Androgyny

[Lizzie]

My issue is one of semantics and sentence structure and ease of understanding. I empathize with Malken and other non-English-speaking people who try to play this game. They're caught in the middle of having to decode incorrect, but accepted, English vernacular that doesn't translate into their own language.

When someone identifies themselves as a "they" it's awkward at best, confusing as hell at worse, and can even create IC drama where none was intended.

I've seen it, I've been witness to it, I've participated in it, unwittingly.

Example:
You walk into a bar and immediately see this:
>The tressy tress human says, in sirihish, while stroking their arm, "Another ale Vennant."

You look at the bar.
No one else is sitting there. There are no pets there, the human doesn't have a pet lizard on his shoulder.

Looks to me like the tressed person is stroking someone else's arm, not his own. Whose arm? No idea. THe plot thickens and might even result in a visit from a templar.

That's innocuous, barely noteworthy.

It can get ridiculously convoluted though, all because someone chooses to self-identify as "they" or "them" or "their."

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

That honestly seems like something to work through on your part, cus this isn't the first time singular they has ever been used, and it's certainly not incorrect. "It" for sentient beings is more incorrect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

[puella]

It's just how English works, Lizzie.  Other languages do things differently.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

It's just how English works, Lizzie.  Other languages do things differently.

Honestly, this. I don't see English users going onto French or German games and being like "why is every single item gendered. it doesn't work like this in english and I'm confused and every single thing has to adapt to me."

Non-English people may be confused by a neutral pronoun, sure, but human beings can learn and adapt and be like "that's just how english is".

Because that's just how English is. And anyone studying French or German and struggling with their wholly gendered language, that's just how French or German is.

[The Lonely Hunter]

No. No thank you.

Male and female are fine for Arm.

[Harmless]

Okay, we all have genitalia and chromosomal radar, codedly. Yippee, realism achieved.

(Not).

This whole thread was really just a pet peeve of a player at the code saying he/she when their character was clearly a they. They/them gendered people exist in the real world -- okay, maybe not as commonly in a lot of the United States, where stronger gender expression norms make people effortfully try to fit into one gender or another more. Here, in the United States, but not in Zalanthas, we even politicize the issue and force a gender assignment. That isn't true in all cultures.

We have Zalanthas, which is a world where it is documented that gender doesn't affect one's lot in life. That suggests and implies that there isn't aggressive gender norming and sorting. That suggests that there would be people in Zalanthas who don't clearly fit a he/she gender and that nobody would care about it.

So, the code request was simple; add code that makes it so that gender isn't automatically sensed, code-wise. Instead, some characters are they/them when a pronoun is used because their appearance, or voice, or whatever, aren't clearly male/female so that you would instantly be able to assign one.

Anyway, I don't have a new argument, I am trying to succinctly wrap up what I thought was a totally reasonable request and one I fully support, because it fits the setting and I really don't get why there would be even a shred of vehement counter-argument (nobody here in these long winded posts has given me any argument I buy), so I give the idea a +1.

[Harmless]

You walk into a bar and immediately see this:
>The tressy tress human says, in sirihish, while stroking her arm, "Another ale Vennant."

You look at the bar.
someone else is sitting there, and *gasp* they are also female.

Looks to me like the tressed person is stroking someone else's arm, not her own. Whose arm? No idea.
...

Once again, Lizzie, you have absolutely no argument here. In a slightly different, but equally common scenario that I bolded the changes for above, there is again, ambiguity. In fact, there is always ambiguity with pronouns. When someone uses the her pronoun, it just isn't clear whose arm is being stroked -- is it her arm? some other female's arm? Ambiguity is the English language's fault, and it has nothing to do with gender assignments.

In fact, the counterpoint is that adding the their pronoun actually creates MORE specificity. If person A is androgynous and person B is female, and the pronoun their is used...well, now we know who that pronoun is referring to, don't we?

The only way pronoun ambiguity is solved is that it is coded. It allows the viewer on the receiving end of the pronoun to see those amazing words of immersion which matter: You. Your.

[Armaddict]

I never said no.  I said that trying to insert all the RL political shit into the game is stupid.  I said the same thing with the necker thing.

The game saying it, him, her, they, them, whatever, really doesn't mean a single damn thing.  Neither does someone not being able to tell your sex in game.  What purpose does that -actually- serve, because all I can gather from the posts is the ability for the player to enjoy the 'ZING, I'M NOT WHAT YOU THOUGHT I WAS!', which is really just not a very compelling argument for, either.

Neither case adds or detracts from the game, and the strong push to make this into feelings, acceptance, or anything else is showing a huge lack of barrier between this game and real life, the character and the self, and the ability to actually play a game with people being chopped up with bone swords that is it's own thing.

Edited to add:  To reiterate, I didn't say don't do it.  But I do not enjoy when RL stances, politically, suddenly creep into the game as justification for things, which is what this faded into, and why I entered with 'Fight the good fight elsewhere.'  I don't care if we change pronouns.  I care what people view as valid justification for entrance or changes within the game.

[valeria]

Since I originally came here from a game where I didn't feel welcome to play strong female characters because of gender discrimination under the excuse that it fit with the "period," feeling welcome at a place is certainly important to me.

Following this:

If you are sort of androgynous, but folks can discern your sex, choose your sex in chargen.
If you are androgynous to the point you would be obviously mistaken as the other sex, choose the other sex in chargen.
If you are so androgynous that it is the thing folks will most remember about you, use androgynous in your sdesc.
If you are sexless (which may or may not be androgynous), do a role application and we can make you neuter sex.

There are options for androgyny.  There is one specific form of androgyny not supported.  There are no plans at this time to support it.

Which appears to be the Official Last Word on the topic, I'm pretty much convinced that this is true:

If you really must [want to] play an androgynous character to enjoy Armageddon then maybe it's just not the mud for you.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

Lemme be clear.
The 'zing, I'm not what you thought I was!' plotline is fucking terrible in everything. Anyone who wants their gender to be a Pandora's Box, I would actually ask that they rescind their support for this.
My support for this is in covering bases currently not covered, and making the lore match the code.
Also, I don't know if you noticed, but most folk aren't making this into feelings. There's some compelling arguments in here, but there's a couple lines of "I mean, it'd be nice personally in regards to representation too" attached to the end of those arguments, and that seems to have immediately set off a siren wherein people are now getting out their Gender Studies Knives and butchering everything to see exactly where the fee-fees lay.
This is what I warned this topic would probably devolve into, and why if it was to be viewed in seriousness (which I believe it should be), anyone stepping outside of a line would need to be bootstomped.
This isn't about making everyone's fee-fees all gentle and sweet. This isn't about giving everyone a surprise veloricaptor in their pants. I actively discourage 'panic reveal' storylines and think they're the worst part of any media and actually actively contribute to hate towards non-binary folk IRL.

I also hate that I have to explain that in response to the panicreveal topic even being brought up, because now I feel like things have gotten way off the rails which I tried to prevent and steer back three times now.

Guard your incomprehensibly noneuclidean loins, because I'm about to say something that'll knock your wotsits off.

*Representation is nice, yes. That's a given. But Zalanthas is always going to be a fucking harsh fucking place, and it always SHOULD be, whether this goes through or not.*

I honestly don't give a rat's hairy left nut if someone is gleeful over the prospect of they'ing. Good, in that respect, game on. Be respectful, but sure, enjoy it.

What I DO care about is enthusiasts AND detractors both trying to turn this into a game of whodunnit and instigate gender politics. It feels like the detractors are trying to light the proverbial boom-stick up as a way of cutting off or defusing the enthusiasts arguments (you said 'representation'! That means I get to disregard what you said! ADMIIIIINS!), while the enthusiasts think they can burn through if they light their tits on fire next and go full blazing rainbow flag.

Let me be clear. I /am/ full blazing rainbow flag in real life. Dual wielding machine guns that fire biodegradable rainbow sparkle pellets. This is not the time for that. Nor has it ever been. Nor is the topic even about that.

Detractors and enthusiasts both, can we just get the fuck back on topic?

And cut it out with the jackoff-in-a-box surprise reveal nonsense. That trope is dead and dusted.

My larger point a couple slaps back still stands. The lore needs to match the code. Either Zalanthas is a world where gender doesn't matter, or it does. Either Zalanthas is world where men and women are pretty similar and almost the same in most respects, or they're so exaggeratedly different that you can always tell even when they're cloaked so firmly as to prevent you even discerning their race, skin colour, or if they have a third arm or not.

A 'they' option on chargen would be nice, but the easiest and best fix for this is just to give 'they' to cloaked folk. If you think they doesn't fit because plural, or you don't like how 'they' sounds, Google 'singular they' and get over yourself.

Choosing your shouting voice is a secondary way to counter this. And a very nice one to boot. As part of chargen so as to keep from folk making it ridiculous. Thus being looked over to keep from trailing off too far.

A 'they' chargen would be VERY NICE, yes, but the other two fixes are likely both far easier to install and also far easier to /control/.

[Tekky]

So. What will you do when a person in ultimate power over your character decides to call you a "she" when you are a "he" or a "they"? We've seen plenty of people in character refer to other races as "it" and such.

What if some Templar decideds to gender you as an argosy? Or Lord Fale suddenly starts identifying as a non-binary roc?

... What is this discussion? Wouldn't hermaphrodites be considered mutants and scum? Are we excluding them from that prejudice? Would someone with child-bearing abilities be ignored as a female and excluded from such if they were part of a family where such could be adventagous?

I mean. The setting itself is not modern. Not really respectable of anyones 'wishes'. We could retcon it all and have a senate meeting where we give people human rights and power over identity - but generally people do as they are told. And if Uncle Lord Master Borsail tells his young daughter to get married to Lord Stinky Kasix and spit out some children, I guess she will or she will die - right?

Problematic to bring real life politics to an archaic fantasy setting.

[Brokkr]

5 pages of discussion in this thread, and I still don't see a request for it in the Developer Request that deals with syntax.

Or maybe I am missing it.  It is the morning and mornings suck.

[valeria]

It seemed to me more like a larger code change than a syntax thing, but... done!

[puella]

I'm not sure what a Developer Request is, but I believe the proposal would be something like the following three steps:

1. In chargen, add 'other' as a third option when choosing your gender: male, female, other

2. If gender is 'other', rather than using 'it' (and friends), use 'their' (and friends), as outlined here:

Char.|Target Sees|Others See
----------------------------
  ~  |you        |<sdesc>
  %  |your       |<sdesc>'s
  !  |you        |him/her/them
  ^  |your       |his/her/their
  #  |you        |he/she/they
  &  |yourself   |himself/herself/themself
  =  |yours      |<sdesc>'s
  +  |yours      |his/hers/theirs
----------------------------
  @  | <your sdesc>

3. If gender 'other', voice adjective for 'shout' will be 'androgynous' rather than 'male' or 'female'.

[valeria]

That's pretty much what I put over in that thread. Or just "a voice" across the board. Or customized voice sounds.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

So. What will you do when a person in ultimate power over your character decides to call you a "she" when you are a "he" or a "they"? We've seen plenty of people in character refer to other races as "it" and such.

If you're using genders as an insult, or as a means of directly antagonising a player or their character, then you're not playing according to Zalanthan lore. "It" is fine - dehumanising isn't falsely gendering, but it is a bit strange, especially if you're not a Templar and you're doing it in response to someone being somewhat vague.

If there is an actual in character in context variant of this (like a Templar saying "I can't tell if the blasted freak is a man or a woman..."), then that's /fine/. That's /FINE/. Nobody has said that wasn't fine except for panicked detractors trying to backpedal.

What if some Templar decideds to gender you as an argosy? Or Lord Fale suddenly starts identifying as a non-binary roc?

Then the Templar would be viewed as weird, but Templars can do whatever they want. If it continued and became aggressive, or the character's indescript nature was a reason on the Templar's part to murderfy them, then that'd be a bit odd and I'd suggest it being looked into.

Lord Fale, in this hypothetical, would be way out of line and need to be bootstamped.

I am not asking for representation. Representation is nice, but I'm not asking for it. The most I'd want they-aligned characters to even identify with is "meh, I've never really cared for what people see me as I guess". If anyone - ANYONE, even a Templar - started using it as a flag and shouting "Respect my identity!", I'd kindly tell them to fuck off.

... What is this discussion? Wouldn't hermaphrodites be considered mutants and scum? Are we excluding them from that prejudice?

If they were to openly go about jiggling their norahs, sure, call them mutants and scum. That fits with the world. If you're calling someone mutated scum based purely on a 'they' flag and nothing else, though, that is OOC and you should take a long hard look at yourself.

Nondescript presentation =! hermaphrodite. AFAIK, nobody even mentioned hermaphrodites before you. This is, again, another false flag you're raising as a detractor.

Would someone with child-bearing abilities be ignored as a female and excluded from such if they were part of a family where such could be adventagous?

There's nothing advantageous about being a man versus being a woman in Zalanthas, according to the lore. There may be families that are in need of a male child purely because they wish to have them marry the new female child that just turned up in Kadius someday, or vice versa, but that is a specific scenario regarding noble's foppishness and desire for business dealing potential, and is not reflective on Zalanthas on the whole.

I mean. The setting itself is not modern. Not really respectable of anyones 'wishes'. We could retcon it all and have a senate meeting where we give people human rights and power over identity - but generally people do as they are told.

Archaic in Zalanthan standards is not archaic in Earthen standards. People have the power over their identity already - it's just that nobody fucking cares, nor should they, because it's a desert world where we're all working towards our next sip of water. Nobody is asking for pride parades. Nobody. But on the same vein, nobody should be kicking people down and misgendering them except if they're Templars doing it a couple times as a dehumanisation method - otherwise that just doesn't fit or make sense with any of this. Ingrained societal sexism isn't Zalanthan.

And if Uncle Lord Master Borsail tells his young daughter to get married to Lord Stinky Kasix and spit out some children, I guess she will or she will die - right?

Probably "be thoroughly scorned for not following the Family's wishes" rather than "die". But even so, this is nobles, nobles are eccentric, and again, not reflective of Zalanthas on the whole.

Problematic to bring real life politics to an archaic fantasy setting.

And yet you make a whole post trying desperately to tie this to politics through wild insinuating hypotheticals. Curious.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

If you are sort of androgynous, but folks can discern your sex, choose your sex in chargen.
If you are androgynous to the point you would be obviously mistaken as the other sex, choose the other sex in chargen.
If you are so androgynous that it is the thing folks will most remember about you, use androgynous in your sdesc.
If you are sexless (which may or may not be androgynous), do a role application and we can make you neuter sex.

There are options for androgyny.  There is one specific form of androgyny not supported.  There are no plans at this time to support it.

I was reeeaaalllly hoping this ended this thread. *curses* What is wrong with what Brokkr said here? I mean, it seems like this should satisfy everyone. I can't imagine that there are so many folks wanting to play this out that they can't just do the role app thing or one of the other options. I'm not a coder, but it does seem like it would take a lot of work to do what is being asked, and all for very little reward, when the above options are already available.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

I'm not sure what a Developer Request is, but I believe the proposal would be something like the following three steps:

1. In chargen, add 'other' as a third option when choosing your gender: male, female, other

2. If gender is 'other', rather than using 'it' (and friends), use 'their' (and friends), as outlined here:

Char.|Target Sees|Others See
----------------------------
  ~  |you        |<sdesc>
  %  |your       |<sdesc>'s
  !  |you        |him/her/them
  ^  |your       |his/her/their
  #  |you        |he/she/they
  &  |yourself   |himself/herself/themself
  =  |yours      |<sdesc>'s
  +  |yours      |his/hers/theirs
----------------------------
  @  | <your sdesc>

3. If gender 'other', voice adjective for 'shout' will be 'androgynous' rather than 'male' or 'female'.

A 'developer request' is basically a suggestion you can give via the requests tool, IIRC. It should be on the dropdown menu somewhere.

Or maybe Brokkr means the Developer Request thread? I can do both.

I didn't bother as of yet because I figured the topic was still being discussed and folk needed convincing or something. But I can send one over sometime soon once I have breakfast and stuff. I'd encourage other folk to, too, but to be careful in their wording.

If you are sort of androgynous, but folks can discern your sex, choose your sex in chargen.
If you are androgynous to the point you would be obviously mistaken as the other sex, choose the other sex in chargen.
If you are so androgynous that it is the thing folks will most remember about you, use androgynous in your sdesc.
If you are sexless (which may or may not be androgynous), do a role application and we can make you neuter sex.

There are options for androgyny.  There is one specific form of androgyny not supported.  There are no plans at this time to support it.

I was reeeaaalllly hoping this ended this thread. *curses* What is wrong with what Brokkr said here? I mean, it seems like this should satisfy everyone. I can't imagine that there are so many folks wanting to play this out that they can't just do the role app thing or one of the other options. I'm not a coder, but it does seem like it would take a lot of work to do what is being asked, and all for very little reward, when the above options are already available.

It may be satisfying as a response for /you/, but not for other folk. Quite simple, really.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

Edited so I can just withdraw from this argument.

[puella]

See above (the developer's request).

[valeria]

There are many, many posts in this thread about why those options aren't sufficient for someone who wants to play a character that appears androgynous. But I'll explain it as succinctly as possible:

If you are sort of androgynous, but folks can discern your sex, choose your sex in chargen.

If you are androgynous to the point you would be obviously mistaken as the other sex, choose the other sex in chargen.

This is fine for the people it applies to.

If you are so androgynous that it is the thing folks will most remember about you, use androgynous in your sdesc.

Okay, but you will still echo in emotes as she/he, so code doesn't support you actually being androgynous. Even though that's your main feature. You still appear as male or female in emotes, even though you shouldn't. <- This is the problem.

If you are sexless (which may or may not be androgynous), do a role application and we can make you neuter sex.

This is fine for the people it applies to. It still doesn't address people who appear neither male nor female.  It only addresses people who have no sex, and the end result (being an "it") is dehumanizing. For reasons previously discussed in the thread. (Tangent: Varys is neutered but no one calls him "it" or if they do it's deliberately insulting.)

There are options for androgyny.  There is one specific form of androgyny not supported.  There are no plans at this time to support it.

There are options, but they are work arounds. If you want to play a character who appears neither male nor female, there is no coded support for you and no plans for there to be. <- If you want to play an androgynous character, you effectively can't do it here. Or can't effectively do it here. Take your pick.

[Namino]

This'll be my last post in this thread, but I went out of my way this morning to ask my genderqueer gym partner/D&D companion what they thought about it between our sets.

Sparing the details of that discussion, ultimately I'm walking back my statements some. If someone choosing a 'they' pronoun solely because that is their identity OOCly is self insertion, then on the same token a male/female player choosing male/female character respectively would be the same degree of self insertion. As Synthesis says, some degree of self insertion is inevitable and if we're going to allow male/female players the ability to only play characters that reflect their gender (ie, a minor metric of self insertion), then we should make that available for people not ascribing to those genders.

I still think removing everything but ~ % and = and scrubbing pronouns from things like combat rolls and targeting inventory items so that we only have physical descriptors and no one is locked into a pronoun at all would be the most realistic, complete way to do this, but I'm coming around to the idea of a hard-coded they pronoun.

[MeTekillot]

I'd be fine with that if the huge blocks of sdesc text wouldn't utterly bloat emote lengths.

[Heade]

I have no real problem with self-insertion. I just don't want to create OOC bitterness and hurt feelings from a game.

Ok, let's discuss a scenario. Let's assume all these wishes are granted and people can play androgenously with a "they". Say such an option becomes the popular Go-to option for CIS gendered characters because they feel it's appropriate when they're armored up, masked, and covered in a cloak for their pronouns to be ambiguous, not because they're necessarily playing an androgenous character.

Ok, fine. Everyone in game is a "they".

Now, through descriptions and RP, someone plays a male that looks, acts, and refers to himself/herself as a she. In all ways, this person presents themselves as a female. This person cultivates a relationship with another, male character(character B) who is never told anything other than she's a female. This relationship develops and character A ends up going into the apartment of character B for intimate relations, where, to character B's surprise, She has a penis.

Character B feels betrayed, not in a homophobe way, but simply lied to by someone who he allowed to get close to him. Who he allowed in his inner sanctuary. His safe place was violated. Character B, in a fit of rage at the betrayal kills the She with a penis.

I have ONE question for everyone involved in this conversation: Does the above justify a player complaint against the player of Character B? I could only get behind changes like these if the consensus of the community was 100% "NO!", which it will never be. There are too many people who are on such a RL crusade for RL acceptance that they can't put that crusade aside long enough to play in a game where not liking you, or not liking something you did on a gender-bending character doesn't automatically equal homophobic behavior that should be smited by the gods themselves.

I'm all for inclusion and equal representation. But I don't want RL political crusades to carry over into my escape world, where slavery, murder, theft, racism, taxation without representation, dictatorship, and all sorts of things I don't agree with IRL are standard.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

Shock reveals are fucking pathetic.

If Character A betrays Character B's trust wholeheartedly, then sure, go ahead and try and PK. Whatever. Character A has no recourse here unless Character B was actively doing it from a position of homophobia or transphobia.

But let's not turn this into a discussion about shock reveals and trans panic. And by the by, "trans panic" is just as possible under the current code, by Brokkr's admission. And I've never seen it happen.

And I doubt any actual non-binary or trans folk would play out a trans panic plotline anyway. Because it's fucking stupid. And not on topic.

This isn't even about trans people.