Things That Annoy You

[TheUnknown]

I just saw someone say that "he" is a gender neutral pronoun.  I've only heard it very rarely used as gender neutral, and that's only in the same context as using 'men' and 'man' to refer to the human race as a whole.  The context of this person's claim was not that context, considering they were referring to a specific character.

[Shane for Wax]

I just saw someone say that "he" is a gender neutral pronoun.  I've only heard it very rarely used as gender neutral, and that's only in the same context as using 'men' and 'man' to refer to the human race as a whole.  The context of this person's claim was not that context, considering they were referring to a specific character.

*cue laugh track* It's not gender neutral but people try to use it and often do when the gender is not known about a certain person or animal.

[Ghoti]

My period started. I'm really looking forward to not having blood-coated genitals on a regular basis. Also, just because g-d/Armok/the FSM hates me, I have to suffer through the happenstance of my little sister's cycle being about two days off mine, which makes for a week or so of pointless animosity.

[chitoryu12]

I just saw someone say that "he" is a gender neutral pronoun.  I've only heard it very rarely used as gender neutral, and that's only in the same context as using 'men' and 'man' to refer to the human race as a whole.  The context of this person's claim was not that context, considering they were referring to a specific character.

Yeah, "he" is generally the default people use when they're not using "they" as something vaguely gender neutral. It's not really meant to be a specifically gender neutral pronoun, just the first one they come up with. Attempts to avoid this lead to things like tabletop RPG sourcebooks that randomly change pronouns when discussing hypothetical, unnamed characters taking action. I swear I've seen at least one paragraph where the editor didn't catch that the same character was referred to as "he" and "she" in the same paragraph.

There might be some language-related context for it as well. In French, at least, you use "le" and "les", the masculine pronouns, for anything that has any male parts. If a group of people is mixed gender, regardless of how many of each gender are in it, you always use the masculine "le" or "les"; "la" and "las" are used only for something 100% female. I think at least some other Romance languages may be the same way.

Frankly, I can't stand gendered nouns. Not because of some social justice-related righteous anger, but because the choice of gender is variable based on every language and sometimes seems downright random if you haven't researched the exact naming rules.

[Ghoti]

I just saw someone say that "he" is a gender neutral pronoun.  I've only heard it very rarely used as gender neutral, and that's only in the same context as using 'men' and 'man' to refer to the human race as a whole.  The context of this person's claim was not that context, considering they were referring to a specific character.

My response to this person: BWAHAHAHAHA get the fuck out.

[TheUnknown]

I just saw someone say that "he" is a gender neutral pronoun.  I've only heard it very rarely used as gender neutral, and that's only in the same context as using 'men' and 'man' to refer to the human race as a whole.  The context of this person's claim was not that context, considering they were referring to a specific character.

*cue laugh track* It's not gender neutral but people try to use it and often do when the gender is not known about a certain person or animal.

Yeah, "he" is generally the default people use when they're not using "they" as something vaguely gender neutral. It's not really meant to be a specifically gender neutral pronoun, just the first one they come up with. Attempts to avoid this lead to things like tabletop RPG sourcebooks that randomly change pronouns when discussing hypothetical, unnamed characters taking action. I swear I've seen at least one paragraph where the editor didn't catch that the same character was referred to as "he" and "she" in the same paragraph.

There might be some language-related context for it as well. In French, at least, you use "le" and "les", the masculine pronouns, for anything that has any male parts. If a group of people is mixed gender, regardless of how many of each gender are in it, you always use the masculine "le" or "les"; "la" and "las" are. I think at least some other Romance languages may be the same way.

Frankly, I can't stand gendered nouns. Not because of some social justice-related righteous anger, but because the choice of gender is variable based on every language and sometimes seems downright random if you haven't researched the exact naming rules.

Here's the actual quote that was in a Mass Effect RP:

"((OOC: We try to avoid mentioning Shepard, his crew, or any of the in game decisions. It’s problematic because Shepard can be so different for each person. “He” isn’t even really a “he” for some people who post at CDN.))"

To which the response was:

"((“He” is a gender-neutral pronoun. Lighten up)))"

Since it seems the post that prompted this exchanged is missing, it was probably a case of this person breaking RP rules in-character, then trying to cover themselves by claiming 'he is gender neutral,' even though that wouldn't be the case in-universe.

[Shane for Wax]

Not really pertinent but I hate when people use both parenthesis and the term 'ooc' to refer to ooc remarks.

Though I will say completely avoiding Shepard and basically pretending anything they did doesn't really exist is kinda silly and going to absolute extremes to cover your ass. There's nothing wrong in having a roleplay where everyone agrees on the choices made by one Shepard that is basically an NPC.

Then again, I'm speaking as someone who roleplays as a femshep and has done so for over a year.

[TheUnknown]

Not really pertinent but I hate when people use both parenthesis and the term 'ooc' to refer to ooc remarks.

Though I will say completely avoiding Shepard and basically pretending anything they did doesn't really exist is kinda silly and going to absolute extremes to cover your ass. There's nothing wrong in having a roleplay where everyone agrees on the choices made by one Shepard that is basically an NPC.

Then again, I'm speaking as someone who roleplays as a femshep and has done so for over a year.

The thing is, this was Cerberus Daily News, an RP built around actual Bioware-produced 'news articles' that take place in the ME universe, making them canon.  So the RP, at the time, wanted to be as 'canon' as possible, which meant keeping Shepard's details vague (i.e. Bioware didn't have a 'canon' Shep in their news articles, so the RP didn't have one, either).  It was only after ME3 came out and Bioware stopped posting updates that the RP voted on a Shepard, which was ironically a FemShep, and also decided on an 'ending.' (Control)

This argument happened before ME3, though.

[Shane for Wax]

Ew. Control. But yeah. I kinda miss those articles, tbh...

EDIT to stay on thread topic:

"Rated M for harsh language."

Can we not?

[RavynousHunter]

Ew. Control. But yeah. I kinda miss those articles, tbh...

EDIT to stay on thread topic:

"Rated M for harsh language."

Can we not?

That'd better be some harsh motherfuckin language for some little pissant panty-waists getting their jimmies bunched up round their cocks.

[Shane for Wax]

Yeahhhhh. It wasn't very severe at all. It could've easily been T.

[PosthumanHeresy]

To be fair, there might be other reasons that they don't have terms for. Like, motherfucking zombies and shit.

[Shane for Wax]

Except that was an author note at the beginning of the fic, not a dropbox option?

[Sigmaleph]

There might be some language-related context for it as well. In French, at least, you use "le" and "les", the masculine pronouns, for anything that has any male parts. If a group of people is mixed gender, regardless of how many of each gender are in it, you always use the masculine "le" or "les"; "la" and "las" are used only for something 100% female. I think at least some other Romance languages may be the same way.

Indeed. Spanish and Italian have the same rule.

[Shane for Wax]

German has male, female, and neuter. What do you say about that? HUH?!?!?

I'm kidding in case anyone can't tell.