This is how I write Sarsi’s brother. His name is Ali and he is a transmasc nonbinary person who goes by he/they.
“I want to be called handsome, but I want to keep my body pretty” is a sentence that resonates with him because he chose not to alter his physical body.
He leans towards masculinity, but still wears make up and does traditionally “feminine” things that he doesn’t consider as gendered.
He is an intensely fun character to write because he throws gender on its head and stomps on it.
He doesn’t discard his feminity because, due to the canon and that homophobia and transphobia do not exist in Azeroth, he has experienced the barriers of his own feminity and womanhood growing up, and suddenly that vanished when he started transitioning to be more masculine and identifying closer to manhood.
He has seen both worlds, and it makes him feel for his sisters Sarsi and Resa, who both embrace their own feminity and see still suffer those barriers in their own womanhood.
It’s a complex story that I am glad to be able to write and express taken from my own experience and my own story/lived experience as a queer woman myself.
And I think it’s a good look at nonbinary identities and throwing the whole gender box away and letting a person claim themselves and express themselves however they want.
As Ali Ogden says in universe.
“Call me he, but do not call me a man. I am in-between, and I am both. I am Ali and I am Alivienne.”
x[.]com/ChristieGolden/status/443042929511510016 apparently I can’t actually include links but yeah, just drop the brackets if you want it.
Granted Golden was laid off, but a good chunk of WoW’s writing has traditionally taken inspiration from real-world events.
People can be antognostic characters and be absolutely pleasant OOC. That said, remember Garrosh was a narrative character. No one was RPing the characters he killed, no one was RPing the victims that Golden used to paint this historical comparison. It doesn’t give a right to be antagonistic, or like a lot of edgy “Rpers” used to love to try to do is bring real-world racism on human skin color onto human RP despite no basis at all.
Leave IC as IC, and OOC as OOC, and just don’t harrass people OOCly for IC.
Hello I do think you are being respectful and I don’t want to come off as against you even if I do disagree with some points.
I do believe, that there is a desire to be seen in public spaces. And a lot of the presentation is about fighting back against being silenced. And it is taken from real, lived experiences of queer identities being told to go be private. As if who we are is inherently inappropriate or sexualizing. (Lesbians are still heavily sexualized unfortunately as one example)
There was backlash over a sapphic “kiss” in the lightyear movie that was a lip peck akin to a husband and wife kissing each other goodbye for the day after breakfast.
I do not know if queer people push down straight voices, I have never seen it if they do because those types of LGBT people are not in any of my circles.
What I have seen in RP, is actual inclusion. I have witnessed normalization. I think the vast majority of us just want us to be seen as standard. I am no different for being attracted to women as a straight woman who is attracted to men.
Normalization requires representation, and representation requires people being able to express their stories and experience.
I attended a poetry night in Duskwood a few nights ago where Sarsi shared a poem to her girlfriend that was a public proposal for marriage. All we got in return were congratulations, well wishes, and we moved on to the next poem.
It was just a garden variety proposal, the only difference was if was a woman proposing to another woman. But I feel if anyone was bothered by it, if anyone felt such a scene was “pushing” an idealogy, it would have been brought up.
It wasn’t. It was just a scene of two women in love announcing their plan to spend their lives together. And that’s all I ever see in RP, is queer people being seen as normal. And that’s all we ask for.
Still not over the implication that marginalized people not wanting to be harassed are the Real Villains of WoW RP, but I don’t want to derail this thread further with more off-topic comments. So here’s my contribution to keeping this thread on track:
I haven’t been active on WrA-H for a long, long time now, and even though I still pop in from time to time to look around + check out the vibes I’m very much in “outside observer” territory. Just a disclaimer.
Anyway!
I guess I’m shocked how little WrA-H has seemingly changed: (mostly) the same people, hanging around the same RP spots, engaging in more or less the same sorts of RP they were engaging in back in BfA, or Legion, or WoD. I’d call it a holding pattern, but that feels too negative. People on WrA-H seem to know what they like, and I’m impressed with how stubbornly they’ve held to that.
Oh, a lot of things. But they’d all be “improvements” for me, when WrA-H already seems to know what it likes.
Moving away from being so heavily guild and event focused would probably help draw in new blood (Orgrimmar seems a little thin lately), but people enjoy their guilds, and their semi-public guild events. And if that’s what they play the game for, I’m not sure there’s much to be gained by forcing them to sit IC in SMC or Org or the Crossroads.
Why’d y’all make the Tail the walk-up hotspot and not the Drag?? The Drag even has empty buildings that you could use for whatever! Shaking my head, etc.
Healthy social interaction is abound with respected disagreement.
My entire point of both of these posts was very simple. I’m not detracting you for watching to hang out with those that you are like minded with. You can and of course should be around those that make you comfortable.
What I am trying to drive home as I try to make as perceptive as possible, Is that when you champion a cause or carry its standard; You will be open to being held to both it’s most positive aspects and it’s most negative aspects. Stereotypes, essentially.
I bring this up because a lot of people on the progressive side of an argument tend to believe that they are being judged by just wanting to love the same sex or because play have a same sex sexual preference. They do not seem to comprehend or they refuse to cover it when I describe the negative stereotypes of that group are not actually about what they care or what they love about, But more about what the fringe do in the name of that representation. I know far right people. They have pretty asinine beliefs that are outside commin discourse. What should concern more people is what the neutral think. Most of the people I talk about who are politically centered tend to avoid banner carriers because of not exactly unfounded stereotype of slander, libel, aggression, and worst extremes doxxing and harassment. When I try to bring these up, its handwaved as a nonissue or craziness. “That doesn’t happen in our community” syndrome.
No matter if it happens or not, the public perception is a calculation of what the fringe believes divided by what the clique allows the fringe to get away with.
Homosexuality is already normalized, accepted in the public mind, and legally protected. You are never going to change the fringe or hermetic into accepting it because statistically they don’t matter. You’re rights would not have been legalized if the neutral was against it.
Rather than circling off into ugly discourse that genuinely does not matter anymore.
I want to bring it back around to what i’m talking about public perception and understanding consequences outside of an ingroup, particularly shutting out the hesitant by flying colors instead of trying to embrace a politically and ideologically neutral view in a setting that craves immersion in a setting so far detracted from reality that its easy to forget real life stratification.
I do think that where there might be a real disconnect in discussion is that many many queer people have experienced this judgement.
I had been judged simply for being sapphic, for being attracted to women as a woman myself.
There is legislation in this country aimed at stripping us of our rights and it is already happening. (Everyone go vote)
The central, neutral view is one that puts more value in maintaining a harmful status quo than protecting people and groups who have been harmed and are still being harmed.
There are people in certain states who legitimately fear for their lives, livelihoods, and quality of living if the wrong candidate is elected this November.
Books about who we are and how our lives are shaped are banned from schools. Trans people are hit with barriers in their participation of society as their true selves, and it is still normal to hear anti trans jokes and rhetoric in casual conversations.
Lesbian identities are fetishized and clowned on, we have an entire 18 plus category on certain websites that spreads harmful stereotypes about us.
LGBT people are also not a monolith. And I have never shied away from shaking a finger at problematic aspects of my own community (like gold star lesbians who have terfy vibes and exclude trans women from the sapphic spaces which they absolutely belong in)
I feel like I am drawing this out so we can start discussing the horde RP scene again and if you wish to continue this debate I will notice if you elect to provide a new thread to do so in. For now have a good day.
Back to Horde RP. Has anyone thought of an Earthen guild on the Horde? While procrastinating on a dissertation revision, I thought about resubbing, but the unlock requirements would be a little involved for Earthen, so I don’t know if that may be dissuading people from a theme like that.
Earthen are probably one of the easiest races to unlock. I think there are three side quests lines and I believe the main msq will get them unlocked.
I wanted to play an earthen kinda like a droid from star wars cause I think it would be lit.
But I always have trouble sticking with dwarves same thing as orcs for me. I have to have the character in head. And that’s intensely tough for earthen (and also dracthyr) as an essentially empty slate.
I feel it should be pointed out that this is untrue in the laws of many states and it shouldn’t be conflated as fact. There are still many states who have no protections for LGBTQ+ folks to be fired from work or evicted from housing due to being queer. Federally, while the Supreme Court has had recent rulings that somewhat protect LGBTQ+ rights nationally, attempts by Congress to pass federal protections such as the Equality Act have been put to a standstill by one political party.
Though we’re much better off than other countries, LGBTQ+ is still very much on the long road to full acceptance in the States and we have to accept this reality in order to properly get through to the other side.
Good to hear! I just know as a currently unsubscribed player, I was a bit concerned but its good to hear that it’s relatively easy to get unlocked.
For me, I was thinking of a rather ‘black or white’ character of the ‘right or wrong’ that has to discover living in the gray. It’s been a while since I’ve RPed on WoW, so it’d be a learning curve. Back when I was like 12-13 I was RPing a dwarf paladin, so its a bit of ‘coming home’ I feel like.
My guild is a neutral organization and we have a handful of Horde characters in the guild. However, all our Earthen characters are Alliance aligned but I don’t think it’s for any lore/IC reason but out of convenience and because most of those players also host the Dwarven Moots and Cask n Anvil which is hard to do if you are team red
I have an idea for an Earthen character that would fit in well with the Horde but I also want to go to Cask n Anvil on them so they’ll probably end up being Alliance.
The requirements to unlock them is pretty easy. If you play TWW and do the campaign questline is probably the longest requirement. It doesn’t require an obnoxious rep grind like previous Allied Races required which is nice.
Just gotta go ahead and raid Ironforge. Kidding though, personally I wish that cataclysm didn’t destroy all of the dwarven keeps like Bael Modan. That was so much fun as an explorer back in WotLK.
the main issue with race-based guilds right now is that the population is a bit small for them. you might be able to start one, but probably not more than one.
I have seen a few recruiting but the main troll guild I RP with allows orcs and vulpera because of it. (Also honestly, orcs and vulpera make sense interacting with trolls. I’m gonna say it, I’m gonna say it–)
Also with Earthen being new, I fear RP’ing one might lead to the same limbo I was left in being one of the few DH RP’ers after Legion. Not that I knew many people who played their DH as DHs but. that’s unrelated.
The problem with racial guilds (in my opinion) other than scarcity of players, is how much lore is easily accessible for the GM to help build a narrative.
Ive wanted to make a nightborne guild here, but after going over what i can find online, they really didnt do much with the lore.
The most recent lore i can find basically said “nightborne are surprised how hot and wet zuldazar is.” Now sure it is possible that some book written somewhere has really cool lore or maybe 20 books do, and at that point i might as well play d&d
Edit. Ive also looked at making a gnome/mechagnome guild
Edit part 2. Also thinking about making a gobbo fire mage and go for a tinker pyro thing
Honestly I dont even remember the nightbourne lore and I was there for it…dont remember why they chose Horde instead of both factions or the mana thing…they were like Blood Elves right only ALOT worse ?
I can’t remember it.
That being said why it’s great and all we have so many races to choose from…It just be nice if more people CHOSE ORC.
Kidding though, personally I wish that cataclysm didn’t destroy all of the dwarven keeps like Bael Modan. That was so much fun as an explorer back in WotLK.