Short Story: "Strax"

[Alicorn]

The narrator's gender wasn't intended to be ambiguous; Mel says "Daddy" early in the story and Gail is referred to as his wife even if you don't know the gender of the name.

I wasn't sure I'd find a place to mention that I was imagining them black but then that occasion popped up so I put it in.

[Tamien]

The only indication that I noticed of the gender of the narrator was the mention of the girl saying "Daddy", and until that, I, too, was wondering if the narrator was a woman.

I glossed over the description of the daughter and did not notice that she was described as black.

[Shoal]

The story did feel very true. You could get a similar response bringing a baby with hearing aids to a Deaf convention.

[cbhacking]

Well, now I'm embarrassed at having missed "dad" in my search for strings that would reveal where in the story the narrator's gender was first revealed. That should have been obvious. Having a wife named Gail isn't conclusive of anything at all...

Like Tamien, I completely glossed over the description. Oops. I have a tendency to do that (I completely missed the description of the Princess in Goldmage until some forum members started asking about her) but there's a bemusing sort of irony in wondering if the parents had been victims of discrimination, concluding that there was no evidence of that aside from a strongly implied lack of wealth, and then missing the obvious clue that OF COURSE they'd faced such before.

[DeAnno]

Is being a Strax recessive, or more complicated than that? I noticed there was a comment about most Strax being children of non-Strax, the general lack of young children at the convention seems to also indicate it doesn't work that way, and there was another offhand comment about Strax with non-Strax children (that could've been referencing adoptions though.)

I would think the reverse situation, a Strax couple with a non-Strax child, would be kind of more horrifying. If the music you're making is loud and stressing out your kid, that seems pretty problematic. Do most Strax not have kids because of this, or adopt Strax children?

[Bluelantern]

Is being a Strax recessive, or more complicated than that? I noticed there was a comment about most Strax being children of non-Strax, the general lack of young children at the convention seems to also indicate it doesn't work that way, and there was another offhand comment about Strax with non-Strax children (that could've been referencing adoptions though.)

I would think the reverse situation, a Strax couple with a non-Strax child, would be kind of more horrifying. If the music you're making is loud and stressing out your kid, that seems pretty problematic. Do most Strax not have kids because of this, or adopt Strax children?

maybe it is more complicated than a single gene pair?

[Alicorn]

I don't have a specific inheritance model in mind. Strax are more likely than non-strax to have strax children, but there are so few strax around to begin with that most of them still have nonstrax or mixed parents.