The Spartan Desire To Be Simultaneously Proud Of Your Identity While Also Wanting The Luxury Of Being

CHURCH INFO

Compiled all the Church Animatic info so far into a doc!  

This is not by any means a slight against the other person who started this process a while ago!  But since I have all the information in my head, and I’d never demand that they keep theirs constantly updated…this seemed like the best way to proceed. @v@

Some relevant notes:

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Billi speaks. (via billispeaks)

Geode (x)

Give us a lil A5, D4, E5, H3, R1?

A5. what is their most impressive talent?Illusions. Sure, he knows other spells, he’s a decent swordsman, and he’s got a good voice, but illusions are the only thing that he has which is consistently really impressive. He’s got the imagination for it, too.D4. what type of clothes and accessories do they wear?Ha ha. Well Paisley has a red paisley scarf; it’s old but it has held up well. I think the aesthetic is a lot of reds and browns. As for his normal ‘uniform’ I think it’s something along the lines of the clothes in the original moodboard. A nice old coat, sensible boots, nothing baggy enough to be dangerous, a belt with a few pouches full of components, the Chain insignia on a necklace or on a loop off his belt. As for when he’s off duty, he probably has a few nice, light, baggy shirts. He probably hasn’t gone too far from a Riojan style.E5. do they portray their personality intentionally or let people figure it out on their own?He’d make it clear to anyone that he’s friendly enough, but I think he’d let people figure him out beyond any surface level “Oh this guy’s alright.”H3. do they like the snow?Probably likes it for a couple days, or when it’s falling lightly. He probably hates it when it’s constant and he can’t avoid the cold.R1. do they follow rules?In the Chain? Yeah. I think a lot of his sensibility comes from not actively wanting to break the rules like some of the misfit Helltroopers. He’s pretty content being a soldier, so why fuck that up? If it’s harmless fun, or if he’s making sure some delinquent doesn’t die, he’s not axiomatically opposed to breaking rules, though, and he probably wouldn’t follow an objectively bad decision as an order.

a billion screaming, squamous things approach, oozing and crawling through the shattered tatters of a sane world.

all the doors are open, now.

someone say chain ocs?

Hops

an exceedingly nimble dwarf woman with thick sideburns and tied-back hair. She wears a simple dress and an apron; when shes on a mission she’ll change into light armor and a hood. She has a deep interest in the craftsmanship of alcohol (she has a soft spot for sour ales) but doesnt seem to drink large volumes. She is eager to be part of Angel’s/Boots’ spy network but is being kept away by Angel as she has already been seen around Capital as a Chain member.

She joined the chain as a way to experience the cultures, food and drink of the surface-dwellers of orden, and the timescape itself; the ability to test her steel and cunning in honorable (and not so honorable) combat was only a bonus.

were I to make her a pc she would be a dwarf (obviously) rogue and probably a scout subclass and the guild artisan (brewer) background

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/Ac3YnuqS0tctbxz7T8BDodYX-WnqlyEWv8G_uAehpUu8Y4fmIMIe498/

tfw you believe in somebody so much they become a god

Lana Jay  -  https://www.facebook.com/Lanajay2  -  https://www.redbubble.com/es/people/lana-jay  -  https://www.instagram.com/lanajay_art  -  https://www.etsy.com/es/shop/LanaJayArt

(1/3) In my fantasy world, I have humans, elves, and dwarves. I’m trying to give them all a wide variety of races and cultures, though we only meet a few of them. They all have pretty different approaches to gender. The humans in the area I’m focusing on have I guess pretty Western conceptions of gender, but I have multiple trans characters, including some nonbinary ones later one (one of the main characters is a human trans man).

(2/3) The dwarf cultures we encounter have pretty set gender roles but they don’t care who fulfills them/their ideas of gender aren’t tied to biology like humans’ often are, so there’s a really large percentage of trans dwarves. The elves don’t really have gender at all. They don’t have gendered pronouns. They can also change their appearance at will, and obviously sex and gender are different and also both socially constructed, but the elves as a whole don’t really think about either one.

A lot of elves do prefer a certain presentation, but the only ones who ever really gender themselves are the ones who live among humans or dwarves and have to choose pronouns in those languages. Some of them choose pronouns that “match” their presentation, some deliberately don’t, and some ask that people just change it up, the way that a lot of humans also do. Is there anything I should avoid or anything I need to think through better in all of this?

(I submitted that before saying so but the elf pronouns ask was 3/3)

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Honestly, I have never come across an ask about fantasy gender stuff that was more evidently thought through or knowledgeable about gender and gender systems. You seem to have really gone through the work to make this a diverse and beautiful world. I think you’re doing great, but here’s some things I’m thinking.

I would keep in mind that the term ‘trans’ doesn’t necessarily translate across cultures. Using a different word or label doesn’t make it any less representation. It’s more in the portrayal and the way of getting across how different people relate to their own gender identity. Dwarves might be free to ID as trans in a translation, or maybe they have a similar or identical term but it just means something different. If there aren’t gender assignments the same way as in the cultures our contemporary definition of trans* had in mind, it might feel like a compromise for a dwarf who has grown up their entire life free of the same constraints to feel like trans (in our definition) is an accurate label. Or maybe not, or maybe it depends on the individual or the place they grew up or who they grew up around or their own specific culture.

In cases where terms/labels change, the key to making it actual representation is to focus on concepts of relatability. There’s no one way to be trans of course, but there are some things that I see in other cultures that I relate to because of my relationship with my gender. 

Another idea on something you could use to add more depth - gender is seldom just gender. For some people, their gender identity is tied in with their sense of kinship. Like, someone might really love being a mother, and that’s a large part of how that particular person relates to their gender identity. There are also a lot of cultures (including most of western-colonial gender systems as perceived through most of written history) (subcultures can have this too) where things like orientation might be a big part of how someone relates to their gender identity. For example, I know a lot of people who identify their gender as lesbian. These kinds of things exist in pretty much every culture (that I know of). I think more people feel this way too than most of us really think about - we have our gender identity label in its simplified form and then we have other terms and ideas associated that we relate to; ways of interpreting our relationship with other ideas and feelings and social and societal ties. Or whatever else.

I would also think a bit about the third culture folks and how nomadic people may develop identities. (Nomadic cultures exist on nearly every continent in our world. Some of these cultures did the whole ethnogenesis thing within the past 300 years, though most of the nomadic peoples I am familiar with go back at least a thousand. Some nomadic people aren’t part of nomadic ethnic groups but may have a subculture, like military families and carnies. I’m mainly thinking about how the subculture folks would develop identities and what that would be influenced by because otherwise folks just have their own regular cultures.)

I’d also think about maybe making up pronouns that are meant to refer to someone with a dwarf or elf etc gender identity. I know some folks who want the pronouns they use in their ancestral or native languages to be the ones used in English as well. Maybe instead of choosing an English (or Common, idk your world) pronoun, some folks opt to just keep using the same pronouns as always, regardless of the language they are using.

All in all, most of my advice and tips are just, “here’s how you can get even more creative with it if you want to, and add more depth.” There’s a lot to read on these topics but it can be hard to research because people don’t typically get to this level of depth. (I definitely don’t mean to knock at anybody - there is not a soul out there who is not learning and growing in some way.)- mod nat* The definition of trans I’m referencing here is identifying differently (either wholly or in part) with a gender (or lack thereof) than what was assigned to you at birth. That kind of hinges on the idea of birth assignments being a thing. I do have a feeling this definition will change a bit once people stop gendering infants based on genitalia shape. But y’know, that’s something to think about. Maybe have a lore-based definition. Maybe it varies in different cultures. I dunno - go with the flow! Get creative with it.