#flower pixie

The first thing we need to explain is Fae sex chromosomes. I gave them ZW and ZZ chromosomes to parallel insects (instead of XX and XY like humans).

Some animals can choose the sex of their offspring. This ability still exists in Fae genetics, sort of, but the fully conscious choice has been lost. Some Fae can produce both ZZ and ZW children while some can only produce ZWs.

Here is How This Works for Fairies (Not Pixies)

Damsels have the heterozygous chromosome (ZW); their body determines baby’s sex. Mom gives the baby a W unless she herself was exposed to royal jelly. If she was, she’ll give either.

In other words, most Fairies are born damsels. All moms with sons were exposed to royal jelly as kids. Unexposed damsels can only have daughters- never sons! Gynes who reproduce with exposed damsels have the highest chance of producing sons.

Here is a flowchart, broken down into bullet points below:

Mom and Dad have a kid, designated either drake or damsel at birth. They either expose the child to jelly or don’t.

An exposed drake becomes a gyne.

An exposed damsel develops slightly differently from an unexposed damsel. These damsels would be gynes if they had been born drakes; they tend to be more dominant than unexposed damsels.

An unexposed drake born to a kabouter father becomes an unexposed kabouter.

An unexposed drake born to a gyne or drone father becomes a drone.

You cannot have an “exposed kabouter drake.” They are gynes. However, there are two types of unexposed drakes (drone and kabouter) depending on what their father was.

Fairies believe there are four sexes: Gyne, drone, kabouter drake, and kabouter damsel. They do not yet know it’s the three months after birth that determine whether a kid is a gyne or that kabouter damsels can be divided into exposed and unexposed categories.

In my final FOP ‘fic, Devil’s Backbone, Foop discovers the effect jelly has on Fairies.

Remember: The Fae don’t know the effects of jelly yet. However, they can sort of sense a difference between exposed and unexposed damsels. Exposed damsels are often tall and are considered more attractive in Fairy culture for the same reason gynes are: a tendency towards dominance.

So that’s how birth/gender works with the Fae. Maybe now it makes sense why 75% of the Fairy and Anti-Fairy babies are born damsels (I talked about this in the Fairy and Anti-Fairy class overviews under “Gender Dynamics” if you are interested in further reading, and the effect this gender skew has had on their cultures… I find the Anti-Fairy gender dynamics section particularly interesting if you’re only going to pick one!)

Will o’ the wisps are an exception to the 75% damsel rule. Compared to most Fairies, wisps have a very high chance of having sons. Wisp damsels tend to be fragile due to genetic instability, so you end up with a lot of wisp drakes.

The gender skew is connected to the once-high mortality rate of damsels. Once upon a time, Fairy damsels would die after mating, so there needed to be a lot of females in the species to reproduce. In modern times, the Eros family shoot Fairy damsels with arrows that give them the magical energy boost they need to survive mating.

Fun Fact: This history of damsel deaths is also partly why Fairies marry young but have kids late, and why Fairy culture has never been the type to pressure people to have kids… You only mated if you accepted you or your partner would die! This contributed to mating being a rare, super ceremonial act in Fairy culture and is why we see special mating rooms (yidreamu) in Fairy architecture.

It’s Different For Pixies and Here’s Why

Pixies are infected with Wolbachia pipientis, and one of its phenotypes [in insects] is feminization (in Fae it’s masculinization). Some pixies are born with ZW chromosomes, but ZZ reproductive parts. These kids would have been born damsels, but because their father is infected with Wolbachia, they were turned into drakes midway through development. In the Frayed Knots chapter “Bottled Emotions,” we learn Wilcox is one such pixie.

About 50% of Pixies have damsel sex chromosomes. However, most do not know it because they are not tested for it (Why would you bother?) As a result, 50% of Pixies are drones and 50% are kabouters who identify as drones because they were raised thinking they are drones.

(Commelina is still the only pixie born with ZW sex chromosomes and ZW reproductive parts, so she is definitely a kabouter).

So what does this mean? Not much. These “kabouter” pixies are half drone and half kabouter, so they’re pretty similar to full drones. They are still influenced by pheromones, but not as strongly. As a result, they’re a little more rebellious than the full drones, but not as rebellious as a full kabouter (the least influenced by pheromones) would be.

Here’s another example: Longwood is a ZZ pixie gyne. He’s considered moderately attractive since he’s a gyne. Smith is a ZW pixie gyne. He gets the attractive bonus for being a gyne AND the attractive bonus for being an exposed ZW. People don’t understand it logically, but their bodies can sense he’s “double attractive.” As a result of being doubly attractive, his pheromones were incredibly strong from a young age. Very seductive boy. All the other pixie gynes are ZZs, so he’s the only one like that.

Commelina sat across from me, her hands folded on the desk, and looked me in the eyes. “All the other pixies are dressing up in their suits. But Emery has a dress. I want to wear a dress too.”

I studied her, my fingers resting against my lips. “I don’t think so.”

“H.P., I’ve been nothing but kind and loyal to you throughout my life, suppressing myself even when I haven’t wanted to. I ask simply for one day to wear my hair down and feel the whirl and flow of light fabric around my legs.”

I closed my eyes. “One day?”

“One day.”

“But the gloves stay on.”

“Fine, but I want a knee-length skirt.”

“Ankle-length.”

“Halfway.”

“Halfway, and the dress is long-sleeved.”

“Sleeveless and I babysit the next five nymphs any time of day you need it.”

“Sleeveless and you clean the warehouse every week for three decades.”

Commelina pursed her lips, but agreed. We drew the contract up together, and she signed it with her right hand instead of her left.

“For one day,” I said as she rose to her wings. “But only this once. Do you understand?”

“I’ll wear my gloves, boss. I’ll be fine.”

—

I elbowed Sanderson in the ribs and lifted my glass in Commelina’s direction. “There’s a pretty damsel over there that I think you ought to dance with.”

He massaged two fingers behind his neck. “You know I’m not the best dancer, sir.”

“I don’t think that will matter. I know she likes you a lot.”

“Oh, does she? Well, I suppose that’s different.” A thin smile crossed his lips. After licking both palms, he ran them through his hair. His cowlick bounced up straighter. “It would be rude to leave Dayflower a wallflower, wouldn’t it?”

—

Sanderson bowed, then presented Commelina’s hand to me. She turned, her face as blank as any pixie’s, but her shoulders tense with anxiety. I placed one of my hands behind her back, low at the base of her spine. I held her left hand in my right.

“Have you ever danced the Riverfall?” I asked her.

“I don’t believe I have, sir. What is it?”

Cases

Just like sexual orientation terms, modern human words like trans and transgender aren’t used anachronistically in my works, but the concept exists and we do have some interesting cases to look at.

The ancestors of present-day fae, the Aos Sí, were hermaphrodite beings. Gender was not even remotely part of their culture. Technically their language didn’t include pronouns at all, but for the benefit of the reader, they/them pronouns exist and are used when discussing the Aos Sí, such as in the “That Was Then” and “Stand Alone” Prompts.

Daoine, also hermaphrodite, technically don’t have pronouns in their language either. For the benefit of the reader, Daoine choose their pronouns, and they/them is equally common and viewed as acceptable alongside he/him and she/her.

In Anti-Fairy culture, souls are inherently genderless, and cycle through life reincarnating in different bodies. Body dysphoria isn’t considered an issue for Anti-Fairies; it’s 100% expected that you will feel body dysphoria, but it’s believed that body dysphoria is a natural struggle of life. Anti-Fairies almost never ask to be referred to with different pronouns, since they’re taught that souls are genderless, but that they should identify with the expected pronouns for their current body’s sex. Body dysphoria is considered happy proof that reincarnation is a real thing, and isn’t viewed as an unpleasant burden.

The first High Count of the Anti-Fairies, Anti-Kahnii, is explicitly referred to with they/them pronouns. We’ll discuss Anti-Kahnii more eventually (they’re the narrator of “Stand Alone”), but Anti-Kahnii was the very last Aos Sí to split their soul into three counterparts. Due to certain circumstances such as pregnancy, none of the three Kahniis ever felt comfortable identifying as male or female, and simply identified as “Neither.” Anti-Kahnii is a very respected figure in Anti-Fairy culture, and referring to them with pronouns besides they/them is considered extremely offensive.

We recently learned in Frayed Knots that Anti-Cosmo is the reincarnation of a damsel. He has some scattered memories, but considers that part of his past to be dead, and uses he/him pronouns.

In Anti-Fairy culture, they/them pronouns have traditionally been reserved for those believed to be closest with the nature spirits. According to Fairy culture, Anti-Cosmo has the magical mood disorder divus displacement disorder, but according to Anti-Fairies, his mood swings are the result of his soul intertwining with a lightning spirit. In his youth, he was referred to with they/them pronouns, despite the fact that he begged to be addressed as he/him instead. Most of the Anti-Fairy public don’t know he was ever referred to as anything other than he/him.

I was gonna save this for later, but Foop is genderfluid and doesn’t care what pronouns you use to identify him. Most of the public refer to him with he/him pronouns, and he expects she/her pronouns when he’s presenting as Angel. He sometimes uses they/them pronouns as a plural to encompass both himself and Hiccup. He only actively identifies as genderfluid when he’s older; during his youth, he identifies as male.

We also just learned in Knots that some pixies have been “masculinized” as a side effect of Wolbachia pipientis. One of the four phenotypes of Wolbachia is feminization: In insects, infected males are turned into functional females, who develop a uterus and can reproduce asexually like the regular infected females. About 40% of pixies were randomly born with damsel sex chromosomes, but drake reproductive parts, although most of them have no idea and see no difference between themselves and the other pixies. We don’t delve into this much in my fanfics because it doesn’t really do anything besides tick off Venus Eros, but it’s a thing that does exist.

The pixie Commelina is an extremely unusual case who was born with both damsel sex chromosomes and a damsel’s reproductive system for super rare Wolbachia reasons we’ll discuss later in Origin of the Pixies. She is the only pixie in my works to use she/her pronouns. I shared her concept art on this blog HERE and now that I’ve revealed her, I guess she’s due for a finalized design and an official character profile!

Changes

Using regular pink magic to change your sex will only affect you, not your counterparts. Ongoing magic will drain energy as normal, and fade when the user is deprived of magic or if their connection to the energy field fritzes (such as when aroused, or drunk on candy and soda).

Those who attend schools like the Fairy Academy can choose different specialties to study. Alteration magic is a medical specialty that allows you to change a person’s body and lock it into place as the new default, so maintaining the look won’t be continuously draining and won’t normally undo itself in magic deadzones. Alteration is usually used for cosmetic reasons, but can be used for big changes too. This is a permanent, all-encompassing change and will affect counterparts if alteration magic is used on the host. Cosmo had his nose altered with alteration magic, which also affected his counterparts, but Timmy’s wish in “The Boy Who Would Be Queen” that Cosmo and Wanda would be “Back to the way they were born” overrode the alternation magic, because wishes are that powerful.

If the host counterpart has a physical transition instead of a magical one, the counterparts will not be affected, so you could end up with a Fairy the same sex as their Refracted counterpart instead of their Anti-Fairy counterpart.

You could also take the long way by swapping souls with a cù sith / fairy dog and then swapping souls with someone else, and get a new body that way. Most people consider this unethical because it usually involves stealing a body from someone else without their permission, but it works if you’re desperate, and it can be done with consent too.

Society

The first thing you need to know about Fairy society is, Fairy society has excellent gender equality. Damsels were never seen as fragile childbearers, and have always been viewed as equally capable of doing tasks that drakes can do (although the stereotype is that drakes can deliver more powerful punches of magic, and damsels can maintain magic for longer). It’s always been socially acceptable for drakes and damsels to wear either pants or dresses. It’s not uncommon for a drake to be a homemaker and for his wife to be the family breadwinner (and the reverse is equally common).

Fairy culture emphasizes the idea that you know yourself better than anyone, and you should live the life you’re most comfortable living as long as you’re respecting everyone else’s life to do the same. So, Fairy culture is very accepting of things like alteration magic.

Anti-Fairy culture is biased to favor drakes, since I based their social structure off bat colony social structure. It’s more likely a damsel would be open about transitioning to being a drake than a drake would be open about transitioning to be a damsel. It miiiiiight be worth noting that due to the way Anti-Fairy biology works, two drakes can mate exactly the same way a drake and damsel can, so drakes transitioning to damsels for the sole purpose of changing reproductive parts would never happen. You wouldn’t need to.

Anti-Fairy culture tends to sneer at alteration magic in general as something unnatural and immoral, since Anti-Fairy culture revolves around fate and destiny, and you’re viewed as going against the nature spirits if you alter your looks for long (Remember, this is the culture that believes you should only shapeshift into one animal form your entire life).

Most Anti-Fairies believe in reincarnation, and will openly admit if they feel they’re a different sex in this life than they were in past lives, but the general belief is that you should live your current life with the body you’ve been given. Altering that body in any significant way is considered insulting to the spirits (though whether the spirits actually do care is another concept altogether).

The social stigma against alteration magic is what forces Foop to use a potion to age himself in “Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails.”

Transitioning would not be acceptable in Refracted culture, with one exception- Dame Artemis allows her followers to cast off old traditions and live however they like. She doesn’t care what you want to do with your body, and encourages her followers to respect everyone.