(01-20-2017, 09:52 AM)Virella Wrote: I wouldn't say I mind it, but I do feel it is a poor choice onto representing your character as the race (or clan) they are meant to be. Especially because unlike all the other races, midlander and highlanders do look distinctly different in regard of frame of body they are given in game.
For me it is sticking a dog label onto a cat and then getting upset people see it as a cat and not a dog. Thankfully you don't seem to do that though, what I have to give you kudos for.
The first thing I'd say to anyone out there who would feel either upset or hurt about mis-identification is that you should make your character as easily identifiable as possible. But I don't think that is the case, it certainly isn't with me, and that isn't at all a tone I see in the OP. So yes, if getting upset is an issue, you should be using the most obvious model possible.Â
From my own perspective its absolutely not a matter of "getting upset". I might be disappointed but not upset if someone insisted upon treating Aya as a Midlander in every way, that's the situation that I have created! But, I think that it would make no material difference whatsoever.Â
Which brings me to my second point, that I simply have to offer disagreement on the merits. A Midlander and a Highlander are not at all like a dog and a cat. They share exactly the same skeletal structure and anatomy. They share the same biology, and physiology. Given that their pigmentation variation is also identical, they are not even as dissimilar as two different breeds of cat or dog.Â
What most sets Highlanders and Midlanders apart are matters of stature and physique. Highlanders tend to be taller and more muscular than Midlanders, but the musculature is not even an entirely primary characteristic. A sedentary Highlander is going to be fat. And some Midlander men are going to be broad-chested and cut.
This brings to my most important contention: the apparent differences between the two clans are largely the result of limitations in the game engine, rather than actualities within the game world. We see every Highlander literally having the same body, and the same for every Midlander. This is not representative of what our characters experience and observe. Within the IC world the variation will be more similar to our own, and these supposed distinctions would very quickly blur.Â
Some Highlanders due to a combination of facial features, build, accent, and so on, will be obviously Highlanders. The same will be true for some Midlanders. But, for those in-between the distinction will be blurred. They may appear more-or-less similar to one "ideal" form or the other, but it will not be entirely clear what their ancestry is (any more than ethnic descent can always be clearly observed in reality).Â
I do not feel that playing a Highlander with a Midlander model is anything at all like placing a "dog" label on a cat. The model's themselves are suggestive at best, and if anything I suspect this arrangement provides a better idea of Aya's form than if I had simply stuck with the Highlander model (though I am definitely open to disagreement on that!)
In my mind Aya's appearance did not change with the model switch. Was the Midlander look closer to that vision? That's questionable. Was the aesthetic closer (due largely to the ever-preset clenched fists of the pre-c-pose Highlander female), definitely. I still feel there is some value in that.
There is also evidence that this is the way it is intended to be: just to mention a couple of well-known female Highlander characters (if the Lorebook is to be trusted): Yda and Minfilia. I would say that both appear more similar to Aya's Midlander model, than to her old Highlander one.
In the end though:
Will everyone be accepting of the discrepancy, maybe not... but I don't think the ramifications, even on IC interactions with such recalcitrant individuals, would be invalidated or slighted [You just play along as best you can!]. If the OP feels that his Duskwight is better represented by a Wildwood model, I'd still encourage him to go for it
![[Image: 21282370099_a814a08664_o.png]](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/590/21282370099_a814a08664_o.png)
