"Don't name your children after fictional characters.
If they're transgender enough, they'll do it themselves."
If they're transgender enough, they'll do it themselves."
Hi. I feel like being a little mean to myself today. That's not true, I'm just interested in an answer. Today I'm going through all of my old characters to see how many of them have very particular themes of identity. If you know me, you probably know what theme I'm talking about. If you don't? You'll probably figure it out by the end of the list. Consider this a companion piece to the other two posts I did about my characters. Don't know how interesting those posts are, but memory lane is fun and the blog is for me, not you. Well, it's a little bit for you.
Criteria is a simple zero to five rating, zero meaning none at all, and five meaning the theme is basically central to their character.
To speed things up, here are all the zeros: Thorgg, Autonicus Jamble, Chief Tumbling-Dice, Callisto, Mister Smiley, Levistus, Skag, Cipher, Cpl, Ramirez, Blind Mary, Icke, Vaux, Arkham Pawn, Elle Arcineau, Tatters, Riyo'to, Seong, James March, Trixie Glimmerskull, Cardinal Seras Hearstring, Cable's Daughter, Celine LaRoque.
All of these characters either have no strong personal themes or very different ones from what I'm looking for. Most of these are great characters that I'd play again some day! Let's call them The Control Group. Following are every character who scored above a zero and a few comments on each.
William Loman. Themes of being happy with what you've got are central to Loman's story thanks to his tie to Death of a Salesman. It's not an identity-centric story by any means, and "being happy with what I've got" turned out to be impossible. Still, it's somewhat adjacent, so Loman scores a 1/5.
Akuma. Akuma was rejected by society for his appearance and, as such, hated himself for it. I still think he's a shitty character. 4/5.
Anna Lacroix. Anna's a character with pretty dense themes, but has some themes of second chances and body modification among them. Outside of the obvious stuff that comes with every cybernetically enhanced character, she enjoyed body mods like heavy tattooing and piercing. 2/5.
Lenore. Shapeshifter. Listen, shapeshifter nets you at least 2 points just on its own. While not every female character I played had an appearance I strongly would've liked for myself, Lenore(and a few others) did. 3/5.
Lenore. Shapeshifter. Listen, shapeshifter nets you at least 2 points just on its own. While not every female character I played had an appearance I strongly would've liked for myself, Lenore(and a few others) did. 3/5.
Zero. Was literally transgender. Also had themes of "new life" or "second chances" thanks to being a CIA agent on the lam. Girl this was like 2006 why didn't you get it yet? 5/5.
The Medusa Socialite. She bears mentioning because she was a result of a human mother being cursed in a social power play and decided to just rock it instead of falling to despair. 1/5.
Sianalayn Vyanathen. At some point in the campaign Sia undergoes a transformation to change herself. This was to rid her of the Warlock class which I was very unsatisfied with, but like... she didn't need to come back as a Tiefling. It didn't need to be a physical transformation at all. 2/5.
Miyako Summerfield. Transformed against her will. Basically the same theme as the socialite. 1/5.
Inkless. Shapeshifter. Also, another "new life" or "second chance" theme because she ran away from Heaven. Honestly I think "second chance" is a great, solid theme for a character so I'm on the fence of saying it doesn't count, but...to prove a point I'm saying it does. 3/5.
Viktoria Wakefield. Only mentioned because "Slutty carnival folk with a huge rack" is probably wishful thinking on my part. 1/5.
Aikiyo the Mockery. Aikiyo is a robot, but her story centered strongly around purpose and living for yourself as opposed to others. 2/5.
Pink Annis. Shapeshifter. Pink also had issues with her perception of self and society, seeing human society as something that isn't "for" her, and something she shouldn't be interacting with. 4/5.
Lace Weaver. Transformed against her will but glad for it. (again). Another theme of second chances as well. 3/5.
Shivani Sedana. Practically an avatar of dysphoria. Dysphoric and delusional because the UCAS Military ruined her life, meddled with her health and caused her to develop cyberpsychosis. 5/5.
A little math later and I can tell you that 14 out of 36 characters scored above a zero, or about 39%. In addition, only two scored a "perfect" five: Shivani and Zero. The two who have literally felt dysphoria in some way. This whole time I was scoring my characters I was practically pleading for me to be below 50% and thank god I made it.
It's also 24 out of 36(2/3rds or 66%) girls, with one being genderfluid(Seras) and one being a robot(Aikiyo) who counts as girl because that's how she sees herself.
But really, I'm just being playfully mean. I just like data. Without these characters, I might not know who I am today. I might never have known. For that, I'll always be grateful.
