#(tho that would still be different than how its depicted ingame)

[foulserpent]

Hi! I saw ur tags on that healing post. what would you change about the priestesses of dibella? I always love your worldbuilding!

ok so given dibella is worshipped in many different cultures (and given that realistically there would be massive variation Within this) this has to be a huge generalization so my headcanons here are mostly for dibella worship within the nine divines religion/imperial cult (since thats the context for most of the lore on her worship) rather than All Worship Of Dibella Everywhere

main thing is.. its not Super well defined to begin with, and the sex aspects are kind of a 'hey gamer man target audience! we will describe the goddess's worship as a thing where theres TONS of sexy women who fuck and know secret erotic techniques!! no men allowed tee hee!! (i sure hope no men intrude to our hot sex chambers tee hee!!!!)' forbidden fruit sorta thing rather than being like. particularly well thought out. it also seems to be playing heavily on (possibly entirely false) concepts of 'sacred [sex work]' in aphrodite worship in ancient greece that is fairly often made into this kinda fetishized thing in media.

and i think a lot of fans try to 'fix' all this by just like downplaying the sex aspects entirely which i dont think is necessary

heres my headcanons

-her place within the nine divines pantheon is pretty nebulous, but the core facets of her worship center around beauty and pleasure. music and dance, natural beauty, and sex specifically tend to be focuses.

-music is CENTRAL to her worship. song and dance is the primary way she is prayed to. her worship spaces are almost always filled with music (bards can make a living of of playing in dibella's temples)

-sex is very significant both as part of her sphere and as a facet of rituals, but its not a 'you go to her temple and there are sexy big BOOB ladieys who want to fuck YOU' sort of thing. you are generally expected to find a sexual partner for yourself. certain cults of dibella are more sex focused, but access to these groups tend to require initiation and devotion.

-sexual instruction is a facet of certain forms of worship, mainly irt stuff like positions deemed favorable for ritual magic, or aphrodisiacs or shit like that

-i would want to develop the relation of sex work to dibellan practices, (based on similar historic gods related to sex work) but its something that literally there would be absolutely no chance of it EVER being handled well lol. but she likely has some associations with sex work in imperial society, (which if its anything like its irl historical precedents is a normalized facet of society, tho with class connotations)

-the love/affection aspects attributed to her tend to be considered more abstract and non-interpersonal love- a lover as a concept, not as a practice and not with the struggles reality entails. less abstract forms of love are considered more the territory of mara, though there is some variation or merging of the two, context depending (as in like. gods in polytheistic religions dont always have Well Defined Mutually Exclusive Spheres, especially not in the context of a state religion of a continent-spanning empire)

-class plays a huge part into how dibella is worshipped. worship among the imperial upper classes/nobility tends to have a decidedly more pleasure-focused tilt (as they have more leisure time than the lower classes) and frequent indulgence of feasting, drinking expensive art, etc is involved. worship among common folk tends to center around immaterial aspects (particularly music and dance) aside from dedicated festivals and feast days in her honor.

-dibella shares a place with zenithar as sometimes being seen as the 'rich mens gods', given the poor in the imperial hegemony dont tend to reap their claimed blessings as often.

-her depiction in the imperial cult leans towards androgyny, though with significant variation. she tends to be cast as a woman specifically in colovia due to heavy nordic cultural influence (where in the nordic pantheon she is squarely a woman).

-her face is usually depicted as obscured, (at least partially due to disagreements on how she should be shown) but she is inevitably depicted in line with the dominant beauty norms of the place and time (which even within the imperial cult will obviously vary tremendously from region to region)

-'dibellan' is a common term in imperial culture for transgender individuals, relating to dibella's varying gender in tales. this term isnt quite analogous to 'trans' irl and is more of a catch-all term for people existing outside of conventional gender norms, (thus sometimes used to refer to gay men/lesbians as well). this is most common in imperial dominant culture in cyrodiil, as other regions and cultures have their own terms, and different norms and definitions.

[foulserpent]

(im leaving out your url to eliminate chances of you getting bothered by my followers, if you would like it to be attached lmk)

my decision to depict martin as mixed race stemmed from a popular interpretation based on his appearance and his mothers name. and like there was a couple posts that claimed he was canon mixed and that drawing him white was whitewashing, and talking about hating white depictions of martin. which is what motivated my original decision. i havent been under the impression that hes actually canon white until now and im not sure if thats universally agreed on. (obv hes an imperial but ingame his skintone is set darker than others, still lighter skinned than i draw him tho. i wanted to avoid the ‘ambiguously brown’ thing and had a specific ethnicity in mind bc of it).

and obviously that doesnt absolve me of any wrongdoing or of my racism as a white person, im just not sure on the best way forward because the feelings on this are not universal and i’ve gotten a ton of positive feedback on it.

i have been guilty of seeing poc racebend characters with the intent of representing themselves and just mimicking it by making characters ‘ambiguously brown’ as some kinda performative allyship that lacked a real understanding of WHY poc do it and how its different when its just a white person mimicking it. its smth ive recognized as racism and have moved away from, but its something ive been very much guilty of. i can also move away from having so many non-white characters especially since i profit off my work at this point. and not like, sell any stickers or prints of them. but im not sure on whether making him or my other characters white is the best move, again just bc of the pretty significant differences of opinion on this.

white followers your input is not wanted or needed