I can also say without a doubt that I do not want to have breast. The mere mention of that is very dysphoric for me and I would without a doubt quit a game which forced me to.
As @The_Lady_Luck says, authors doesn’t mentioned the sex characteristic because for a lot of people it is very triggering.
Which is kind of the proble with non-binary people as a whole. We are a broad group and it is very hard to encompass all. And the more people who are specifially mentioned, the more you take notice when your personal experience is not.
This is one of many reasons why it’s good to have a variety of characters’ experiences shown in the game (not saying that I’m a good example for this btw). If there are a range of characters then it doesn’t fall upon one character to be The One Representation Of Non-Binary Experience which of course doesn’t exist!
The problem is that most game have a range of three to four major characters, which mean that a wide range of experience is just not feasiable for most.
Don’t get me wrong @HarrisPS I love your huge ensambe, but most writers (my self included) just can’t handle that many characters - which is why there is so much focus on the mc in these discussions, I think.
oh totally same here, I was just saying that it played in the trope that to br androgynous u have to. be some what male presenting or can’t allude to any gender, but I didn’t know It was because it was already discussed and people preferred that way so all is good
i gonna disagree, because like @DreamingGames said it get complicated to the autor, and also it can end with just tropes, “this character has dysphoria this one doesn’t this one is femme presenting the other one is masc etc”, then we just end up with tropes instead of characters
maybe it can be helped in the characterization of the MC, I think is Greenwarden Wip that has it, correct me if I’m wrong, when creating the MC we’ve the choices to make them dysphoric or not, to have flat chest or not, and other ranges of choices like that, I feel like thats more than fine, and also has another enby character ij there, and when we meet them we notice their enby pin and the game acknowledged that “u would recognize ur flag anywhere”
tru, but it can be resolved without having to had lots of major characters which will make not only writing and coding difficult but can end up with characters without development screen time, is just have in the game in the society and world other enby Characters as well, and it doesn’t have to be even characters we interact with, like one of our friends is telling how she ended in a fight with the blacksmith cause ze didn’t want to make a dagger out of the obsidian she found, things like that sprinkle enby character in the world and also have the game and world recognize the MC gender, because yeah is fine don’t have to duel or anything in all the things it was talked here, the silence is fine better than nothing, but danm at least have “ladies gentleman and gentlepeople” or something
I would also say that there is a difference between npc and mc.
NPCS we mostly see from the outside. Those the author have to rely on mostly descriptors such as clothes, names, visual clues and other stuff. - As long as we get some varity here, it is fine. I don’t think there is something wrong with saying this npc is femme presenting, this one masc etc.
Lovestuck is something of a guilty pleasure of mine and the two enbies we got has being very androgyne leaning towards femme. Which is why I have high hopes that we get Galen who is very broad-shouldered and squared jawed and just a bit more masc. looking but we’ll see.
Here in choice of games I actually don’t have the impression of what kind of non-binary person we most often get. I hear people saying androgynus and smug, but to be honest the only two non-binary NPCs who left an impression on me was Jude from werewolf and Min. So right now, I admit I just want more non-binary npc in general.
Fallen London also have a huge cast and i generally think there is diversity.
Outside of those three companies, though. I can’t recall anyone actually making an effort to include enbies, so I admit that I am still in the just fucking include some phase and don’t much care if they are stereotypical or not.
English is not my first language, so I apologise if I didn’t really understand your questions.
I am nb, and when reading things about dysphoria, I think is best to first, give it as an option. For example, MC is walking past a mirror and we have a choice to think if we are comfortable with our body or not
It would throw me out of the story if dysphoria was inherent to playing nb -since me and some other of my nb friends never experienced it- and it had text referring to it during the game.
If the players chooses to have dysphoria, then I think is good to add some flavour text when MC is doing things with their own body, like changing clothes and seeing themselves naked, or maybe dressing for a formal situation and struggling with the clothes to wear, and of course, when romancing someone and having sexual relationships. While I would expect cis players and non-dysphoric players to cut right to the chase, I would imagine someone with dysphoria to be much more weary of showing their body to their significant other. For these players, I would extend the scene, give options on if they want to tell their partner about it (if they haven’t already), if they can’t handle it and want to stop, etc etc.
If this wasn’t what you were asking for, sorry for the amount of text
@Fujcog – thank you very much. You gave me a lot to think about and work with and I appreciate your willingness to talk about something that is not easy to talk about.
I apologize if I’ve contributed to your confusion; that was definitely not my intent!
I’m not familiar with this Fallen London thread, but it seems to me that the advice is centered around writing for relationships. I more or less used the examples from Fallen Hero that I did because they resonated with my own personal experiences with sex and gender. I think it’s important that I clarify that good representation of trans characters doesn’t require romance or sex, or even gender dysphoria, for that matter!
In fact, many trans people are non-dysphoric and may not enjoy a dysphoric MC. As DreamingGames said, Fallen Hero has a semi pre-defined character who always experiences a degree of body dysmorphia regardless of their gender identity, so that naturally translates to binary trans MCs having gender dysphoria without it feeling entirely forced upon the player.
It’s always going to be a matter of personal preference of both author and the reader, and since our experiences are all so diverse, it’s likely that no one will ever be entirely satisfied. Allowing the MC to choose whether they’re dysphoric would likely be widely appreciated, and as Fujcog said, it would make it easier for the writer to know if the reader would enjoy flavor text (or even scene variations, extra choices, etc.) addressing it, as it would be an opt-in.
In my opinion, as long as the story doesn’t contain transphobic elements, it’s good representation, and honestly, that’s easily avoided when proper respect is given to the characters and when trans readers are involved with sensitivity checking and/or playtesting. I certainly don’t think a good story needs to absolutely have discussions of gender, gender dysphoria, or sexuality to be good representation.
This is well said! I’m with you and @DreamingGames. I tend to feel as if nonbinary MCs get treated like female MCs, but that could definitely be my own confirmation bias at play! If I’m playing an AMAB nonbinary MC or a masc-aligned MC, I could very well just be picking up on things that personally aggravate my own dysphoria. (This is especially evident when you consider the unfortunate tendency in the LGBT community to associate nonbinary identities with AFAB people and/or masculine androgyny–which is an oxymoron in and of itself but alas.)
I love reading discussion topics like this one. I find them to be invaluable sources of knowledge, and I greatly appreciate everyone who’s willing to come forward and share their thoughts and experiences. I rarely leave a comment or ask anything, since I learn well enough just by following the conversation, but for once, a question has occurred to me.
How does one actively, visibly represent trans characters that fall within the binary? Men are men and women are women, regardless of whether they’re cis or trans; in an ideal world, nobody disputes this. Since we get to make ideal worlds when we write a story, we can treat all genders equally, but how would one show that a character is trans without alluding (in either the narrative or dialogue) to something like strapping/binding or dead names? I would dislike making no distinction if that erases trans representation, but I would dislike misrepresentating trans individuals quite a bit more.
If you want your characters to actively let people know they’re nb, let them tell those around them “I’m nb.” And so with trans; "I’m trans-man, trans-woman, " etc. You have to allude through dialogue if you want the character to actively identify as such, including objects such as straps and pins.
Otherwise, less-active way is through the narrative where the narrator introduces a character as nb or trans, explicitly or implicit.
idk how natural that sounds… you say to allude, but those dialogue examples were blatant. most dialogue can work with the right build-up and context, ofc, but i find that the circumstances when I’m speaking the words “I’m non-binary” are right before I’m about to explain a political view, express some frustration about being misgendered, or experiencing/describing dysphoria. That or it’s right after being misgendered and having to either correct somebody or explain what my gender is (and frequently having to insist it exists). i do agree the best way for characters to let the player character/audience actively know they’re non-b is through dialogue, but I think something that would come up in normal conversation would be better in most cases.
i hope this is somewhat helpful, these are other circumstances where i mention i'm non-b in conversation:
when a cis person i’m talking to starts making very binary/cisnormative assumptions about me or our conversation (“well ofc you’re like _, you’re a woman…” “well, you’re very feminine so you naturally…” “you’re not like other girls because…” “but we’re women, we…”)
when i’ve met another non-binary person
when i’m griping about being the only non-binary/trans person in a setting or environment (and that’s rare because the list of cis/binary folks i feel comfortable enough to joke about this with is like three-people long)
when someone is being loudly ignorant about gender
when i’m gushing about a gender affirming experience i had
when i’m hyped about non-b representation in media and pop culture
in conversations about gender experiences and coming out
a romantic context where i’m interested enough in someone that they have reason to be fully aware of my gender identity before getting more involved
As far as narration making it explicit for binary trans characters, I’ll leave that to a binary trans person to answer! It’s an interesting and worthwhile question though, I hope some can give their views on it.
So is alluding (regarding NPCs) wrong? I’m trying to write a world where being a NB/trans individual is not portrayed any differently than being a cis one (does that sentence make any sense? I’m not sure I follow my own thoughtline anymore) while also attempting to describe characters the way I actually think when I look at people (which pretty much means not consciously thinking about details that are not interesting/unique/catch myself fancy/etc).
IRL examples,
”the person with the guide dog who greeted me”, ”the person that gives an impression of a jackdaw in human form”, ”the person that looks like a tomte”, ”the person with a nice jacket”
I actually made an exercise today and realized I had to intentionally focus to notice all of the people in the room I was in had more or less the same hair color, even though it was not the color ”everyone” in my country stereotypically has - that is the level if nonchalantness I’m trying to portray.
Since I don’t actively think ”this person is [gender]” when I meet with people I know, but rather ”this person is [name]”, it feels… off to put in a narration like that something like ”this is my work buddy, she’s trans” instead of just ”this is my work buddy”, so I was thinkig to just drop some casual allusions in narration and leave it at that.
Something like this, please tell me if these are not acceptable!
”Her voice was an impressive bass for her small frame”
”It was strange to see them out of binder, but they had never mentioned whether they used it out of pragmatism rather than a more personal reason” [a person who the narrator knows is presenting differently than usual]
”You knew him years ago, before he had confirmed being NB” [regarding a nonbinary individual using he/him pronouns]
I don’t think alluding is wrong and I personally really like the examples you wrote here.
and please, please do this! writing all npcs with the same formula (or like, painting them with the same brush, treating them the same) isn’t the same as erasure or like… is there a softer word for fetishization? glorification? eh, i’m not finding the word, but i would really like to see more of that in fiction. like, noting things that are actually striking/unique about characters beyond or apart from binary expectations and traditional gender norms sounds great. hope i make sense.
In my game, the Stats screen will display the player’s sexual orientation.
I just want to ask what are Sexual Orientation terms for non-binary people. If a man is attracted to women, they’re straight, if a woman is attracted to another woman, they’re Lesbian. So what are the terms for a non-binary people who like men or women, etc?
I’ve never seen a blanket term for “anyone who is attracted to women” or “anyone who is attracted to men” that hasn’t been some flavor of controversial. It’s probably a safer bet to reconsider putting it on the stats screen, and just track it behind the scenes where you don’t need to be so precise
I don’t ask what are you, as pc attract to. I also don’t track all that.
You see a character you like… Go for him/her/them and ask . Maybe a character from a gender, you are not interested in will ask you. You just simply say not interested.
I just don’t get why is need put labels to relationships. or gate flirting in the base of the mc orientation.
Yeah, asking the player their sexual orientation isn’t exactly practical. But I mostly see it as a cosmetic option, kinda like asking the player about their skin color. Sure, you can just avoid describing the player’s skin color in text, but it’s an addition that allows the player to further customize and connect with their character. But again, that’s just how I see it.
