#pronoun culture

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[coquelicoq]

what i like especially about the pronouns in the goblin emperor is that this language doesn't just have the T-V distinction (aka informal vs. formal second-person pronouns, in this case 'thou' vs. 'you'), it also has informal and formal first-person pronouns. having BOTH of these distinctions in the same language lets you fine-tune your tone by mixing and matching. with only one axis of formality, when you use informal pronouns, are you being familiar in an intimate way, or in an insolent or dismissive way? when you use formal pronouns, are you being polite or standoffish? you can't tell just from the pronouns; there's ambiguity. but a language where you can use a formal first-person pronoun in the same sentence as an informal second-person pronoun allows you to distance yourself (via the formal first) while also being familiar (via the informal second), thereby achieving the conversational tenor known to linguists as Fuck Thee Specifically.

[svartalfhild]

Unsurprisingly, people are already being fucking weird about Mizu's gender.

Headcanons are all well and good, but maybe we shouldn't be so eager to apply modern Western gender politics and terms to a character whose identity is so tied to the time, place, and circumstances in which she exists.

Please remember that Mizu was forced to present as male for her own safety and agency. Please remember that allowing others to see her as a man and call her he/him is not a choice; it's protection; it's a means to an end. Until we see Mizu talk about her gender in further detail, that's all the context we have.

Don't project what you want to see onto her and then treat it as fact.

[cryptiduni]

ok ok, listen. I am gonna be straight with you. I am not a Patholic nerd and I really like the game. it has one of the most extraordinary stories/lore, plus its gloomy aesthetic is just my shit. but as a local Khalkh Mongolian, I very much dislike the herb bride designs. they have no inspiration from the cultures they are supposed to vaguely resemble, like literally nothing. i am a visual type of person and love it, ADORE it when shit is pretty to look at, it's in my blood. instead they opted for looking like straight-up savage unevolved cartoon cavewomen with skimpy outfits and foliage in their hair for good measure.

they look so out of place here, which you could argue its intentional but cmonnn???

here’s my take on how they could have looked like or at least what kind of things the devs missed out on:

—and their hair should have been braided in many different styles? all three of the major inspirations for the kin doesn’t like loose hair, if we are speaking traditionally. i really like these thin braids:

yeah, i get Orkhon economy is in shambles so no jewelry and colorful clothes but at least cover their boobage?? idk just slap on thin deel + belt and then just rough it up? make decorations out of wood?? and beads out of bones without just dangling them?? just because shit is desperate doesn't mean we gotta lose our dignity too?

edit: This post’s main point is not about restricting the nudity or the creative liberty i am only saying they should have approached this aspect from a different perspective with a native eyes on the IPL development team. It may have came off that way because i used the word boobage huh?

[butchshevik]

no but really the focus on pronouns Determining Actual Gender And Having Unique Social Roles in lgbt spaces is absolutely bizarre and beyond any form of basic material analysis of gender it exists in the real world. like speaking from experience you can literally be a stone butch lesbian who goes out of ur way to exclusively dress in traditionally masculine clothes, who uses a masculine name, who intentionally and explicitly plays a complex and deeply nonconforming gender role as both social performance art and for personal fulfilment, and then get lumped in by other lgbt people in the category of "she/her type" (and, more broadly, if you use she/her and are afab, you inevitably get labeled as 'cis' regardless of your actual gender performance as interpreted by the world writ large) just because you dont care enough about pronouns to determine and enforce the use of any others for yourself

[arsonforcharlie]

fucking INSANE that it's been a year since i got top surgery. i get to look like this EVERY DAY. this is amazing.

i went swimming for the first time since surgery last weekend. just being out there, jumping around in the waves with a friend, was so fucking healing. i can't get over it. i hadn't been able to enjoy swimming like that since i was a kid, and it just fucking hit me.

today i went to a little show, got myself some flowers, flirted with a cute guy. i know top surgery isn't the only reason things changed for me, but my life is just really fucking good now, and i'm so excited that i've got more of it ahead of me. i really love being me, and being trans fucking rules. look at these tits. stunning.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Fantasy pronouns updated! i just keep running into Problems when I try to use the pronouns for a few paragraphs and then realize they actually sound awful. so i have been wrestling with them! it does not help that i made so many, and there's only so many ways to make decent pronouns before you run out of unique letter combos.

half the problem is just that I'm trying to make them all fit into english sentences, since that's the language my stories are written in. but i figured it would be so much cooler to write all my characters actually using the pronouns they'd be used to in their own languages, even if i don't get around to pulling a full Tolkein and writing every language out.

these pronouns will be especially useful in the side story I'm working on with a drow protagonist, since drow don't have gendered pronouns. and it adds so much more depth to my main story, when the bird dude protagonist, who was raised primarily by elves for Plot Reasons, embraces the bird people culture and changes pronouns to reflect this. if all of my characters were using regular human pronouns, and then suddenly the bird dude is using fantasy pronouns, it just feels awkward. but if everyone is already using fantasy pronouns, it's way more clear that this pronoun change is part of a bigger narrative of cultural identity.

anyway, as stated when i previously posted the fantasy pronouns chart, please feel free to use any of the pronouns here if you feel inspired to do so. i hope they function alright.

[patron-saint-of-lesbeans]

Very interesting (concerning) that while there’s a general consensus of “of course there’s queer Muslims and Jews and Christians we love them!” But that love is conditional. You can be religious but not too religious. You can be spiritual as long as it’s not actually that important to you. You can be observant of your religion’s dogma and traditions as long as you keep it away from everybody else.

But I don’t want to cut myself into smaller pieces. I don’t want to take a part of my life and culture and being and hide it away behind closed doors. It’s just…hypocritical and disappointing when people, who clamor about their love for the contradictory and self-authentic, hate when they’re confronted with it.

[feminetomboy]

I guess I'd just like to make an appreciation post for any non-binary people out there who speak heavily gendered languages. The folk who cannot just "make pronouns everyone else's problem", because their language doesn't allow it. People who are forced to choose a binary gender to even just articulate their thoughts. Who have to choose a box, even if they don't like it.

I promise I see you. I know it's tough. I am holding your hand tightly, as we walk this road together.

[clannfearrunt]

btw, any update on shiver's japanese personal pronouns now that the full game is out? theres a tweet going around saying she uses both uchi and onore and that it's a feminine+masculine combo, i wanted to double check and see if that is actually the case or if onore is a common pronoun for women to use? people are getting really militant abt this for no reason (unsurprisingly)

I think I've seen that tweet, yeah, and it's wrong.

So to start this off so everyone knows what’s up: I’m a native Japanese speaker, and I’m nonbinary myself. I’m approaching this topic as someone who WOULD LOVE to have canon, intended, Cisn’t rep here.

However, the situation in regards to Shiver is just a misunderstanding of the... complexities and nuance (?) that comes with the myriad of ways people can refer to themself in Japanese, and there’s actually nothing being censored by NoA when they confirmed that she is intended to be female. As of me writing this (September 17th 2022), there has been no content in the Japanese dialogue that ever suggests that Shiver might be intended to be nonbinary or otherwise some flavor of Not Female.

Before I even get into pronouns I gotta point out that her Japanese name is Fuuka, which is a regular ass girl's name in real life (albeit it's also being used as a shark pun). I think that if they were going to put a canon nonbinary character in Splatoon they're going to be more obvious about it.

Anyhow, with regards to The Question: the instance that Shiver uses "onore" is actually in the Rock Paper Scissors splatfest dialogue, right here:

おのれの魂をコブシに宿し、天につき出すその姿... 勝者のポーズゆうたらコレや！

I always have a hard time doing my own translations because my brain gets caught up on a million different things, but one way I'd write this to try to get across how she's using "onore" as is this:

"Placing one’s soul into one’s fist, raising it towards the heavens... That's the pose of victory!"

It's true that "Onore" has seen some historical use as a personal pronoun, but it's an archaic kind of usage in standard Japanese. It's not actually necessarily masculine either. Now, it does still see relatively common usage in various dialects in western regions, but mostly in the second person. I don't think I've ever heard "Onore" being used as a personal pronoun in the way you'd use stuff like "Watashi" or "Boku" (which is the kind of usage it's being confused with in that tweet) these days, even when writing fictional character dialogue.

That's irrelevant here, however, because that's not how it's being used here! It's being used to refer to a generalized "self" for theatrical effect, and not even as a personal identifier really. I'd say in this case a similar comparison in English would be "oneself" - kinda formal, depending on how you use it it might also be including the speaker, but not explicitly Just The Speaker. Does that make sense?

The like... connotations and perceptions surrounding how one chooses to refer to themself in Japanese is really complicated and context dependent and I DO understand how it might be easy to get confused! I can also see how people learning Japanese as a second language might have extra trouble with Shiver's dialogue in general since she speaks in the Kyoto dialect instead of standard Japanese. Shit's hard! Anyways unfortunately this has been once again a misunderstanding sorry everyone. We can do other things in headcanons, but we can't be going after people or the translators for this.

...

On the subject of personal pronouns though FRYE uses "washi" which has been fun because that is not something typically used by young people! In dialects where it's still common for young people to use "Washi", it tends to be more commonly used by guys, but the more common association is with Old People. Frye in general just speaks like a stereotypical Old Person though I love her she's great. Where's the fucking Frye crowd at

[moerusai]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Man Suang is a movie to watch multiple times to unpack all the lies and twists and unreliable narratives, to appreciate the performances and choices that each actor makes to stay true to their character among such a big ensemble cast.

Even then, there are still nuances to catch with every rewatch (trust me, I'm on my fifth).

The lackluster English subtitle (partly due to the translator's negligence, but mostly due to the subtlety being lost in translation) certainly doesn't do the dialogues and the storyline justice.

So I think some of us, especially those from Western cultures, could do to sit down and contemplate a movie so rooted in a specific culture before sharing, frankly, insensible opinions on it.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

OLD THREAD:

Divorce her. Present this to the court as Exhibit A. Anyone who talks like this, this is just the tip of the crazy iceberg.

Have you noticed that the people who insist that they won't be defined by other people always insist on defining everyone else? It doesn't matter if you "identify" as a Nazi or not, they'll declare you to be one. It's irrelevant whether you're a Democrat or a classical left liberal, they'll designate you "far right."

They have to force you to play along because their claims don't even make sense, much less stand up in reality. When "gender is a social construct" untethered from anything real such as biology, as with gods, it requires others to play along and pretend to keep up the ruse; when society doesn't prop it up, your "gender" disappears.

The only time you entertain the delusions of crazy people is in order to get away from them. Otherwise, you tell the truth: she's a woman. Narcissistic, coercive controlling and crazy-eyed, but still a woman.

[neopronoun-user-culture-is]

*Mainly use meaning your favorite set, the one people call you most, or your only set if you just use one.

[ace-culture-is]

For Me, Ace Culture is identifying as Ace but not being sure I am explaining it properly

.

[rustchild]

controversial opinion about incredibly niche subjects, but i actually like the use of the universal ‘he’ in the narration of Left Hand of Darkness. I like it for the same reason that everyone hates it, and Ursula Le Guin herself regretted it: because it doesn’t fit.

The book is ostensibly written and translated by Genly, or by the observers that came to Gethen before him, and the central struggle of Genly’s story is his inability to give up the gendered frameworks he’s used to in the face of a situation where they don’t apply at all. Having that baked into the language indicates just how deep that struggle runs. In order for him to understand Gethen, to connect to Estraven--hell, to understand himself--he needs to give up on this idea of gender that is so fundamental to his cultural background that it’s baked into his language, and that’s just as much of a barrier to true connection as Estraven’s memories of Arek are to their use of mindspeech. Having that reflected in the text itself, and showing Genly struggle with it as he writes, is actually a super effective way to not only show this tension, but also draw further attention to the limits of Le Guin’s English-speaking audience.

[aro-culture-is]

trans aro culture is loving contradictory labels :] yeah my qpp is my wife. yeah its a trans man. he gave consent to be called my wife and now we r wives :)

.