in this moment, i can breathe

I won a fantasia in a twitter giveaway and got to make a change that I’ve been debating for a while. Etienne’s been on HRT for a year.

As a NB person I always felt a lot of pride in creating Etienne’s femme-androgynous looks. They’ve helped me embrace a lot of the feminine side of myself I’ve cut off in order to survive - at least that’s how I thought of it for a long time. It was easier to be angry at the idea of femininity than the idea that I’ve been victimized by a society that punishes the feminine. 

I’ve been vacillating a lot between being delighted (cute emotes! girl clothes! a more suitable voice!) and my own mixed feelings about having ‘chosen a side’ for Etienne. I’m also a little sad that their face is one that’s a lot more common to see around on other players. For a long time I’ve felt I would have to ‘sacrifice’ something, and the way they were in the past was sacrificing some things (like not getting the more feminine cuts of clothes, having the masculine emotes, etc.) and this one is sacrificing being quite as strictly androgynous. But here’s where I’d have to say my desires for my character branch off a little from what they actually want.

Etienne being NB was a surprise for me from the beginning. I thought I was playing a very feminine and graceful man, but their androgyny - and others reaction to it - eventually tipped me off that they had very Not Cis feelings.

I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about my own identity, and therefore my characters as well. It’s hard for me to celebrate or acknowledge myself and I can feel awkward when people make a fuss over me even if it’s warranted. I know it sounds strange to phrase it that way but I’ve had a decade of expensive therapy to get me to the point where I can say at least sometimes I do things that are okay to be excited about.

So here’s some quick and pretty pictures with no editing, posted when everyone’s pretty silent online because they’re absorbed in the expac.

At the risk of discussing too much non-rp related things in a row… (I’ll get back to rp things soon, I promise)

In the future… You do not have to mention skin color differences between two clans of the same race, if you’re not going to show an actual difference of skin color between said two clans.

There is nothing “umber” or “dark skinned” about the render associated with the Rava.

The two clan renders are the same fair-skinned rabbit, but between a Winter and Summer tan and a bottle of hair dye. Please cut that out. 

What the in-game, character creator options will be is irrelevant when talking about this. If I tell you, “here inside this box are my red apples and here inside this other box are my green apples” and outside of both boxes the apples are shades of green and yellow, that’s… not an accurate representation of your words, now is it?

Words Mean Things!

It is already annoying to have various people running around a shade deeper than a paper plate describing themselves as “dark skinned,” stop adding to that bullshit.

If you do not want to, or are incapable of showing genuinely dark-skinned character types as The Canon, then just stop making that particular distinction. It is so simple.

They never label Rava as “dark skinned” only umber. Umber describes a wide variety of shades that fall under the “reddish brown, earthy toned” category. Looking at the specific color choice of the Rava skintone compared to Fran (The most common example of Viera no one has a problem with the skin color of) you can see it’s noticeably warmer and features a distinctly reddish hue, making the label of umber correct. Furthermore, compared to the Veena the skintones are quite far from each other.

You can see from this image, at the top right, I put a swatch with the skintone of each Viera. It’s pretty obvious the Rava has a more reddish brown tone than Fran, and is much more brown than the Veena. Umber is a fine term to describe it.

Here’s Raw Umber and Burnt Umber respectively, which are two extremely common oil paints.  They’re dark enough that I would actually use these paints instead of black, because pure black tends to flatten out a painting and suck life out of it if you don’t know what you’re doing where as umber is dark enough to be a substitute for black without the same “my painting looks kinda lifeless now” issue.

If we want to go literal dictionary definition:

I’m not saying all of this to be a pretentious asshole about color.  I’m saying all of this, because @mischiefandmystics​ is right: Words have meaning.

They especially have meaning for people who actually live in bodies with skin that actually is “umber” in color.  To you, I know this might be yet more grumbling from players who will never be satisfied with anything the devs do, but SE has never been all that great about representing folks of darker skintones.  The vast majority of their promotional art features super pale folks. So when you FINALLY have a race that is listed as “umber” in skintone and the example character looks like she just barely has a summer-tan, it reminds folks of racism and colorism, which is something those folks have to deal with every single day, 24/7 by virtue of living in the bodies they are in.  They have a right to be annoyed about something they deal with all the time, even if it’s something the rest of us never really have to think about.

And before someone brings up “But SE is a Japanese company and the Japanese just don’t know any better uwu.”:

SE is a big company that makes enough profit to hire researchers and marketers. If they want to market to a global audience, they have to cater to global tastes.  Every big company does this.  SE has already done this before by allowing gay marriage via Eternal Bonding ceremonies even though gay marriage is illegal in Japan, because they know Western audiences would find it distasteful.

Aedwen Morning & Hairstyles

Before Ala Mhigo’s fall / Pre-Calamity (x2) / ARR, HW, SB (x2) / Pre-SHB (x2)

thought i’d compile my most active rp characters into one, to make things easier! feel free to inquire about any of them, if you think you’d maybe like to rp! we can brainstorm and plot stuff out from there! i will update this masterpost as their availability for rp changes.

❝𝓌𝑒 𝒽𝒶𝒹 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓁𝒹, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒾𝓃𝓈𝓉𝑒𝒶𝒹 𝓌𝑒 𝒹𝓊𝑔 𝒶 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓋𝑒.❞

status: limited rp tag | art | aesthetics art © ultramari-ne

❝𝑒𝒶𝒸𝒽 𝒹𝒶𝓎, 𝓂𝓎 𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓈 𝒽𝓊𝓇𝓉 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓈𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝑜 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒.❞

status: open for rp tag | art | aesthetics art  © beansnake

❝𝓉𝑜 𝒷𝑒 𝓁𝒾𝓉 𝓊𝓅 𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃, 𝓋𝑒𝒾𝓃 𝒷𝓎 𝓋𝑒𝒾𝓃.❞

status: open for rp tag | art | aesthetics art  © ultramari-ne

❝𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓁𝒹 𝓈𝓅𝑒𝒶𝓀𝓈 𝓉𝑜 𝓂𝑒 𝒶𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓂𝒶𝒹𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝒾𝓇 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉𝓈.❞

status: limited rp tag | art | aesthetics art  © poetryforwolves

❝𝒾𝓁𝓁𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓈 𝒾𝓃𝓋𝒾𝓉𝑒𝓈 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓂𝓅𝓉. 𝒶 𝓈𝒾𝒸𝓀 𝓂𝒶𝓃 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌𝓈 𝒾𝓉.❞

status: limited rp tag | art | aesthetics art  © c2oh

❝𝒾 𝒶𝓂 𝓈𝑜 𝓉𝒾𝓇𝑒𝒹 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓉𝒶𝓈𝓉𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝓂𝓎 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉.❞

status: open for rp tag | art | aesthetics art  © captainbasch

❝𝒾 𝒶𝓂 𝓉𝑜𝓇𝓃 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝓌𝑜, 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝒾 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓆𝓊𝑒𝓇 𝓂𝓎𝓈𝑒𝓁𝒻.❞

status: limited rp tag | art | aesthetics art  © puppypresident

❝𝒾 𝓇𝓊𝓃 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝒶𝑔𝒶𝒾𝓃, 𝒻𝑒𝒶𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓌𝒾𝓃𝒹.❞

status: closed for rp tag | art | aesthetics art  © meishali

❝𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑔𝑜, 𝒶𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒷𝓁𝑜𝓈𝓈𝑜𝓂𝓈.❞