|
Iretep posted:I'll never understand why some languages even need gender pronouns. Seems like useless information 99.9% of the time. Though I'm coming from a language that has none so maybe i'd understand if I lived in a country that used them. No, you're not wrong. English linguists have been discussing the need for a gender-neutral pronoun for like a century now, but nothing has come forward to really stick in people's minds. S/he and him/her are very easily offensive to transgender or transitioning people, so you generally don't want to use those. Xhe/xir has been the most original choice for decades, but it's awkwardly alien and rarely used. 'It' is primarily used for inanimate objects, making it somewhat rude to use to refer to another. They/them, despite being plural, are most widely accepted as the best way to refer to an individual respectfully if you don't know or don't acknowledge their gender.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 15:06 |
|
|
# ? Jun 6, 2024 13:36 |
|
Every single noun in German is male, female or neutral. I'm told it's fun to learn. Would probably be equally fun to try and change it, somehow.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 15:09 |
|
Endorph posted:Honestly that is pretty clunky. They/them works way better. Or even 'made-up' pronouns like Xie/Xir or whatever. 'It' is kind of dehumanizing, which doesn't really work either. The spanish translation made Quina and Quale (renamed Quera) female (even though I *think* that's a moustache on Quale's face), Quan remained male.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 16:17 |
|
Honestly I think the 'plural' thing on they is just a red herring-- nobody acts confused when it's used for a completely unknown person, and singular they for an unknown has been standard usage for hundreds of years. If you pile the word they up a lot in the same sentence referring to different people then sure, that's confusing, but it's also confusing if you do that with he or she too, so. It's no skin off my back if someone wants to use something else but singular they is a long-standing existing solution that has only really taken on this 'grammatically incorrect' perception within the past few decades, afaik.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 16:39 |
|
neongrey posted:Honestly I think the 'plural' thing on they is just a red herring-- nobody acts confused when it's used for a completely unknown person, and singular they for an unknown has been standard usage for hundreds of years. If you pile the word they up a lot in the same sentence referring to different people then sure, that's confusing, but it's also confusing if you do that with he or she too, so. It's not grammatically incorrect, it's ambiguous. You know like the other 90% of the language because it's constantly evolving through use and not intelligently designed. Anyone that singles that out as a problem is being foolish.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 16:52 |
|
Libluini posted:Instead of pointing out their genderlessness, the German translation just calls every Qu a "he" and is then done with it. The same probably goes for the French translation, since "il" doubles as a masculine and neutral pronoun. Of course, this is also the language where tables are girls.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 16:55 |
|
Iretep posted:I'll never understand why some languages even need gender pronouns. Seems like useless information 99.9% of the time. Though I'm coming from a language that has none so maybe i'd understand if I lived in a country that used them. Hey, at least it's just personal pronouns, and not grammatical gender. That's no fun. Fister Roboto posted:The same probably goes for the French translation, since "il" doubles as a masculine and neutral pronoun. Of course, this is also the language where tables are girls. So are zebras.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 17:05 |
|
Suspect Bucket posted:So are zebras. No.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 17:10 |
|
FoolyCharged posted:It's not grammatically incorrect, it's ambiguous. I have seen it called incorrect a few times and it annoys me ever time. And yeah, the ambiguity thing exists but like whatever, it's usually contextually derivable, people usually only object to be a dick about something that is at worst a trivial inconvenience to them.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 17:14 |
|
Kalenn Istarion posted:So maybe you can explain why they made half the models with hosed up creepy doll eyes? It's been so long since I played FFIX that I've forgotten what the next minigame is, but I can say that I hated Quina on a conceptual level and never (literally only when forced to) used him. I pretty much only used the characters on the CDs, which led to some severe problems down the line when the other 4 were violently underleveled. (spoiler non-spoiler: FF games sometimes make you use characters you don't like, and if you didn't level them you might be so screwed you put the game down for the next four months)
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 18:20 |
|
gbuchold posted:It's been so long since I played FFIX that I've forgotten what the next minigame is, It's chocobo hot and cold
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 18:35 |
|
gbuchold posted:It's been so long since I played FFIX that I've forgotten what the next minigame is It's the one that can break the game wide open if you do it right. Hell, I think most of the things you can get from it are on Disk 3. Shame you can't do much with it in Disk 2 though.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 21:15 |
|
Fister Roboto posted:The same probably goes for the French translation, since "il" doubles as a masculine and neutral pronoun. Of course, this is also the language where tables are girls. Tables or doors being girls it's ok, cars though? Now THAT's crazy talk.
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 21:27 |
|
The translators may have tried to keep Quina gender-neutral, but they did a pretty piss-poor job of it considering both Zidane and Quale use "him" to refer to Quina. I'm not sure all Qus are gender-neutral, either, if Vivi calls Quale "that man" and talks about his grandfather being (likely) a Qu. Uncharacteristically sloppy for FFIX!
|
# ? Sep 1, 2015 23:21 |
|
Whoops, got the spanish and german ones mixed up then. My B. Fister Roboto posted:It's a good thing it's not human then. Iunno, it's not the biggest deal in the world, but they/them seems like the most elegant solution and it's weird that a lot of translations go in weird directions for something that already has an easy fix.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 00:10 |
|
Petiso posted:The spanish translation made Quina and Quale (renamed Quera) female (even though I *think* that's a moustache on Quale's face), Quan remained male. I remember, way back then, I used to read some spanish videogame Magazines which came here to south america (months late) and in the issue of Superjuegos that covered FFIX Zidan was named Yitan. Was that the official translation or just the reviewer renaming him?
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 00:23 |
|
Blackheart posted:I remember, way back then, I used to read some spanish videogame Magazines which came here to south america (months late) and in the issue of Superjuegos that covered FFIX Zidan was named Yitan. Was that the official translation or just the reviewer renaming him? So if he was working with a Japanese copy, it'd be pretty easy for him to assume the name was Jitan or Yitan or something instead of the proper Zidane. Alternatively, the Spanish translation might have made that mistake.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 00:28 |
|
It was the spanish translated version, which also had pretty good localization (or so they said) which was rare for the time.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 00:31 |
|
Charlett posted:I guess you're right about the xie/xir thing but when you take a word that everyone assumes "plural" and say it's singular, you get a lot of people getting confused, is it a typo or no? It may be clunky to write s/he but pronouncing it is pretty simple and even shows that the person is capable of being both, something that some genderfluid people might appreciate. You'd think that, but it's not even the first time it happened in English pronouns. "You" itself actually sorta started as a plural pronoun. "Thou" was still the singular in Shakespeare's times, but back then English had the French-type deal where if you wanted to respectfully refer to someone, you used "you". As time went on, meanings shifted subtly and "thou" actually fell out of use (because why would you ever want to go out of your way to refer to someone in the less respectful way?). The second-person pronouns for both singular and plural became "you", in a sort of a merging of "thou" and the old plural "ye". It even consistently acts in sentences as a plural word, except the odd duck in "yourself"/"yourselves". The end result - as of now, there's no pronoun to indicate a singular second person in English, barring consistently using something like "y'all"/"youse" when you mean the plural. Tl;dr: English speakers don't seem to mind singular "you", so I don't see how singular "they" is any more of a problem. Fake edit: I failed to notice an entire page of posts, but this still seems sorta relevant.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 00:35 |
|
To put the debate to rest: Zidane's Protect Girls ability does not include Quina. Male or genderless can be argued, but I believe Zidane is able to reason if its a woman or not.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 00:40 |
|
Sum Mors posted:To put the debate to rest: Zidane's Protect Girls ability does not include Quina.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 00:43 |
|
Endorph posted:I believe Quina can't equip female-only equipment, either. Actually Quina can equip some, but not all. Just to make things weirder.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 00:48 |
|
Fister Roboto posted:Actually Quina can equip some, but not all. Just to make things weirder. Can't s/he equip the girl only trinkets, but not the armor? I thought it was because s/he just couldn't equip it because s/he can only equip robes, not the gender thing. If I remember correctly, the girl only armor is not a robe and therefore unique to other armors the girls in the game can wear.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 00:59 |
|
Dramatis Personae #2: Freya and Quina Age: 21 Role: Physical Attacker, Secondary Utility Skillset: Jump, Dragon Trance: High Jump Freya's Starting Stats: HP: 100 MP: 32 Speed: 20 Strength: 20 Magic: 16 Spirit: 22 "A Burmecian knight with a spirit stronger than any steel." So, let's talk about Freya. The series first female Dragon Knight (debatably followed by Fang in XIII), Freya has a troubled past and is familiar with Zidane's special brand of "charm," though how exactly they previously know one another isn't ever fully spelled out. Freya used to be a distinguished member of the Burmecian army, but in recent years she has spent her time traveling the world, for what purpose she will not say...at least to the party. As an omniscient player though, we know that Freya is seeking the whereabouts of her lost love, Sir Fratley. Freya is loyal and fierce, but not terribly talkative or warm for the most part. Insofar as actual gameplay goes, Freya hits things relatively hard, but outside of certain edge cases, she won't be doing the kind of damage that Steiner can output. Freya does, however come with a variety of utility abilities under her Dragon skillset, though like the Red Mage her outfit makes her resemble, the things these abilities do can generally be done better by other characters who are more specialized in the relevant area. Her Jump command should be immediately familiar to anyone who has played a Final Fantasy game. While it's damage output can be nice, I find the most useful part is simply taking her out of combat when a big ability is about to go off. Character Trivia: In the Japanese, Freya speaks in an archaic Edo-era dialect. Coupled with her general demeanor, her sojourn from Burmecia, and her prominent splash art depicting her with her lance resting on her shoulder in the kneeling position, Freya's design evokes the image of a ronin, or lordless samurai. A similar aesthetic was chosen for Auron in FFX (which I personally quite enjoyed). Age: 89 Role: Primary Utility, Mixed Magic/Physical (You will use Quina's physical attacks a lot though until you get more MP) Skillset: Eat, Blu Mag Trance: Cook Quina's Starting Stats: HP: 90 MP: 40 Speed: 14 Strength: 18 Magic: 20 Spirit: 11 "A Qu with a voracious appetite for everything the world has to offer." A member of the mysterious Qu race and a student of the Gourmet, Quale, Quina is friendly and simple, and its thought processes can be described as such: 1) Does creature have yummy yummies and/or is creature itself a yummy yummy?
Of all the characters, Quina is the most naive, and that is saying something in a game with Vivi. Quina wants one thing out of life: a bite. All else is secondary. Quina and Quale's student-master relationship is particularly interesting in that it isn't really clear how old Quina is in Qu terms. Quale's age is, insofar as I know, never given even outside the game, and for a world that is otherwise extremely diverse, little appears to be known about the Qu or why they are so few. In battle, Quina is the most balanced magic-physical member of the party, but suffers from a truly abysmal Spirit stat and poor Speed. That said, I recommend a physical focus as very few of Quina's abilities make use of the Magic stat. Quina also has access to Blue Magic, which is not only the most diverse skillset available to any character in the game, but also offers abilities that can't be replicated in any other way. In short, Quina is good even if Blue Magic isn't as insanely powerful as it was in a game like 5 or Gau's rages were in 6. Character Trivia: Quina Quen is a pun in Japanese and translates to "Eat" + "Cannot Eat" respectively. As posters have noted, the game itself is also very dedicated to not shedding light on Quina's gender: "Protect Girls" ability won't activate and have Zidane protect Quina, and Quina has a very odd set of equipment options that doesn't follow the game's gender divide (and in some cases, heavy/light/mage divide). TravelLog fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Sep 2, 2015 |
# ? Sep 2, 2015 01:09 |
|
It's worth noting that while other races avoid staying in the Mist, the Qu have no problem living in it.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 01:18 |
|
Qus are the apex predator, they live where they please.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 01:21 |
|
TravelLog posted:(If anyone could let me know starting HP/MP, that would be great. I can't seem to track it down for some reason) Even though I've only just entered Lindblum in my playthrough, Memoria lists them as: Freya: 100 HP, 32 MP Quina: 75 HP, 32 MP
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 01:22 |
|
That's a bit of a stretch to say, simply because we meet so few Qu that it's hard to make generalizations for the species in the same way an old human or Burmecian living in a cabin somewhere on the edge of the Mist can't be extrapolated to all humans/burmecians. That said, one of my later posts will have some thoughts on what the Qu are, why they are so few, etc. E: Thanks Kheldarn!
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 01:22 |
|
Considering Quina is described as "Young" despite being 89-years-old, I'd imagine it's a traditional case of long-lived species reproducing less often.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 01:25 |
|
Bad Seafood posted:Considering Quina is described as "Young" despite being 89-years-old, I'd imagine it's a traditional case of long-lived species reproducing less often. Years ago, one of my friends joked that the reason they are few in number is frog-catching. Basically, his theory was that the frog-catching mini-game was a case of "Soylent Green is people!" where Qu are frogs mutated by magic, or Mist, or whatever and that "young" Qu like Quina eat so many of them that almost no frog-Qu spawn make it to adulthood. He said the Gigan Toads were failed offshoots that didn't take well to the Magic/Mist/Juju. If this was true, you as the player basically commit genocide during the game, and that the reason eating frogs powers up Frog Drop is that Quina is getting power from the transformation the frogs are undergoing. Also, forks are somewhat worse than Mega's already disapproving description made them sound. They don't just have some 50% damage range or something. The base power of a given attack with a fork can be any number from 1 to the fork's listed attack power. TravelLog fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Sep 2, 2015 |
# ? Sep 2, 2015 01:34 |
|
TravelLog posted:Freya used to be a distinguished member of the Burmecian army, but in recent years she has spent her time traveling the world, for what purpose she will not say. Freya is loyal and fierce, but not terribly talkative or warm for the most part. Uhh, she does kind of say. The game tells you, but it's from stuff in her conversations and things she lets slip. Mega64 posted:
Mega64 posted:
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 02:12 |
|
TravelLog posted:Gau's rages were in 6. Wait. Wait, wait wait, wait. Gau had a use beyond padding the game and drawing fire for your more useful party members?
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 02:16 |
|
Captain Bravo posted:Uhh, she does kind of say. The game tells you, but it's from stuff in her conversations and things she lets slip. We know she has a lost love, but I didn't want to get into the specifics or accidentally spoil anything about the exact nature of the heartbreak. I'm approaching all of the bios based on how the character acts within the party when they first join up, and she isn't super forthcoming about it at the moment, so I figured it was better to characterize her that way. From the player's perspective you're obviously right though. I'll make a note though talking about the player's POV.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 02:21 |
|
SorataYuy posted:Wait. Wait, wait wait, wait. Gau had some interesting uses, primarily in getting access to certain spells long before you could normally, such as -ra spells and Hastega. He also has a form with a special that deals about 4x his normal attack damage. All of this is like, immediately after you get him too. He also has some great late-game Rages, such as the supremely defensive Magic Pot rage that casts Curaga for its special, absorbs all elements (including Holy, which otherwise I don't believe can be resisted at all without a Paladin Shield or post-game-dungeon gear), and is immune to all negative statuses. Gau (and Mog for that matter) is fantastic if you know what you're doing with him, even including the lack of control. EDIT: Litany Unheard posted:Gau has a rage that makes the last boss kill himself. I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT LOVE TOKEN. That alone merits Gau's inclusion in any party. poo poo was so broken. Bufuman fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Sep 2, 2015 |
# ? Sep 2, 2015 02:23 |
|
SorataYuy posted:Wait. Wait, wait wait, wait. Gau has a rage that makes the last boss kill himself.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 02:24 |
|
Gau is the closest you can get to having General Leo in your party without glitching the game inside out.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 02:26 |
|
Gau snaps the entire game in half from the word 'go' if you actually work with him. He has level 2 magic before the rest of your party has magicite, and stays two steps ahead of the curve for the entire game.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 02:39 |
|
Hobgoblin2099 posted:It's worth noting that while other races avoid staying in the Mist, the Qu have no problem living in it. Er.... The city we're trying to get to is Mistbound too, isn't it
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 02:48 |
|
SorataYuy posted:Wait. Wait, wait wait, wait. Check out Let's Break Final Fantasy 6 by Elephantgun to see the poo poo Gau can do.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 03:34 |
|
|
# ? Jun 6, 2024 13:36 |
|
Pureauthor posted:Er.... The city we're trying to get to is Mistbound too, isn't it The entire continent (known fittingly as "the Mist Continent" though I don't know if that's come up in game) is covered in Mist, yeah. Certain cities like Alexandria and Lindblum (and even small villages like Dali) are positioned on plateaus above the deepest part of the Mist, but the place we're headed isn't too far above sea level, no.
|
# ? Sep 2, 2015 03:42 |