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Description
I figured the best piece to start out with should be my new persona. I actually haven't designed a look for… well… myself since the old fanfic days I'm very bad at self indulgence. But now that I'm focusing on building my own universe, I need something that's more neutral, and well… reflects my current identity better than just shoehorning a skirt onto my Assassin's Creed persona. Design wise, I took heavy inspiration from Renaissance clothing and the uniforms of the Swiss Guard. I'm still very much a genealogy nerd and consider myself proudly Swiss despite my frankly heretical lack of fondness for their food XD And yes I still had to include the beaked hood because once you go beaked you never go back. I desperately want this sweater in real life now, why do I do this to myself.

As for my name change, that's a whole story in its own right. Looking back, I definitely knew I was trans since high school. I can vividly remember crippling bouts of gender dysphoria creeping in when I couldn't get to sleep on way-too-quiet nights alone with my thoughts. At the time, however, I still didn't really have the knowledge or resources to process what that meant. That's why all my OCs tended to be girls with pretty historical dresses, I was very much subconsciously projecting. Over time, I had a few chances to pose as a girl anonymously online, and my friends and I all had a good laugh saying it was a joke. But damn, it was a joke that gave me a rush of euphoria. I loved being called she/her, and everyone started to take notice and do it more regularly. I accepted my first "dare" to go try on one of the pretty dresses I'm always raving about back in college, and I nearly melted looking in that mirror. Eventually, one of my best friends just bluntly asked me if I was trans, and I found I was just unable to say anything else but yes. Thankfully they were a supportive bunch. I was scared about telling my parents and put that off for a while, but once I was finally moving into my own apartment, I felt confident enough to reveal my secret, and thankfully they took it well (and honestly my stepmom definitely knew already) and that was a weight off my shoulders.

For a while, everyone called me Catherine Jane, just because that was the closest sounding thing to my dead name. It always felt a little hollow though, because it wasn't something I chose, but I was just too socially anxious to try and make people change it. But eventually I spoke up and I went with a name I've enjoyed, obviously, for a long time. I had to be honest with myself: Ava Arlie was always more of a self insert than my literal self insert character. She was this perfect package of a cottage core lesbian who's bashful but adventurous, friendly but lacking confidence. Scarfs, cardigans, soft and floral. So when I racked my brain for the perfect name to go by, I finally went all in, and took the name from my own creation. As for my middle name, my birth middle name was my late grandfather's first name. It's a name with history in my family that does still mean a lot to me. And being a linguistics nerd, I wasn't satisfied with something that just sounds similar like Jane, I needed it to be etymologically the same. Unfortunately "James" is a tricky bastard of a name with no good female English equivalent. So I just went straight to the rules of the Hebrew it's derived from and slapped an "-a" at the end to make it grammatically feminine. Might not be entirely accurate to whatever alternate timeline produced a proper feminine variant, but I like the way "Jamessa" rolls off the tongue. Sounds a bit like "Vanessa" with an exotic twist.

So hi everyone. Allow me to reintroduce myself. I'm Ava Jamessa Spainhower, a quirky little Hoosier girl. Legal name change still pending. I like history, dinosaurs, Star Wars, worldbuilding, and I'm sure I'd enjoy long walks on the beach too if the closest one wasn't 200 miles away. It's a pleasure to get to know you all again.

Description
I figured the best piece to start out with should be my new persona. I actually haven't designed a look for… well… myself since the old fanfic days I'm very bad at self indulgence. But now that I'm focusing on building my own universe, I need something that's more neutral, and well… reflects my current identity better than just shoehorning a skirt onto my Assassin's Creed persona. Design wise, I took heavy inspiration from Renaissance clothing and the uniforms of the Swiss Guard. I'm still very much a genealogy nerd and consider myself proudly Swiss despite my frankly heretical lack of fondness for their food XD And yes I still had to include the beaked hood because once you go beaked you never go back. I desperately want this sweater in real life now, why do I do this to myself.

As for my name change, that's a whole story in its own right. Looking back, I definitely knew I was trans since high school. I can vividly remember crippling bouts of gender dysphoria creeping in when I couldn't get to sleep on way-too-quiet nights alone with my thoughts. At the time, however, I still didn't really have the knowledge or resources to process what that meant. That's why all my OCs tended to be girls with pretty historical dresses, I was very much subconsciously projecting. Over time, I had a few chances to pose as a girl anonymously online, and my friends and I all had a good laugh saying it was a joke. But damn, it was a joke that gave me a rush of euphoria. I loved being called she/her, and everyone started to take notice and do it more regularly. I accepted my first "dare" to go try on one of the pretty dresses I'm always raving about back in college, and I nearly melted looking in that mirror. Eventually, one of my best friends just bluntly asked me if I was trans, and I found I was just unable to say anything else but yes. Thankfully they were a supportive bunch. I was scared about telling my parents and put that off for a while, but once I was finally moving into my own apartment, I felt confident enough to reveal my secret, and thankfully they took it well (and honestly my stepmom definitely knew already) and that was a weight off my shoulders.

For a while, everyone called me Catherine Jane, just because that was the closest sounding thing to my dead name. It always felt a little hollow though, because it wasn't something I chose, but I was just too socially anxious to try and make people change it. But eventually I spoke up and I went with a name I've enjoyed, obviously, for a long time. I had to be honest with myself: Ava Arlie was always more of a self insert than my literal self insert character. She was this perfect package of a cottage core lesbian who's bashful but adventurous, friendly but lacking confidence. Scarfs, cardigans, soft and floral. So when I racked my brain for the perfect name to go by, I finally went all in, and took the name from my own creation. As for my middle name, my birth middle name was my late grandfather's first name. It's a name with history in my family that does still mean a lot to me. And being a linguistics nerd, I wasn't satisfied with something that just sounds similar like Jane, I needed it to be etymologically the same. Unfortunately "James" is a tricky bastard of a name with no good female English equivalent. So I just went straight to the rules of the Hebrew it's derived from and slapped an "-a" at the end to make it grammatically feminine. Might not be entirely accurate to whatever alternate timeline produced a proper feminine variant, but I like the way "Jamessa" rolls off the tongue. Sounds a bit like "Vanessa" with an exotic twist.

So hi everyone. Allow me to reintroduce myself. I'm Ava Jamessa Spainhower, a quirky little Hoosier girl. Legal name change still pending. I like history, dinosaurs, Star Wars, worldbuilding, and I'm sure I'd enjoy long walks on the beach too if the closest one wasn't 200 miles away. It's a pleasure to get to know you all again.