dom and sub are relationship styles and only correlate with interest in pain in either direction."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...Huh. So what gender are you, if none of the ones I said are translating?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm a female and a dom."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah that's not translating for me either."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I'm theoretically capable of bearing children and would prefer to be in charge in any romantic relationships I might pursue."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Four of the six genders I'm familiar with are capable of bearing children and I'm not sure what being in charge of a romantic relationship means."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We've only got two-ish genders and two-ish roles. Uh... I would be the one to make most major decisions including how much to consult my hypothetical sub about them, am statistically more likely inclined to sadism though I'd consider that fairly personal information in the specific, and would generally receive indications of deference from a sub I was involved with."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...That is not a thing where I'm from, so far as I'm aware."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...well. Interdimensional bar."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I suppose so."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Anyway, welcome. The bar is a person. Here is my explanatory napkin, I'm done with it." She offers an explanatory napkin.

Permalink Mark Unread

She reads the napkin. "Hello, Bar."

Permalink Mark Unread

Hello.

Permalink Mark Unread

"So, first drink's free? I'll take a recommendation."

Permalink Mark Unread

Frothy pink thing!

Permalink Mark Unread

She sips it. "Ooh."

Permalink Mark Unread

I am so pleased you like it.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Seems like a bit of a foregone conclusion." Sip.

Permalink Mark Unread

"She has a knack."

Permalink Mark Unread

"So if whether you're a sadist or masochist or not is private, how do you find someone to do something if you can't do it yourself?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's venues. In person or online. Or it comes up among friends. And it's customary to attempt to flex a little on that sort of thing in a relationship - one person could take or leave a thing, other person wants it, they compromise."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I didn't mean for sex, I meant the magic."

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"Interdimensional magic bar."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh. Well, for us what magic a person has is dependent on whether they're a sadist or not and a masochist or not."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. Do the traits admit of self-modification or do they seem fixed?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Some level of self-modification. You can't just decide to be into something or not but there has been non-zero success at training it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Interesting. What does the magic do?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sadists get plant biokinesis, masochists get animal biokinesis, and if you're neither you get null magic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. In my world there's psions and mages, both are rare, and whether you are one and which are both random. Psions do things with mental and informational effects and mages do things with physical effects."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ooh. Comprehensive. I think masochists can sometimes manage mental stuff but it's rare."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We're called eclipsed. Because we get our magic on lunar eclipses. Whichever one is nearest our twelfth birthday."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, that's a good name for a species."

Permalink Mark Unread

"- no, the species is humans, it's just only some of us are magic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh huh. I'm sorry to hear that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Eh. It's probably good there aren't that many of us, new eclipsed are dangerous."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Full power, no control. We have to be locked down and unable to use magic, or stuck in virtual reality to fool our magic into acting on the virtual reality instead of actual reality till it comes under control."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh dear."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Used to be new eclipsed would go on starvation diets far away from everyone. ...Or just get killed. The invention of virtuality was a big deal."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I can imagine. We don't have anything like that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's good."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Our powers kick in around puberty and you hear about accidents sometimes but on a scale of 'his mother's houseplant started growing uncontrollably' or 'she turned the cat purple,' not like what you describe."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, eclipses are major disasters. Precogs help but we don't catch everything."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"But hey, we can do all kinds of cool shit once we learn how."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's good."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yup. What kinda conversion rate do you get on -" handwave, "activities to magic?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...It's about inclinations, not activities."

Permalink Mark Unread

"But you wanted to know how you find people?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes? If I were only a masochist I would need to know who was a sadist if I wanted anything done with plants."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...mechanically speaking, why is that the case?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I'm not sure I understand what you mean by mechanically speaking."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What would prevent a masochist who was only that or a sadist who was only that from performing magic if they could not or did not locate an opposite number?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"If I were only a masochist I could do all the magic I liked to animals. Animals are masochist magic, plants are sadist magic. And if I needed something destroyed I'd need someone who was neither."

Permalink Mark Unread

"- okay, so the earrings are an advertisement of capacity all by themselves, no matching is involved, the sadism slash masochism on the object level doesn't enter into it? - I didn't interpret 'null magic' as 'destroys things', that's interesting."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I mean, if you're looking for someone to hook up with, the earrings are useful for that too, but yes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Interesting. Psions and mages don't visibly advertise but we often have really disjoint skillsets - I do eidetic memory and precog and some basic conversational telepathy, but another psion might have sunk all their time into psychic combat and illusions."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, I see--but if most people aren't either, it wouldn't make sense to check passerby's clothing for signs anyway, I imagine."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, we're hired through more formal channels."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That makes sense. Yes, null magic destroys things, for a varyingly broad definition of things."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Varyingly broad?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Soft limit, not a hard one. People don't all put in as much effort as they could at developing their magic."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's the development process like?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mm--imagine a wall made of some yielding surface, and you can dig shapes out of it. Developing a new capacity is like digging out the right shape in the right place in the wall."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...in what way?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...There's this...space, in your head, and you have to push against it in the right ways--it's not wholly metaphorical."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...huh. Magic on my world is different for everybody, can't be usefully taught."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah. Not so for us.

Everyone has a--personal capacity; for people who are only one thing it's fairly straightforward, for people who are both it's divided proportionately--that determines how yielding the wall is."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is that connected to how masochistic or sadistic they are?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"In terms of how it's divided or in terms of the basal capacity?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I meant the second thing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Then no."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes to the other?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm a medium-scale sadist and a minor masochist so most of my capacity goes to plants," she offers as an example.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Makes sense. What kinda things can you do?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm a perfumer."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, neat, I bet that's a more interesting profession if gender is smelled."

Permalink Mark Unread

"And scent isn't just gender-based, everyone has their own scent--do I smell like I'm wearing perfume to you?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I guess so, yeah."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm not. Perfuming is a careful art; you have to match scents very carefully to make sure you get something that works with your base scent and not against it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Neat!"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I like it a lot."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I do precogging professionally. I've only got a few seconds - and it doesn't work here - but there's applications for that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ooh, I've never heard of that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, it's not really a plant thing or an animal thing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Or a destroying-things thing!"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Or that! What's incidence rate like?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Null is the rarest, most people are sadists or masochists. Being both is a little rarer than being only one but by less than being neither is rarer."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ballpark percentage?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Five/thirty-five/thirty-five/twenty-five."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. I'm not sure if that matches but it could, depending on how much is enough to count - we don't have a magical dividing line telling us whether someone is merely not very or not at all, see."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That does make sense."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Role is gender correlated. It's about sixty/thirty/ten with ten being switches in each case but women are more likely to be subs and men are more likely to be doms. And there's less than a percent of people who are nondynamic. - And gender is fifty-fifty with some minority edge cases too."

Permalink Mark Unread

Nod. "About a sixth of our population is each of our genders."

Permalink Mark Unread

"When you say genders is that here the same as sexes or are you using the term differently?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's the same as sexes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Just checking."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There are two sexes capable of siring children and two sexes capable of bearing them and two that can do both."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...with, uh, what distinguishing each of the pairs?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well--Bar, can I get some relevant literature?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Books!

Permalink Mark Unread

Books! The genders are divided into hari and desi based on visually apparent secondary sex characteristics--desi look more like men and hari look more like women--and into aret, a'an, and ami based on scent. Desret and desan are the male ones, harret and desmi are the hermaphroditic ones, and haran and harmi are the female ones. There is also some complication as to which can impregnate and be impregnated; there is a chart.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Wow, that's complicated."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I suppose it is, compared to a two-sex system."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Are your animals like this too?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Most mammals have four genders. I think some reptiles only have two."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Any idea why, evolutionarily speaking, it doesn't collapse?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not a natural philosopher, sorry."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. What are attraction patterns like? For you guys, not lizards."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Most people are attracted to most other people. A lot of people are attracted to only a subset of genders, but I don't keep track of statistics."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's a minority of doms who like doms and subs who like subs and it's kinda awkward. Mostly doms and subs mirror and switches do both things."

Permalink Mark Unread

"In practice people mostly date sadists if they're masochists and masochists if they're sadists. People who are both can date anyone and people who are neither try to find other neithers or compromise with a masochist."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Makes sense."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think so."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's some small fraction of people who also have a gender preference, my world, but it's rare."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That makes sense, if you only have two."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I actually think it would make slightly more sense to have more opposite-sex monosexuality for evolutionary reasons but we don't. Maybe it's weirdly polygenic or something."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Or maybe there were complicating factors. Hard to tell."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yep. Oh well."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh well! More fun this way, I think."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's complicating for people who feel strongly about wanting kids. We used to have cultural institutions expecting women to be subs and men to be doms strongly enough to skew most of the switches and a lot of insecure minority-role people, but those are breaking down."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, I suppose that would be. That's one of the advantages of our system, I think; even if you're only attracted to a subset of people it's still likely to include people you're interfertile with."

Permalink Mark Unread

"To be mostly those, even. Like, the problem I'm envisioning isn't 'same-sex monosexual', that's pretty uncommon - regular people who want kids and prefer monogamy have to decide between being standoffish with same-sex people lest they get entangled, or risking having to make an awful compromise."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah."

Permalink Mark Unread

"On a population level it shakes out reasonably well because there is the skew each way. We're not about to die out."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mhm. Just sucks for the individuals involved, is all."

Permalink Mark Unread

Nod.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh well."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh well."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't feel very strongly either way about kids, myself."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Me either."

Permalink Mark Unread

"...I'm haran, that probably wasn't obvious to you."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It was not, and I can't really do anything with the information either."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I know. It just felt sort of weird that you didn't know."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Fair enough."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That was my best guess for you, before it was clarified that you don't work like that."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Whyso?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Aret tend to be taller and more muscular and harmi tend to have more pronounced childbearing-related secondary sex characteristics."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. I wonder if your intragender variation is smaller than ours."

Permalink Mark Unread

Shrug. "I wouldn't be shocked by a harret or harmi with your proportions. Maybe a differently shaped bell curve."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Smaller, I wouldn't assume nonexistent if smell is doing so much of the work."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well. Yes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Is it hard to tell if there's a crowd?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...Some? It's a bit like voices."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh, that makes sense."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm glad."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I wonder if you have the same mess of stereotypes and prejudices as us. I mean, it wouldn't be identical, but similar in magnitude."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We have stereotypes and prejudices. I don't know if they're similar in magnitude."

Permalink Mark Unread

"We've never had an openly submissive president, f'rinstance."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's a president?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"My country elects wielders of executive power."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah. I think I heard Kettar does something like that..."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's popular on Earth. What do you have?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, we have a monarch."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hereditary?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Are there other kinds of monarch?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Interdimensional magic bar, I don't know!"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Fair enough."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Got a good one?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Shrug. "Not so bad or good that I've had any reason to take particular note. How's your president?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mediocre centrist."

Permalink Mark Unread

Nod. "I'm not very politically minded."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's overrated."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Politics?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Being into politics as a member of the general public."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah. That's not very common in my country, although of course everyone has an opinion on policies that directly impact them."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That's only reasonable."

Permalink Mark Unread

"One could hardly avoid it, really!"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, you probably could, just go 'I reserve judgment in the absence of a bird's-eye statistical-level view of this policy's impact'."

Permalink Mark Unread

Snort. "I could, I suppose. Most people I know couldn't."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's probably not worth the effort for most things."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Rather. And I don't think most people have the relevant education to build off of."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's your educational system like?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Primary education from seven to thirteen, secondary education from fourteen to twenty, and tertiary education from twenty to twenty-seven. Primary is mandatory, secondary is optional but strongly encouraged, and tertiary is a bit exclusive."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Huh. In my country education's compulsory till age eighteen which is around when most people finish secondary school and then there's a range of tertiary stuff varying in exclusivity and prestige."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I have met people who could not be induced with palaces and the sword to stay in school until eighteen."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Some people don't get along with formal education."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Rather, yes. And then you have people like my sibling, whose residence could be mistaken for a library."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'm the more academic of my twinset."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ooh, you're a twin too?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yeah, my brother's name is Alex."

Permalink Mark Unread

"My sibling's Kalethras."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Do you not have gendered words for siblings or is the translation effect just not rendering it?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think the translation isn't rendering it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Lot of words to keep track of with six. Unless you subdivide."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It does not! Not in my language, anyway."

Permalink Mark Unread

"My world mostly does gendered pronouns. Some places do role pronouns but then they need something separate for kids."

Permalink Mark Unread

Nod. "I can't think of anywhere that pronouns based on," she tugs her right ear. "It's much less, hm, fundamental? Than gender. To us."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Makes sense."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What's Alex like?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"He's good at drawing. He's not eclipsed so he went through a regular educational track, now he's in college trying to think of something more remunerative to major in than art."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, I did something similar in secondary school. My passion is poetry--and linguistics, as an extension of that, but none of the available jobs in linguistics, ah, involved the things that appeal to me about it. So I apprenticed to a perfumer after I graduated, and that went very well indeed."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't think that'd be Alex's thing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not in the specifics, no."

Permalink Mark Unread

"He keeps making jokes about just working for me."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I don't have a sense of how viable that is."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I make good money and will eventually have enough going on to want a PA, and he'd suit. But eventually."

Permalink Mark Unread

Nod. "My sibling does magic theory. They're brilliant."

Permalink Mark Unread

"What kinds of things do magic theorists in your world get up to?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Mostly details on the shapes needed to carve out abilities."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Like, 'this one is a Sierpinski triangle' -"

Permalink Mark Unread

"--I don't know what that is but no? The shapes are very complicated. There's a special notation."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It's a fractal."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Then maybe."