IS needs to define character genders better again. Agree or no?

[roymbrog]

I'm not asking someone if they're male or female. That's super awkward. I'd feel that way if someone asked me that question too. I'd rather just know right away or not speak to them at all.

You don't ask if they're male or female. You ask what pronouns they use. "What prounons do you go by/prefer?" is way less awkward than asking what their sex is. Also note that the vast majority of people you'd be asking that question to are younger, so way, way less likely to be offended by it.

[Anacybele]

i'm not twisting everything you say, i'm parroting back at you my interpretation of your stance, with my only source on the matter being you. this is starting to sound less like you having a problem with fire emblem's characterization not fitting into nice pigeonholed sex boxes, and more like you having some problems with androgyny as a concept, which is a Not Good Thing in today's society.

Yes, you are. I never said women should be effeminate flowers. Women can look like Rinkah too, and I actually like her because she's a different kind of woman than that. But I can still tell she's a woman.

And I never said men can't look like manly muscular dudes.

Your second sentence here is completely false. I may find it weird for men to wear dresses and skirts, but I'm not going to hate them or shun them for it. They can dress however they want, I just don't want to end up embarrassing both of us by calling him a girl by mistake, you get me? And some people like that even get offended if you accidentally call them the wrong gender, despite that it was just a mistake and not meant to be rude at all. That I do find annoying. But I'm not saying it to bash their dressing habits or anything like that at all. I'm saying it's silly to get offended over a little mistake like that.

Listen, there's a guy where I work that says he's often mistaken for a woman if he doesn't have a beard (though I knew he was a man beard or no beard). It embarrasses him and I bet it embarrassed those people who called him a woman too. I'm not just thinking of myself, I'm thinking of the other person too. I'm trying to spare embarrassment for BOTH of us.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Anacybele

[Integrity]

Yes, you are. I never said women should be effeminate flowers. Women can look like Rinkah too, and I actually like her because she's a different kind of woman than that. But I can still tell she's a woman.

And I never said men can't look like manly muscular dudes.

Your second sentence here is completely false. I may find it weird for men to wear dresses and skirts, but I'm not going to hate them or shun them for it. They can dress however they want, I just don't want to end up embarrassing both of us by calling him a girl by mistake, you get me? And some people like that even get offended if you accidentally call them the wrong gender, despite that it was just a mistake and not meant to be rude at all. That I do find annoying. But I'm not saying it to bash their dressing habits or anything like that at all. I'm saying it's silly to get offended over a little mistake like that.

Listen, there's a guy where I work that says he's often mistaken for a woman if he doesn't have a beard (though I knew he was a man beard or no beard). It embarrasses him and I bet it embarrassed those people who called him a woman too. I'm not just thinking of myself, I'm thinking of the other person too. I'm trying to spare embarrassment for BOTH of us.

since you were typing, i'd like for my edit to not go unnoticed because it's still relevant for all of this

EDIT: also, please explain the second line to me any way that isn't "if someone's pronouns aren't apparently to me immediately, i'd rather not talk to them"? as far as i can tell, you're literally placing your comfort over someone else's identity, which is essentially the logic we used to pass don't ask don't tell and discharge THOSE GAYS from military service.

which, by the way, was a bad thing.

in response to what you actually said, none of this relates to anything. it's bad for people to be misgendered, yes, this is a fact, but how is writing off androgyny as a whole going to actually help that? there's less misgendering at the cost of erasing identities, end of story - and how does that relate to fire emblem at all? you have the convenient ability to look up character sexes right here on sf pretty easily, even ignoring the fact that i disagree that any fire emblem character besides forrest is difficult to tell.

are you just complaining about being embarrassed by the really preventable (hypothetical, idk if you actually did this) situation of you called subaki a woman despite having full access to the site's resources? that's entirely on you.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Integrity

[Anacybele]

Well, I'll never say or agree with the idea that LGBT+ people should be discharged from the military or anything, that's absolutely wrong. It is harder to tell someone's gender in something like the military since everyone's forced to wear the same uniform (and understandably so, it's the military, after all), but it's no excuse. In these kinds of situations, it's better to just to be required to say on paper and such which gender you identify as so there are no embarrassing mistakes or anything. I see no harm in that. Nobody's getting discharged or discriminated against.

As for FE, I'm just tired of misgendering so many characters all of a sudden. It's irritating to me. That's all.

Also, you DO realize that I called Subaki a woman before the site actually HAD confirmation that he was male, don't you?

Sorry for missing your edit, though, by the way.

[roymbrog]

I mean, you could totally avoid embarrassment for both parties by not assuming their gender if you can't tell and using neutral pronouns/ not calling them man or woman until you know. That's always an option.

[solrocknroll]

Who cares though

Subaki's pretty obviously male just by his design alone. Even if he wasn't, why would it affect anything. You say you don't like referring to fictional characters by the wrong gender, but I'm fairly certain that you'll probably refer to a real person by the wrong gender too.

These designs are really diverse and aren't even that difficult to figure out. Oboro doesn't even look tha masculine. Libra and Lucius were purposeful. You also thought Ekhidna was male which makes no sense. Just looking at Ekhidna would tell you she's a woman.

I also see that you called men wearing dresses weird so I'd like to ask if you think women wearing suits is weird. an example being Zoey from Pokemon

[Integrity]

Well, I'll never say or agree with the idea that LGBT+ people should be discharged from the military or anything, that's absolutely wrong. It is harder to tell someone's gender in something like the military since everyone's forced to wear the same uniform (and understandably so, it's the military, after all), but it's no excuse. In these kinds of situations, it's better to just to be required to say on paper and such which gender you identify as so there are no embarrassing mistakes or anything. I see no harm in that. Nobody's getting discharged or discriminated against.

again, this is closely related to the logic that gave us DADT - the idea that (in the original case, homosexuals; in this case, anybody not displaying the proper amount of their preferred gender) people would cause embarrassing incidents if they were left unchecked by some form of law. DADT would say that therefore expression of homosexuality is forbidden in the military to prevent embarrassing incidents; your sticking point is that peoples' pronouns should be clearly delineated to prevent embarrassing incidents. in both cases, you're reducing a very large aspect of somebody's identity to a potential problem and trying to act to solve it in a way that doesn't work! if everyone had their pronouns on their enlistment paperwork, how would you know passing them in the hall what their pronouns were?

i might be the only person seeing this logical leap, i could accept that, but it seems really stark to me and not a very friendly way to look at other human beings when an easy alternative exists:

Well in real life you could just ask. In the case you can't ask, you just use neutral pronouns or their name until you figure out otherwise. In a video game it literally doesn't matter.

As for FE, I'm just tired of misgendering so many characters all of a sudden. It's irritating to me. That's all.

again, that sounds like a personal problem. on the other end of the spectrum, i have literally no trouble telling fire emblem characters' sexes. i'm also not irritated when i'm not correct about a character's gender the first time, so i can't even understand why it's irritating to you that you're missing five swings out of 50 or sth in the fartes cast. it's a video game, and even if it weren't a video game and therefore didn't matter, people come in a lot of different flavors. it's not black and white.

Also, you DO realize that I called Subaki a woman before the site actually HAD confirmation that he was male, don't you?

no lmao i brought up the situation as a randomly constructed hypothetical

[Zerosabers]

No they really don't, you just wait for a pronoun drop if you don't know for certain.

[Etria]

Whyever would you feel embarrassed for misgendering a fictional character?

I don't care, personally. I've also never had problems with FE characters. Forrest is the first character that fooled me. Didn't get more than an "Oh. Okay" out of me, though.

[Sartek]

Except Lucius, I never had any trouble guessing a character gender I even called Chrom blind for thinking that Libra could be a woman. Perhaps Forrest could have fooled me if I didn't saw him on a link called Leo's son.

[Thor Odinson]

Nothing wrong with androgyny, 's long as it isn't handled like some cheap joke.

Actually I love characters who don't conform to society's ideas of gender presentation. Makes them more relatable that way.

[Reality]

I don't really have that much problem with the gender of fire emblem characters. I have an unusually strong background with anime though.

To this day my sister doesn't know that the title character of Kino's Journey is a girl. This always makes me laugh. I can objectively tell that their are far fewer context clues in that than for pretty much any FE character. I still think at least half the audience should know by the middle of ep3.

Personally I am REALLY bad at remembering the gender of people online with or without voicechat. Like, 2 year relationship bad. A lot of them correct me right away, but I don't feel embarrassed personally. I don't treat any gender claim with "but that's impossible because you have such and such personality".

Whether it's appropriate for Fire Emblem? Hmm if the series wants to play up high fantasy tropes, then women disguising themselves as men to get access to the battlefield are to be expected. If the series wants to get closer to sakura wars a dating sim hybrid, then characters who "mischievously" refuse to reveal their gender and wear unisex clothing are also an archetype.

[Anacybele]

I'd like this thread to be locked. Apparently nobody understands what I'm trying to say and never will. I'm disappointed in a lot of you too, I really thought more people would agree with what I said in the OP. But I can't do anything about that, so all we can do is move on.

[-Cynthia-]

Nothing wrong with androgyny, 's long as it isn't handled like some cheap joke.

Actually I love characters who don't conform to society's ideas of gender presentation. Makes them more relatable that way.

I was expecting a cheap joke with Forrest and was pleasantly surprised when that wasn't the case for the most part.

[Thor Odinson]

I was expecting a cheap joke with Forrest and was pleasantly surprised when that wasn't the case for the most part.

Yeah same. Forrest was handled quite nicely. It's good that IS is improving!

[Anacybele]

I was surprised too, and it does make Forrest a better character than Lucius or Libra to me. But while they'd be relatable to people who do cross-dress or naturally look androgynous or something like that, I don't see how they'd be more relatable to a lot of people than other males and females when most aren't cross-dressers or transgender or anything. I myself don't find them relatable at all because I don't look like a man or dress like one or anything. I do wear men's t-shirts sometimes, but that's only because I can't get such shirts from women's/girl's clothing sections. If a few people do find them relatable, great, awesome for them. Glad they're not entirely unrealistic.

But as I said, I'd like this thread to be locked, please.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Anacybele

[Integrity]

I'd like this thread to be locked. Apparently nobody understands what I'm trying to say and never will. I'm disappointed in a lot of you too, I really thought more people would agree with what I said in the OP. But I can't do anything about that, so all we can do is move on.

i-

wow.

publicly asking for your thread to be locked, after people call you out on your shitty opinions, because people don't agree with you, and shooting for a final snipe in at those evil people.

real classy. i'm real torn on even honoring your request, but because i'm a fucking professional, i'm going to do it.

don't pull shit like this off again.

EDIT: man i even tried to talk it out like a civilized human being and this is the shit i get. smh.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Integrity