fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3706 ]

[ SECRET POST #3706 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3706 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #530.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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05. http://i.imgur.com/C80wKrS.jpg

Not in this fandom. But yeah this has annoyed me about other characters.

Just because a character is left ambiguous doesn't mean their canon non-binary and the only right way to refer to them is with 'they/them' pronouns. But try telling that to the fandom police.

Sometimes fandoms headcanons about where characters fall makes me uncomfortable, not because I care if a character is non-binary or cis or trans, but because fandom always has to have these arguments about it with all their justifications and it turns really messy really quickly.

Having a headcanon is fine but leave other people alone about it.

No dog in the NB race, but if you DIDN'T know if someone was male or female, would they/them not be the most appropriate way to reference them?

this is my thinking too; if I'm talking about a fanartist whose gender (or preferred pronouns) I don't know, i use they/them as well.

Most people have used singular they for years and rolled their eyes at the grammar police, but suddenly when someone prefers that pronoun everybody gets up in arms because oh noes, we can't defy the Rules of Grammar.

I think it's because the usage is slightly different. Using "they" as a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun is fine in casual usage (it isn't and never has been acceptable in formal writing) when you're referring to an unspecified individual ie- "Someone forgot their book." When you're using "they" to refer to Taylor the nonbinary individual, you're referring to a specific individual, and that's just not the same.

English is in desperate need of a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun, and I assume one will evolve eventually. Until then, I guess we're stuck with "they".

Well, I mean 'you' used to mean plural, so why can't 'they' be singular.

Plenty of words do double duty. "You" is either singular or plural depending on usage. There's no reason that "they" can't be singular and plural as well. It just isn't.

Language evolves as society does, but it evolves more slowly, especially in cases like this that involve charged social issues. Some of the objection to singular "they" is from grammar purists and some of it is from bigots with some degree of overlap.

Also complicating matters is the fact that not every non-binary individual uses "they" as their pronoun of choice. "Ey", "Per", "Zie", "Sie", and "Ve" are all floating around, further muddying the issue. Eventually one of these will become standardized, and in a hundred years we'll have a third person gender neutral singular pronoun that trips off the tongue as naturally as "he" and "she".

Language evolves, but the thing about evolution is that it's a slow process.

From a purely grammatical standpoint, we do already have a perfectly good third person gender neutral singular pronoun in "it". I'm aware of the unfortunate implications of the word and the ways it's been used to dehumanize, but someday the non-binary community might want to reclaim it. Or not. I can't say I would blame them for not wanting to touch "it" with a ten foot pole.

But considering 'they' is already grammatically correct as singular when you DON'T know someone's sex (or just in general when you say something like "They went to the store."), why does it suddenly become incorrect when it's a choice? This is where my confusion comes from.

Because it isn't grammatically correct. If you write "Someone forgot their book" in a school assignment, your teacher will red pen you. It's just a socially acceptable mistake in speech because, as a general rule, the people you are conversing with aren't paying that much attention to your pronoun-antecedent agreement.

Grammatically, singular "they" is ALWAYS incorrect. When it's a choice, it's like hanging a spotlight on it.

I've never had a teacher red pen me for that. What on earth would you put? "The person forgot the book"?

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(Anonymous) - 2017-02-26 02:54 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2017-02-26 07:02 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, this. I really struggle with "they" for specific individuals because to me, singular "they" carries a very strong connotation of an unknown or unspecified entity, the same way "it" carries a very strong connotation of a non-human or non-sentient entity.

Like, even in contexts where it's very clear that "they" is being used for a non-binary person, I mentally trip over stuff like "Alex identifies as non-binary. They like pizza and people who aren't assholes about who uses which bathroom" because I automatically parse it as "Alex, a single specific human, identifies as non-binary. Multiple people or some vague unknown entity like(s) pizza and people who aren't assholes about who uses which bathroom." And then I have to go back and remind myself that "they" is supposed to equal "Alex" here.

Reading anything with a lot of non-binary "they" feels like reading a long series of garden-path sentences (that is, stuff like "The old man the boat" or "The horse raced past the barn fell").

It's exactly the same for me. Sort of...the reading equivalent of walking up stairs and expecting one more stair when you're already at the top. That feeling of when you put your foot down.

It's one thing to refer to a real person with neutral pronouns, it's another to turn an intentionally neutral description into a huge "how dare you interpret this character as anything but NB and use any other pronouns than 'they'!!?" affair.

Which is fair enough. And like I said, I have no dog in this particular race, but if you have a character where it's not been said that they're male or female, 'they/them' is technically the correct way to refer to them.

OK, for context: This character only appears in person in a prequel novel for the game and is the love interest for the female main character. So there is quite a bit of fanfic by now featuring the character. And while referring to the character as "they" when talking meta, it's not exactly mandatory to use it in fic because the character can be any gender.

I guess it depends on whether the fic states explicitly that 'this character' in 'this fic' is being presented as male or female.

So that those reading it can choose to ignore the fic if they're not into female!character or male!character.

If it's left open to interpretation whether they could be male or female, then it's cool to headcanon that character as either (in my opinion) as long as people can avoid fic or fanart or whatever for their non-preferred headcanon.

I agree. In this case though, fans of the NB headcanon (who believe it is canon) have been intentionally seeking out fic/art of their non-preferred gender versions to cause wank and try to flame the creators of those pieces so...

nayrt and don't even know the fandom, but not knowing a character's gender isn't really the same as claiming they identify as "non-binary" though, right?

Like "they" is a great gender neutral pronoun when you don't know someone's gender. But it doesn't imply the person's own gender identity one way or the other.

What fandom even is this?

Dishonored 2

I agree its pretty silly - especially since Wyman is so unimportant to the story of the game. I found one letter from them as Emily and thats it (idk if there are more but).

I enjoy lesbian!Emily so I like to hc Wyman as a girl myself, but yeah like... leaving it open to interpretation means "open to interpretation" not "canonly NB". If you wanna hc them as NB great! But its not canon.

I just wish that people wouldn't feel the need to try and force others to consider their personal headcanons as actual canon. Doesn't matter what the headcanon is (though I admit that gender/sexuality headcanons especially rub me the wrong way, mostly because they are often so incredibly subjective), HEAD canon is not ACTUAL canon my peeps. You can headcanon whatever you like, but that doesn't mean the actual creators intended your exact interpretation to be the one and only Correct Way To View Thing.

This is one of the reasons that I've generally been keeping my fannish love of games to myself. (Aside from being in a deep writing slump, and not really having much work in progress aside from Elite: Dangerous PC backstory fic.)

I mean, I like NB:Wyman and Bi:Emily. But gods folks, just read google news to see why headcanon/shipping wank is near the bottom of my hierarchy of needs right now.

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