Character pronoun and identity discussion

Regardless of what is used, I agree with a disclaimer being added.

I think I misinterpreted what we're doing here. That's why I brought up the timespan which turned out to be nonexistent.

In the case of "Use she/her/Rachel and a note about her presenting as a cis man in the original series", the page for the original series could also get a spoiler warning that certain spoilers for Static Cling will be unmarked (aside from recap pages). The page for Life on Mars (2006) does something like that regarding Ashes to Ashes (2008) (though idk whether it should be doing that, so idk whether it's valid as precedent).

For Life on Mars (2006) theee aren't a lot of these examples and there probably shouldn't be, but that's a question for the Spoilers thread.

What would this hypothetical second crowner address that the first crowner didn't have the opportunity to?

Bisected already posted an idea for what could be on a second crowner in this post (one of the main changes being to have the options address the original series's page, the movie's page, the character page, and recap pages separately instead of having options that cover all of them at the same time), and I'm not seeing any problems with her proposal. Since it covers the same pages with a different approach, it's less about what's being addressed and more about how everything's addressed, particularly in terms of the options' scope (in this case, preventing the options from being too broad).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 5th 2023 at 3:35:31 AM

So to bring it up here.

Someone changed in BMO's folder in Adventure Time: Main All instances of they to he and she.

So that's not wrong. As BMO is never referred to as they and instead the show flips between he and she as BMO is canonically gender fluid. To avoid people debating or changing it back and forth im coming here.

Hmm, we never really talk about characters with multiple pronouns all that much. From what I remember:

BMO shouldn't be referred to as "they" unless that's a pronoun the show uses at some point; "he" and "she" are fine, but an example should stick to one set.

well, we just decided on loki, who canonically uses he or they depending on the writer/issue. So id be fine with a similar policy— any pronouns used canonically by the character are fine, no changing other people's entries to your own preference

With the caveat that for characters like the Doctor and Marvel's Eternals, we still use 'they' for the character as a whole, even if the work only uses he and she, because they have something closer to a reincarnation model.

(Feels like a different scenario that shouldn't be affected by this decision)

Edited by Mrph1 on Sep 5th 2023 at 11:04:00 AM

Yeah, Loki is different because it's different incarnations of the character. I never finished Adventure Time, but BMO was always one character across all his appearances — pretty sure there's an entire episode about that, in fact.

Just to clarify - Loki is actually both, because they're complicated. Which is very Loki.

We've got two incarnations of Loki with set he/him pronouns (except when stealing a female body). The third/current incarnation mixes he/him and they/them, and is increasingly weighted towards they/them but Depending on the Writer.

For context, BMO is a genderless robot who's idendity and how characters address BMO changes on whatever they're roleplaying as at the moment.

The AT wiki doesn't have a list of how BMO is addressed throught the series, which would have been helpful, and I don't recall anything consistent from memory.

So the options are likely

• "BMO"
• "he/she" / "him/her"
• default to "he" and alternate depending on what episode is in context

Edited by Amonimus on Sep 5th 2023 at 1:38:11 PM

To be fair, they/them is perfectly acceptable for situations where the person is hypothetical, or their pronouns are unknown, and is a lot less unwieldy than he/she and similar.

I didn't include it due to this, but I'm not an expert here.

It's possible Crossover knows something I don't (I really should get around to watching all of AT), but they/them only becomes rude when you know someone has specified their pronouns, and aren't using them (e.g. if you learn a woman is trans, and suddenly switch to they/them-ing her; using they/them instead of neopronouns).

Ehhh I haven't watched AT in a few years, but it's entirely dependent on the context of the episode: one episode has BMO want to be a "real boy", another has him chat with an (imaginary?) mirror self who says she's "a real baby girl", another has BMO pretend to be pregnant and carrying around an egg. His "genderbent" counterpart in the Fionna and Cake episodes is also the exact same as normal BMO.

If the work never uses they/them for a character who has fluid pronouns, then I don't think it's appropriate for us to. They/them should be used when those pronouns are explicit or when the situation is too vague for binary pronouns. What's happening with BMO sounds like a pretty clear case of shifting binary pronouns.

Edited by 8BrickMario on Sep 5th 2023 at 7:06:35 AM

I'm not familiar with the work, but this appears to be a case where he/she would be preferable to they/them, since the work only uses the former set of pronouns and not the latter. I think this might be comparable to Quina from Final Fantasy IX being referred to as s/he instead of they/them in-game in the English translation (which was brought up during discussion of a different character; I don't think Quina was ever directly the subject of discussion in this thread).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 5th 2023 at 9:26:25 AM

I think BMO is confirmed genderfluid or otherwise nonbinary and uses "he" and "she" in different episodes, and sometimes "it," I think. I think it can be "first come first serve," or maybe base it off whatever pronouns he uses in the episode the example's discussing, if it's clear.

Apparently BMO was confirmed to be genderfluid via Word of God at a panel during WonderCon, according to this subbullet on Ambiguous Gender:

• The WonderCon Q&A panel confirmed that BMO is genderfluid, and both male and female pronouns apply.

However this isn't sourced, and there are multiple Wondercon AT panels.

BMO feels pretty cut and dry to me; even if he's not canonically genderfluid, the pronouns used in the show go back and forth with such regularity that it's clear to me that, well... that's the entire point (sort of like Mangle from FNAF, who's pronouns are so inconsistent even some official sources bounce between "he" and "she" in the same sentence).

...this reminded me that Funtime Foxy, who has the same he/she deal as Mangle, was decided to use they/them earlier in the thread despite never being referred to with those pronouns, which muddies the waters with BMO.

Frankly I wouldn't mind revisiting Funtime since at the time I didn't really understand why everyone was so against using he/she interchangeably for her, if the discussion for BMO concludes with he/she.

Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Sep 5th 2023 at 3:57:13 PM

For interest, Wikipedia uses they/he/BMO, while AT Wiki uses "he" exclusively.

The decision to use they/them for Funtime Foxy was because it wasn't clear at the time that the work actually doesn't use they/them and only uses he/she (I think I tried asking for clarification regarding whether they/them was absent in the work, but I'm not sure if I got an answer at the time), so the preference for he/she from those in favor of it was mistakenly thought to be due to personal preference rather than solely being based on what the work uses (which turned out to not be the case based on your most recent post) so it seems there was a misunderstanding at the time. We can revisit the case if that was a mistake (though I wouldn't have a problem with just updating the header right away instead since the situation has been clarified if the other mods are also fine with that).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 5th 2023 at 5:20:44 AM