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Sarcophallus posted:It's a story with really strong themes around identity, personal value, and isolation - which in my view does a really great job being more than skin-deep on those topics. Phos' identity has absolutely nothing to do with how gay or genderless it may or may not be, and everything to do with the conflict between their contribution to gem-society and general incompetence. The author is literally playing out a Ship of Theseus on Phos and it's fascinating. Whether a person refers to Phos as 'he', 'she', or 'it' makes literally no difference to any of the themes of the story, but people get so hung up on it for reasons that I don't think make any sense. Gender has nothing at all to do with the series. Yes, I agree entirely. The genderless aspect of the gems is neat, but not important in the context of the show. It reminds me of Ann Leckie's Ancillary books, which are absolutely amazing sci-fi (again, actually with a strong focus on identity - the protagonist used to be a warship) where all anyone would loving talk about was how incredibly progressive it was because every character was referred to as "she" regardless of sex. And again, it was neat, a cool setting detail that added depth to the world, but it wasn't important, and as you say, it frustrated me how much that aspect of the books overshadowed the more interesting aspects. My metaphorical dog in this fight really has been that I feel like there are two sides to the debate: one saying "this is important so let's do it my way" and the other saying "no this is totally unimportant so I'll do it my way" and that second attitude seems really disingenuous to me. But I personally am on the third side which is "holy poo poo please let's stop talking about pronouns".
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Nov 22, 2017 20:38
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The_White_Crane posted:My metaphorical dog in this fight really has been that I feel like there are two sides to the debate: one saying "this is important so let's do it my way" and the other saying "no this is totally unimportant so I'll do it my way" and that second attitude seems really disingenuous to me. I feel there's a difference between 'everyone call them X' and people who call them Y but don't really care if other people use X either. But maybe I would think that? I dunno. Either way, this conversation was tedious five pages ago and will be tedious in another five pages, and I am hopeful we can all agree on that. Maybe?
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Nov 22, 2017 20:48
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Sarcophallus posted:I think we're on the same page, which is nice. I avoid talking about the specifics of the show here because I'm a dirty manga reader, so I don't want to pollute discussion for new folks with incidental spoilers or 'correcting' interpretations people are having; but this is absolutely one of my favorite series. I personally get frustrated that so much of the discussion around it is, frankly, hijacked by LGBT wish-fulfillment. It's a story with really strong themes around identity, personal value, and isolation - which in my view does a really great job being more than skin-deep on those topics. Phos' identity has absolutely nothing to do with how gay or genderless it may or may not be, and everything to do with the conflict between their contribution to gem-society and general incompetence. The author is literally playing out a Ship of Theseus on Phos and it's fascinating. Whether a person refers to Phos as 'he', 'she', or 'it' makes literally no difference to any of the themes of the story, but people get so hung up on it for reasons that I don't think make any sense. Gender has nothing at all to do with the series. The post above yours touches on some reasons why gender most definitely is a theme in the story, even if a minor one. Talking about one of a story's themes isn't "hijacking the discussion with wish-fullfillment", never mind that people hadn't talked about it in a while and you are always free to post about other stuff. Also gender is part of identity, quite an important part for some (arguably most?). e: Also please do not refer to someone as it, even if they're a fictional gem person. Like if you wanna argue that that's appropriate because gems that's fine I guess but in combination with the rest of your post it makes you look dismissive of non-binary people as a whole. e2:what the gently caress why didnt preview show the new posts
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Nov 22, 2017 20:55
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Lestaki posted:I feel there's a difference between 'everyone call them X' and people who call them Y but don't really care if other people use X either. But maybe I would think that? I dunno. yeah the difference is that things don't exist in a vacuum one day when we live in the fully automated luxury gay space communism future it will probably be fine to refer to not clearly gendered characters however you feel fits best we dont live in that place though and we still have a long way to go before we're alright on gender issues and as such dismissing and ignoring them when people bring them up is not the way to go
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Nov 22, 2017 21:08
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Absum posted:yeah the difference is that things don't exist in a vacuum I don't believe anyone on God's green earth can meaningfully speak for the identity of the rock elementals animated by... whatever an Include is. I also don't see how referring to Phos as any pronoun has any particular consequence, as a result. If this was Wandering Son or whatever I would be on board with this thesis but Hoseki no Kuni is not that show and I don't get why this is a hill people are dying on. Sorry.
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Nov 22, 2017 21:17
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For what it's worth I think this iteration of mineral-pronoun-chat has been better than its predecessors. Let's keep it up!
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Nov 22, 2017 21:28
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Lestaki posted:I don't believe anyone on God's green earth can meaningfully speak for the identity of the rock elementals animated by... whatever an Include is. I also don't see how referring to Phos as any pronoun has any particular consequence, as a result. If this was Wandering Son or whatever I would be on board with this thesis but Hoseki no Kuni is not that show and I don't get why this is a hill people are dying on. Sorry. In other translations, they are referred to as Inclusions, which in rock terminology is any material trapped in a rock during formation.
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Nov 22, 2017 21:48
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Lestaki posted:I don't believe anyone on God's green earth can meaningfully speak for the identity of the rock elementals animated by... whatever an Include is. I also don't see how referring to Phos as any pronoun has any particular consequence, as a result. If this was Wandering Son or whatever I would be on board with this thesis but Hoseki no Kuni is not that show and I don't get why this is a hill people are dying on. Sorry. People like to feel like they aren't alone. Therefore, they like to see other people like them in media. For any given demographic, the less they see of themselves in media, the more important to them each existing instance becomes. Non-binary people don't show up in media a lot. Therefore, when they do, people get very attached. Because this representation is important to them, it upsets them when people try and diminish it. People specifically going out of their way to assign genders to characters which are explicitly not gendered in the source material is doing exactly that. Therefore, it upsets people. Like I said, there's plenty of room for debate about how important this stuff is, and I agree entirely with Sarcophallus that the gender of the characters is basically irrelevant to the story the show is telling, but the actual concept of why this matters to people is not hard to grasp, and I feel like the people who are claiming that the whole thing mystifies them are being deliberately obtuse. Furthermore, the rationales people are using in favour of assigning gender to the gem people are weird and IMO kinda dumb. "They're voiced by women" (like 50% of anime boys ever). "They wear feminine clothing" (by the standards of modern western society which are obviously inapplicable here). So when people do it, it certainly appears, rightly or wrongly, as though they're uncomfortable with the idea of non-binary people. This is compounded by the fact that no-one who uses he/she for them says they think it's important, yet despite the fact that the people who do care are getting bent out of shape over it, those people are remarkably unwilling to concede this unimportant matter. And yes, you can make all the arguments you like about how people shouldn't be policing the pronouns other people use for fictional gem people in a forum thread, and yes, you're totally right that it's a loving absurd dispute, but it doesn't matter if it's absurd and trivial, because when you persist in the face of other people's displeasure you've got to own the fact that you're knowingly and intentionally upsetting other people. Now, if you think that's justified because what they're getting upset over is trivial and dumb, that's a perfectly valid outlook. I don't think it's a very nice one, but it's eminently reasonable. But it irritates me that people seem to be hiding behind this facade of "Oh, it doesn't matter, I don't understand why you care!" to avoid admitting to themselves that they just want to annoy the other group. If it really doesn't matter, why not do what the people for whom the issue is important would prefer? The_White_Crane fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Nov 22, 2017 |
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Nov 22, 2017 22:04
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The_White_Crane posted:And yes, you can make all the arguments you like about how people shouldn't be policing the pronouns other people use for fictional gem people in a forum thread, and yes, you're totally right that it's a loving absurd dispute, but it doesn't matter if it's absurd and trivial, because when you persist in the face of other people's displeasure you've got to own the fact that you're knowingly and intentionally upsetting other people. Now, if you think that's justified because what they're getting upset over is trivial and dumb, that's a perfectly valid outlook. I don't think it's a very nice one, but it's eminently reasonable. Knowingly, maybe, intentionally probably not. I think another way to approach this is that you've got some options and they all involve some mental toil on one or the other [set(s) of] recipient[s]. People will be upset if you refer to them as gendered. People will be upset if you refer to them as the wrong gender (per their perceptions). Some people, apparently, will be upset if you refer to them as genderless. Some people will be upset to have to refer to characters in a series they like in a way they're uncomfortable with. There's literally no winning. In fact, someone is going to be upset that I'm daring to set up an equivalence between someone being upset about pronoun use, and someone having to adjust their pronoun use.[1] You are welcome, of course, to come up with your own rankings as to who is hurt the most by any of these outcomes and dole out judgment or condemnation as you see appropriate. I will just be here reading about mineral people. [1] Found them V (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 22, 2017 22:23
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Sarcophallus posted:Knowingly, maybe, intentionally probably not. I think another way to approach this is that you've got some options and they all involve some mental toil on one or the other [set(s) of] recipient[s]. People will be upset if you refer to them as gendered. People will be upset if you refer to them as the wrong gender (per their perceptions). Some people, apparently, will be upset if you refer to them as genderless. Some people will be upset to have to refer to characters in a series they like in a way they're uncomfortable with. There's literally no winning. In fact, someone is going to be upset that I'm daring to set up an equivalence between someone being upset about pronoun use, and someone having to adjust their pronoun use. you're awful dude lol
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Nov 22, 2017 22:27
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Sarcophallus posted:[1] Found them V puppet master 
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Nov 22, 2017 22:34
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i would just like to let you all know that i do NOT care absolutely whatsoever about the posts and argument, and have no personal stake in it, but i'm going to keep posting about it to show you exactly how much i don't care
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Nov 22, 2017 22:36
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The_White_Crane posted:But it irritates me that people seem to be hiding behind this facade of "Oh, it doesn't matter, I don't understand why you care!" to avoid admitting to themselves that they just want to annoy the other group. If it really doesn't matter, why not do what the people for whom the issue is important would prefer? I understand why people care. What I was saying there is that I don't think that shoe fits in this case. I also care, I'm comfortable caring, and I'm comfortable upsetting people. I was gonna write more but I feel like that does it. I appreciate the effort though, it was a good and coherent post. There Bias Two posted:In other translations, they are referred to as Inclusions, which in rock terminology is any material trapped in a rock during formation. I learn something every day. The rock facts in this story are pretty neat. I was pretty mindblown when I realised why Bort has the longest hair in the group.
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Nov 22, 2017 22:51
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why does bort have the longest hair
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Nov 22, 2017 22:56
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She is the hardest, so they don't have anything that can cut it. (Except Sensei maybe?)
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Nov 22, 2017 22:58
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That's fantastic
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Nov 22, 2017 22:59
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Lestaki posted:She is the hardest, so they don't have anything that can cut it. (Except Sensei maybe?)  that's pretty cool.Though I was kinda hoping the answer would be something more rock nerdy, like the structure of carborundum having really long molecular chains or something.
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Nov 22, 2017 23:07
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dogsicle posted:why does bort have the longest hair Incase their sword breaks or is lost.
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Nov 22, 2017 23:12
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They could probably make better swords if they could turn Bort's hair into swords.
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Nov 22, 2017 23:26
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maybe bort hair can be used to cut bort hair
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Nov 22, 2017 23:43
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Isn’t diamond brittle? Just snap it off.
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Nov 23, 2017 01:03
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I believe Bort, at least as presented in the show, isn't brittle. That's why she is a haughty god of war while Diamond is skilled and well-meaning but crippled by being, well, brittle. Edit: Apparently bort isn't especially brittle in general? Do we have a geologist in the house? Lestaki fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Nov 23, 2017 |
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Nov 23, 2017 01:07
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https://twitter.com/kkxuroky/status/933425660239994880
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Nov 23, 2017 02:16
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i missed the pronouns chat but they're not people, they are weird rock humans
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Nov 23, 2017 03:25
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Bort is more emotionally brittle. Dia is the sweetest rock alive 
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Nov 23, 2017 03:31
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Better question: if they're photosynthetic, do some colours of gem (like Bort...) have trouble getting enough "food".
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Nov 23, 2017 03:36
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Dzhay posted:Better question: if they're photosynthetic, do some colours of gem (like Bort...) have trouble getting enough "food". Bort would probably have the easiest time, being nonreflective and all. Though if I remember correctly the absorbing molecules in photosynthesis have Mn2+ as the metal ion in their center. I really should remember this stuff better. chumbler fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Nov 23, 2017 |
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Nov 23, 2017 03:40
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The show just gets better and better. I loved the little bits about the gems sleeping habit including sensei. I also liked the conversation about working to become better at new things. It's definitely my favorite show of the season.
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Nov 23, 2017 04:04
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it's just a bummer that they adapted the sleepwalking omake, but not the pillow fight one. bort is an absolute pillow fight monster.
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Nov 23, 2017 04:07
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chumbler posted:Bort would probably have the easiest time, being nonreflective and all. Though if I remember correctly the absorbing molecules in photosynthesis have Mn2+ as the metal ion in their center. I really should remember this stuff better. If hair counts, Bort also has the most surface area to work with (assuming hair counts), which is important since photosynthesis is not exactly an efficient process.
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Nov 23, 2017 05:10
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chumbler posted:Bort would probably have the easiest time, being nonreflective and all. Though if I remember correctly the absorbing molecules in photosynthesis have Mn2+ as the metal ion in their center. I really should remember this stuff better. That everyone's the same colour as the mineral they're largely made from suggests they can't be absorbing too much light anyway...
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Nov 23, 2017 05:33
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Pollyanna posted:Isn’t diamond brittle? Just snap it off. Bort are the kind of diamonds used as drill bits, so probably not.
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Nov 23, 2017 07:36
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i just learnt that crushing bort is an actual thing
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Nov 23, 2017 07:39
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Lestaki posted:I believe Bort, at least as presented in the show, isn't brittle. That's why she is a haughty god of war while Diamond is skilled and well-meaning but crippled by being, well, brittle. Diamonds have perfect cleavage in 4 directions, so it's pretty easy for them to break apart along those lines. Due to bort being imperfectly crystallized diamond, its slightly softer but lacks the cleavage of diamond which overall makes it a tougher mineral. I'm not sure if the gems are literally photosynthesizing since they all loving sparkle, so light is getting bounced out of their bodies. Not to mention that they're transparent...maybe the skin powder is for helping trap light instead of a morality thing 
Xun fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Nov 23, 2017 |
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Nov 23, 2017 23:38
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Xun posted:Diamonds have perfect cleavage in 4 directions, so it's pretty easy for them to break apart along those lines. Due to bort being imperfectly crystallized diamond, its slightly softer but lacks the cleavage of diamond which overall makes it a tougher mineral. I assume it is the microorganisms doing the photosynthesis. Also the thought occurred to me that white powder is often TiO2. Is Rutile sacrificing themselves to give the powder to the others?
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Nov 24, 2017 00:30
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chumbler posted:I assume it is the microorganisms doing the photosynthesis. They show them collecting seeds from a plant to make the white powder in a previous episode.
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Nov 24, 2017 00:33
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Xun posted:I'm not sure if the gems are literally photosynthesizing since they all loving sparkle, so light is getting bounced out of their bodies. Not to mention that they're transparent...maybe the skin powder is for helping trap light instead of a morality thing Ooh, what a clever idea! That would also explain why they don't do their hair, because that's the bit that lets the light in. And their fingernails because... uh... Hmm. That said, I don't think the sparkling necessarily makes photosynthesis a no-no. After all, most leaves don't absorb 100% of the light that hits them (except for the rare and elusive Vantablack™ Pine Tree (© Anish Kapoor)) and they manage just fine.
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Nov 24, 2017 08:23
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The_White_Crane posted:Ooh, what a clever idea! I just find sparkling kinda weird since the purpose of most cut gems is to allow as much light as possible to reflect out of the gemstone, thus causing the sparkle. If the light didn't reflect as much it'd look like an agate or something. But I'm just being a gem sperg here  The gem people can photosynthesize as much as they like
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Nov 24, 2017 10:11
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Phos had their face in the bowl of luminescent stuff which I assumed was supplementing the lack of sunlight so it probably just absorbs through their surface powder or not. I thought the powder was to prevent/protect from erosion from the air and water and etc. For instance when the gems go into the water the powder is protecting them from the salt & the resin just keeps the powder from washing off.
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Nov 24, 2017 15:43
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i could definitely buy the powder being protection against salt water, even though the gems only seen to care about looking "ugly" without it. seems like sensei is teaching them some weird beauty standards 
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Nov 24, 2017 16:00
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