#the exhaustion of you trying to use pronouns that the basic rules of the english language call for

[cats-in-the-clouds]

it’s important to try very hard to be as patient and understanding and reasonable as possible and i tell myself aw c’mon how hard can it really be to just chill out and be nice? but every now and it hits me again how we’re all being subjected to a mass gaslighting campaign and then i’m like ah that’s why i’m exhausted deep in my soul all the time. i’m being made to think i’m utterly insane for wanting words to have actual meanings so maybe that makes me a bit cranky y’know

[sugarqvills]

links: pinterest, bio

BASICS

FULL NAME: Emmeline Asteria Vance PRONUNCIATION: Emmeline  Asteria  Vance MEANING: Emmeline ( Germanic - Work; French - Industrious, Hardworking; Latin - Little Rival ), Asteria ( Latin - Star ), Vance ( English - Fen, Marsh ) REASONING: Emmeline’s given name comes from her her paternal grandmother. Her middle name sprung from her mother’s once-great love for Greek mythology. NICKNAME(S): Emme, Vance. BIRTH DATE: 24 December - 12:32 PM AGE: Nineteen ZODIAC: Capricorn Sun, Libra Moon, Aries Rising

Capricorn is the tenth sign of the zodiac and governs the bones, joints, and knees. Positive traits include pragmatism, maturity, patience, determination, awareness, a strong work ethic, realism, discipline, money management, the willingness to overcome hard luck, leadership, initiative, opportunism, prudence, and cunning. Negative traits include pessimism, melancholy, emotional coldness, manipulation, obsession with work and ambitions to the detriment of personal development, remoteness, and materialistic snobbery.

The traits emphasized here will be ambition, determination, discipline, and pragmatism. You can’t make that castle in the sky if you don’t build a solid foundation under it, and Capricorns excel at building foundations. (Actually, they excel at planning the foundations and directing others to do the grunt labour. It’s not that they’re afraid to get their hands dirty, but large work usually requires delegation and a staff, and Capricorns are managers more often than not.) While not flamboyant or showy about it, Capricorns still tend to be obsessive overachievers, a common trait in House Slytherin. Too, wizards born under the sign of Capricorn are good at being discreet, secretive, and diplomatic; whereas the Libra’s diplomacy is based on charm and a desire for harmony, the Capricorn’s diplomacy is based on the knowledge that being on good terms with people is extremely useful in getting one’s way or finding out sensitive information. These also are traits commonly associated with House Slytherin. They might not be sexy traits, but they’re very handy.

GENDER: Cisgender Female PRONOUNS: She/Her ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Panromantic. SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Demisexual. NATIONALITY: Irish ETHNICITY: White

BACKGROUND

BIRTH PLACE: Athenry, Ireland HOMETOWN: Athenry, Ireland SOCIAL CLASS: Upper Class EDUCATION LEVEL: Hogwarts, sixth year HOUSE: Slytherin FATHER: Oliver Vance, 56, Former Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office ( DECEASED ) MOTHER: Rosalyn Vance neé Rowle, 54, Former Member of the Wizengamot ( DECEASED ) SIBLING(S): None. EXTENDED FAMILY: Constance Vance, 86 ( paternal grandmother ) BIRTH ORDER: Only child. PET(S): Pawcrates - six year old black cat.

SKILLS & ABILITIES

PHYSICAL STRENGTH: 6/10 OFFENSE: 8.5/10 DEFENSE: 9/10 SPEED: 8/10 INTELLIGENCE: 9/10 ACCURACY: 9/10 AGILITY: 8/10 STAMINA: 8/10 TEAMWORK: While Emmeline is capable of doing well with a group, she prefers to work on her own. She’ll help where she can, but would far prefer if she were left to her own devices. TALENTS: Dueling. Critical thinking. Planning. Drinking at least one entire bottle of wine by herself in a single sitting. SHORTCOMINGS: Unhealthy coping mechanisms. Emotionally repressive. Doesn’t let others in easily. Negative thinking. LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: English, Irish Gaelic, Latin. DRIVE?: No. JUMP-STAR A CAR?: No. CHANGE A FLAT TIRE?: No. RIDE A BICYCLE?: Yes. SWIM?: Yes. PLAY AN INSTRUMENT?: The piano, thanks to Gran. PLAY CHESS?: Yes, though she would prefer to spend her free time doing other things. TIE A TIE?: Yes. PICK A LOCK?: No.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

FACE CLAIM: Alycia Debnam-Carey. EYE COLOR: Green. HAIR COLOR: Brown. HAIR TYPE/STYLE: Normally, Emmeline leaves her hair down, allowing it to fall however it likes. Frequently, she’s been known to throw her hair into a ponytail or loose, messy bun while working, cleaning, or even knitting. GLASSES/CONTACTS?: No. DOMINANT HAND: Right. Emmeline is ambidextrous, but tends to favour her right hand more often than her left. HEIGHT: 165 cm ( 5′5″ ) WEIGHT: 55 kg ( 121 pounds ) BUILD: Slender. EXERCISE HABITS: Despite knowing that she should do more, Emmeline more often than not spends time at home knitting and drinking, rather than running or doing other exercises. SKIN TONE: Fair. TATTOOS: At present, Emmeline has none. PIERCINGS: Just a single hole in each ear. MARKS/SCARS: Emmeline has a few small scars from her childhood, most notable is the one on her right hand, near the thumb. Most don’t even notice it, unless they know precisely what they’re looking for. USUAL EXPRESSION: Emmeline’s typical expression is one without a smile. To many, she could come across as cold or uncaring; it’s not that she actively tries to dissuade people talking to her, it’s just what happens, especially when she’s focused. Once put around friends, however, the demeanour changes and there are more smile than one might otherwise find. CLOTHING STYLE: Emmeline is a big fan of loose, simple tops or button-ups with more fitted trousers. On very rare or special occasions, she may wear a dress, though it is never anything more than a sold colour with simple accents. In addition to her comfortable tops, Emmeline is also a fan of flannel shirts and heavier, knitted jumpers when it starts to get cold. JEWELRY: Simple silver studs for earrings in her daily life, a small silver music note pendant on a thin silver chain that she got from Gran for her thirteenth birthday. Otherwise, Emmeline isn’t one for jewelry. ALLERGIES: None, as far as she knows.

QUESTIONS

How does your character behave around people they like? Emmeline is more relaxed around those she likes. Though she isn’t the most easy-going person in the world, she is more inclined to make jokes, laugh, and not stress as much as she normally does. How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person? As a rule, Emmeline is very hesitant to trust others. However, once you have her trust, there are very few things you could do to lose it and have her suspect you of something terrible. How quick or slow is your character to resort to physical violence in a confrontation? Words are typically Emmeline’s go-to in a confrontational situation. There have been many instances where she’s eventually just walked away from someone rather than allow things to progress. In extreme instances, hexes and jinxes have been thrown, but as far as she can remember, there has never been anything more than a slap. What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like? It was a very strained relationship, if it could be called a relationship at all. She knew very little about the man he was in his later years, and what she knew of his formative years had only been the result of stories her Gran told her over the years. Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others? Though it generally tends to vary from person to person, she would probably tell you that she admires ambition more often than not. What does your character like in other people? There are a host of things she likes in others, but the first few that come to mind are: the ability to learn from their mistakes, forgiveness, a desire to learn in general, whether or not they are capable of growing as a person, honesty. Compassion for other people. Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method? A bit of both. Just because her first attempt didn’t work the way she wanted it to, doesn’t mean she’ll abandon it in its entirety. With each failed attempt, an adjustment is made. It’s only once she has exhausted every possible method that she can think of that she will move on to a different one. How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it? Saying “I love you” is one of, if not the most, difficult things for Emmeline to do. She has a problem letting herself love other people; there is a constant fear of abandonment, of not being enough, of disappointing them. She struggles to let those she truly cares for know just how much they mean to her. If she can say it to you, then there’s no chance it’s meaningless. She doesn’t have it in her to force something of that magnitude and not mean it. The only person Emmeline has never struggled with those words over is her Gran. The woman who spent so much of her life trying to instill certain values into her granddaughter. The person who raised Emmeline, who wanted nothing but the best for her. The one person Emmeline always thought would be her only constant, the only person she would be willing to die to protect. When she wasn’t in school or working, Emmeline tried to make it a priority to tell the older woman how much she loved her and appreciated all that she had done over the years

INSPIRATIONS & TRAITS

CHARACTER INSPIRATIONS: prudence halliwell ( charmed ), sally owens ( practical magic ), jessica jones ( jessica jones ), amy santiago ( brooklyn nine nine ), laurel castillo ( how to get away with murder ), wynona earp ( wynona earp ), cristina yang ( grey’s anatomy ), rosa diaz ( brooklyn nine nine ), caitlin snow ( the flash ), rosita espinosa ( the walking dead ), laurel lance ( arrow ), raymond holt ( brooklyn nine nine ), rory gilmore ( gilmore girls ), lucy preston ( timeless ), peyton sawyer ( one tree hill )

AESTHETIC: piano notes softly filling an empty room, storms raging outside while you sit in the comfort of your home, books towering so high you can’t see over them, hot tea in a chipped mug, freshly baked red velvet cake cooling on the counter, four cups of coffee in the morning just to feel like you’re somewhat there, the faintest whiff of whisky lingering in the air after an especially trying night, the deafening silence that slowly envelops you when the numbness sets in, unfinished knitting projects lying lazily over chair arms by the fireplace

SONGS: made of stone - daughter / cherry wine - hozier / that i would be good - alanis morissette / please don't say you love me - gabrielle aplin / breathe me - sia / you say - lauren daigle / hard times ( ballad ) - halocene / dear happy - gabrielle aplin / lovely - lauren babic and seraphim POSITIVE TRAITS: assiduous, strong-willed, intelligent, dedicated, tidy NEGATIVE TRAITS: melancholic, self-blaming, stubborn, inflexible NEUTRAL TRAITS: ambitious, sarcastic, quiet, restrained

[blkholeinfinity]

My Good Omens Headcanon That No One Asked For

I’m not saying that anyone else’s headcanon are incorrect, or that anyone’s wrong for disagreeing with me! And honestly, just because these are my headcanon doesn’t mean I don’t accept other headcanon. Think of it as: if I was going to write Good Omens fanfic, these are the headcanon I’m going to roll with. If I’m enjoying fanworks or meta, anything goes, even/especially things that contradict my own headcanon.

And since the miniseries is burning stronger in my brainspace than the book atm, this is all relevant to the miniseries canon only.

Bonus Ineffable Bureaucracy headcanon at the end!

Ineffable Husbands Being Dumb About Their Feelings Headcanon

Crowley has been infatuated - not in love - with Aziraphale from the beginning. He didn’t realize his infatuation until Rome, and I can’t pinpoint when or where that infatuation turned into love since I believe it was a slow, gradual process. He definitely realized it before 1862, though, if not in 1862 the second Aziraphale said “fraternizing.”

For Aziraphale, he was fascinated with Crowley since the beginning. Maybe infatuated, too. He realized his infatuation a lot sooner, hence why he blatantly hit on Crowley in Rome (maybe realized it in Rome?), but then took a few giant steps back until sometime after 537 when he started making his way back to Crowley again, thus beginning his complicated feelings about his not-so-complicated feelings about Crowley. In other words, his brain was trying to convince himself that it was Not Personal, Purely Business, Just Friendship (But Not Officially), even if his heart was screaming at him otherwise. His infatuation grew into love over the centuries, but he didn’t realize it until, famously, 1941.

1967 was when they both realized that the other definitely felt the same way. Where Crowley was ready to take it to the next step at that moment, Aziraphale, well. WE ALL KNOW.

They finally stopped being dumb after the bus stop. They didn’t take things further than making out before they (Aziraphale) realized what Agnes’s prophecy meant, but they finally stopped being dumb about their feelings either on the way back from Tadfield or in Crowley’s flat.

Aziraphale was the one who had to stop being dumb first, and he absolutely was. He confessed first, he kissed Crowley first. They’d never make any progress otherwise.

General Aziraphale and Crowley Headcanon

I headcanon angels and demons having the power to speak whatever language they need to when on Earth, but Aziraphale and Crowley have been on Earth too long to remember this particular power in their arsenal. If they haven’t used it in the past, say, 100 years, they’ve forgotten the language completely.

Until they remember that they have this particular power. But don’t count on them coming to that realization on their own. 

Anyway, Aziraphale and Crowley both canonically know English in the present day, obviously, but they’ve retained some German and French from their WWII shenanigans. Crowley knows some Russian although he isn’t particularly good at it because he played around quite a bit during the Cold War, and Aziraphale is surprisingly fluent in Japanese. Because sushi.

Aziraphale is a damn good swordsangel.

Crowley tries to get Aziraphale to watch TV and movies by tailoring his recommendations to what he knows Aziraphale would like and sitting down with him to watch it. Because Crowley knows Aziraphale so well, it’s actually a successful endeavor... until Aziraphale tries to watch something on his own that wasn’t a Crowley Recommendation and Regrets Everything.

In turn, Aziraphale definitely drags Crowley to every single West End production at least once a month. Crowley complains but he doesn’t actually mind. He really does enjoy most of the shows.

Crowley was all about that rock-and-roll life in the 1980s. Mostly for the aesthetic, though.

Crowley would absolutely be a cat person, if cats were demon people. But cats and demons don’t mix. This makes him a little sad, but at least he always has his rats?

Aziraphale and Crowley’s Sexuality Headcanon

I headcanon them both as demiromantic, sex-neutral asexuals.

And by demiromantic I mean that Aziraphale is Crowley-romantic and Crowley is Aziraphale-romantic.

They both have had sex prior to each other for a variety of reasons, but mostly either out of curiosity or because their jobs.

The first time they had sex with each other was primarily out of curiosity, since this is what a lot of humans do when they’re in love so might as well see if it’s any different with each other than with others. They found that they rather enjoy it better with each other than with anyone else they’ve ever slept with, but still didn’t quite understand what the big deal was, but they continue to do it every few years or so.

But they love to make out and cuddle.

General Angel and Demon Headcanons

Most angels and demons don’t really... get... gender. They present the way that they do for a few different reasons, the most popular ones being either aesthetics or apathy (aka- they were given the bodies they were given and never really gave another thought to them).

Any angel or demon who has spent a considerable amount of time on Earth are the exceptions to the rule. Obviously this includes Aziraphale and Crowley, and they’re probably the only two who are the closest to getting it - not that any of them are playing by humanity’s gender rules. They’re still either going for aesthetics or convenience.

In other words, just because Aziraphale and Crowley understand how gender works by human standards doesn’t mean they abide by it. It’s like that meme: Aziraphale’s gender is “nah” and Crowley’s gender is “yes.”

When in Heaven or Hell, the angels and demons speak a celestial language. The demons have bastardize it since falling, but it’s still the same basic language, and none of it is a human language.

Bunny Demon/Eric/Disposable Demon has a sort of hero worship crush (not an actual crush) on Crowley. Sorry, you can pry this one from my cold, dead fingers.

In the Final-Final Battle, Aziraphale and Crowley won’t be the only angel/demon to go against Heaven and Hell for the sake of humanity. There are 10 million angels and 10 million demons, at least a handful of them are going to join them, but it’ll be a long, slow process.

Yes, Bunny Demon/Eric/Disposable Demon will still be the first one to join their side.

God Headcanons

God isn’t just a woman, but a genderfluid woman.

She’s utterly fond of Aziraphale, which is why she never punished him for giving away the flaming sword.

And yes, she definitely knows that he did that. She wasn’t angry, just Disappointed.

She’s the reason Aziraphale and Crowley were handed Agnes’s final prophecy. Come on, that piece of paper flew to Aziraphale’s hand just a little too purposefully.

Also she’ll never let Aziraphale fall because, again, she’s really fond of him. You can pry that one from my cold, dead fingers, too.

Not!Armageddon was absolutely planned the way that it was so she could get her ultimate revenge on Satan - by having his own son disavow him.

God’s plan is Ineffable mostly because she keeps changing her mind.

And also she’s the trolliest troll who ever trolled.

Anathema, Newt, and The Them Headcanons

Anathema stays in Tadfield and becomes a surrogate big sister to the Them, but especially to Adam. 

Newt also stays in Tadfield and has a more diverse relationship with the Them: Adam is indifferent, he and Wensleydale and Brian wind up getting along swimmingly, and Pepper straight up dislikes him.

Mrs. Young adores Anathema and Newt. Mr. Young, on the other hand, disapproves of them, but sees them as generally harmless enough to allow Adam to hang out with them. Not that Adam would stop even if Mr. Young tried to forbid it.

Pepper takes up swordfighting once she starts junior high/high school by taking classes at a local HEMA guild.

Dog lives forever.

The Four Horsepeople of the Apocalypse Headcanons

(Un)fortunately, War, Famine, and Pollution aren’t perma-dead. They come back and pick their lives up right where they left off.

These four are a Found Family.

I also ship them all together. OT4, ya’ll.

Pestilence is definitely THE anti-vax mom and is delighted that they might be coming out of retirement soon.

Not that Pollution intends to retire just because Pestilence is back.

But there’s always room for one more, is the Horsepeople’s opinion.

So now they are the Five Horsepeople of the Apocalypse. Fight them, God.

(God doesn’t care, this is all the humans’ doing anyway.)

And yes, the Them gets a fifth person to their crew to counter Pestilence. Probably someone aspiring to be a doctor. This is an accident, of course. Sort of. Adam can’t explain it, but his Antichrist senses were tingling...

Ineffable Bureaucracy Headcanons

Gabriel and Beelzebub were absolutely a Thing before Beelzebub fell, and their dynamic is more like an exhausted-but-still-angry-but-still-in-love divorced couple.

They start reuniting after Not!Armageddon, but it takes a few years for them to get there.

Gabriel is a sex-repulsed asexual (I do not sully my body...), where Beelzebub is a sex-neutral asexual. 

And they’re both demiromantic. By which I mean Gabriel is Beelzebub-romantic and Beelzebub is Gabriel-romantic. But they hate it. They didn’t use to hate it, but then Beelzebub fell and things got messy and complicated and things were said that cannot be unsaid.

Gabriel uses ‘he’ pronouns (which I think is canon anyway?) where Beelzebub doesn’t care what pronouns you use for them. (Personally, I love ‘ze/they/her’ for Beelzebub, but I don’t think zey care.)

Aziraphale’s and Crowley’s brains broke when they discovered that Gabriel and Beelzebub are a couple now and they still haven’t fully recovered.

[jackiforjustice]

hiya everyone! I’m dev ( use any pronouns, mine are up in the air rn ), and this is my social justice baby jacki! please hmu for plotting - I’d love to really develop something with each of you! bio below!

trigger warnings for racism, sexism, and police brutality.

✘ CHARACTER BASICS

Skeleton Title: The Cavalier Faceclaim: Laura Harrier Jacqueline “Jacki” Reynolds | Twenty-Two | Cis-Female | She/Her | May 18th

✘ CHARACTER BACKGROUND

The Gist: 

Jacqueline is the oldest daughter of Susan and Barry Reynolds. Born in 1969, just two years after the Supreme Court Case Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage across the United States, Jacqueline was one of the first interracial children in her small Idaho hometown. 

A couple years and two younger brothers later, the Reynolds family decided to move to Graingerville to be closer to a big city. It was clear from a very young age that Jacqueline was smarter than her years - she exceeded in school from day one, and always preferred reading to the rowdy games at recess. 

Although she was incredibly intelligent for her age, Jacki always had trouble fitting in. The other black kids thought she wasn’t black enough because of her white mother; the white kids took one look at her rich dark skin and knew she wasn’t one of them. While she managed to find her own group of friends who didn’t care much either way in terms of her race, the underlying discrimination and confusion based on being from a mixed family stuck with her for a long time.

When Jacki entered middle school, her father started telling her stories of his own adolescence - while Jacki worried about math quizzes and essays, Barry was fighting for his rights every single day. He became a lawyer because of it, and after hearing about the Civil Rights Movement directly from him and her other relatives, Jacki decided she wanted to be a lawyer too.

As Jacki got older, her peers began partying more often, rebelling against their parents to make a statement, to be reckless and bold with no apologies. Jacki tried that phase for a minute (but quickly ended when she realized she cared more about what her parents thought of her than her friends from school). Instead of completely locking herself away from the other teenagers in Graingerville, she chose a more proactive route: everyone at her high school knew if they needed a designated driver, Jacki would be there to lend a helping hand. 

By the end of her sophomore year in high school, Jacki had a perfectly laid-out plan of how to get into either Harvard, Yale, or Stanford majoring in Political Science. Her parents were undoubtedly impressed, and worked to help her achieve her big dreams of getting into top notch schools. 

Needless to say, her plan worked. After graduating as valedictorian from her high school, Jacki was off to Yale majoring in Political Science with a minor in American History. Yale pushed Jacki to her absolute limits in the best way - she worked harder than ever, made lifelong friends, and even had her first boyfriend (his name was Liam, and they dated for one semester before she dumped him during finals week because he was distracting her). 

Although Jacki entered college with the hopes of becoming a lawyer, the more she learned about the Civil Rights Movement and the treatment of black people in American history, the more she wanted to immediately help those in need. She had been eyeing the possibility of Law School for a while, but it wasn’t until she moved back home to Graingerville post-college graduation that she changed her career path slightly.

The Big Freakout Event of 1990 threw her family for a loop. Her younger brothers were just about to start their sophomore and senior years of high school, her mother had just been promoted at the hospital, and her father had just won a huge case against the unjust arrest of two young black men. But when people with psionic powers and lizard deers terrorize the streets out of the blue, the world sort of pauses for a while. 

When the dust had settled from the craziness of the BFE, Jacki found herself wanting to help more directly. Being a lawyer helps those accused of a crime - she wanted to help protect the people of Portland from...whatever the crazy shit out there was. She was still torn between being a lawyer or moving to a different career choice when another event influenced her decision.

In March of 1991, Rodney King was horrendously beaten by police officers in Los Angeles. It was unjust, it was unfair, and it was entirely based on race. The trial for the police officers in question was scheduled for the following year, as these sorts of things take time, but it was that one event (and reading about other racist events prior to the Rodney King beating), that led Jacki to join the Portland Police Department.

She was the top of her class at the Police Academy (she’s always had a penchant for rules and regulations), and with marks like that, she was absolutely sure she’d start making tidal waves once she was officially on the force.

Unfortunately, they had her saving cats from trees, dealing with parking tickets, and lost elderly people roaming the streets. 

The Emerging Threats Unit looks better and better by the day. Jacki’s dreamed of helping people since she was little - why won’t the higher ups let her just do it? She’s starting to get sick of pushing papers around while she could be making the world a better place. Luckily, that Yale degree is coming in handy - she’s doing her best to study up on the supernatural stuff going on around town, and she’s determined to be the expert on all things crazy in this place if it kills her.

Jacqueline Reynolds has no supernatural powers unless you count her unnerving organization skills or her endless knowledge on the historical racism in America thus far (both of which cause her major exhaustion and/or frustration, which I would deem a consequence for her power).

✘ “STAY WEIRD PORTLAND”

One wall of her apartment bedroom looks like a conspiracy theory wall. She’s incredibly organized, yes, but her obsession with being the expert on all things supernatural in Portland has caused her to look a little bit like a nutcase. However, the conspiracy theory wall is prettier than other conspiracy theory walls in TV shows and movies because hers comes with color coordinated strings, index cards, and pens. Sometimes when she’s feeling frisky, she even manages to color coordinate the thumbtacks. 

While Jacki is a picture perfect student, she has no clue what it means to be good at maintaining a romantic relationship. Absolutely no idea what she’s doing. Flirting often goes right over her head. She can give you historical dates and supernatural factoids up the wazoo, but hit her with a one-liner and she just sort of stares...and then walks away.

✘ ASPECTS & SKILLS

Straight A Student: Jacki never earned less than an A- in her entire academic career (a fact that her parents remind her younger brothers of every single day). She excels in history and English, and performs well in math and sciences. Although art has never really been her thing, her ability to give it a try has always earned her at least an A- in class.

Strong, Smart, Underestimated Woman: It’s 1991. She’s a Yale graduate, incredibly intelligent, resilient as hell, and determined to serve justice and protect those around her. She is fierce by any definition of the word, but that doesn’t mean everyone sings her praises. Some men find her strength frightening. Some others find her intelligence to be overbearing, or too “know-it-all” for their liking. She’s underestimated, and often given the dirty work rather than the work she joined the police force for, and she knows it.

I Have to Do What’s Right: Even though Jacki loves rules, regulations, and the like, sometimes the rules are wrong. That’s why she started training with The Fighter. That’s why she’s studying up on supernatural occurrences. And that’s why she’s more than willing to protect people who aren’t in the wrong. I mean come on, it’s not anybody’s fault that some of these people have powers - just because people fear them for being different doesn’t excuse any harm that comes their way, and Jacki has made it her mission to protect people with powers as long as they don’t maliciously hurt others.

Great: Will Good: Notice, Academics Fair:    Investigate, Shoot, Lore Aver:   Athletics, Stealth, Drive, Fight

✘ AESTHETIC

A brand new pack of index cards. Happy family photos on the wall. Clean laundry. The same haircut every time. Highlighted textbooks. Annotated novels. Reading the newspaper thoroughly. Fresh scented candles. Conspiracy theory strings. Too much coffee. Waking up to sunlight peeking through the window. Horrible headaches. Extra poster boards for future rallies and marches. Sleeping alone. Speaking quickly for efficiency’s sake. Gin and tonics. Being overwhelmed by large social situations. Studying without being assigned to. Forgetting to sleep. Forgetting to eat. Forgetting to take a moment to just breathe. Justice. Family dinners on Thursdays. Bending the law for things that are right. Ironed clothes. A color-coded planner. Wearing a retainer every night to bed like you’re supposed to. Bob Dylan CDs. Perfectly polished badges. Quiet breakfasts. Practical clothes.

✘ SEASON 2, EPISODE 1

If anyone else were to see what Jacki’s apartment looked like, they’d think it was just as clean as ever. But by her standards? Her room was a mess. Textbooks on the history of time and space stacked high on her desk; questionably sourced papers on the existence of supernatural creatures in our universe highlighted, annotated, and in their own folders; four mugs of coffee, all of them empty and lined up on top of her dresser. She would get to the bottom of this case. If her boss didn’t want her on anything more important than parking tickets, she’d work the Emergency Threat Unit cases on her own time. Sure, Jacki was losing sleep by the minute, but it would be worth it when crisis inevitably hit Portland again and she was the best resource they had. Plus, now she had a friend to help her improve her combat skills! She’d be prepared for anything, with a twelve-step solution to the next Big Freakout Event to hit her town. Just like her dad always told her: “If you can’t be the boss, be better than them.”

Please feel free to message me for any plots! I have a wimpy ass plotting page here, so feel free to look at that for inspiration!

[pvcked]

s u r v e y :       d a r b y    b e l l e    m o n t p e l l i e r

written in purple gel pen. it be like that.

basic information

FULL NAME: darby belle montpellier PRONUNCIATION: DARH-bee bell mAHnt-pell-yer MEANING: without envy REASONING: darby belle was named after a beloved family dog who was tragically killed by an automobile the night before she was born. how… quaint. her mother insisted on adding “belle” to match her older sister, elody mae’s, “name flow”. her father never really approved, but he his second army deployment began just before her birth, so her mother went ahead and did it anyway. NICKNAME(S): darby, darbs, darby belle, belle, fruit loop, the singer from pelagia, dee, db. puck ( only by her late father ) PREFERRED NAME(S): darby, darby belle BIRTH DATE: march 3, 2001 AGE: 18 ZODIAC: pisces GENDER: cisfemale PRONOUNS:  she/her ROMANTIC ORIENTATION:  biromantic SEXUAL ORIENTATION: bisexual NATIONALITY:  american. ETHNICITY: american. there are some french roots, way back, but they’re bastardized: her family pronounces their surname the southern way, not the french.

background

BIRTH PLACE: jonesborough, tennessee HOMETOWN: jonesborough, tennessee SOCIAL CLASS:  upper-middle. FATHER: eric montpellier. deceased march 2, 2014. suicide. gunshot wound to the head. ptsd resulting from military duty. MOTHER: kenna mae montpellier. deceased february 22, 2007. housefire. SIBLING(S): elody mae, legal guardian. 25. artist and interior designer. faceclaim. BIRTH ORDER: youngest of two. elody mae is 7 years older. PET(S): none. she gets the sniffles! OTHER IMPORTANT RELATIVES:  n/a. PREVIOUS/CURRENT RELATIONSHIPS: she’s been in a long-term relationship with clark beecher since the fall of sophomore year. ARRESTS?: nope! PRISON TIME?: nope!

occupation & income

SOURCE OF INCOME: darby’s band, pelagia., has paid gigs around town and in neighboring towns. they sold copies of their first ep, too. CONTENT WITH THEIR JOB (OR LACK THERE OF)?: yes!! between her and elody mae, they make things work. darby loves music; she practially lives and breathes in song. PAST JOB(S): she delivered papers for a lil’ while in tennessee. tagged along while elody mae biked. SPENDING HABITS: darby knows how to find herself a bargain! MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION: her dad’s dog tags, which she keeps hidden under her pillow. some of his old navy blue sweaters. she throws ‘em on days when she misses him a little extra.

skills & abilities

TALENTS: musicianship. performing. songwriting. agile skating. playmaking. interpretive dancing. making her friends laugh. going cross-eyed for long periods of time. rolling her tongue. SHORTCOMINGS: she can’t say no to anyone she loves. quick to blame herself for things she can’t control ( like her parents’ passings ). elody mae rubs her wrong a lot and it’s not her sister’s fault, but they’ll go several days at a time without talkin’ when things get tense. swallowing her pride: she’s stubborn. LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: english, enough spanish to get by ( acquired from high school classes, but her southern accent kinda bleeds through? so kids in class always kinda smirk when she tries out the speaking exercises  ). DRIVE?: no. never learned. JUMP-STAR A CAR?: no. CHANGE A FLAT TIRE?: no. RIDE A BICYCLE?: nope. her dad never got ‘round to teachin’ her. SWIM?: no. they never had a pool. PLAY AN INSTRUMENT?: countless. she sings, plays guitar, piano, drums, banjo. PLAY CHESS?: she prefers checkers. BRAID HAIR?: is the sky blue? yes. TIE A TIE?: mhm. PICK A LOCK?: nope, but that’d be cool!

physical appearance & characteristics

FACE CLAIM: natalia dyer. EYE COLOR: bright baby blue. HAIR COLOR: light brown. HAIR TYPE/STYLE: down to her shoulders, curly. typically up in a ponytail or some kind of quick style. GLASSES/CONTACTS?: nope. DOMINANT HAND: right. she plays right wing. but she likes to cut food with her left. HEIGHT: 5′0 even. WEIGHT: 108 lbs. BUILD: very, very thin. surprisingly muscular, though. not built like a typical hockey player but boy, does she command the ice. her strength, like… bewilders everyone. recruiters came to see her play this spring and fuckin’ lost their shit. this girl ?!  captain ?!  right wing ?!  does she disintegrate when she’s checked ?!?! EXERCISE HABITS: always movin’ and groovin’. darby loves going for runs. weight-lifting. playing pickup games with her boys. SKIN TONE: very fair. freckled. TATTOOS: none.  PEIRCINGS: she has her ears pierced but almost never wears earrings, due to rink rules. MARKS/SCARS: some burn scars from the housefire that killed her mom in 2007, on the back of her left forearm/wrist and across her stomach. she’s really insecure about them and almost always wears long sleeves because of it. she also has a birthmark shaped like canada on the arch of her left foot. when they were alive and darby was very young, her parents used to joke that god put that mark there because he knew their daughter was going to be a hockey star.

NOTABLE FEATURES: her eyes. her tiny size. her laugh. USUAL EXPRESSION: smiley, vibrant. CLOTHING STYLE: long sleeve sweaters, jeans, vans. graphic long-sleeve tees –– she really likes the nature designs on patagonia ones, or cool/eclectic designs. converse. timberlands, leggings, and oversized sweatshirts. denim jackets. in the winter, she’s always bundled up because she runs cold. honestly? she’d sooner wear a hoodie and shorts in the summer than throw on a t-shirt. she does wear short sleeves, but mainly for team workouts and runs. JEWELRY: she wears her father’s wedding band around her neck on a thin gold chain, always tucked under whatever top she’s wearing. her sister does the same with her mother’s. ALLERGIES: strawberries. peanuts. bees.  BODY TEMPERATURE: she runs real cold. are you using that sweatshirt? DIET: when elody mae cooks, darby eats well –– lots of pinterest recipes and plant-based meals.  left to her own devices, she reverts to ease: poptarts, protein bars, almonds. sunflower butter and jam sandwiches. she typically skips lunch at school to write, or free skate, or sneak into the weight room with whatever team’s rented it out that period. she always snackin’ on pretzels. PHYSICAL AILMENTS: insomnia, since her mother’s death. worsened with her father’s passing. i imagine it’ll get worse with her sister disappearing, too. her mild dependency on painkillers.

psychology

MORAL ALIGNMENT: chaotic good. TEMPERAMENT: sanguine. ELEMENT: air. MENTAL CONDITIONS/DISORDERS: insomnia. SOCIABILITY: she’ll talk to anyone and anything! she flits around west ham’s social sphere like it’s nothing. EMOTIONAL STABILITY: sensitive. doesn’t hide things well. PHOBIA(S):  snakes.  being stung by a bee.  never being loved  /  never having the wherewithal to find it.  not getting a hockey scholarship.  emptying the medicine cabinet.  not being able to call her dad’s cell to hear his voice.  losing elody mae.  losing everyone. ADDICTION(S): painkillers. but she’s in denial. DRUG USE: a little here ‘n there. if others are doin’ it. ALCOHOL USE:  about as standard as you’d expect, from a varsity athlete dating another varsity athlete. PRONE TO VIOLENCE?: if provoked. she’s got a hockey stick and she’ll use it, if you threaten anybody she cares for.

mannerisms

QUIRKS: bites her bottom lip and rolls it between her teeth when she’s thinking.  squints directly at the sun despite being scolded for it for years.  latches on to friends’ arms as if the universe might tug them apart at any moment, and navigating the school parking lot is exhaustively complex –– like she might get lost; like she might lose them.  calling instead of texting.  sniffing peanut butter: she can’t eat it, but she loves how it smells.  sleeping all curled up in a ball, on her left side, with the blankets tugged up tight against her chin.  wearing beanies and baseball caps indoors.  waking up early enough for church each sunday: getting dressed, beginning the walk across town, only to turn back halfway.  running drills at the rink instead of attending lunch hour.  jotting down lyrics on standardized tests.  humming in school stairwells, when she thinks she’s alone.  tapping her locker dial three times with her index finger before putting in her combo. wriggles her nose when she’s trying not to laugh. gaze always, always drifting to the nearest window.  funky patterned socks.  she has a pair with picasso. HOBBIES: hockey. guitar, banjo, piano, drums. singing. songwriting. running, weightlifting. elody mae tried to get her into yoga, but her headspace is far too cluttered.  making late-night ice cream runs to the local parlor, because she knows the owner and he’s always ready to give her a free scoop.   HABITS: tapping her fingers on flat surfaces.  skipping meals when she’s stressed.  texting thumbs-up emojis to avoid having to give an actual answer to “ how are you? ” .  masking darker thoughts with game suggestions and silly jokes.  deflection.  wearing her father’s old army tees to bed, and sniffing them each time as if the laundered clothing might still hold onto even just a whiff of his cologne.  falling for the wrong people.  believing.  letting her nail polish chip and chip and chip until all that’s left is a silhouette of pigment.  biting her nails.  midnight runs.  pressing leaves into notebooks to capture moments for which she lacks the words.  over-gifting outside her means, arguing with her sister about it later. NERVOUS TICKS: biting her lip. not making eye contact. rubbing together her left index finger and thumb. DRIVES/MOTIVATIONS: honoring her parents’ memories. standing by elody mae. getting that hockey scholarship locked down, so her sister won’t have to give up more for her. making clark smile. oh, that boy’s smile. FEARS: the dark. heights. being stung by a bee. losing everyone.  elody mae might find out she kept their dad’s dogtags. POSITIVE TRAITS: saccharine, musical, virtuosic. NEGATIVE TRAITS: diaphanous, dewey-eyed, naive. SENSE OF HUMOR:  bubbly, giggly. she can find most things funny. DO THEY CURSE OFTEN?: no! her parents used to wash her mouth out with soap. CATCHPHRASE(S): “ well, golly ! ”  &  “ i’ll be darned ! ”  &  “ who’d have thunk ? ”

 favorites

ACTIVITY: making music, playing hockey. ANIMAL: she loves bees. even though she’s terrified of ‘em! BEVERAGE: water. BOOK: twenty-thousand leagues under the sea by jules verne. her father used to read it to her at night, chapter by chapter. it inspired her band name: pelagia .  it means the open sea. CELEBRITY: david beckham. adam mcquaid. COLOR: army green. DESIGNER: she likes thrifting. FOOD: pretzel sticks. FLOWER: daisies. GEM: amethyst. HOLIDAY: new year’s eve. she loves getting to blow party kazoos in everyone’s faces. MODE OF TRANSPORTATION: walking or running. MOVIE: he wedding date. she’s a sucker for those stupid rom-coms. the mighty ducks. slap shot. MUSICAL ARTIST: cigarettes after sex, stevie nix, amy winehouse, the band camino, daniel caesar, etc. QUOTE/SAYING: “ honey, you got a big storm comin’ ! ”  SCENERY: big open fields with bright green grass, wildflowers. SCENT: she doesn’t like candles, open flame. but she likes those lil’ air fresheners. eucalyptus, lavender, and peppermint calm her down. SPORT: hockey ! SPORTS TEAM: the west ham centurions, varsity girls hockey. she’s biased. she also likes the bruins. TELEVISION SHOW: bob ross specials. she used to watch ‘em all the time with her sister. WEATHER: warm ‘n breezy.  VACATION DESTINATION: ontario, it looks so calm.

attitudes

GREATEST DREAM: make it big in the music industry. have that be her career. GREATEST FEAR: she’ll lose more people she loves. MOST AT EASE WHEN: she’s with clark. or making tunes. LEAST AT EASE WHEN: she’s alone in the dark. BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT: selling out toad’s place for pelagia’s biggest show. BIGGEST REGRET: the last she said to her dad wasn’t i love you. MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT: she punched a boy in second grade for calling her a wussy. and then his crying made her cry. BIGGEST SECRET: she prayed to make a deal with the devil to bring her parents back and bartered anything he wanted. she feels like her father’s death is her fault. TOP PRIORITIES: spending all the time she can with clark. lookin’ after tess, making sure grizz knows he’s being watched. taking care of elody mae, at least, as much as she can. securing that hockey scholarship for college. winning states. being a good captain. making music, and using that to help... mend.

[ahopefuldoubt]

Dialogue in the Japanese dub of The Prince of Egypt: Aaron

originally posted in 2016 [x].

A while ago, I’d asked a few questions about the Japanese dub of The Prince of Egypt, specifically about how the biological siblings speak to one another.  Using the information I got (ありがとうございました), I wrote an analysis of Miriam’s dialogue.  I wanted to explore the differences and nuances of the language, and I hope to continue to do that here.

This time I’ll be looking at Aaron’s dialogue.  His way of speaking to Moses changes quite a bit over the course of the movie, and perhaps this evolution seems more dramatic in the Japanese version due to some of the features of the language.  Certainly there’s plenty to discuss with regard to formality and meaning, characterization and emotion.

Again, I’m relying mainly on these transcripts.  I’ve only added the romanization below the Japanese, and I’ve also done my best to bold the words/phrases that I discuss in greater detail.  (Some of the text — the bolded parts and/or the Japanese — may show up wonky on mobile, though.)  Also scattered throughout the post are a few supplemental lines of dialogue from the dub, and these may contain errors because I often miss words when I listen to Japanese.

A few other notes: “a” is pronounced approximately like the “a” in “father”; “i” like in “eat”; “u” like in “fool”; “e” like in “let”; and “o” like in “so.”  The vowel “ou” is still pronounced like the “o” in “so,” but it’s held longer.  For simplicity, I’ve romanized Moses’ name as “Moses.”  And when giving the full names of the Japanese actors, family names are written first.

(I hadn’t planned on writing quite this much (~3,000 words).  Buut, I’m a giant linguistics nerd, and Aaron is my favorite character.  So basically everything I love is in this post… :) and there was more ground to cover than I realized.)

The Well Scene

Oh, my good prince.  She’s exhausted from the day’s work.  Uh, not that it was too much.  We quite enjoyed it.  But she’s confused… ああ、いや、王子様。彼女疲れ果てておりまして…ああいやいや、仕事は軽いもので、とっても楽しかったのですが、混乱していて… [romanization] aa, iya, ouji sama.  kanojo tsukare hatete orimashite… aa iya iya, shigoto wa karui mono de, tottemo tanoshikatta no desu ga, konran shite ite…

There are several forms of address and degrees of formality in Japanese.  Personal pronouns (e.g., “I,” “you”) reflect not only the situation in which they are used, but also the speaker’s and addressee’s genders, social statuses, and other information and indicators of relationship, like the speaker’s attitude and feelings towards the person being addressed.  It’s due to this richness (where identities can also be constructed, subverted, etc.) that language variation is one of my favorite aspects of Japanese.

Although Aaron uses ore, a first-person pronoun, elsewhere in the movie, he doesn’t use any form of “I” in the well scene.  This isn’t unusual, because, in Japanese, pronouns such as “I” can be omitted when, for instance, it’s clear that the speaker is talking about themselves.  Building off of previous context and attaching various endings to verbs can also identify the speaker and the orientation of their speech.  Verb endings in particular are important to this analysis.  (I’ll talk about the nuances of ore further down, but it’s not really relevant right now.)

In this scene, Aaron doesn’t say “you” either.  As with first-person pronouns, second-person pronouns can also be dropped in Japanese.  In the dub, Aaron only refers to Moses by his title, ouji sama, which means “prince.”  He also uses and maintains honorific language (keigo).  By contrast, Miriam, who acknowledges Moses as their brother from the beginning, drops keigo early on and speaks in a familiar way.

An example of keigo in Aaron’s dialogue occurs when he’s trying to make an excuse for Miriam: “She’s exhausted from the day’s work…”  In the Japanese version, the line is kanojo tsukare hatete orimashite…  The bolded part ori is actually a verb (dictionary form: oru) that falls under the category of humble language, or kenjougo.  This type of honorific “lowers” the speaker, with the ultimate aim of “raising” the addressee.  Of course, the subject of the sentence isn’t Aaron himself, but his sister, and the use of humble language also extends to people in a speaker’s immediate social group (e.g., to talk about the actions of family members or workmates).  The -mashite part that immediately follows ori is a polite verb ending, or suffix: the -masu form.  The suffix -masu and the polite sentence ending desu are commonplace in Aaron’s speech in this scene.

Generally speaking, languages have their own ways of marking politeness.  The original English version has Aaron speaking in a more formal register, which contrasts with the way he talks in other places in the movie.  “[She] knows not to whom she speaks,” “Your Highness, pay her no heed,” and “May I discuss something with you?” are examples, and these sentences all sound somewhat stiff (or, from an older time) because they follow prescribed grammar rules.  In linguistics, prescriptivism can refer to features of language that society has labeled “standard” or “proper.”  Linguistic description, on the other hand, focuses on how people actually use language.  It’s worth noting that people style-switch, meaning they select, employ, and even mix, different registers at different times (e.g., the language people use with friends is likely not the kind they use with their boss).  Style-switching is driven by context and says a lot about social groups and membership, as well as how people perform — or are expected to perform — their various roles…

So, in both the Japanese and English versions, the situations and scenes are intrinsically linked to language choice, character, and plot.  Early in the film, Aaron uses respectful, “proper” language because he’s talking to a prince, someone who is much higher in the social hierarchy.  This reflects his dynamic with Moses at this point in the story, the role he must perform, and what he’s trying to accomplish by mitigating their interaction.  (Incidentally, his asking Miriam, “May I discuss something with you?” has always sounded cute to me…. like he doesn’t want his big sister to get mad at him, and as he’s talking to her, he’s simultaneously keeping up an air of respect because he’s around “Prince Moses.”)

Even before I watched the dub, I was really looking forward to hearing everyone’s voices and performances.  I think the Japanese version did a good job matching them to the original actors.  Miriam sounds a bit more mature to me.  Rameses sounds younger (Ralph Fiennes provides somewhat more gravitas than does his Japanese counterpart), and I like how Moses’ Japanese voice actor smoothly ages his character from a teenager to an adult.

Overall, I enjoy Tanaka Ken’s performance as Aaron, but there are some interesting differences, here and later at the mud pit.  In the well scene especially, Aaron’s voice has a low, even-toned quality to it.  (I have a lot of… strong emotions about this type of voice.  Like, I’m not mad at it.)  His pitch is similar to Jeff Goldblum’s; however, I get a less urgent and panicked impression from the Japanese version.  Because of this, I feel the moment loses some of its punch.  At the very least it creates another mood… perhaps even another interpretation of the animation/visuals.

What I like about Tanaka’s performance is how he is able to give the sense that he’s really measuring his words to keep the situation from escalating.  I feel that this thoughtfulness is a side-effect of his more relaxed delivery and manner, including the way he does his pauses (the aforementioned -mashite verb ending also expresses a kind of hesitance).  On the other hand, Goldblum portrays Aaron’s thinking process along a more agitated pace, and that ironic edge, which emerges so fluently in his voice, only increases the emotional stakes.  In the Japanese dub, Aaron repeats iya iya (“no, no”), throughout the scene, very softly at times, which I find endearing; it also replicates Goldblum’s habits pretty well (uh, know what I mean?).  I think the iya iya’s help underscore the calmer, more placating — and restrained — tone.

This calmness is gone, however, in next scene.  So, too, is the same degree of formality that Aaron keeps during his first reunion with Moses.

The Mud Pit Scene

So, Moses, how does it feel when you get struck to the ground? ようモーセ、分かったか？殴り倒された気持ちが [romanization] you** Moses, wakatta ka? naguri taosareta kimochi ga

**This looks like the English pronoun “you,” but it’s pronounced like the English word “yo.”

Right from the outset, there are many aspects of the dialogue that separate this part of the story from the earlier one.

In both languages, Aaron addresses Moses by name, rather than by his title: ouji sama in Japanese, “Your Highness” in English.  His tone is much more direct.  This much is the same between the English and Japanese versions.  However, the latter is further characterized by the existence of a sharp morphological difference between the styles of language that Aaron uses.

My favorite branch of linguistics, morphology studies the “smallest meaningful units” of language: morphemes.  Words and word-parts, basically.  These include free morphemes (roots), which can stand on their own; and bound morphemes (affixes like prefixes and suffixes), which need to be attached to roots or other morphemes.  A free morpheme (root) in English is “enjoy,” to which the bound morpheme -ed (a suffix) can be attached, forming the past tense.

In the previous section, I mentioned how frequently desu and -masu — both of them morphemes — appear in the well scene: They show up in lines like tottemo tanoshikatta no desu ga, which corresponds to “We quite enjoyed it,” and dare to hanashite iru no ka wakatte imasen, “[She] knows not to whom she speaks.”  (-Masen is the negative form of -masu, so it means “not x.”)  As features of keigo, these suffixes mark politeness.  In the mud pit scene, wakatta ka is not keigo but plain form, which is informal.  (The bolded suffix -ta is the past tense verb ending, similar in grammatical function to the English -ed.)

The plain form is what Aaron uses from this point on when talking to Moses.  However, it isn’t the plain form itself that leaves an especially strong impression in the Japanese version.  (Technically, it’s the same style that Miriam uses throughout the movie.)  Rather, the shock comes from the change that has occurred, for there are social implications to using or not using keigo.  Aaron’s (abrupt) use of the casual register indicates a shift in his attitude, the way he carries himself and views (his relationship with) his younger brother.

Another significant departure from the well scene is his use of informal pronouns, which I hinted at earlier in this post and show up in the next set of lines:

In fact, Moses, when did you start caring about slaves?  Was it when you found out that you were one of us? それよりお前、いつから俺達奴隷を心配し始めた？仲間だと分かってからか？ [romanization] sore yori omae, itsu kara ore tachi dorei o shinpai shi hajimeta?  nakama da to wakatte kara ka?

Ore is probably recognizable to fans of anime and manga because of its widespread use by male characters.  There are several first-person pronouns in Japanese, all of which communicate a great deal of information about the speaker and social situation.  One word for “I” is boku, a masculine pronoun that is softer and more boyish than ore.  As a point of comparison, Moses uses boku as a young man, and as an adult, he uses watashi, which is regarded as more gender-neutral and formal — a close-but-not-quite “all-purpose” first-person pronoun.  Watashi has a dignified feel, in Moses’ case.  Ore fits Aaron’s personality, and in the Japanese dub, he uses it exclusively.  It’s a natural choice for him, and I’m not disappointed :)  In fact I would have been surprised if he used boku, or anything else, really.  (I can imagine him using watashi or some humble form of “I” around the Egyptian guards, but again, pronouns aren’t always necessary, and keigo should be enough to establish respect and identify the speaker and addressee.)  Since ore is casual, it can connote rudeness; however, it can also simply suggest a close relationship between the speaker and those within his “in-group.”  When Aaron uses ore around Miriam, the pronoun takes on a familial quality.  An example is the line ore tachi ga nani mo dekinai, or “There’s nothing we can do” in the English version.

Given the context of mud pit scene and its difference in tone from the well scene, Aaron’s use of ore carries a more jarring sense of familiarity and is on the brusque side.  His choice of “you” is likewise effective.  Omae, which is usually paired with ore, is rather blunt and even offensive in some circumstances.  In general, neither ore nor omae should be said in polite conversation or with people of a higher status.  But, the change from respectful keigo language to direct, informal language definitely feels like a case of style-switching: It has a purpose, a proclamation.  Personally, I think that omae is meant to disarm, to be a surprise to the viewer and to Moses himself.  It emphasizes the points Aaron is making in this moment.  And I love what this new casualness suggests about the relationship between these two.

Speaking of pronouns, Rameses uses ore and omae with Moses.  (As with Aaron’s way of speaking with Miriam, this just reveals a close, familial relationship.)  The Japanese dub also seems to take advantage of the order of the scenes themselves to drive home this particular linguistic connection between Aaron and Rameses.

So, in the following sets of dialogue:

Rameses (parting words): Or is it thanks… to you? それともお前の…おかげかな [romanization] sore tomo omae no… okage ka na

Aaron (mud pit scene; abridged): In fact, Moses, when did you start… それよりお前、いつから… [romanization] sore yori omae, itsu kara…

It’s already significant that these two emotionally-fraught confrontations occur one after the other, but because Aaron has shifted his mode of speaking and addresses Moses with same pronouns as Rameses, the Japanese dub is really able to develop the parallel.  Even the way omae is framed at the beginning of the two sentences is similar: sore tomo (“or”) for Rameses and sore yori (“more than that”) for Aaron.  I think it’s interesting that the Japanese version does this, perhaps even more explicitly than the English version.  I’d love to spend time with this parallel, especially as it exists and functions in the original version, but I’ll leave that to a future post.

In fact, Moses, when did you start caring about slaves?  Was it when you found out that you were one of us? それよりお前、いつから俺達奴隷を心配し始めた？仲間だと分かってからか？ [romanization] sore yori omae, itsu kara ore tachi dorei o shinpai shi hajimeta?  nakama da to wakatte kara ka?

Focusing on a couple of other sections in the same line, and building off his use of ore, Aaron specifically says ore tachi dorei, which in this case translates to “us slaves.”  -Tachi is a suffix that attaches to nouns in order to create a “plural form” (as a collective/assembly, if that makes sense).  To me, -tachi stresses his identity with his people.

Nakama is a word that usually gets translated as “friend” or “comrade,” but it refers to something bigger: a community, a kinship.  So, my impression of nakama is similar to that of ore tachi.  In both versions, the line contains that bitter truth, saying, “Did you only start to care after you knew that this was your people?”  Indeed, with nakama, there’s a strong sense of inclusion, yet at the same time, it feels shuttered and pained.  At least, that’s my interpretation.

In terms of performance, I prefer Goldblum’s because his delivery is wonderful (this role is utterly his).  I like Tanaka’s take, too, but what strikes me most is the way he makes Aaron sound like a completely different person: a combination of showing Aaron’s age (done nicely) but also his heightened emotions.  I was slightly taken aback when I first heard it because I thought it was a different actor.  That even tone from the well scene is completely gone.  The irony, though, is thankfully intact:

Well, that makes everything fine then, doesn’t it? そりゃまたご都合のいい事で、全く [romanization] sorya mata gotsugou no ii koto de, mattaku

Like desu and -masu, the prefix go- is a polite form of speech.  It mostly attaches to nouns (typically objects/things) and is used to show respect for someone else.  So, it’s another example of keigo, only now, Aaron is using it in a sarcastic way.  A literal translation might be “Well, isn’t that convenient [for you],” making it fairly similar to the original line.  This piece of dialogue sounds harsher in the Japanese version; Aaron says the very last word, mattaku, with particular irritation.  Goldblum’s delivery in the entire scene may be angry, but it still feels rather contained (closer to a simmer than a boil, if that makes sense), which I’ve always appreciated.  I really like how he allows Aaron’s voice to drop and trail off for “Well, that makes everything fine then, doesn’t it?”

During the well scene, Tanaka seems to give a more collected performance, while Goldblum imbues Aaron with a frantic energy.  Later, Tanaka’s portrayal is forceful, whereas Goldblum’s is held back.  The actors’ voice work offers nuanced interpretations, and though their acting and ways of executing the dialogue may differ, in the end I think they both contribute to a holistic vision of who Aaron is.  The Japanese and English languages themselves are similarly constructive: Despite having unique methods of marking politeness and utilizing pronouns or words, they create subtlety and build up a common understanding of character.

I’m thankful for this reply to my Ask (and for the confirmation that Aaron does indeed use ore… and Miriam, choudai — I love how informative these two words are).  I know this post is quite nerdy, but I hope it’s interesting nonetheless.  And, as someone who’s interested in linguistics and loves this movie, I’ve enjoyed being able to watch the Japanese dub and deepen my own understanding :)

Last edited: 2/7/17; edits for clarification

[gendercensus]

The Big Pronouns Survey - results

This survey ran from 19th August until today, 26th August - one week. There were 2,686 participants after I removed a joke submission and a couple of duplicates, which I think is not too shabby!

There were three things I was looking for:

How popular pronoun sets are;

Common word choices and spellings, plural/singular verbs;

How people tend to gender the sets.

You can see the original responses and the various calculations and ranking tables here (Google Sheets).

~

MOTIVATION

This was probably the most complicated survey I’ve run so far just in terms of structure. I had to place a lot of limitations on what people could enter for each question, so there were fewer “other ________” answers than I usually like to provide.

I’ve been wanting to ask about pronouns more accurately for a long time, because in the annual survey of language for nonbinary people I simply list the most popular pronoun sets and then provide a single box called “other” for people to write in sometimes multiple sets of neopronouns. This means that I have to sort through entries like this:

xe, xem

xe/xem/xyr

ze/zem/zeir

ze, v, per, etc.

... and so on. It is really time-consuming and exhausting to separate and group the pronouns to count them accurately, and that’s because there is not one uniform way of presenting your pronoun set. Even if there were, people would assume I know what they meant by “xe/xem”, they might just be lazy, they might not know the “official” way to use the pronouns and leave words out, and probably there are a hundred other ways in which humans are thankfully not computer programs!

This survey was an attempt to get more helpful and accurate information about pronoun preferences overall, as well as about individual pronoun sets and their use.

~

THE SURVEY

The survey began with a compulsory question that asked you to confirm that your gender was in some way not binary M/F.

It then asked for your general pronoun preference:

Any pronouns are fine

Avoid all pronouns

I have some kind of pronoun preference, strong or mild

If you selected “any” or “avoid”, you were sent to the end of the survey, to save you being asked about your pronouns when you had none or didn’t care.

If you selected I have a preference, you were sent to the section that lets you enter your pronouns. You could enter up to five sets. For each pronoun, you were given five sentences to complete, plus a couple of extra questions.

"Ask Sam if ______ would like to buy a newspaper." (Eg: he, she, they)

"Sam bought the newspaper so now it belongs to _____." (Eg: him, her, them)

"Sam is reading _____ newspaper." (Eg: his, her, their)

"Whose newspaper is it?" "It belongs to Sam, it's _____." (Eg: his, hers, theirs)

"Sam bought it for _____." (Eg: himself, herself)

There was an explanation of what pronouns are at the top of the page. Each sentence had a few examples underneath it from the he/him, she/her and they/them sets, with one exception - I left “themself/themselves” out of the reflexive question because I wanted to see whether people generally preferred “themself” or “themselves” when talking about one person and I didn’t want to influence their response at all.

There was a question to find out whether the pronoun set uses plural verbs or singular verbs, because I wanted to know whether people usually say, for example, “xe is” or “xe are”. Consider:

he is a teacher - is is singular, so he/him uses singular verbs.

they are a teacher - are is plural, so they/them uses plural verbs.

And then there was a question to ask how people generally tend to gender this pronoun set. The choices were masculine, feminine, nonbinary, inclusive, or “only I can use it”.

At the end of each pronoun set participants were given the option to enter another set or skip to the end. If someone entered more than one set, they were given some checkboxes that they could check if it applied to them:

Pronoun preference tends to change depending on context

I want people to vary which pronoun they use for me frequently

I have a consistent favourite pronoun

And then there was a feedback box at the end.

I considered providing some of the more common pronoun sets pre-written for people to select, but decided against it. I wanted to see what people wrote when given empty text boxes. In the annual survey any pronoun that is pre-written will get more people choosing it just because it’s right there. Having it pre-written removes a barrier, and it means people who would not normally consider that pronoun set are prompted to do so; both of these things increases the number of people choosing it.

~

HOW POPULAR WERE THE PRONOUN SETS?

When reduced to the first two pronouns in each set it looks something like this:

they/them: 1,952 - 73%

he/him: 488 - 18%

she/her: 321 - 12%

use any pronouns: 294 - 11%

avoid pronouns: 131 - 5%

it/it: 58 - 2%

xe/xem: 57 - 2%

ey/em: 52 - 2%

fae/faer: 25 - 0.9%

ze/zir: 20 - 0.7% // ze/hir: 20 - 0.7%

(Since this was specifically marketed as a survey about pronouns, I expect that “any” and “avoid” options were underrepresented because potential participants with no preference or who dislike pronouns for themselves would be less likely to open the survey in the first place. But that’s just speculation!)

The top ten looks a little different when you include more than the first two pronouns of a set, because after the first two there tended to be more divergence in words and spellings.

A good illustration is the set “xe/xem,” which more than doubles in popularity when you take into account more variations of that pronoun than just the most popular. I’m not suggesting for a second that all “xe/xem” sets are ultimately the same, but I did want to show that a slight difference in spelling radically changes how your write-in pronoun is counted in this survey and in the annual survey. A pronoun set that seems quite popular outside of statistics could seem less popular in surveys simply because a lot of people use it slightly differently, due to regional differences and personal preference and so on.

To put it another way, here were all the unique sets beginning with “n” that were entered, most of which begin with a “knee” sound:

ne/nem/nir/nirs/nemself (singular verbs) - 7

ne/nem/nir/nirs/nirself (singular verbs) - 3

ne/nir/nim/nir/nirs/nirself (singular verbs) - 1

ne/nim/nir/nirs/nimself (singular verbs) - 1

ne/nem/neir/neirs/nemself (singular verbs) - 1

ne/nis/nis/nis/nimself (singular verbs) - 1

ne/nym/nyms/nyms/nymself (singular verbs) - 1

ne/nem/nis/nis/nemself (singular verbs) - 1

ne/nir/nir/nirs/nirself (singular verbs) - 1

ne/nim/nir/nis/nimself (singular verbs) - 1

ni/ne/nem/nir/nirs/nemself (singular verbs) - 1

nin/nim/nims/nims/ninself (singular verbs) - 1

ny/nym/nys/nys/nymself (singular verbs) - 1

The only thing they have in common is that they are all used with singular verbs: “Ne is a teacher. Ne has a small class today.”

If you just count the most popular it’s 7, but that’s less than half of people claiming pronouns that start with “ne”, so it’s a very limited picture.

Part of what I like to ask in the annual survey is if we are ever approaching any kind of consensus on the more popular neopronoun sets. Do people generally agree on spelling or even on the words themselves? And after several years, I can confirm that the answer is basically no. For most neopronouns, 50% of people or more are using different words in sets that start with the same word. Some sets appear to sound the same but have very different spellings, such as xe/xir and ze/zir. Speaking anecdotally, some sets are spelled the same way but pronounced differently by different people - some people pronounce “xy/xyr” as “zee/zeer” and some “zye/zyer”, for example.

These will settle over time. If neopronouns become more used and people become more fluent when using new sets, the spelling and pronunciation will converge in the more common sets first. I’m thinking that language coagulates with frequent and earnest use.

There were a lot of people taking part who spoke English as a second language, a lot of typos, and a lot of people using unique tricks to circumvent this:

That’s a validation rule to prevent people writing sentences. In the test surveys, people would sometimes write the pronoun, and then an explanation or an alternative, such as “xe or ze”, or “xe but on my girl days I prefer she”. I love those elaborations but this time I needed extremely simple data so that I could process it using spreadsheet queries!

So a lot of the unique pronoun sets entered probably could have been more accurately grouped with others. There were 367 unique pronoun sets entered altogether taking into account verb preferences, which is a new pronoun set for every 7 people. I enjoyed the ones like “he/they/he/they/his/their/his/theirs/himself/themself (singular verbs)”, but this one is my favourite for pure ingenuity:

[x]ey_xey_or_yey_or_zey/[x]em_or_xem_or_yem_or_zem/[x]eir_or_xeir_or_yeir_or_zeir/[x]eirs_or_xeirs_or_yeirs_or_zeirs/[x]eirself_or_xeirself_or_yeirself_or_zeirself (plural verbs)

That’s five sets combined into one. Each of these could have been entered separately, so it’s possible that the form was somehow not clear or that it was misinterpreted. I did write in a couple of places that you’d be able to enter up to five pronoun sets, and at the end of each pronoun set you had to select “enter another set” or “skip to the end”, so perhaps this is just one set with many interchangeable options? Perhaps they were trying to communicate that each of these sets is equal with no favourite? Or perhaps the participant was just trying to save time. Are xey sad that xeir sets were counted only once together instead of being grouped individually with matching sets?

~

POPULAR VERB PREFERENCES

Folks expressed an interest in knowing which “they/them” sets are more common. There were 88 unique sets entered starting with “they”, and here’s how many people chose the ones entered ten times or more:

they/them/their/theirs/themself (plural verbs) - 1,445

they/them/their/theirs/themselves (plural verbs) - 278

they/them/their/theirs/theirself (plural verbs) - 60

they/them/their/theirs/themself (singular verbs) - 22

they/them/their/theirs/himself (plural verbs) - 16

they/them/their/theirs/ (plural verbs) - 15

they/them/their/theirs/them (plural verbs) - 13

they/them/their/their's/themself (plural verbs) - 11

“Themself” was five times as popular as “themselves”, and plural verbs (”they are”) were overwhelmingly more common than singular (”they is”).

Pretty much everything else was singular verbs, including sets that sound a little bit like or rhyme with or are based on they/them:

ey/em/eir/eirs/emself (singular verbs) - 1%

fae/faer/faer/faers/faerself (singular verbs) - 0.6%

ae/aer/aer/aers/aerself (singular verbs) - 0.4%

~

PREFERENCES FOR MULTIPLE PRONOUN SETS

841 people (31% of all participants) entered more than one pronoun set. Here’s how they wanted people to use those pronouns out of an incomplete list of preferences, of which participants could select more than one or none at all:

~

HOW DO PEOPLE TEND TO GENDER THE PRONOUN SETS?

For this step I used just the first two words in each pronoun set, and did some colour-coding with conditional formatting.

The darker the box, the higher the percentage. Any grey "0%” on the right are answers where no one chose that option at all, and the black “0%” are positive numbers that have been rounded down, such as “0.1%”. Percentages are of the people who claimed that pronoun, not of the entire population surveyed.

Here’s a bit of a summary:

They/them was considered the most inclusive, and the least “nonbinary” of anything other than he/him or she/her.

He/him was overwhelmingly considered masculine, and she/her was overwhelmingly considered feminine.

People were more likely to characterise he/him as inclusive or nonbinary, and less likely to characterise it as masculine or feminine, compared to she/her. This might account for people being 6% more likely to be okay with he/him overall? This might also be influenced by the style guide push in recent decades for he/him to be the standard non-gendered pronoun when talking about someone of unknown gender. “Masculine as neutral” is a prevalent stance even among nonbinary people, anecdotally speaking, with feminine still being seen as a deviation from a masculine default, and the statistics here reflect that. It could also be influenced by gender assigned at birth, which I didn’t ask about.

I note that the results for he/him and she/her are quite different from the annual survey’s usual pattern. Here he/him was 6% more popular than she/her, whereas in the annual survey (which has pre-written options for the pronoun question) the two are more similar, sometimes getting the same percentage when rounded to the nearest whole number. Checking a box is much easier than having to type in a whole set and then answer questions about it, so perhaps people who are okay with she/her don’t like it enough to type it out?

Of all the pronouns other than he, she and they - only two pronouns were ever considered binary gendered. It/it was gendered masculine by 2% of people who use it (but never feminine), and fae/faer was gendered feminine by 12% of people (but never masculine).

The pronoun set that was considered most nonbinary-exclusive (used for nonbinary people, and not anyone else) was xe/xem.

A huge 29% of participants who chose it/it said that it/it could only be used for them. Originally this answer option was intended for people whose neopronouns were based on their names or otherwise exclusive to them, but I think perhaps what people were trying to express here was “this is not a pronoun you can use for just anyone.” When I’ve heard people talking about it/it pronouns, folks tend to be very blunt and up-front about the fact that a lot of people find it/it upsetting, it’s often used to insult or dehumanise visibly trans people, etc. So folks using this pronoun are perhaps warning others to be very careful about how to use this pronoun - but that’s purely speculation.

If we were going to extract a “nonbinary pronoun” from this data (as if he/him was a masculine pronoun and she/her was a feminine pronoun), it would be xe/xem. The most common use of this pronoun was:

xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself (singular verbs)

This is Sam. Xe is a teacher. Xyr daughter often gets a ride to school with xem, though sometimes when she’s sick Sam drives to work by xemself. If Jenny leaves her lunch in the car by accident... well, that lunch is xyrs now!

It’s worth mentioning, though, that this pronoun set as it’s written above was only entered by 22 people - less than 1% of >2,500 nonbinary participants. Almost 1 in 4 participants preferred some form of singular they/them, most of them preferring “themself” rather than “themselves”, and plural verbs.

~

TINY PERSONAL RANT

I’m going to take this opportunity to say that plural verbs are not weird. You already use plural verbs when talking to/about individuals all the time. They do not mean that you’re talking about more than one person, nor is it grammatically incorrect. Regardless of how old they/them is and how many famous writers have used it and whether or not they were right to do so, if you always say “you are” and you never say “you is” even when you are talking to one person, complaining about singular they but not singular you is a double standard.

If you’re reading this then you probably already know that. ;)

~

CONCLUSION

I ran this survey to get more accurate information about pronoun preferences and pronoun sets, and I think I succeeded! I find the results interesting and helpful. I hope it’s interesting to others too, and I am really grateful to everyone who took part and helped to promote the survey.

I’m not sure whether I will run a pronouns-only survey like this again, but I may incorporate something like it into the annual survey. It made counting pronoun sets so much easier.

Thank you everyone!

~

SUPPORT?

If you like what I do and you want to express some gratitude, please consider checking out my Amazon wishlist!

And if you liked how you were asked about your pronouns, you might be interested to see Starfriends - it’s a truly gender-inclusive social network that me and @par-la-fenetre have been playing with, that actually collects and uses your neopronouns properly omg.

[shivajapon]

I am alive!

Basically, I am alive, and this is not a cry for help. I just want to regroup my thoughts, vent, rant, and maybe by some miracle someone with the info/advice I need can contact me (doubt it but weirder things have happened). Overall I'm pretty ok and much happier than before, like so much happier. (Changed my name (now is Sam), changed my appearence to what I actually like (a hell of a lot more masculine), and came out to my fam and a shitload of people as agender/non-binary). Seriously so much happier even with all the shit. So, for a summary of the rant (I have a draft only talking about 1 point twice as long, so yeah, this is the summary). 1- NAME (or, BUROCRAZY in Spain) What the fuck is it with the goverment and the name change, who am I hurting? Why do you need to be so annoying? And also, SAM IS GENDER NEUTRAL "DEAR" JUDGE WHO SAID IT WAS MASCULINE SO NO CHANGE. Anyhow will try again but it is so annoying, and people for some reason have this need to know my legal name or call me by it when they see it/fund out about it. Do you know how fucking annoying that is! Try getting called Alex (or if that's your name Max) all the time, at the bank, at a hotel, at a shop if you pay by card sometimes. Also, if the person thinks I'm a guy (which happens pretty often) then deal with the, is that your card? Or the weird looks. Once or twice is fine, but is semi-constant and it builds up, like most of the following. 2-BINDING (or, where did them boobs go?) Being constricted in a semi-regular basis is very annoying, the binder is hot, itchy, constricting, causes back pain, etc... (and I am being careful and doing it properly). Yet, I fucking love it, it is so weird the difference between I goddamn hate how I look (no binder) to, I look great today. Mental comfort VS physical comfort. However it is rough when I cannot wear the binder for whichever reason, and I feel like utter shit because it's just not me, pool season is comming and I am terrified. It's like someone forced me into a halloween costume that I have to wear 24/7, NOT ME. 3-MASTECTOMY (or, bye binder, bye boobs, hello flat chest of my dreams) While some people choose to just bind, I cannot wait until the day where I no longer need to, I love what the binder does looks wise but I hate everything else, it is terrible. My problem here is the lack of information, of money, and that agender is not considered a real thing by many people. There are ways to get around the last two, but I need more information in order to plan, which is super hard to get (Seville, south of Spain, willing to move for it, incase anyone does know something). I don't want general information, I want to look for surgeons, know the price and what papers I need, etc... It's not there!!!! I will try again later on with different keywords, etc, but so far I have found nada or super old information. I am afraid of salami nipples, I want more info. 3-LGTBQ+ ORGANIZATIONS (or, the scary place) The whole agender/non-binary thing is not really recognised by many people, and I get the why don't you say you are a transguy thing more often that I like (might end up having to pretend, more later), or the you are just a transguy. It's annoying, finding about agender/non-binary people for me was incredible, it opened a new option I hadn't even considered and gave me someone to relate to, told me that it was ok to be like I am, and gave me the start to act like myself. Back to the topic, while this organisations might be super incredibly helpful, it's not a given that they will accept the whole agender/non-binary thing and that would be a bit crashing (just a bit). Sometimes it is great to have a clear no, yes, or maybe, but for me right now, I'd rather not know, because if the answer it's a no I don't know if I can take. 4-PRONOUNS (or, fucking Spanish, and fucking lax English grammar rules) In English I love they, them, their (which can be used in the third person singular for neutral/non-gendered/unknown gender cases, feel free to look it up), since a lot of people seem to want to fight me on this and I honestly cannot be bothered to deal with the following: coming out, explaining, a lot of the time arguing, then if I'm lucky the person trying to use/getting used to using the pronouns. I just go with whatever they choose and tolerate it (I don't force people if they choose not to for whichever reason, but I do really apreciate and love the people who do, it means a lot). This leads to people using different things (I look androgenous) and then questions which can be good or bad depending on the person asking. I don't mind talking about the whole agender thing, but mainly I just wanna have a beer and chat without having to tell my lifestory/defend myself (it's rarely a short conversation). Another problem, I live in Spain, where the vast majority speak Spanish, where everything is gendered and using the neutral form sticks out like a sore thumb (again, I don't want to bring attention to myself or my gender, just to have a nice chat), so I just say fuck it, use whatever, try to avoid very gendered expresions like man, woman and stuff like that. And if one day I ask for an especific pronoun try to be nice (if I'm paying 10bucks to get into a club I'm gonna be a he in spanish that night). Sounds complicated, is really not that bad, seriously, it just takes a bit of effort and if I ask you to do it, it means you are a good friend in my mind who I care about, or you asked me first. If I barely see you or know you just call me by what feels natural, whatever is fine (yes, even IT if you want to be an asshole). Also, just choosing one pronoun does not solve the problem, because people will use whatever they want to use and I don't want to have to go around correcting those who use the "wrong" ones. (Would say 60% of people choose she, 40% of people choose he) 5-LOOKS (or, I just wanna pee in peace) Like I think I mentioned before (tltr again) I prefer the masculine look, and when I say masculine I mean I dress like a guy, this means that I often get confused as a guy instead of a girl, which is a nice change of pace (people give you more personal space and shake hands instead of kissing your cheek). I honestly prefer to be confused as a guy than a girl, because of the above, and because if you wear "masculine" clothes, act "masculine", and have a "masculine" haircut, you get less shit if people think you are a guy than if people think you are a butch girl (not that I get much shit mind you, people have been sorta cool with it, not perfect but better than it was before). This means that going to the bathroom is tricky, I can pretty much go to both if I want to (the less queue, cleaner one is my choice depending on my hurry), but I can also get told off or insulted no matter which one I use. All I want is to evacuate my biological waste, I don't care where, just let me go. 6- HORMONES/PASSING AS A CIS GUY (or, I just want to be left alone). When you fit with society, even if it's not perfectly, you get a pass by people. You don't get asked about your genitals or other personal questions, people do not feel entitled for this information and don't get mad if you don't answer or get angry at them for asking, you don't have to defend your existance/gender/life to strangers, etc... Mainly, because it doesn't get brought up unless you want to, and while I think one of the best things I can do is educate people so I can help others in my situation and because knowledge is great, I would prefer it if it was in my terms. The fact is you don't really know how people are going to react, and it is exhausting to always have "your guard up". Because my style is already in what society calls the masculine/man box, if I was to take hormones I would easily pass as a cis man, with all the pros this has: less/no discrimination based on "weird looks", more personal space (read above), a beard maybe if I'm lucky (would love one, but unlike the flat chest it is not a need), the chance to bring the whole agender/non-binary thing up when I want to/feel comfortable, t-shirt collars fitting ok, etc... However there are also downsides: possible health problems, costs, most likely having to pretend to be a transman in order to get them, genitalia changes (this is the biggest con for me to be honest, the rest I can deal with, but I like my genitals, I like how everything works and looks and I don't want it to change), etc... I still don't have an answer for this, the fact is that if it wasn't for some of the cons I'll be happy looking more like a clasic cis-man, I like the look (I'd rock the beard if I got one). The problem is that I feel that people, and again, society are pushing me there, and that, I don't like, it would be nice if people stopped commenting like they know everything (most don't sorry) and just let me clear my head and think in peace. It would also help of I had a specialist to talk to as well about it, but again, no can find info online. It's a process people, and I'm very lost because for me this is 24/7. I might just choose one pronoun (with all that that leads to) which is would probably be the masculine because it "fits" my looks better. I might choose to take hormones or not, and the when if so is a mystery. I hope I get the money for the mastectomy soon (1/2 years), when I do I will get the information even if I have to kill someone for it, it would be nice to have it before hand so I can plan better and all that, but I just don't have the energy/strengh right now to go in person to where there MIGHT be information and all that it entails. I have some idea of what the future holds for me, I know what I want for sure and I'm working for it, and I know what I need to think about and really consider and I'm on it as well, and I know what I don't want, which is to go back to pretending to be someone else in order to fit in. Life is confusing, but I could really use just the normal level of confusion without all the above added. All that said, I would not change the past year. I finally feel like myself, and even with all the above I am happier, more confident, and overall just better than before. It's scary, and sometimes shitty, but so so so worth it. If you actually read all that applaud you, feel free to message me if you have any questions, info, or (nice hopefully) comments. PS: Also, it is not a competition but I am aware that my situation is very lucky as most important people have actually accepted me, even if they are struggling with it, and I do have a job and possibilities which other people sadly don't (some contacts that may be able to help a bit if need be)