#constructed cultures

[aeniith]

OK. OK. It’s not done really yet--I have yet to add fresh water and cities and all that stuff, and I need to chop off the bottom--the southern ocean is way to big. BUT I just got done tracing my old map of Aeniith into Inkarnate and I AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT IT. It took me like 3.5 hours but I feel so fulfiled!

I am super proud of how the coastlines worked out and all of Quarios’ islands at the bottom. <3 I love my world.

[aeniith]

Random thoughts on concultures of Aeniith

This is gonna be totally disjointed, because I sprained my ankle and it hurts and I can’t really think straight, lmao. So.  ~

I’m thinking about gender roles in the different cultures of Aeniith. It’s something I thought a lot about over the years. Gotevian culture was one of the first that occurred to me. I say “occurred” because I definitely didn’t think of it on purpose or really choose to create it. It just happened, when I was very young.

Gotevian culture has always appeared to me as pretty gender-egalitarian. Not super patriarchal, not super matriarchal. Gender roles are comparatively open. Other-gender folks are recognized, not terribly stigmatized, and there are even instances of agender/bigender people in spiritual culture and history (e.g. in legend, myth, etc.). I’d also imagine that non-heterosexual relationships, while not officially recognized by the state, aren’t ridiculed or stigmatized either. Gotevians are more or less pretty chill about this kind of thing. I think the laws are pretty slow to change, however, so many same-sex couples will eventually be given the same legal status as hetero couples. 

I think the lines between what we’d consider “queer” and what we’d consider “not queer” are relatively comparable to modern progressive culture in the West but gender roles may be less defined in Gotevian culture. 

In Quarios, married or partnered couples are expected to provide for each other. There is no necessary expectation that women are domestic, or that men work outside the house. This is an economic distinction that isn’t particular relevant to gender roles in Gotêvi, at least not anymore. 

I think the reason the Gotevian culture originally developed this way (in my mind, I mean) was because this is kind of how my childhood image of gender was: my family is/was very open about gender roles, in pretty much every way. My mother was and still very much *is* a dominant force in my family, and my sister and I grew up a lot more fiery, outgoing, stubborn, etc. than my brother (and my dad is super chill and sweet, likewise). I grew up playing with just as many trucks, trains, and tools as I did with ponies, dolls, and fairies (fairies were a major part of my existence as a kid tho). So my early perception of gender as a kid was very much that...it wasn’t a restrictive thing. Being a girl, boy, or anything else was something you could be...but it didn’t mean that suddenly then you weren’t allowed to do or be other things.  That might explain the very early development of Quarios/Gotevian culture as pretty egalitarian on gender terms.

Later, I started imagining contrasts to this approach. I knew that Orikrindia had a line of kings--just kings--no sovereign queens. I knew this meant something about their society. That there were specific ideas about who could and should be rulers. Authority was interpreted as a masculine purview in Orikrindia, and because of this, independence for girls and women (and indeed any non-masculine people) was severely restricted. Hence stories like Elucuna’s, in which a young noble woman flees her country for a change at independence and mastery of her own fate.

On the other side of the coin, there is the Tosi Empire, which is highly matriarchal. I never imagined that a strict matriarchy would ever be ultimately any “better” than a strict patriarchy--it still restricts all of its members and makes life especially shitty for one half (or so) of the population. I knew the Tosi were expansionist, imperialistic, and had a society we’d consider pretty brutal, unfair, and probabyl downright cruel. Still, I knew there would be stories that would be worthy of telling. What is life like for men in Tosi society? How is it different from or similar to life for Orikrindian women? What other inherent differences in the two cultures would influence how individuals would experience their lives?  In trying to find the answers to these questions, I started writing about them. This is ultimately when the story of Elucuna and whence another story I am writing about a Tosi man and woman who are involved in political intrigue in the Tosi military. I personally feel that some of the most fascinating stories are told by those who aren’t necessarily very privileged in any society--the underdogs, the survivors, the people who’ve been given the shit end of the stick and still come through, traumas and all. I think these are some of the stories I’ve been yearning to explore in these fictional societies that have become so central to my personal imagination. 

~

Mintaka