Fingers, toes and everything in between.
yeah that’s right I’ll cross my pancreas just for you
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With all that said, I don’t really think a cis person really NEEDS to have a thorough understanding of what it means to be trans in order to portray a trans character.
I don’t know what it’s like to be an immortal alien or a Victorian werewolf pirate either, but I try and make do.
If a genuine attempt is made and it’s not played for laughs, I say to the curious and experimentally-minded cis people out there, go for it!
Normalize transness. Maybe this way, transness can be seen as something that isn’t ONLY a sexualized thing.
That’s right, I dare to dream the impossible dream.
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With the way the world is evolving and becoming more accepting, such things will be normal in time in all hopes. There will always be opposing forces but soon enough they will be a minority. The world is changing and so are we. There is no room for phobias against people.
I know people irl who would commit unspeakable deeds for access to something like Transmorphic Tincture, so I imagine that one would be a cornerstone of it.
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The same logic would incriminate anyone playing the other (cis)gender, though, which I don’t agree with.
I think we can come up with a better line than just that “Playing around with people’s personal identities is wrong”.
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So, amusing sidenote. I was reading back now on what I missed last night after I went to bed and I saw multiple posts from Irelia dissapear in real-time litterally just minutes ago as I was reading the thread.
I think they’ve gone on another vacation. Perhaps they’ll learn to behave this time?
Also wonderful to see everyone still being supportive of the topic!
For me, this is the interesting question. Binary character creation aside, if we remove RL stigma and add a world full of amazing magic and transmutation/augmentation (while also keeping to the ToS), what would characters have done? Physical augmentation is already shown to be very normalized with mechagnomes.
There’s an interesting story arc in an online comic called Dominic Deegan about augmentation being a very normal part of the world (it can help with things like infertility, for instance - and the main character offering the service is MtF).
It could also be an interesting discussion surrounding wounds being more of an aesthetic choice or reminder of a fight than a ‘repercussion’. If you live in a world where most* injuries can be healed with the Light, augmentation, etc., then the story behind keeping a scar or not restoring a missing limb becomes a lot more interesting and a personal choice for the character.
*as always, exceptions for any character that truly wants a repercussion to stick are easy to come by - cost, for instance, as Telaryn mentions.
Bit of an aside from the main topic, so it might fit better in a new thread.
Who actually uses Tumblr and how did they find theirs?
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I got no idea, I’ve never bothered to make an account. It’s never appealed to me enough.
This is just wishful thinking at this point.
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Other than the famed hate blog that loves to dox, I’m not sure what’s even on there. Doesn’t appeal to me either. I have enough to keep tabs on as is.
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I know some people use it for art. The only other tumblr blog I’ve actually seen/been onto, is one an old swtor guildie has/had when she drew a free comission of my old sith character and posted it there.
I’m going to need a cheat sheet for this soon.
Sexual discrimination existed on Azeroth, but not discrimination against sexual orientation.
Racism doesn’t exist on Azeroth, orcs vs humans, or Khadgar being suspicious of goblins (even if they have a stellar track record), or gnomes disliking goblins, or night elves disliking trolls is a different kind of hatred/discrimination.
But if that’s not racism does objecting to blood elves having darker skin tones but being grateful Blizzard added it for humans constitute as racism, or is it okay because they are different species? If they add purple skin tones to orcs is it racist to object?
My head hurts. Help.
(Also before this hot powderkeg topic implodes on itself, it’s all in good fun. If they added purple orcs I would play the hell out of one in an instant).
Your safest bet(& also generally the nicer one towards other people is this:)
Don’t roleplay hatred/derogatory things towards stuff that people already suffer from in real-life, but instead keep it to things that are entierly fictional for WoW.
So as said before, human hating orc. Okay.
Human hating a brown-skinned human for being brown-skinned, don’t.
I’d also say honestly avoid sexual discrimination too. Most of the sources of it is rpg-canon(We did have a vanilla grunt say that it used to exist somewhat too but not anymore). But ultimatly: Just because you can do something, doesnt mean you should.
It’s actually very easy to roleplay & engage with other people without stepping on sensitive subjects. You can even do more serious/darker roleplay as well without going into these topics. It is nowhere near as hampering to creativity as some people make it out to be.
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purple orcs is whatever
it’s kinda more the obvious stuff like, as you said, black blood elves. The stuff that very clearly 1:1 translates to real life issues.
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General rule of thumb, stick to what is portrayed in the setting.
Prejudice / speciesism(?) exists between the different races (species) of the game as you’ve mentioned. There was once upon a time some gender-based inequalities, though the cultures where that was present have long since then moved on (human females can enlist in the military now, and Rise of the Horde retconned the single quest from Vanilla about female orcs not being equal, and RPG lore is invalid).
What is not portrayed is racism within the same race focused around skin colour. Some humans do hate each other, but that comes down to patriotism and politics (Kul Tiras seceding from the Alliance because of the Alliance placating the Horde instead of avenging Daelin, Gilneas seceding from the Alliance because they disagreed with how the internment camps were being dealt with) and allegiances (Scarlets branded as heretics by the Church). We even see classism happening (House of Nobles v Defias, Blackmoore and Taretha) but none of it ever revolves around the colour of the skin.
Same applies for
Because they’re directly correlated to real life issues with their direct human coded skin tones. We also do not see sexuality based discrimination as has been hammered in deep in this thread.
When in doubt, follow in-game portrayal.
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And generally it’s also probably wiser to follow newer depictions and consider them an overwriting of prior ones, at least to some extent. BFA-era Blizzard are much more likely to be socially aware than classic-era Blizzard, given how the internet has become a much more common front for the promotion of ideals and the changing of problematic depictions of different people in media.
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Blizzard’s stance has always been the new lore trumps old lore when the two are in direct conflict. Lore doesn’t have an expiration day and it is valid unless otherwise stated. The bit from vanilla about orcish gender equality being a recent addition Thrall introduced was retconned in Rise of the Horde which came out 2 years later.
Only inequality among orcs comes from physical prowess (which directly correlates with merit in their culture). Someone born weak and frail (Draka) was discriminated against, but Draka overcame it and proved herself to be one of the finest warriors of her time and she earned the respect that was previously denied from her. Her gender had nothing to do with it.
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I was gonna mention the Iron Maidens in Blackrock Foundry, but I suppose it’s vague enough with “ancient societal structure of the orc clans”.
Orc culture being based solely around strength and feats, with zero regards for gender or sexuality, is way more cool than another boring society that oppresses women.
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