Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[Rawbeard]

I feel like I accidently stumbled into tumblr. neutral-male-western? the fuck? first time I saw Warforged I assumed they were genderless and appeared male because they were build as soldiers, a typically male role. but apparantly that is a western construct now. it's as if this entire PC bullshit was invented by god damn Nazis, or something... oh. wait...

[GâtFromKI]

Yeah, that was more directed at the others. I'd like to see examples of gender neutral that don't default to male, too.

Does the dragon from Shrek qualify ? As far as I remember, you notice her lipstick and eyelashes once you know she's female.

[Prak]

Yeah, that was more directed at the others. I'd like to see examples of gender neutral that don't default to male, too.

When you say this do you mean make 'acting'? I believe there are stories about neutral AI like HAL who's just a disembodied voice and the Borg are a collective so you could consider it pretty neutral.

I suppose the specific term I'd use is "male coded," meaning that the character is given typical markers of masculinity, and then their identity is confirmed in the way that other characters refer to them. Part of that is in the way the characters act, but there's more to it than that. A non-gender example would be Ron Weasley in Harry Potter who is never explicitly stated to be the "poor irish wizard," but is heavily irish coded, economically, physiologically, socially, and so on.

Goddamnit, western society has a huge problem with "gender neutral is male."

Looking at the Bulkhead picture, are you saying non westerners are seeing an female form there?
Do you have examples of females in non western media who do look male?

Thinking about it, I think I'm missing your Point...

To be fair (to you, not me), I started this whole thing making the wrong argument. I don't mean the argument I was making was wrong, I mean it wasn't the one I intended to make. Because I'm dumb like that.

My overall point is that Humans typically divide people into two genders, male and female. This is all well and good if you are one of the somewhat rare people that actually fits this dichotomy on one side or the other, but the way people act is better described as a spectrum than a binary, a lot of people are more masculine than feminine, or vice versa, but a lot of people are closer to the middle, or essentially embody the entire spectrum, or are very close to one end, but then have traits associated with the other end of the spectrum. An actual sociologist could talk about this much more in depth than I can. The real problem is that because of sexism, people's desire to control other people, and so on, it is a social sin to not adhere to the end of the spectrum which has been assigned to your genitals.

Now, you could sort of say "all this gender fluidity stuff is dumb, people have genitals and chromosomes and are male or female, end of story." I mean, you'd be wrong in some very important, very minutiae laden ways, as well as basically being a disrespectful cock to a lot of people who just don't fit the rigid role assigned to their bits.

But when you go into fiction, where you're dealing with entirely artificial entities, or entities which are shapechangers, who have literally no reason to have a set gender identity, or a gender identity tied to their appearance, the whole gender binary is even more ridiculous.

The thing about the western society bit is that I have a very passing familiarity with eastern cultures, and I'm not about to make a sweeping generalization about that, which I do know is different in very significant ways, as well as similar in very significant ways, from western society, but I don't know what those ways are with any degree of expertise that I'm confident in speaking on.

My point about Bulkhead is that the character could have been female in identity. Cybertronians pre-Beast Wars reproduce through manufacture, not biological sex, so there is literally no reason that a body type of that sort, or even that personality, would need to correlate to masculine voice, mannerisms and pronouns. Except for gender-binary-based preconceptions.

But Prak's actual point is opposition to the gender binary that for some reason turned into complaining about how people assign binary genders when they do.

My overall point is that I feel like assigning "true genders" (really true sexes) to Changelings (in Eberron), or saying that Changelings are one specific sex (in Pathfinder), or not even touching on the search for gender identity in an artificial race such as Warforged is a huge missed opportunity, and it's because of very, very old, and very outdated ideas about gender and sex, which is all the more frustrating with Paizo because they genuinely try to be progressive when it comes to sex and gender.

This was not made clear when I began by making the wrong argument for my point.

Rawbeard:

Get sucking. Sorry, barrel not available.

[warning, robo dildos in spoiler]

Yeah, that was more directed at the others. I'd like to see examples of gender neutral that don't default to male, too.

Does the dragon from Shrek qualify ? As far as I remember, you notice her lipstick and eyelashes once you know she's female.

I... suppose. I mean, I feel like the inclusion of makeup is a cheat, because that's what tells us the dragon is female.

Here we run into the problem where I know what I find issue with, but I have no clue what I want to be done about it, at least not precisely. I don't have a problem with ...essentially cis-gendered non-sexed characters. Like, I don't have a problem with the fact that Data on Star Trek identifies as the gender that matches his structure. I just want more stories that play with gender as the essentially artificial construct that it is, especially when they are dealing with characters that literally do not have a biological sex, like robots, or who can change their biological sex at the drop of a hat, like shapeshifters.

I really like Bubbles in Questionable Content-

[spoiler is safe for work, does not contain robo dildos]
The character identifies as female, but as she was created for military purposes, has a very utilitarian chassis that is not, beyond her hair, coded for one gender or another.

[Rawbeard]

Are you implying sucking robo dicks is an insult? which part? the sucking dick part, or the robo part? I just want to know which groups rights you are trying to make fun of. check your privilige, bruh.

[Grek]

Rawbeard, please stop being an obnoxious twat who reads faux progressive idiocy into literally everything. It isn't funny. It just makes you seem like a moron reading off a "lol, SJWs, rite" script.

---

How does the Den feel about the latest Spheres of Power expansion books? I am cautiously hopeful, as I found the original Spheres of Power expansion to be a definite step in the right direction, but I also really wish they'd come up with some higher level opposition suitable to the strongly reduced power level of that magic system.

[Starmaker]

Prak: now I agree completely, except

I... suppose. I mean, I feel like the inclusion of makeup is a cheat, because that's what tells us the dragon is female.

Nope, makeup is a disqualification.
There are two issues here:
[1] gender representation: more characters, especially nonhumanoid characters, created male than female by default
[2] gender expression: characters, especially female characters, doubly especially nonhumanoid female characters, adhering to Traditional Human Gender Traits [tm].

Thus, the dragon lady addresses [1] but fails [2], while sexy Starscream addresses [2] but does nothing about [1].

---

I put Obnoxious Twat on ignore, however, this still has to be pointed out:
Pathfinder the setting very emphatically does not discriminate by gender, because of exponential power and no stat differences. Women aren't less suited to being exceptional high-level badasses, thus, by excluding 1/2 of the high-statted individuals from advancement, you're killing your society's chances against Team Monster. Consequently, there's absolutely no reason for people in the setting to associate the male gender with warfare and military service.

[Rawbeard]

Grek, buddy, I know I have long history of pulling the SJW card, but when an insecure queer doesn't stop fucking a dead horse I can't just watch him do that, unless he goes to his own dead horse fucking corner.

[Darth Rabbitt]

it's as if this entire PC bullshit was invented by god damn Nazis, or something... oh. wait...

Yeah, the American right are Nazis. Glad we're in agreement on that point.

Grek, buddy, I know I have long history of pulling the SJW card, but when an insecure queer doesn't stop fucking a dead horse I can't just watch him do that, unless he goes to his own dead horse fucking corner.

So your counter to being annoyed by someone is to be annoying to everyone? Brilliant fucking strategy. If Prak's fucking a dead horse you're having a necrophiliac orgy in a horse graveyard and broadcasting it on live television. You go to your horse fucking corner before you have any right to complain about it.

[fbmf]

Grek, buddy, I know I have long history of pulling the SJW card, but when an insecure queer doesn't stop fucking a dead horse I can't just watch him do that, unless he goes to his own dead horse fucking corner.

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Emphasis mine.

Yes, you can. You can stop the prejudiced comments now.
[/The Great Fence Builder Speaks]

[Prak]

Thank you for bolding that, fbmf, I had stopped reading rawbeard's posts, so I completely missed the hilarity of his use of the word "queer" as an insult for someone who actually used it as a label.

That's a great way to start my day

[name_here]

I honestly think the gendering of things is partially lingual in origin, and depending on who you're talking to may well be superficial. Singular they has only recently become generally accepted, and for he/she/it using "it" is code for "I consider the person I'm talking about an object rather than a person." So in English media people get assigned a gender, and if they actually don't have any cues for either gender people generally default to male. If a character has a feminine voice they generally get refiled the moment they open their mouth. Being as I am one of our local anime fans, and Japanese having different pronouns and use patterns, I can confidently state that gender-ambiguous English without singular they gets incredibly fucking awkward.

So, after going through countless times, I'm pretty sure I got all the times I used "she" while referring to that blue-haired girl. (Which probably means there's still some there, unfortunately.)
...
In today's chapter of "Why Subaru, Why" I end up with some slightly awkward sounding sentences in an attempt to avoid the problems that come from not using the right pronoun.

(Subaru is a girl and is so far not aware there is confusion on that point because Japanese pronouns)

[Prak]

Singular they is very annoying to write with, I know this. I'd like there to be a true gender neutral pronoun that is entirely singular, but conlang stuff doesn't get picked up. So when I write about my genderqueer protagonists, I just deal with the fact that I have to be extra clear about who I'm referring to, and deal with the fact that "themself" is considered grammatically incorrect.

I also know that it's use is not recent at all, the use of singular they for a person of indeterminate gender goes back to at least Shakespeare. What's relatively recent and not entirely accepted yet is the idea that some people do not give two tugs of a dead dog's cock about gender roles and society's ingrained biases, and are going to push for respect of their preferences on this matter.

[Koumei]

and deal with the fact that "themself" is considered grammatically incorrect.

"Common usage motherfuckers" (Preferably in conjuction with flipping the bird or the V depending on your cultural upbringing.) I mean, if you say you could care less, you have bigger problems than the word "themself".

[Prak]

Fair point.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I think it's strange that he would use a word you call yourself to insult you. In fact, it's more than strange, it's queer...

[Prak]

Yeah, that was possibly the most hilarious thing I've ever seen on this board.

[Kaelik]

Yeah, that was possibly the most hilarious thing I've ever seen on this board.

I would nominate Hundreds of Thousands > Millions for that honor.

[Koumei]

Don't forget "rotting in your progressive hell". That was a great one.

[Zaranthan]

I vote for everybody calling each other Queers to get it out of our systems. Koumei, you're a queer. Kaelik, you're a queer. Prak, you're a double queer. fbmf, you break the queer meter. Zaranthan, you're more queer than a blue-banded goby, so go fuck yourself twice and stop bragging about it.

Now that that's settled, we can declare warforged to be agendered, changelings to be genderfluid, and get back to writing Gimli/Legolas slashfics like normal people.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I vote for everybody calling each other Queers to get it out of our systems. Koumei, you're a queer. Kaelik, you're a queer. Prak, you're a double queer. fbmf, you break the queer meter. Zaranthan, you're more queer than a blue-banded goby, so go fuck yourself twice and stop bragging about it.

This will help promote unity on the den. Alone we snap in half like a twig, but bundle us together and we make a mighty faggot.

[Maxus]

I vote for everybody calling each other Queers to get it out of our systems. Koumei, you're a queer. Kaelik, you're a queer. Prak, you're a double queer. fbmf, you break the queer meter. Zaranthan, you're more queer than a blue-banded goby, so go fuck yourself twice and stop bragging about it.

This will help promote unity on the den. Alone we snap in half like a twig, but bundle us together and we make a mighty faggot.

Okay. Yeah.

Count, you win with that one.

[Mask_De_H]

I vote for everybody calling each other Queers to get it out of our systems. Koumei, you're a queer. Kaelik, you're a queer. Prak, you're a double queer. fbmf, you break the queer meter. Zaranthan, you're more queer than a blue-banded goby, so go fuck yourself twice and stop bragging about it.

This will help promote unity on the den. Alone we snap in half like a twig, but bundle us together and we make a mighty faggot.

Ha! I understood that reference.

[Prak]

This is why I love this place.

[Rawbeard]

I think it's strange that he would use a word you call yourself to insult you. In fact, it's more than strange, it's queer...

I use it for myself, too. Well, I would if I felt the need to tell everyone that I am also vegan, atheist, feminist and whatnot. I don't. That wasn't the insult part.

[Covent]

A monster design contest for pathfinder just got announced. It may not be a big deal to a lot of people but I thought some of you might be interested.

Here be monsters 2