NPC gender identity in TiTS

[Jash]

OK, this is something that's been bugging me. A lot of the aliens in TiTS have a very fluid approach to gender (translation: the chicks have dicks and the guys look like girls), such as the Nyrea and the Ovir. Which is cool, that's what we're here for. But I can't help but be bothered by the fact that males of races with clearly-differentiated genders are regularly referred to with female pronouns, despite being male.


Probably the most significant examples are Seifyn and Cerres the Queensguard, two of the Nyrea you meet in Queen Taivra's city. They're both male; this is actually quite key to Cerres' character as he's managed to become a warrior despite being of what is normally the submissive gender (kind of like a rule 63 Red Sonja). But they're both regularly referred to as "she", despite having a clear gender identity as males of their species. They're not transexuals like Embry or intersex like Alex. Despite their appearance, they're not even excessively feminine like Aliss (who might or might not be considered a cross-dresser by his species' standards). So I find it particularly jarring when they're referred to as "she" or "her". Aliss may be another mild example- he's definitely male (since his species ALL have breasts, with males having larger ones than females), even if he likes dressing in feminine clothing and having sex with males of other species, that's simply because he's a bisexual Ovir male who likes pretty clothing, so referring to him as "she" is simply inaccurate. Sexual identity is a very important aspect of this game (since, y'know, the entire game revolves around sex) so these kinds of oversights bug me. Personally I treat it as being of PIVOTAL importance to respect someone's chosen gender identity (treating a transexual as their birth gender in defiance of their wishes is something I consider UNBELIEVABLY insulting) so this sticks in my craw. If it's a mistake or oversight, it should be fixed. If referring to characters like Seifyn or Cerres as female is an intentional decision then it's one I strongly disagree with.

 

[Woider]

It's intentional, and the last time the discussion on gender identity of NPCs came up, a huge shitstorm erupted.

 

[Etis]

Gender concept is quite difficult thing. There are no single opinion on it even for humans, even now. In a world where creatures around have all sorts of strange biology this is ton much more complicated, even in world like TiTS where all that "aliens" are almost humans. So it seems legit to end up as "if it looks more like female it is she".

 

[Corivas]

It's intentional, and the last time the discussion on gender identity of NPCs came up, a huge shitstorm erupted.

I remember when that happened.


I'd prefer it not happening again.

 

[Woider]

I remember when that happened.


I'd prefer it not happening again.

Given that I was the catalyst of it, I agree.

 

[Krynh]

If you talk to Syfin she say's that their language uses she and her to refer to them. Now English doesn't have any other pronouns so you could argue that in the nyrean language it's more complex and thus simplified by translation.

 

[Jash]

OK, whatever. Clearly this battle has already been fought and lost. Guess that's it then.

 

[Corivas]

OK, whatever. Clearly this battle has already been fought and lost. Guess that's it then.

Hey, don't let it get you down. Ideas and concepts come and go here all the time. Your specific one just so happened to be something that was already discussed to oblivion here before, nothing new.

 

[Woider]

OK, whatever. Clearly this battle has already been fought and lost. Guess that's it then.

Indeed.

 

[Magic Ted]

It's intentional, and the last time the discussion on gender identity of NPCs came up, a huge shitstorm erupted.

I remember when that happened.


I'd prefer it not happening again.

Post better.


You can discuss it. If things get out of control the person who actually moderates the forum, IE myself and so on, will moderate things.

 

[Corivas]

Post better.


You can discuss it. If things get out of control the person who actually moderates the forum, IE myself and so on, will moderate things.

Shiiit, aight if you say so.

 

[Melody]

Right, since I don't think I've mentioned this before, I'm transgender. I don't really expect anyone on this site to be super shocked about a trans person being here. But I feel like the transgender community, you could call it, kind of blows the argument with pronouns out of proportion.


Yeah, if someone's an asshole and intentionally misgenders me, I don't really bother talking to them on principle, but at the same time, I never understood the attitude that lashing out at them and getting angry will make it any better. People tend to get pretty set in their ways, and if you want to change someones' mind, you're never going to do that by getting salty and making yourself look entitled.


In the world of TiTS, I could easily see scenes coming up where the player corrects themselves on pronoun use, but it really isn't that major a deal for most characters in the game world, I'd think. For some characters though, I can see pronoun correcting being a bigger deal, I guess. Like Delilah(before being "broken in" of course), for example. But it really doesn't strike me as a major priority, even as a trans person myself.


I do know that I speak for the great minority of the transgender community here, though, so take my words with some salt.

 

[Ashley]

Hi! I was playing recently, and was confused with the pronoun usage for Ovir since it seemed inconsistent, and I tried Googling "Ovir pronouns." I... didn't actually expect anything to come up. >_>


But this did! So hi. I'm also trans. I wouldn't agree that "the argument with pronouns [is blown] out of proportion," but I also personally feel that the opening post was a bit over the top (especially while using the dated and generally unpopular-with-trans-people term "transsexual"). The inconsistencies with pronoun usage don't appear malicious, and outside of some of the dialogue with Geoff, I don't think anything has made me cringe hard in its treatment of gender. I enjoy the game!


But back to what confuses me: let's take the current two Ovir NPCs in the game (or at least the two I know of). One is Aliss, who quickly identifies themselves as male. Like, in the first Talk option, I think. Aliss dresses in very feminine clothing, but the males of their species have traditionally feminine bodies, so it makes sense that male fashion for them would look so feminine! (If they even have 'male fashion' and 'female fashion!') But the narration text constantly refers to Aliss with female pronouns. Aliss never corrects it, but I also can't think of a time this is ever verbalized, so we don't know their feelings on the matter of pronouns. Just that they refer to themselves as male.


So I head-canoned that the Ovir don't have the concept of a gender binary as we know it to begin with, but since they all match up with what we'd all consider girls in terms of looks/personality/fashion, they roll with she/her pronouns. I think it goes well with their Codex entry! Their society hold males and females in equal standing, they're usually "polyamorous and bisexual," and the current set of Ovir NPCs seem to indicate they all dress in what we'd consider feminine clothing.


Where it gets confusing for me is with how the narration treats the other Ovir NPC. The unnamed Ovir dancer. Where the narration never hesitates to gender Aliss female, even after Aliss identifies themselves as a male, the narration for the Ovir dancer refers to her repeatedly as a boy, and I believe it writes 'she' in single quotation marks like that at least once. What's the difference between the two of them? Of the two, only Aliss ever gives anything to base a pronoun preference guess on, and that's towards male pronouns! And actually, the narrator even suggests that the dancer may be hiding her cock because she's afraid of being viewed as male by the patrons. The entire chain of interactions is about revealing that the dancer is a male Ovir, while calling her a boy and putting quotes around the word 'she,' when meanwhile she very much wants to be treated like a girl. While Aliss calls themselves a male, and the narrator doesn't ever acknowledge that, and keeps on referring to them as "her." It seems backwards! I understand that, when you get down to it, one character was probably written to appeal to one fetish (girls with dicks), while the other was written to appeal to another fetish (crossdressers/"traps"/"sissies"), and both writers made their characters Ovir because they felt that species best worked with what they were going for. But I wanted to see if anyone else was saying anything about it, possibly coming up with clarification, or if I was just gonna have to create my own narrative consistency!


But the early responses to this thread seem to indicate that questioning this stuff generally isn't welcome here (and it doesn't help that I'm totally new here). If that's the case, then sorry for posting this, and I'll just shut up and be on my way. <_<

 

[Nonesuch]

The inconsistencies with pronoun usage don't appear malicious, and outside of some of the dialogue with Geoff, I don't think anything has made me cringe hard in its treatment of gender.
 

I only wanted to have a go at conveying how an ordinary dude might react to a passing trans. It feels tough that this gets picked on whilst the ovir stuff - and it should be obvious why they're all "she"s and "her"s, it has absolutely nothing to do with thought given to how an alien culture might perceive gender - gets handwaved.

 

[Etis]

joker_why_so_serious.jpg


In TiTS setting gender fluidity is declared as commonly accepted. This should mean that gender itself does not matter much anymore. So, unless NPC explicitly declares it's preferred gender, I'd assume they either have no different pronouns for different sexes in their native language (really, why not), have genders which can't be easily translated to human's he/she (Nyrea is a good example), or just don't care about wrong pronoun. Moreover, I'd assume that, with so much different races, being bad at guessing gender should be expected and not offensive, and rule "use one you feel right until corrected" to be conventional.

 

[Wife Material]

I remember when that happened.


I'd prefer it not happening again.

While a shitstorm like that again would be hilarious and fun, I too agree for the sake of keeping this a nice happy place.

 

[Savin]

While there could probably be some scenes to talk about it in-game, it's worth noting that all Ovir, Nyrea, and probably any other all-feminine-with-tits races all use female pronouns for themselves and each other, and should from the PC's perspective. Probably don't have different ones in their language or some such.

 

[Longbow]

Perhaps, at some point, Aliss' pronouns were meant to change after you learned that 'she' was a male. Aliss doesn't tell you this right away, afterall. You need to ask about the Ovir species. As it stands now, the sexual dimorphism of the Ovirs is brought up and promptly ignored in the very same sentence.


Keeping things like an alien species' sex simple is fine, and I would say the game would benefit from that. However, it's simply pointless to bring something up and then ignore it, and makes me wonder why the writer bothered with it.

 

[Savin]

Perhaps, at some point, Aliss' pronouns were meant to change after you learned that 'she' was a male.

Can confirm they were never meant to.

 

[Sicaa]

To me it just always seemed like Aliss didn't care. She's the first Ovir you come across (originally at least), so it makes sense that she'd explain she was technically a male of her species, but exactly because it is virtually never mentioned again it comes across as a mere technicality for her. Normally in her job, the topic of gender simply wouldn't come up often enough. Also the clothing thing: I might be wrong but the way I remember her telling you about being interested in designing clothes, it was with a tone that implied it wasn't exactly expected for a male ovir to do so. But at the same time, it wasn't noteworthy enough to warrant a longer explaination. Might be misremembering things though.


The Ovir in the brothel however has a completely different situation, namely she's doing a sexual performance for other races. 1. This would make her actual gender matter a little more, 2. she would have to take into account and think about what the wider public considers male and female (her cock even in this universe being quite a male thing) and 3. to me it seemed like she's embraced this foreign idea of being a trap. Ovir aren't exactly a newly discovered race, they've been in contact with others a while, and with that would come a certain degree of appropriation of other societies views and ideas. Again, this is my personal interpretation, but it just seems to me she likes the idea of other races, for the most part, not being able to tell she's male and enjoying hiding this little secret in plain sight.


As for the Nyrea, they almost seem like a race created as a satiric commentary on this whole topic, making it a point to turn things on its head. And props to the writers even if this wasn't their intention. Not to mention that along with the Myr and others, they're new citizens of the galactic society, so everything is foreign. On both sides. Not actually sure if speech in TiTS works through the Mass Effect style universal language translators, or people simply conform to english for narrative purposes, but either way there would have to be compromises and approximate translations made, since we're bound by these language restraints.


Edit:typos

 

[Longbow]

To me it just always seemed like Aliss didn't care. She's the first Ovir you come across (originally at least), so it makes sense that she'd explain she was technically a male of her species, but exactly because it is virtually never mentioned again it comes across as a mere technicality for her. Normally in her job, the topic of gender simply wouldn't come up often enough.

This is a possibility, but it doesn't (in my opinion) seem to be supported by anything in his dialogue.


Aliss never seems to refer to himself as female, either explicitly or implicitly. He brings up his sex twice: once during the conversation about the Ovir, and again before the first time you have sex with him. He's rather casual about it both times, and never asks you to refer to him as female or even brings up the idea. He does make a comment about how male Ovir are considered feminine by human standards, though. Aliss also tells you that information on his race is easily attainable, possibly implying that it's common knowledge. Ovirs are integrated into the larger galactic society, according to the codex.


If your interpretation is correct, a simple "But you can think of me as a woman if you'd like, mi amour" might have been a good addition by the writer to convey this. Nobody here seems to have a definitive answer on why Aliss was originally written this way, so there's nothing here to truly invalidate your interpretation.

Also the clothing thing: I might be wrong but the way I remember her telling you about being interested in designing clothes, it was with a tone that implied it wasn't exactly expected for a male ovir to do so. But at the same time, it wasn't noteworthy enough to warrant a longer explaination. Might be misremembering things though.

I'm afraid you are misremembering, in this case. Aliss doesn't actually say anything about Ovir gender roles at all. Aliss mentions that corsets are a "classic of fashion" back on his home planet, so maybe it's normal for male Ovir to wear them. Maybe male and female Ovir generally wear the same clothes. Aliss never says.


It's possible I may have missed a few things, so I apologize if I did.

 

[Krynh]

Not actually sure if speech in TiTS works through the Mass Effect style universal language translators,

Well there's a scene on myrellion in the mushroom gardens that references a translator.

 

[NotYouNorI]

Well there's a scene on myrellion in the mushroom gardens that references a translator.

Yup, the microsurgeons daddy dearest gave Steele Jr. at his funeral translate languages for us and it is referenced throughout the game including upon meeting the gold myr ambassador. this is also explained in the tutorial of the game when Steele senior gives them to us.

 

[Nonesuch]

 Nobody here seems to have a definitive answer on why Aliss was originally written this way

Because her author saw her as a woman, and most of the audience want her to be a she, because they don't want to fuck a he. They want to write and read about having sex with a hot dickgirl, and sticking the correct pronoun in there means dealing with sexual confusion they don't and didn't want to. That is the uncomfortable truth that is being danced around here.

 

[Couch]

Because her author saw her as a woman, and most of the audience want her to be a she, because they don't want to fuck a he. They want to write and read about having sex with a hot dickgirl, and sticking the correct pronoun in there means dealing with sexual confusion they don't and didn't want to. That is the uncomfortable truth that is being danced around here.

Thank you.

 

[Sicaa]

The only reason it "bothers" me, and I use the word lightly, is that it's an "untapped potential" kind of thing. Aliss feels a little incomplete without some elaboration surrounding gender identity, but I'm sure most of TiTS' player base is fairly ambivalent about the whole thing.

TiTS is an amalgamation of lots of people's work. Everyone writes things differently, gives more attention to some parts, less to others... basically styles will vary, and people wont always see things the way the author imagined it.


And while criticism is fine, I think since we're playing a text based game, there's also a resonable expectation that the player will do some of the work and use their imagination to fill in the gaps they feel the author left open (perhaps this being their intent). We're talking about a sci-fi, sex obsessed universe after all, you have to adjust your suspension of disbelief accordingly.


Also, there's always room for a naturally female Ovir dickgirl to be introduced by a different author, which I think we'd all welcome

 

[Couch]

I feel like Aliss could have been an ovir female with a dick mod, then (or maybe use the oft-overlooked Hardlight stuff that's sold right there). The nature of the exposition teases an implication of gender identity/expectation reversal, but it's abruptly dropped. To me, it almost feels like the character design was going to commit to some kind of gender-bender sexual confusion angle, but backed off at the eleventh hour. I have no way of knowing for sure, though.

Could have been, but that's not what Aliss's author felt like writing.  I'm quite certain there was never any intent of gender confusion, though.  Author's lizard brain had the thought "oh hey if the alien girls are alien boys then I can have a girl with a big purple horse dick and no vag but also titties", mammal brain made no effort to argue.


Same reason I tend to write women of above-average to ludicrous height: I like tall girls, so I usually write tall girls.

 

[Longbow]

Because her author saw her as a woman, and most of the audience want her to be a she, because they don't want to fuck a he. They want to write and read about having sex with a hot dickgirl, and sticking the correct pronoun in there means dealing with sexual confusion they don't and didn't want to. That is the uncomfortable truth that is being danced around here.

Yet they explicitly refer to Aliss as a male, anyways. I believe your answer might very well be the correct one, but I think it's simply inelegant to have not designed her as a female with a dick from the ground up if that's what the writer truly wanted. I think most of us know he wanted Aliss to be referred to as "she", that's not in question. The real question is why he made Aliss a male in the first place.


I wouldn't call it a huge problem or anything, simply strange. I agree with /V\ysertiousPerson in wondering if there wasn't meant to be more to this character, at some point.

 

[Kesil]

Ideally, there would be ways to change pronouns after talking to the likes of Del, ovir and nyrean people (e.g. Queensguard). But alas...

 

[StarcraftJunkie]

Nonesuch has the right of it.


That said, all of this seems to take a mighty human-centric position on how the gender identities of alien species with different sexual morphologies work. Maybe your translator is using "she" for male Nyrea because the Nyrean pronouns for male Nyrea have some significant connotations that are, in human terms, feminine. And so on.


For example, let's assume Aliss identifies as a male Ovir. Aliss comes from a completely different cultural background from a human. To assume that this background would have the same ideas on gender identification, pronoun usage, and so on, seems like a big assumption. Maybe males don't default to a masculine pronoun. Maybe they do. But the stance of males from alien species defaulting to a male pronoun is not as self-evident as some people seem to be taking it, IMO.