so @kingofherrings added some really good Discourse as replies but I can’t reply to them all and they’re REALLY IMPORTANT so sorry about hijacking everything but here are their comments:
I feel like this’d have almost as many, but different, problems and pressures as now. Genderfluid youth vs. being told every other week that genderfluid balls are SUCH a hassle, we really couldn’t afford one, so they don’t come out as that. Genderfluid youth vs. pressure to have two costume changes at their ball, even though the youth is feeling HELLA dysphoric and would rather stick with a nice dress the whole time, thanks.
Suspicion of bisexuals on how it increases their royal s.o. playing field, and some youths getting pressured to be bi-er than they are.
Extreme pressure to have yourself figured out by about 16. Don’t worry, nobody’s ever learned anything about themselves or changed when older! /sarc
(not to dismiss younger teens knowledge of themselves in the real world, but to say that there are some people who learn more after that time, and having Come Out to The Crowned Heads at Great Expense as a cisgender gay and then seeing the same Monarch around years later, them all “oh, yes, I recall, you are Lady Mallorbody’s gay son-” when meantime the youth in question is now really sure they’re Lady Mallorbody’s heterosexual daughter…
Like, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT THOUGH. THAT’S LITERALLY HOW THE PLOTS WORK AND THE CHARACTERS DEVELOP. THAT’S HOW YOU SET UP THE CONFLICT BETWEEN IDENTITY AND SOCIETY THAT POWERS THE YOUNG ADULT NOVEL, OR THE EXPLORATION OF A NEW WORLD THAT POWERS SF/F.
The story conceit is the pretty, flashy, Regency-Rococo frosting that you sink into because there’s a part of you that genuinely fucking enjoys the pretty dresses and serious manners and masc people in tight trousers, the part of you that maybe would fuck an elf. And there is no shame in that.
But despite what a lot of junior writers seem to believe, a story is not just the story conceit - you don’t make a book out of one pretty idea. You literally come up with something Problematic and then play with it. Harry Potter takes the conceit of a magical British boarding school with a distinct culture and specific rules, and gives you an abused outsider child who knows nothing of the culture, a child born outside of the culture, and a poor child born within the culture, and says “You’re at war. A civil war within the culture. Go. Break the rules.” What if you COULD fuck an elf but elves are slightly evil? What if magic is real (for the umpteenth time) but it costs a Price?! What if X people are among us… but they hate us?! The concept is literally one half of the setup, and the other half starts with a “but.” Narnia is real, BUT it’s at war. Gay people aren’t marginalized, BUT society is still fucked up. Utopia is here and nothing is problematic, but…?
You start with the conceit because it sounds SLY and FUNNY and full of POTENTIAL. You have a funky, fresh, unusual little starting point with a cute aesthetic that will make a catchy cover. Everybody’s ready for it, they want to see what you do. NOW YOU TEAR IT APART. THAT’S HOW YOU WRITE STORIES. Now you add in the protagonist who doesn’t fit into the society. Now you add in the people from other classes and what they’re doing. Now you note the seeds of the revolution. (If Regency, the American revolution? Shoehorn in some Hamilton flavor if you want, some rough-edged androgynous American revolutionaries who sweep the hero off his perfect sugar-colored high heels, eyyyy.) Now you get to the cake under the frosting.
ALL OF THOSE THINGS YOU’RE POINTING OUT ARE THE STARTING POINTS FOR THE STORY! YES! EXACTLY!
“Oh but fuck the upper classes though” - UM, EXACTLY? THAT’S A BOOK. GO.
“But Elodie set up a thing where genderfluid youths might cost their parents more” - I KNOW RIGHT? SOCIAL COMPLEXITY!
“But they’re all too young” - WELCOME TO THE FUCKED-UP WORLD OF YA! USE THIS TO EXAMINE HOW CHILDREN ARE “TOO YOUNG” TO LABEL THEMSELVES NOW - also, surely a come-out would happen in the the Vintage Queer sense, in which your party would be organized when you are ready to announce your identity, rather than when your parents can afford to put you on the marriage market? Or would it? Why are we assuming they’re teenagers? Do they need to be? Could a grizzled handsome war veteran come out for the first time after a shocking encounter? Would you like to take my money now, or later?
Look, here’s a bunch of blurbs I wrote using “In a society, BUT.” It took 10 minutes.
“In a world where young gay people have fancy parties to enter society, one young person is questioning everything it means to be gay…”
“Like any other young trans boy of the aristocracy, Silver’s family can’t wait to throw his first Coming Out Ball. Clever, wild and funny, Silver’s a sure bet to win the affections of the Prince of Flame and Shadow. But Silver has a secret that his family just don’t understand: he’s straight…”
“When a strange masked person with a Virginian twang steals Prince Harry’s crystal slipper at the Big Gay Ball, the Prince embarks on a quest to find them…”
“Clarissa Montclare is a wry-humored, hard-up heiress of a crumbling Yorkshire estate, who can’t really be bothered with London glitter or the big gay marriage market. But Clarissa’s pretty young wife never got to make that choice for herself, and desperately wants to seek her dreams in the big city… while Clarissa’s rugged, idealistic Scottish husband wants them all to overthrow capitalism. Clarissa just wants to work out a new method of fertilization, because somebody has to care about soil fertility. Can she keep her family together? This novel explores the conflict of capitalism vs. aesthetic, power vs. equality, necessary revolution vs. safe peace, and has long pondering monologues where Clarissa strides across the atmospheric misty moors with her spaniel, pondering her conflicting feelings on motherhood. Also, entire paragraphs about the use of manure.”
“In a society in which Big Gay Balls are just an excuse for Porn Without Plot (because boys in lacy Regency knickers), a romance between opposites turns out to be surprisingly sweet and genuine…”
“There are parallel universes, one that’s a standard Pride and Prejudice heteronormative regency AU, one that’s the Coming Out Ball Regency AU. A young gay person from the heteronormative AU switches places with a young grey-ace person from the Gay Ball AU, and they explore each other’s societies. But what seems amazing and perfect to the former outsiders is slowly revealed to be problematic and creepy, and the two young people have to unite again to destroy the parasitic third universe preying on them all…”
COMING-OUT BALLS ARE A CONCEPT. LADY MALLORBODY’S HETEROSEXUAL TRANS DAUGHTER IS A BOOK.
