Project W Post: November 2024
It's finally a Project W Wednesday!
This month, I want to share a little more info on the non-human race of beings that I came up with for this game. The character you create and play as is one of these fantasy individuals, the shorthand for them are "L"s. Ls are humanoid in body type and are as intelligent and capable as humans, but they're still pretty different from humans. They've got their own survival needs and social norms. They are also not creatures of flesh and blood, Ls don't reproduce sexually, and they're not assigned genders at birth.
The majority of Ls do not have chosen pronouns or think anything of "masculine" or "feminine" or generally "gendered" qualities. They speak of others non-specifically. Ls don't even use someone's name unless they're close or have been requested to do so. It's not rude to never ask about aspects of one's identity, it's considered impolite- an unnecessarily personal question. Ls simply speak to someone directly without any acknowledgement of their identity, say "you" or human/L, or use a relationship term such as companion or friend, or refer to another by a visual detail.
If for some reason an L needs to be called by a pronoun, the default for their kind is "it". For Ls, the pronoun "they" is viewed as a more neutral term for a typically gendered being, not a term for genderless creatures like them. They'd rather have a term humans use for inanimate objects since those are by default ungendered. But in this world humans have been historically accepting of pronouns other than he/him and she/her, so "they/them" is a common pronoun used for identity expression in human society. Some humans do use "it" as well, but that's still the best option to the Ls. Though, of course, despite the majority insisting on their lack of gender, there are Ls who feel that they do have a gender. Ls exist who are are men, women, have specific pronouns they are comfortable with, etc.
You will be free to choose any gender and pronouns, just like you can in Our Life. However, your choices are basically boiled down to living as a totally gender-free being or as someone who is trans/gender queer in different ways. You won't face cruelty/violence for not being an agender L, however you will need to go out of your way to assert who you are and not everyone will understand why you care. So, that'll be something to keep in mind!
And I'll leave the post off there. Ideas are still coming along for the game. I hope to be able to share even more in 2025. I can't believe we're almost there.