• fae/faer or they/them

fae otherkin in the streets, anthro red chocobo in the sheets


  1. It Does Not Matter

like, genuinely, just name your characters and places whateverthefuck. It's fine, it's good.

some of the most popular franchises in the world practice this and it's fine. Anime is a fantastic example: there's just motherfuckers known the world over named "Trunks" and "Piccolo" and "Monkey D. Luffy" and "Cloud Strife" and "Mario Mario" and none of those sound even remotely weird because they've been part of culture for twenty to forty years now. if you showed your dad a picture of Trunks and asked what the character's name is, he'd have a good shot of getting it right. Steel Ball Run names a motherfucker "Funny Valentine" and it's fine, it's cool, that's just what that dude's name is, no one really makes a fuss about it. one of the coolest motherfuckers in video games is named

SOL BADGUY

and this is a normal ass thing for a guy to be called.

"but I've got a serious setting" okay, cool. hey let's talk about the souls franchise for a second, that's a pretty serious setting with a lot of good fantasy titles and a melancholy tone that has spawned a huge following and defined whole trails of stylistic and mechanical approaches in various genres. they got a man named "Big Hat Logan," so called on account of the fact that he wears a pretty big hat.

"ah, but those are all Japanese media, which have different approaches-" let me stop you right there. you know who one of the most popular Western fictional characters is? it's a man who dresses like a bat. they call that motherfucker "Batman." he has a comedian-themed bad guy they call "Joker." Undertale named dudes after fonts, fer the love of god. name your characters whatever the hell you want.

"but what about my lore and worldbuilding" good news! you set all the cultures! which includes naming themes! if your high fantasy setting has a pile of dudes named after different flavors of chip your readers/players have to hold that and if you simply hold the course and do not flinch from it they will happily run along with you

"but won't I feel silly if my tabletop character is named something weird" look. I played as a character named Ragdoll Salts for several sessions. you know how long it took for her name to just start feeling natural? fucking immediately.

as a creator of any sort of fiction, the rules are yours to set. do not squander this opportunity and do not fear rules you don't need to adhere to.


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