some dark crystal gender/pronoun headcanons (an incomplete list, in no particular order):
instead of ‘pronouns,’ the commonly used term on thra is ‘self-words.’ this is because most of the population seem to be illiterate, and probably wouldn’t much care about academic words for specific grammar structures. the term ‘pronoun’ exists, but it’s considered overly formal and you would have to explain it to most people (who would then look at you funny, because why do you need another word for self-words, it serves just fine for the job).
seladon, rian, mira, and kylan (among others, but they’re off the top of my head) are all binary trans.
brea is genderfluid, toward the femme edge of the spectrum.
seladon and brea are drawn to the skeksis in part because their relationships to gender are all–to put it bluntly–queer as hell, in a large variety of ways, and the two of them feel a kinship and fascination with the lords over it.
tavra is transmasc-adjacent nonbinary–masculine, but not male-leaning–and is fine with she/her pronouns. probably the only people she’s really articulated this to at all are her girlfriends, onica and tae.
the skeksis aren’t the only ones who tend to avoid pronouns to refer to each other; gelfling do so as well, because to use the wrong self-words for a lord of the crystal would be a grave insult, and most of the skeksis don’t really care whether gelfling know their pronouns as long as they’re not using the wrong ones.
all of the skeksis and urru are nonbinary except for skeksa and ursan, who are (what would be the gelfling/human/etc equivalent of) binary trans women, and skekekt and urutt, who are binary trans men.
skekso is agender, with very strong femme leanings. she uses he/she/they pronouns, and leans just as much toward ‘she’ as ‘he.’ prefers feminine gendered terms, where used.
skeksil stole the genders. all of them. and cranked the saturation up to make them as obnoxious as possible. uses he/she/they, and associated gendered terms, interchangeably and with glee.
skektek is bigender and uses he/she/they. doesn’t like gendered terms; they lean more toward they/them because binary pronouns make them antsy in situations where they’re not 100% sure they’re not being gendered as one more than the other. their gender is vague screaming about orifices and ‘where the fuck did i put the gender this time’
skekok is agender with vague masc leanings, uses he/they, and prefers not to be referred to by gendered terms unless he’s using them himself as a joke, or to manipulate ('how could you be so cruel to a poor old man!’). his gender is masc, but like, the la croix version, which he discovered after spending enough time around gelfling to know that he doesn’t much care for being called 'she.’ someone gently dipped a gender in a glass of water the next room over and skekok went 'ah, yes. perfect’
skekvar’s gender feelings are mostly [elevator music], and if you asked him about it he’d just give you a blank stare. that said, he’s spent enough time working with the gelfling military to associate he/him-only folks with loyal, life-giving service to a Strong Femme Ruler. as a result, he uses solely he/him pronouns, not because he presents masc or has any particular attachment to gender, but as a sign of devotion to skekso. skekvar’s gender is gay, pass it on
skekzok’s gender is Evil Pervert. he seems to be fine with he/him. no one is brave enough to ask him for more information
skekung uses he/him and she/her, enjoys gendered terms, and doesn’t really use any nb-specific labels other than a general ‘nonbinary, i guess,’ if asked. she’s strongly a man, strongly a woman, butch as hell, and loud as fuck.
skeklach is transfeminine; they go back and forth over the trine between using he/she/they fairly evenly, using she/they only, or using mostly she/they and being a big shrug about the he/him while not being a fan of it in particular.
and more, which will probably come in a later post since this one is incomplete and off the top of my head
i love having this many canon nonbinary characters to play with
they’re queer and you can’t stop them
turnnoffyourmind
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
ellievsbear
yousharknotpass
