Alicorn wrote:...I dunno how mechanical you wanna get, but:
this is the price I pay for using quotes, and no I wasn't implying that kind of mechanical
Alicorn wrote:Ivans are Mostly Heterosexual and Entirely Heteroromantic. An Ivan may come in either gender, with biases both towards matching their Miles and to being a locally socially-dominant gender. (If these conflict, either may win, depending.) Their sexuality follows their gender; lady Ivans are boy-crazy. Ivans are sufficiently opposite-sex-crazy that it takes extra time and outside prompting (e.g. "I think it's hot when boys make out with each other" sayeth a girl) to notice that, hey, necking and/or having orgasms with members of the same sex also sounds like a reasonable way to pass the time. It is virtually impossible to get an Ivan to pass up opposite sex nookie, or even a non-negligible chance thereof, in order to enjoy some same-sex nookie instead; but if same-sex nookie is the only on offer they will go for it. They are pretty comfy with this; Barrayaran Ivans don't even have the hangups that ostensibly-naturally-bisexual Barrayaran Mileses do, just enough discretion not to blab about it to people who don't want to or shouldn't hear it. Ivans can do mono or poly arrangements in low-commitment setups; in the long haul they prefer mono (possibly with specific exceptions/threesomes/etc., but not generally dating around per se).
I feel strongly inclined to ask a bunch of mathematical questions about this. How much the opposite-sex nookie values over same-sex nookie? Like if Ivan has to choose between one opposite-sex nookie and two same-sex nookies, which one he would pick? Would Ivan pick becoming bi-romantic if the option was available and there were no social issues? How much the opportunity of having alt-sex stacks against opposite-sex nookie? What Ivan is attracted to in people (blond hair, nice curves, you know) and how much it translates across genders?
Sorry for my bad english
"Yambe Akka take the stars, they’re zombies!" - Isabella Amariah
You could offer an Ivan an entire monogendered orgy and he'd go off with a girl.
Ivans do not wish to self-modify in this way, although they'd be varying amounts of definite nope about it. (Of threaded Ivans, Aurin is least definitely nope.)
Ivans are interested in banging other Ivans, and will be dramatically more interested in that if ever and opposite sex pair shall meet; same sex altcest with a fellow Ivan of the same sex would probably beat out mid-range opposite-sex nookie for sheer curiosity/novelty once, but not more than once (although if Ivans A and B bang, and then Ivan A has to pick between hooking up with a girl or giving C a spin, he will probably have pity on C's situation being late to the party).
Ivans are pretty conventional in their tastes, although not necessarily perfectly conventional (depends on the conventions they live near), and are more or less without bias about coloration, height, curviness, etc, except insofar as "healthy and possessed of secondary sex characteristics" counts. (Although Barrayaran Ivans won't touch anybody who doesn't at least look healthily nonmutatedly human.) They are not particularly into gender-non-conforming presentations even when it's someone of Dispreferred Gender looking like Preferred Gender but it's not a big deal. They are happily into distinctive or "exotic" features on otherwise conventionally attractive people, but they don't have that thing where someone who is mostly just conventionally attractive and not much else looks bland and unappealing. They have an upper limit - Ivans are, like, only barely attracted to haut after the first minutes of exposure, and if pressed to describe this phenomenon would complain that they "don't look real". (Not that they'd turn one down per se, but they wouldn't pursue them even given signals that would usually have them going full speed ahead.) Ivans can be induced to have pity sex with ugly people but only once per ugly person and only in certain moods.
How do Ivans feel about people who are normally the same gender as them but temporarily shapeshifted into the opposite gender (and, you know, reasonably behaving like the opposite gender)? I'm going to assume heteroromanticism is still entirely relevant but I'm less sure about the rest.
A person usually matching the Ivan temporarily and physically-only switching to not match the Ivan makes the Ivan more interested in sex but not more interested in romance. Permanent switching in someone sufficiently ambivalent about gender to be okay with that in the first place will lead to the Ivan treating the person entirely like they were originally a member of the opposite sex.
Kappa wrote:I have a vague curiosity about Kumi's world but not enough information to ask specific questions. So like, Kumi's world: what's up with that?
Thank you for that lovely setup, Kappa.
Here is some information about Kumi's world in general and Kumi's nation in particular. If you have not yet met Kumi or her world, you should be warned that this is going to be lewd content. (As if you haven't been already.)
Spoiler for Lewd
Kumi's world is known as Honey.
It is a world written for smut, much like Test Bed's Chaeral - but in different ways from Chaeral.
Where Chaeral mostly has sex-as-magic, Honey is more focused on sex-as-culture. It has a number of various societies, many of which handle sex in significantly different ways. The original world was an RP worldbuilding collaboration, with different societies belonging to different people. I was the writer for Kyuchi (Aka Kitsune Vale), Medina, and Prismata. All other nations in the setting belong to other participants, though I may have inadvertently changed them in this summary due to misremembering them.
Honey is set entirely on one continent, though there is an uncolonized 'new world' out there somewhere. The world is generally Earth-like except where noted.
Major differences:
- Effective and commonly available aphrodisiacs exist.
- Magic exists, of various different types.
- The tech level is just coming up to the black powder age, save where magic is involved.
- Various nonhuman species.
The Major Powers:
The Confederacy Of Kadmos
General Background:
Kadmos is a matriarchal, Renaissance-tech, vaguely Greco-roman city-state, with the majority of (but not all) slaves replaced with magic robots. Kadmosi aesthetic ideals are 'muscular, competent woman' and 'soft, beautiful man'. Naturally occurring hormone-adjusting herbs in their territory help them with this.
The robots who act as dedicated servants to the Kadmosi population are actually only a few dozen distributed AIs, each commanding hundreds of bodies at once. These AIs, known as Spartoi, are products of a Precursor tech that has now been lost: while the Kadmosi can build new bodies for the existing AIs, they don't know how to 'wake them up.'
The Spartoi are intensely curious about how biological creatures live their lives. Though they have limited understanding of emotion, they want to learn it: as a result, Kadmos society has been coaxed into having most everything occur 'out in the open.' Spartoi backing also ensures the arts have strong patronage, most especially the craft of acting: at any time of day there are dozens of melodrama being presented, many of which are highly explicit.
The Growth
The Growth is a dystopian dictatorship of hermaphroditic plant-people, led in theory by a council of elders, and in practice by the megalomaniacal Head Scientist Rosalind. Think "Chelsea who invented her own powers and wants to rule the world." They do magitech genetic engineering and mind control, and the majority of the populace are heavily indoctrinated towards bubbly cheerfulness. Floran society has no nudity taboo, and is extremely sexually open - yes, even for this world.
Despite their outside appearance as cheerful free-love enthusiasts, the Florans are in fact the #1 antagonists of the setting. They're kind of like the Culture, except evil and at a lower tech level.
The Harem Herds
Centaur and Wolfkin (think Worgen/Canim - big furry muscular people) trading conglomerate, generally run by the Centaur. Most well-known for the city of Sibling, which is basically Honey's Las Vegas. The centaur culture is the harem-based one: they employ the Wolfkin for most of their manual labor.
When not employed by the Centaur, Wolfkin have their own unique culture with its own... 'Foibles.' Specifically, Wolfkin have a marked tendency to develop intense crushes on members of smaller, cuter races, and follow them around in love-struck dazes trying to get them to wear the most disgustingly adorable outfits possible. Think "I look like a cake" levels of lace dresses. Wolfkin strongly refuse to allow their adopted 'pets' to do any work - they believe that one day their creator god, the All-Wolf, will return from the moon to take back the hands of those Wolfkin who did not put them to use. Being able to sew in a fashionable style is a particular status symbol, since it implies that not only does the Wolfkin have cute pets, but they care for them well.
Kyuchi (Kitsune Vale)
An isolationist-until-recently nation of fox-people. Theocratic, caste-based society based on the proportion of fox blood in one's veins. Fertility rites and general sex magic. Kitsune culture is one of the more reserved ones in Honey, treating sex as a sacred and precious thing.
Due to the recent opening of the nation's borders, a large wave of Kitsune migrants has been unleashed upon the world. Some are tourists, some are immigrants, and some are agents of the Kitsune theocracy, hunting down more advanced technology and magic. On the whole, these migrants are generally the less reserved and more adventurous members of their race, and their ramshackle tent-towns outside other nations' walls have often proved headaches for the local authorities.
