#sorry this turned out to be more about kerstes' relationship with her family than the struggle with her identity

[a-master-procrastinator]

18 for the Pride Asks? And 7, 8 for the OC of your choice?

Thank you @raven-of-domain-kwaad / @the-raven-of-highever!

18. Do you prefer to give your ocs specific labels, or keep it unspecified? Why? If applicable, do you change their labels depending on circumstance?

If I don't know their identity, then I'm keeping them unspecified, and then as I figure it out I give them labels. And yes, sometimes their labels change bc they turn out to be different from what I originally thought. It just recently happened with Xaele and Jett.

7. Is there something that could cause your oc to question their identity? What?

I couldn't choose a single character for this question, so I'll answer in general.

I imagine some of my a-spec characters starting to question their identity because of some conversation they had with an allo friend about being attracted and finding it difficult to relate. For example, back when they were teens, Jett was confused when Raen was saying something like "oh this girl is so hot" or "I cannot think straight because of that guy". Or Lorri saying that she doesn't understand why people crave sexual or romantic relationships so much when there are a lot of other wonderful things to do, when Vort was talking about his struggle to find a long-term partner.

As for the rest of my characters, it's either having feelings for a person that were unfamiliar to them before that, or just having experiences that challenge the way they viewed themselves.

8. Have they had struggles with their identity, be it due to internal or external reasons?

I want to talk about Kerstes because she came to my mind the first when trying to answer this question.

First, I want to share my headcanon on expectations and views on marriage in the Sith Empire, specifically for pureblood Sith (it's very similar to this post).

Marriage mostly serves two purposes - transaction and reproduction, and while these are a bit more loose for average citizens and military, for pureblood Sith these are very important (because they are not exactly common during the time of SWTOR era, from what I understand). So heterosexual marriage is heavily encouraged and expected from the majority of Sith (with some exceptions).

Because of these expectations Kerstes struggled with her identity. At first, she had trouble with even accepting the fact that she likes women (you know, the "oh yeah, hetero marriage is good for the population because otherwise we'd all want to marry women, right?" moment). Took her quite some time to come to terms with it, and even then she wasn't eager to share this discovery with her parents. Kerstes tried to avoid it whenever the topic of marriage came up, and when it became impossible to ignore, she came out, and, as expected, it didn't go well. Fortunately for Kerstes, soon after this she was sent to Korriban for Sith training, so that conflict became the least of her worries for the duration of Sith Warrior story.

Interesting that after the class story Kerstes had a heart-to-heart conversation with her mother about a lot of things, her identity included. Interesting because prior to her trials she favored her father (because he pretty much gave her everything she wanted, and by that spoiled her) and ignored and despised her mother most of the time. I mentioned that Kerstes starts as a spoiled brat who loves ordering people around, and as the events of Sith Warrior story go, she grows to be less bossy or rude, and more respectful to those below her status (in short. there's a lot more to her character development). And as she goes through this development, she realizes that the most of what she learns are things that her mother tried to teach her. So Kerstes starts seeing her parents in a different light, and that's why she has this heart-to-heart with mother.

In the end, her mother is more accepting of the fact that Kerstes is a lesbian and doesn't have to marry someone against her will (but she still asks for biological grandchildren lol). More importantly, Kertses is more comfortable with her identity and will have a romantic relationship.