Character Introduction: Nova Aguairata

Picrews: 

(They have one singular strand of hair that is grey! every picrew i tried gave me everything but that </3 /nm)

Name: Nova Aguairata

Ethnicity: Espelliza, Oniari

Nicknames: Nov (Fern) Étoile brillante, Princi (Dove) Brumeux (Neptune)

Birthday: 1st March

Age: 16

Element(s): space, darkness, light

Species: elemental

Role in Anti Assassination squad: healer of Squad A

MBTI/Enneagram: INFP 6w5

Role in society before being recruited  by L'institution Oniari pour les anti-assassins: second youngest young Oniari royal

Realm of origin: Oniaria, Ejina Islands, specifically an Island called Espellizao

Sexuality: lesbian

Gender: non-binary

Pronouns: they/them

Random Trivia: has star tattoos on both their arms to healthily store some of their power

Closest friend (s): Bijou

Roommates: Sajan, Nikko, Ash

Siblings: Sylvia, Rosa, Fern, Astra

Character Introduction: Neptune Cerisier

Picrews:

Name: Neptune Cerisier

Ethnicity: Oniari

Nicknames: Petite planète bleue (Nova) Arbre froid (Leika) Tuna (Jin, only Jin gets tuna privileges) princess (Dove) 

Birthday: 20th April

Age: 16

Element(s): sugar

Species: fairy

Role in Anti Assassination squad: protector of Squad A

MBTI/Enneagram: INTJ 1w9

Role in society before being recruited before being recruited by L'institution Oniari pour les anti-assassins: Resident at Orphelinat pour Filles d'Oaken City, an Oniari orphanage for girls

Realm of origin: Oniaria

Sexuality: bisexual

Gender: female (cis)

Pronouns: she/her

Random Trivia: Very skilled in combat, the most skilled in Squad A, even though she is the youngest

Closest friend (s): Jin

Roommates: Dove, Mariposa, Bem

Siblings: N/A

Character Introduction: Nala Faez

Picrews:

(first picrew portrays her hair the best!)

Name: Nala Faez

Ethnicity: Valvuli, Dularli

Nicknames: Nal (Owen) the royal pain (Jin, sarcastically)

Birthday: 16th December

Age: 18

Element(s): air

Species: spirit

Role in Anti Assassination squad: deputy and shapeshifter of Squad A

MBTI/Enneagram: ENTP 3w4

Role in society before being recruited by L'institution Oniari pour les anti-assassins: eldest young Valvuli royal

Realm of origin: Valvulia, Dularlin

Sexuality: lesbian

Gender: female (cis)

Pronouns: she/her

Random Trivia: scared of mushrooms because she can't tell which ones are poisonous

Closest friend (s): Owen

Roommates: Jin, Sylvia, Willa

Siblings: Ara (twin,) Jumana

Characterization for South Asian-coded characters

@mistystarshine said:

I am considering writing a novel that takes place in a fantasy setting, and while I am content with most of my characters, there are two where I keep hitting a snag in regards to cultural context. They are a pair of step-sisters with parents who are hell bound to climb the social and economic ladder no matter the cost. They do genuinely care about each other, but are also very jealous of each other. The older sister wants to be a refined, pampered, and adored lady who is married off to a loving husband, but after inadvertently revealing herself to be a prodigy at taming (and later fighting) magical beasts, her parents milked her for all she was worth while she could still be considered a “child prodigy” before pressuring her into more or less joining a militia. (After all, they may have been the ones to push her in that direction, but having a daughter as rough and tumble as her around was unsightly.) She and her parents also happen to be playing a long-con in that while they are passing her off as a human with gifts that are normally seen in fae, she is actually a (even rarer, but also seen as highly distrustful) fae with the ability to lie. The younger sister is a normal human who is very beautiful and pretty dim on an intellectual level, but also incredibly emotionally intelligent. She does value knowledge (and admires how well her sister can memorize facts) and enjoys learning, but is a slow learner by traditional methods. She desperately wants to feel useful and like she is capable of making a difference in the world, but their parents only value her for her appearance, try to keep her from doing anything that might “jeopardize” it, and want her to marry into a nobleman and become a beautiful and obedient wife. She’s grown up being told that it doesn’t matter that she isn’t intelligent because girls like her don’t need to think, and really, it’s better if she stay quiet anyway. This has caused her to be skittish, distrusting, and even cynical despite her kind nature. It’s also given her a ton of self-esteem issues, made her deeply uncomfortable with her appearance, and adverse to comments regarding it. The sisters both want what the other has and feels a little resentful of the fact that /they/ don’t want it.

My question is this. I haven’t come up with physical designs yet and am thinking that I want them to have south asian characteristics. However, I’m not certain if the cultural context would fit well with the issues they face in regards to gender, expectations, and societal stereotypes. (I will note that I haven’t designed the in-universe cultures yet, since aside from some initial character concepts, I’m largely going to be writing by the seat of my pants. But I also figure that regardless of in-universe context, the audience will inevitably connect characters to real-world cultures and want to be sensitive and understanding in that regard.) How do I make sure it all clicks together, when I am largely only familiar with the experiences of American (primarily white) women in that regard? Or is this a situation where it would be better to just make them white rather than making them PoC and risk making a mistake?

(My apologies if this is a rubber stamp question. I don’t think so, but I’m not entirely sure either. But on the chance that it isn’t, I figured that in the time it would take me to ask if it’s a rubber stamp, I might as well go ahead and send it in. Do me a favor and message me if it does count as one, so I know for future reference?)

What Are “South Asian Characteristics”?

Thank you for taking the time to flesh out your story so thoroughly. I think this ask will benefit from you doing some more initial research as to what kind of background you want these characters to have. As I hope recent WWC posts on South Asia have made clear, South Asia is a very large, diverse place, so saying you plan to code your characters as physically South Asian doesn’t help us. Pick any human being on the planet. Now look at South Asia. You will probably find people who resemble that individual physically somewhere within the subcontinent. Similarly, from a cultural perspective, South Asia is very broad. It is home to over 1.5 billion people, 70 distinct ethnic groups, several hundred languages, and all major world religions. If this is not you have come across in your research, I would say your research is very much in the premature stage.

WWC has a great guide for describing skin tones and facial features of non-white individuals. If you have no South Asian cultural coding you wish to impart to these characters, I think your first order of business is deciding on the setting of your universe and what kind of world-building you wish to engage in. Don’t let the theoretical assumptions and biases of your readers trip you up. I look forward to hearing from you again after your world-building has progressed. There are many religions in South Asia with a wide variety of folklore involving otherworldly beings, but not all of them are can be viewed as equivalent to fae. Jaya has some great comments for you on Hindu-specific dimensions of cultural coding if you plan to use the fae in your story, which I think are important to keep in mind should you plan to culturally code your characters using any South Asian culture that draws on Hindu influences.

- Marika.

Cultural Dimensions: Fae versus Hinduism

I can say that we South Indian Hindus don’t necessarily have fae. (That hasn’t stopped me from adding them to some stories with Indian protagonists.) We have otherworldly beings like Gandharvas and apsaras. You may want to do more research if mixing the fae with Hindu mythology, assuming you’re going with that. 

To elaborate, the fae in European society have their own rules and codes of morality separate from ours. This is attributed to the fact that the Folk lack souls. Ergo, they lack the means to realize that a decision is morally wrong. That is why the Folk steal babies and replace them with mischievous changelings, or try to trick humans into eating Fairy food when the latter are visitors to mounds under the hill or fantastic castles. It’s all for entertainment, and laughs.

That doesn’t mean the fae are bad or will always harm people. You can ward them away by getting cold iron bars for your house, and holly for protection in the winter. Some Celtic folklore advises that you accept a fairy gift if you receive one, even if it’s feeding milk to your cows. Other lore says NEVER accept a gift, because you will be expected to do a great favor in turn. For the same reason, you don’t say “thank-you” or offer nice clothes to them, since it may insult them. Everyone agrees, however, that you never give your full name to the fae, because one of them will use it to lord power over you. 

In contrast, most magical beings in Hindu mythology abide by the same codes of honor and dharma. Everyone has a soul, thus the right to earn their way to either heaven, a good reincarnation, or nirvana. This means you can reason with them, and they are responsible for their actions. The asura and rakshasa demons have co-existed with the gods despite dethroning them a few times, while the humanoid monkeys say they’ll ally with the humans to fight important battles. Everyone agrees to a social contract where a king protects his people, the sages regardless of their shape pray for the common good, and you try not to be murderous or rude. Even if you are a tyrant, like Duryodhana or Ravana, you can still go to heaven if you’ve fulfilled your life duties, which is also called dharma, and remained honorable. Or if you are a bastard father like Hiranyakashipu, you may at least get purification in death if your son vouches for you and begs for your soul from the gods.  

Are there cases where the beings break this rule? Heck yes; there are always going to be a few demons, humans, and even a monkey or two that let the power trip get to their head. That’s when the gods intervene by sending a special human or reincarnation to handle the lack of honor. The new warrior restores the balance and gets rid of that dangerous bit of ego, usually by killing the would-be tyrant in question. 

The fair folk have none of this honor. If you put any being from Hindu mythology and a member of the Fair Folk in the same room, they would get into an argument of wills for hours. Few beings in Hindu mythology would steal a baby for laughs, and the fae would likely not understand the concept of sacred duty. Your story may not work for that reason so I’d advise figuring out how much Hindu mythology you want to add.

- Jaya 

Character Introduction: Bijou Capindoro

Picrews:

Name: Bijou Capindoro

Ethnicity: Apintili

Nicknames: Bij (Nova) Jou (Owen)

Birthday: 3rd October

Age: 18

Element(s): fire

Species: elemental

Role in Anti Assassination squad: translator of Squad A

MBTI/Enneagram: INFJ 6w5

Role in society before being recruited by L'institution Oniari pour les anti-assassins: Royal Representative for the Tobirt gn Apoco (translated as “tribe of fire” in english) 

Realm of origin: Ejina Islands, specifically the island called Apintily.

Sexuality: bisexual

Gender: non-binary

Pronouns: they/them

Random Trivia: has a fire variant that makes their flames appear red rather than the standard orange. Because of this, it is a common mistake to assume that Bijou has clot disease. 

Closest friend (s): Nova

Roommates: Owen, Berry, Rosa

Siblings: Blaze, Hestia, Aster (older sisters)

im sorry about the ask, it wouldnt fit into one comment,,,

obviously there are differing opinions on this, but in my opinion, its completely fine! as long as you are being respectful (which you are), and do proper research, it really is fine. also about the korean names, i also think that it is completely fine to have a person with a korean name even though they dont speak korean! although, they should probably have some ethnic ties that are the origin country of the name (japan, china, and korea all use this name). im glad that you reached out and did the research :)

thanks for the answer noah!! yeah my fantasy characters are based off of humans and they are actually ancestrally tied to humans as their first home was earth! so because of that lore jin, nabi, and owen are decedents of korean people in a way! when you say ethnic ties, do you mean that i should explicitly specify the origin country of the culture/name?

Posting these tags from my last post as a separate post because i have a few questions i was wondering if people could answer? so i’ve been looking into making fantasy cultures and how to do so respectfully, like not copying a certain cultural trait and instead using it as inspiration to fit the place your fantasy culture resides in etc. I was looking at some stuff with languages recently. I originally was going to have a particular island of people speaking korean as their language, i’ve found via research that this can be considered partial representation, and can make people feel uncomfy, which i really want to avoid. Is creating a conlang loosely based off of this language acceptable? or should all conlangs be based off of english, as that’s the language i’m most familiar with? (original question i put in tags is below!)

Character Introduction: Seo Jin

Picrews:

(the second one accurately portrays the colour of Jin, Nabi, and Owen’s actual hair colour.)

Name: Seo Jin (서진)

Ethnicity: Solpien

Nicknames: Ji (Nala) SJ (Pearl, Willa) 

Birthday: 26th September

Age: 18

Element(s): storm

Species: elf

Role in Anti Assassination squad: sorcerer of Squad A

MBTI/Enneagram: ISTP 9w8

Role in society before being recruited by L'institution Oniari pour les anti-assassins: Personal Royal Guard for Princess Nala at the Valvuli Castle of Royals

Realm of origin: Grew up on the Ejina Islands, Currently lives in Valvulia. Born in the island of Solputai.

Sexuality: queer, polyamorous 

Gender: demigirl, transfem

Pronouns: she/they

Random Trivia: The golden child of the family due to her sorcery

Closest friend (s): Neptune

Roommates: Nala, Willa, Sylvia

Siblings: Nabi, Owen (triplets)

Character Introduction: Seo Owen

Picrew:

Name: Seo Owen (서오웬)

Ethnicity: Solpien

Nicknames: Wen (Bijou) Browen (Nala) (he despises this)

Birthday: 19th May

Age: 18

Element(s): sound

Species: elf

Role in Anti Assassination squad: leader and tamer of squad A

MBTI/Enneagram: ISFP 9w8

Role in society before being recruited by L'institution Oniari pour les anti-assassins: Royal Bladesmith at the Valvuli Castle of Royals

Realm of origin: Grew up on the Ejina Islands, Currently lives in Valvulia. Born in the island of Solputai.

Sexuality: omniromantic asexual

Gender: male (cis)

Pronouns: he/him

Random Trivia: Hates plain water. Will only drink water infused with herbs or fruit.

Closest friend (s): Nala

Roommates: Bijou, Rosa, Berry

Siblings: Nabi, Jin (triplets)

i’m back! i’m thinking that i’m gonna post some basic character profiles every day or so so that people can get to know them!

HELLO which character would be most likely to beat somebody up if they disturbed a beehive

HELLO ANON HI AND WELCOME

honestly Sajan would be the most likely to do that methinks. he'd be mad that someone disturbed the bees because 1. bees are rad as hell 2. disrespecting things that are rad as hell is a no no.

he'd probably be like WHAT THE HELL MAN?? what did these dudes ever do to you??? let us battle so i can avenge them!

here's a picrew of him for a basic idea of him! (his hair and wings are more of a reddish pink)

Who is ur favorite OC? How did they come into creation?

although there are definitely some characters I like more than others, my favourite characters change all the time!! one solid favourite of mine is Topaz Sami, the girl i have as my pfp! Topaz is also the protagonist of the rotr story!

She came into creation in quite a simple way. I had already mapped out the base of a storyline for my 1st generation characters, and at one point i was thinking about them in different scenarios and was like, after all this happens, what would their kids be like? so i got all of my characters who were in relationships and basically combined their features in my head to design kids for them! for Topaz, i got my characters Laria and Pixie, who were originally in a healthy relationship but as of rn i’ve changed that so that they were put in a forced marriage because angst <33 

since Laria and Pixie would not be able to have kids with both their genetics since they’re both afab, i invented this sort of summoning system? basically all the parents have to stand in separate sections of this special building place and their genetics are combined and basically a baby just kind of floats down from the sky. because of this i was able to mix Laria and Pixie’s traits in order to come up with their kids! 

I think Velvet or Topaz were the first kids i came up with for this particular family. Topaz is the second youngest of four, and originally had Laria’s straight hair before her redesign. currently, she looks a lot like Pixie! her hair colour, skin tone etc are all the same as her’s. however, she did inherit Laria’s species and medium. so she was born looking like your average sugar medium, but she has the abilities of a lava merperson! she’s also one of my trans characters! 

i’m stupid and didn’t turn on asks until someone mentioned it but they should be working now!