scrolling thru my ipad. found this. coloured the memes huehuehue. i have so many draw your squad memes on my ipad. i find them way to fun to do.
also dont think ive uploaded this one here…post ’save me some sugar’ comic i made, Aleksandra gif 🤔 animation is not my strong suit, i dont find it particularly fun to do…but fun to look at 😌
u know that post that's like "once you start noticing the absence of people of colour in things, you can't stop noticing, and people get really mad if you point it out no matter how calm and casual you are about it"
i guess logically on some level i knew that trans fem OCs in fandoms are pretty rare but the number of trans masc OCs i see in the tags of, like, 'stardew valley farmer' and 'my time at sandrock builder' and 'coral island farmer' just bc those are current fandoms on rotation for me... i mean, it's wonderful! it's wonderful that people are creating and sharing these OCs!!! but seeing the trans flag on, like, a character profile someone's made for their oc is 99.9% of the time gonna be showing me a trans masc / tme oc !! and obviously like... the ratio of cis to trans/non-binary/third gender OCs and self-inserts is an even bigger disparity im not here to, like, BLAME trans men or anyone making trans masc ocs it's just the thing of like... oh i noticed it once and now i cannot stop seeing it.
trans women, trans fems, im so sorry. i wish these spaces were more welcoming and respectful and kind and safe for you. i wish that for all areas of life and the world, but this is a little fandom blog and this is a woefully overdue kind of 'clicked into place' realisation within fandom/oc-creation space. i would love to hear about your self-inserts and your ocs !!!
anyone who has trans feminine ocs in these lil farming/building/village sim cozy games, i want to see them i want to know them, i want you to have a space to share them and your ideas and passion. real trans women, their safety and comfort and voices, have to have to HAVE TO come first, but they're not the only ones who can have trans woman ocs !! and creating a safer, more welcoming environment for them has to happen though the rest of us - as TME fans, players, creators, bloggers whatever we might be insulted or hassled for a CHARACTER we've created, but a trans woman with a trans woman farmer in stardew valley is going to draw attention with that OC and then, in the current online and fandom climate, violently harassed and reported until they're banned. we GOTTA be a buffer we gotta make these identities more common and normalised so when a trans woman does share her own it's not some great outlier with a massive neon sign in the tags saying "TRANS WOMAN SPOTTED" for the transmisogynists to instantly target !!!!!!!!
idek where im going with this anymore and i have that luxury because im a cis woman like !!! wtfffff !
anyway! cozy gamers and oc makers: let's all do so much fucking better for our trans sisters NOW! <3
It's only a year and a half late, but here's the follow up to my post about Rune—my Portia builder, Henning! (Once again, thank you @fiev-time-at for sharing this template, I love it to bits!!)
In my post about Rune, I said I'd get into the family background in Henning's post: so here we go!
Henning's parents are Maurice and Clara, the same as in Portia canon, and he was still raised by an aunt Kendra—however, he was raised in Highwind, not Barnarock. Given that that fastest route to Portia from Highwind is still by boat (leaving from Highwind East):
the people of Portia simply assumed Henning had come from Barnarock, given his arrival aligned with Wuwa's tri-monthly visits.
Henning's aunt Kendra and his mother, Clara, were twin sisters, who (alongside Kendra's husband) fled to the Free Cities as Ethean refugees. Their homes in the north had been destroyed during an invasion by Duvos and, given that Kendra was pregnant with Rune at the time, they wanted somewhere safe to settle.
Once they made it across the border, Kendra and her husband chose to live in Highwind (eager to prepare for the baby's arrival) but Clara wanted to continue travelling the Alliance cities. She had always been a free-spirited woman who craved adventure, so it was the perfect opportunity for her.
It was during her travels that Clara met a like-minded soul—Henning's father, Maurice.
After only a few months of dating, the two eloped (much to the surprise and disapproval of her family) and were happily in love, regardless. Not long into their marriage, however, they learned that Clara was pregnant. Maurice began working in Portia as a builder in an attempt to 'settle down' for the coming child, but things went south much quicker than they could have anticipated: Clara died in childbirth, in Year 78 of the Peach Calendar, leaving Maurice to navigate fatherhood alone.
After two years of raising Henning in Portia, Maurice could no longer handle the burden. Still mourning his wife and entirely unprepared for the realities of fatherhood, Maurice left his son in the care of the boy’s aunt and uncle in Highwind. Despite whatever issues they had with Maurice, Kendra and her husband had no reservations in accepting Henning as their own. As such, Henning and Rune grew up together. Rune being only a year or so older than Henning meant that the two of them grew up closer to siblings than cousins.
And unlike Rune, Henning had no trouble making friends. Socialising came easy to him, and he'd always been popular. So, he made an effort to introduce his friends to Rune, in the hopes they would come to appreciate her as much he did. Only Nia ever stuck around.
Despite his many friends and loving home, Maurice's absence left a deep scar on Henning's childhood. Hoping to grow closer with his father, Henning dreamt of becoming a builder just like him. When he told his family he wanted to be a builder, they all supported him wholeheartedly—Rune even wanted to join him! They planned to go through school together and build a career as a builder team, with their own shared workshop: 'Running Rounds.'
Upon hearing of his son’s dream to be a builder, Maurice decided to gift Henning his old workshop for his 20th birthday.
This caused a great rift in Henning and Rune's relationship, given that it meant they would not be able to form the joint workshop they had dreamt of—and Henning would be leaving her behind.
When Rune lashed out and argued Maurice didn't care about Henning, the two fell out for good and, in his anger, Henning committed to moving to Portia alone, before either he or Rune had even graduated from the Builder Academy.
He spent the first six months in Portia feeling lost and depressed. It was his first time living away from home, and the workshop his father had left him wasn't what he expected: small, empty, and falling to pieces. Having to learn on the job, with only his father's handbook as a guide, wasn't as easy as he thought it would be.
And worst of all, he and Rune weren’t speaking anymore.
Finally, he was chasing his dream, but it was in all the wrong ways. His cousin—his sister, his closest friend in the entire world—wasn’t talking to him; he believed she hated him. And he was angry with her, too. Why couldn't she have been happy for him? Her parents had always been there for her; why was he so terrible for wanting the same thing? Except, he felt no closer to his father than he had before, despite having chased this dream for that very reason, and Henning was overcome by shame, regret, and frustration.
That's when he met Aadit.
Aadit was his saviour: a neighbour, a friend, a shoulder to cry on. A comfort in his time of need. How couldn't he fall for him?
Despite still not having contact with his family, Henning and Aadit were married on Spring 18 after a year-long, whirlwind romance—just like Maurice and Clara. Then, on Spring 26, Henning received a birthday letter from Rune, the first communication from either of them in over a year, and, ashamed of himself for neglecting his family, he does not respond.
Then, at the end of that Summer, the Sky Pirates and the Rogue Knight are exposed and driven from Portia, and Aadit disappears, leaving only a letter and a teddy bear behind.
Henning's friends, Arlo among them, are there to support him through this period, especially when Maurice returns for the Builder Bout in the Autumn and Henning is forced to reconcile the image of his father he's always had with the real man. He realises that Rune might have been right all along when his father disappears only days later, leaving his goodbye in a letter.
After the completion of the Portia-Sandrock road through the Eufala in late Autumn, Henning asks Arlo to join him as he finally gathers the courage to face Rune again. Their reunion is not easy. However, after working together on a few jobs, they finally get the chance to work as the builder team they'd dreamed of and apologise to one another.
In late Spring of the next year, after attending Rune and Logan's wedding, Henning and Arlo begin a relationship of their own. However, still hurt by Aadit's disappearance, marriage isn't a conversation they consider for a long, long time.
But that's fine with Henning. He got everything he wanted, and more: closure with his father, a rebuilt relationship with his family, a large and wonderful support network of friends and loved ones in Portia, a successful Workshop, and a loving partner.
His next steps? Inspired by Django and their fight with the Rogue Knight, Henning hopes to become a knight himself.
after growing up in sandrock, Gwen appreciates the milder weather and greener environment of portia... for a little while. but she misses REAL heat, hates how damp and humid it gets in portia, how there's damn PUDDLES and mud all over the place throughout every season. it's Fine, she it's good festival weather, it's pleasant enough to work in most of the time, but on her days off she really wishes she had a home base somewhere just a bit drier, warmer...sandier.
(she's not the, or even a licensed builder).
but once the bridge is built, when the trading post and motel get off the ground, when phyllis sets up her apothecary over there... oh, she is SO moving to South Block!!! wouldn't care if she had to live in theeeee shittiest ramshackle hut for a while, would just be so stoked and relieved and At Home in that new neighbourhood, while getting to stay close to and part of Portia, which had otherwise come to feel a lot like home, a lot like a place (with some people...Sam....) where she could spend a lifetime...
but she definitely moves there and works for a while before the Portia-Sandrock bridges, roads, tunnels and buses are anywhere near running, so is basically cut off from the kind of environment and climate she'd prefer unless she's willing to do the boat-train-whatever inbetween BS long journey in reverse again.
