Eyrien wings are kind of like bat-wings, or at least that's the impression I get from Bishop's writing -- the words "dark" and "membranous" occur frequently -- so presumably they can be folded along a person's back to keep them from knocking into stuff, but they're always there and you have to plan all your clothing around them and so on.
I am not quite sure about Davesprite. I have some thoughts about Kindred ravens and territory rivalries and theft relating to the game disks, but I'm not sure how that would mesh with the sprite creation process. *ponders further*
The Blood are WAY strict on biological sex-linked traits, but Bishop does allow for homosexuality (though she heavily de-emphasizes it and never writes any actual homosexual romance; instead one of her gay characters (Karla) ends up in an asexual family unit with someone of the opposite sex plus an adopted kid, while the other (Ranier) is forever alone so far as I remember), so I am really not sure how she would have handled transsexuality. Probably badly. But that doesn't mean it can't be done! It just means that you'd have an extra layer of biological shit to deal with, plus hideous social pressure not to rock the boat. A rich vein of possibilities, but one that is depressing in directions I am not interested in writing just now.
But if Karkat were a Queen, that would make him, um, intersex rather than transsexual, I think. Since he would have a female-only biological trait (the Queen caste) plus whatever biological traits make him whatever counts as male among trolls. Which would probably not be any better from the Blood's point of view, but would definitely be a cull-on-sight level of mutation.
The thing is, trolls already have a high level of biological determinism with the hemospectrum and its caste roles, so adding another biological caste system on top of that would get very awkward very fast. Like, what if a troll is born with tyrian blood but she isn't also a Queen? Can she be the Heiress? Are trolls high on the hemospectrum willing to serve Queens with low blood colors? How much does a dark Jewel compensate for low blood, or high blood for a light Jewel, or either of those things for a shit-awful personality and no management skills? The Blood are caretakers of the land -- Queens most specifically have a connection to the earth and to growing things -- so how would they cope with living in space all their adult lives? Who trains the kids on Alternia, and what kinds of avoidable ecological catastrophes has their inexperience caused?
It's fascinating to speculate about, but a little too complicated to deal with unless I accidentally start another epic WIP that will take me a decade and change to finish. *headdesk*
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Date: 2013-07-09 03:21 am (UTC)I am not quite sure about Davesprite. I have some thoughts about Kindred ravens and territory rivalries and theft relating to the game disks, but I'm not sure how that would mesh with the sprite creation process. *ponders further*
The Blood are WAY strict on biological sex-linked traits, but Bishop does allow for homosexuality (though she heavily de-emphasizes it and never writes any actual homosexual romance; instead one of her gay characters (Karla) ends up in an asexual family unit with someone of the opposite sex plus an adopted kid, while the other (Ranier) is forever alone so far as I remember), so I am really not sure how she would have handled transsexuality. Probably badly. But that doesn't mean it can't be done! It just means that you'd have an extra layer of biological shit to deal with, plus hideous social pressure not to rock the boat. A rich vein of possibilities, but one that is depressing in directions I am not interested in writing just now.
But if Karkat were a Queen, that would make him, um, intersex rather than transsexual, I think. Since he would have a female-only biological trait (the Queen caste) plus whatever biological traits make him whatever counts as male among trolls. Which would probably not be any better from the Blood's point of view, but would definitely be a cull-on-sight level of mutation.
The thing is, trolls already have a high level of biological determinism with the hemospectrum and its caste roles, so adding another biological caste system on top of that would get very awkward very fast. Like, what if a troll is born with tyrian blood but she isn't also a Queen? Can she be the Heiress? Are trolls high on the hemospectrum willing to serve Queens with low blood colors? How much does a dark Jewel compensate for low blood, or high blood for a light Jewel, or either of those things for a shit-awful personality and no management skills? The Blood are caretakers of the land -- Queens most specifically have a connection to the earth and to growing things -- so how would they cope with living in space all their adult lives? Who trains the kids on Alternia, and what kinds of avoidable ecological catastrophes has their inexperience caused?
It's fascinating to speculate about, but a little too complicated to deal with unless I accidentally start another epic WIP that will take me a decade and change to finish. *headdesk*