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With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Field Trip (part 10)
8th January
21:35 GMT


Boom!

I stride through the boom tube into one of Xan'Xie's caverns. "Hello there!"

This cavern is designed as a sort of three dimensional park, steps cut into the side walls are covered in greenery -some of which is actually green- with trailing vines covering virtually all of the vertical surfaces. Tree-analogues block my view of the… Let's call it west side, but I can see a few brave families taking advantage of the fact that Whites are no longer prohibited from using it to engage in telekinetic ball-toss and… Other Martian family games I don't immediately recognise.

Circe and Lord Cyprian step through after me, Circe taking a moment to bend down and touch the… Grass-moss? Whatever this is, which covers the ground.

"Whatever fighting there was, it didn't take place here. No floramancy and no anguish."

"Good to know." I turn to look at Cyprian as he takes in the panorama. And the staring locals. "Cyprian, are you sure that you being here is a good idea?"

"Of the three of us, I'm the only one with an official government position. I'm also the only one of us with experience in peace negotiations."

"I don't know, Darfur's pretty peaceful these days." I spot a squad of White Martians in appropriated Manhunter gear heading our way, the red X replaced by an orange vest with a green line running across it. "Though I'm not sure that Iname could function quite so well here."

"That wasn't really a negotiation."

"Negotiations are ongoing, but there have definitely been some."

He chuckles and shakes his head. "Taking all of the weapons away is certainly an efficacious way of halting a conflict, but it would be rather more difficult to achieve in a place where the weapons are built into the bodies of the citizens."

"No, it just takes a sharper knife." The… What am I going to call them? Hunters? That'll do. The Hunters land, adopting a skirmishing formation a short distance from us with plasma beam weapons not quite pointing at us. "Hello there. My name is Grayven-."

One of their number strides forward. "How did you come here?"

"It's called a 'boom tube'. My people have the technology to open portals between locations."

"Why are you here?"

"I'm hoping that a neutral arbitrator such as myself could act as a go-between between whoever is running Xan'Xie and the Planetary Council, with a view to reaching a peaceful settlement between belligerent parties."

"Did the Council send you?"

"The Council are aware that I'm involving myself, but no, they didn't send me. Karmang asked me to come here."

"Karm-?" The squad leader's eyes glow for a moment and I feel a weak pressure against my mind. "That seems unlikely."

"We were visiting one of those monasteries the Sorcerer Priests run when he and his clansmen attacked it. Pure coincidence as far as the timing was concerned."

"Which clansmen?"

Odd.. question. "L'atroma, N'Rixot and K'emra…" I turn to my companions. "Did the ones you saw give their names?"

Circe nods. "One introduced himself as L'Sufux. The other was too focused on impaling our hosts to engage in social niceties."

"I recognise the names." He looks at me, then at Circe and then at Cyprian. "Why do you all block your minds? I only wish to see what you saw."

Cyprian smiles in a friendly way. "I'm afraid that our species aren't natural telepaths. We can block our minds completely, but beyond that we have no way to regulate what you can see. As such, we generally prefer to maintain a barrier. I could create an illusory image if that would suffice, or Grayven could create a hologram."

There are a few moments of hesitation, presumably while the Hunters talk about it amongst themselves telepathically. Or… I don't know what sort of range most martians have. Perhaps they're communicating with their superiors.

"Who are you here to speak to?"

"Well…" I wave my right hand negligently. "Whoever the new Prelate is. Assuming that one has been appointed."

"We're not just letting a Red Martian take control of the city again!"

"I'm.. sorry. I… Didn't mean to imply that you should. I don't know what title would be applied to a city ruler of another colour."

"Oh. No, I assumed that you were referring to the normal succession arrangements."

I wait for a moment, but he doesn't say anything else.

"So… Who is in charge?"

"I'm in charge of looking after the park."

Oh. Darn. A genuinely spontaneous revolution. I didn't think those existed. I mean, there was that time in East Germany when a demonstration happened because a stoner told a journalist that he heard there was going to be a demonstration, the journalist reported it, the report got broadcast and hundreds of people turned up to a demonstration that wouldn't have occurred if he hadn't told the journalist about it… But genuinely spontaneous?

"And… Did someone put you in charge of looking after the park, or.. did you just assume that responsibility?"

"I flew past this park a hundred times as a child. I was never allowed in." He holds out his arms slightly. "Now every White Martian can enjoy it."

"I'm not saying that you did anything wrong. I'm not taking any position vis-à-vis anything that's occurred. I'm just a bit stuck if there's no one to negotiate with."

Cyprian smiles, though I'm not sure that martians understand the gesture. "Perhaps if you told us why you decided to take direct action? As you said, you flew past this park hundreds of times without doing so..?"

"The broadcast. If finding out that we only felt… Reverence for the Reds because they look more like our monster ancestors… I just felt that all my doubts were… From that. I just came here as an act of civil disobedience to begin with, and then when the Manhunters tried to evict us B'enn B'lanx and P'torex Z'orr attacked their armoury. Then the fighting really got going."

Oh dear. "And removing the Prelate? Who.. decided..?"

"You mean killing her? That was pretty much a.. mob decision. This city used to be… Not equal, but not as bad as it became after she took over." He watches my face for a moment. "Wait, you're not telepathic. When I say 'mob decision', I mean that we were all of one mind. We all felt that killing her was essential."

"And the Manhunters?"

"We didn't kill the ones who surrendered. But they enforced Red supremacy. They needed to go."

"And…" Cyprian looks around at the rest of the group. "The rest of you feel the same way?"

"Yes." / "Yes." / "Yes." / "Yes." / "Yes."

Cyprian nods. "And what plans do you have for the future?"

"Ah… Defend the city against the Planetary Council? B'enn is organising a militia, and we're doing rotations to get training with weapons."

"I meant, do you have any opinion on what shape the government of your city should take? How M'arzz should be governed?"

"Whites need to be involved. The whole caste system needs to stop. Everywhere."

Cyprian nods. "Alright. But what else? What form should the government take?"

One of the others steps forward. "A council of representatives, comprised of representatives of each colour."

Circe frowns. "Have none of you had the colour restrictions removed?"

The first martian visibly starts. "No? How does that work?"

She smiles, purple sparks flickering around her fingers. "Magic. Perhaps I may be of service?"
 
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Well, If we can keep it polite, I guess... AS long as no-one gets mad, the Mods come running and WTR ends up moving site again...


On the other hand, it also makes it tough to follow actions when every actor is an 'It' or a group 'they'. Unless every actor is given a description every time they take action, things would very tough to make sense of.
I can see the Watsonian reason why Grayven did the whole coin-flip, to keep things straight for himself.
Also, none of this is helped by the fact that they're all shapeshifters, and so you don't even have a guarantee that they'll always look the same. That's confusing enough on it's own.
 
...Whites are no longer prohibited from using it to engage it telekinetic ball-toss and…
...Whites are no longer prohibited from using it to engage in telekinetic ball-toss and…

Pure co-incidence as far as the timing was concerned."
Odd hyphenation. Can't remember if this is normal for you.

" L'atroma, N'Rixot and K'emra…"
Extraneous space after the Quotation mark.

"One introduced himself as L'Sufux. The other was too focused on impaling our hosts to engage in social niceties."
Gee, sounds like a nice guy...

Perhaps they're communication with their superiors.
Perhaps they're communicating with their superiors.

"I'm in charge of looking after the park."
This guy isn't the sharpest hoe in the farm, is he?:D

...As you said, you flew past this part hundreds of times without doing so..?"
...As you said, you flew past this park hundreds of times without doing so..?"

One of the others steps forward. "A council of representatives, comprised of representatives of each colour."
That repetition is a little awkward, but it is an off-the-cuff speech...

If this is typical of the uprisings, I'm not surprised things are so... confused in general.
 
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...Whites are no longer prohibited from using it to engage in telekinetic ball-toss and…
Pure co-incidence as far as the timing was concerned."
Odd hyphenation. Can't remember if this is normal for you.
" L'atroma, N'Rixot and K'emra…"
Extraneous space after the Quotation mark.
Perhaps they're communication with their superiors.
Perhaps they're communicating with their superiors.
...As you said, you flew past this part hundreds of times without doing so..?"
...As you said, you flew past this park hundreds of times without doing so..?"
Thank you, corrected.
"I'm in charge of looking after the park."
This guy isn't the sharpest hoe in the farm, is he?:D
What's dumb about that? That's literally the most he can say for certain.
 
What's dumb about that? That's literally the most he can say for certain.
True. It's still an amusing response, given they just asked him about the succession arrangements. That one line gives a lot of character to this otherwise unremarkable-seeming NPC-tier fellow, the sort most players would ignore if he weren't confronting them.

Which is ironic, given that he seems to be inadvertently responsible for triggering the uprising in his city (from his perspective anyway.) Amazing how one little act of disobedience can snowball.:D
 
English doesn't really do neutral pronouns, other than 'it' or 'they' and such terms aren't the most pleasant, especially when you have multiple speaking characters of indeterminate identity. 'They said to the other' isn't much fun...

you have to put in a lot of effort to word everything so that you can keep using "they" without it standing out. I've had to do it before and it's a real pain, and if you do it at length you are definitely going to end up some weirdly structured sentences.

Third-person pronouns suffer this same issue whether gendered or generic. At that point, one's supposed to state names more often to keep the subjects and objects straight.

I mean, I'm not trying to diss Zoat here, the coin toss bit was funny, but the moment you give up on assigning placeholder genders, why bother picking a gender at all? No one will correct you because third-person generic pronouns are a Mathematician's Answer.
 
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Third-person pronouns suffer this same issue whether gendered or generic. At that point, one's supposed to state names more often to keep the subjects and objects straight.

I mean, I'm not trying to diss Zoat here, the coin toss bit was funny, but the moment you give up on assigning placeholder genders, why bother picking a gender at all? No one will correct you because third-person generic pronouns are a Mathematician's Answer.
Because as stated, the English language alternative is 'it', which actually is dehumanising. Also, the SI did the same thing when he went to Mars.
 
Third-person pronouns suffer this same issue whether gendered or generic. At that point, one's supposed to state names more often to keep the subjects and objects straight.

I mean, I'm not trying to diss Zoat here, the coin toss bit was funny, but the moment you give up on assigning placeholder genders, why bother picking a gender at all? No one will correct you because third-person generic pronouns are a Mathematician's Answer.

*shrug* Honestly I don't mind that personally. It's just the nature of the English language currently.
 
Circe frowns. "Have none of you had the colour restrictions removed?"

The first martian visible starts. "No? How does that work?"

She smiles, purple sparks flickering around her fingers. "Magic. Perhaps I may be of service?"
Oh boy. This sounds like ominous foreshadowing.

Also, correction: "visibly starts".

Because as stated, the English language alternative is 'it', which actually is dehumanising.
(This isn't a correction, merely a discussion, and not specifically directed at Mr Zoat but rather continuing the thread.)

No, the English language alternative is "they". It only sounds weird if you stop to think about it; I daresay that if anyone here heard someone else use it they wouldn't even notice (unless they're the type to pedantically follow an artificial style guide that says to use "he" for persons of unknown gender). "Somebody lost their hat" sounds completely natural. As has already been mentioned, that usage has been attested as far back as the 1300s, and it's not like we don't already have singular personal pronouns that are plural in form -- "you" is grammatically plural and native English speakers don't have issues with that (or even consciously notice that it's true).

"Suzerain of Earth" doesn't count?
Earth doesn't have a ruling council, and the closest thing it has doesn't recognize that title in any official capacity.
 
Because as stated, the English language alternative is 'it', which actually is dehumanising. Also, the SI did the same thing when he went to Mars.

There are other alternatives. They aren't (I believe) in the Oxford dictionary yet and are unfortunately all tangled up in socio-political issues that it's probably best not to deal with in the story for at least the near-term future. Or in the discussion at all since that would invite a modhammer (and frankly I'd just as soon avoid them even without that threat). Still the options exist and would arguably be applicable in a situation where no educated guess at gender could be reasonably made.
 
No, the English language alternative is "they". It only sounds weird if you stop to think about it; I daresay that if anyone here heard someone else use it they wouldn't even notice (unless they're the type to pedantically follow an artificial style guide that says to use "he" for persons of unknown gender). "Somebody lost their hat" sounds completely natural. As has already been mentioned, that usage has been attested as far back as the 1300s, and it's not like we don't already have singular personal pronouns that are plural in form -- "you" is grammatically plural and native English speakers don't have issues with that (or even consciously notice that it's true).
No, it definitely still sounds weird if you use it in some situations where you'd use he/she or a name (and you can't use names if you don't know them).

"They went to the store to get milk.", "He/She went to the store to get milk.", or "Zoat went to the store to get milk." are all fine.
"They went to the store to get milk for their tea." sounds a little odd, I think maybe it feels too impersonal if you're referring to someone you know, but maybe that one's just me. Should still work fine in other situations, anyway.
"Zoat wants to go to the store to get milk.", or "He/She wants to go to the store to get milk." are fine. "They wants to go to the store to get milk." is completely wrong, necessitating the use of "He/She" unless you know their name, which is not always the case.

Edit: It's just occurred to me that I was dumb, and that sentence sounds fine if you just drop the s on the "wants". I still think that "they" sounds a little weird in that sentence, and only gets moreso as you keep using it.
 
As I was saying, don't compare "they" to "he" -- compare it to "you" and you'll find that grammatically it works out almost identically:

Who went to the store to get milk? You/They went to the store to get milk.
Who wants to go to the store? You/They want to go to the store.
Who wants to get milk for their tea? (<-- note that "their" in this context is what most people will say by default) You/they want to get milk for your/their tea.
Who is the milk for? The milk is for you/them.
Whose milk is it? The milk is yours/theirs.

British English speakers have even less reason to complain, since they use mass nouns, which are grammatically singular, with verbs that are grammatically plural.
 
(This isn't a correction, merely a discussion, and not specifically directed at Mr Zoat but rather continuing the thread.)

No, the English language alternative is "they". It only sounds weird if you stop to think about it; I daresay that if anyone here heard someone else use it they wouldn't even notice (unless they're the type to pedantically follow an artificial style guide that says to use "he" for persons of unknown gender). "Somebody lost their hat" sounds completely natural. As has already been mentioned, that usage has been attested as far back as the 1300s, and it's not like we don't already have singular personal pronouns that are plural in form -- "you" is grammatically plural and native English speakers don't have issues with that (or even consciously notice that it's true).
And they is both misleading and sounds idiotic. He, she, and it all make sense.

It is only "dehumanizing" because humans naturally have two sexes and ascribe value to them so to deny someone either of the two is to deny that individuals humanity.

"It" is a perfectly reasonable pronoun for humans who do not express a preference (and makes far more sense than "they"), and is the best choice for an asexual species because they wouldn't even have the concept of gender.

As I was saying, don't compare "they" to "he" -- compare it to "you" and you'll find that grammatically it works out almost identically:

Who went to the store to get milk? You/They went to the store to get milk.
Who wants to go to the store? You/They want to go to the store.
Who wants to get milk for their tea? (<-- note that "their" in this context is what most people will say by default) You/they want to get milk for your/their tea.
Who is the milk for? The milk is for you/them.
Whose milk is it? The milk is yours/theirs.

British English speakers have even less reason to complain, since they use mass nouns, which are grammatically singular, with verbs that are grammatically plural.

So you want humans to speak in the second person then?

"They went to the store" means "that group of people went to the store". He/She/Xir/It/etc. went to the store means "that individual went to the store".

If you don't want to be identified by He or She then choose a simple two or three character placeholder that means "individual who is not male or female" and argue for that word to be accepted. As stupid as Xir is, it actually makes some sense as a term - "a pronoun that does not identify the gender of the individual it is referencing" has some use.

Using "they" just makes you sound like a twat.
 
It puts the lotion in the basket.

Otherwise translated as "An individual of indeterminate or unknown gender puts the lotion in the basket."

They put the lotion in the basket comes across as "A group of individuals put the lotion in the basket".

He shot at me, they shot at me, it shot at me all mean distinctly different things to the average English speaker. They and he/she/it are not really interchangeable.

Singular they is just a fucking stupid idea. Language naturally evolved to have two gendered pronouns, creating a third gender neutral pronoun makes sense. Using a word that is not singular as generally used because one is too lazy to develop a proper non gendered singular pronoun ("it" being considered insulting for some inane reason) is just idiotic.
 
Singular they is just a fucking stupid idea. Language naturally evolved to have two gendered pronouns, creating a third gender neutral pronoun makes sense. Using a word that is not singular as generally used because one is too lazy to develop a proper non gendered singular pronoun ("it" being considered insulting for some inane reason) is just idiotic.

Singular they is quite common in spoken language, though usually when the specific person being referred to is unknown. As in "Whoever did this, they are going to be sorry when I find them." (Aggressive though it is, that's the first example that came to mind.) Or "If someone volunteers I'll buy them lunch." Or "I'm meeting someone to iron out the details of the plans, but I don't know who they are yet." That kind of use for "they" is pretty common, though I suppose it may just be a regional thing. And using it in place of a gendered pronoun because you don't know the gender of a known person would be really odd.

As for singular genderless pronouns, some exist for English, though as I mentioned above they are not in any dictionary I'm aware of yet and come with a tangled mess of socio-political issues and thus may not be the best choice to use in this particular story given recent history. Plus they're not exactly in common usage.
 
Singular they is just a fucking stupid idea. Language naturally evolved to have two gendered pronouns
I'm not here to start a fight. I'm here to explain a set of facts, not push any particular agenda.

That said: You are, quite simply, factually wrong.

Take the facts to whatever conclusion you wish, but saying that singular they is a "stupid idea" completely disregards the fact that it does in fact exist, and it has existed in English since before the Great Vowel Shift. That's right, singular they has been in use so long that if you were to listen to someone speak English as it was spoken at its earliest known attestation, you wouldn't even recognize it as the same language.

The English language did not evolve to have two gendered pronouns. It evolved to have seven sets of pronouns, and only two of them are gendered. However, six of them are universally considered personal pronouns, and the seventh is (only slightly less universally) not. Those seven are "I", "we", "you", "he", "she", "they", and "it" -- "he" and "she" are the only ones that are gendered, and "it" is the only one that is not considered to be a personal pronoun in general consensus.

If you think that singular they is inappropriate to use, I'm not going to argue with you on that point. And I won't oppose the idea of creating a non-gendered singular third-person pronoun; this may well be a good idea. (I prefer modified Spivak, though; I think ey/em/eir is more likely to catch on by virtue of being parallel to a more familiar construction instead of obviously looking made-up.) However, such a statement is an opinion, as the English language (unlike French) does not have an official standard that defines what is and is not grammatically correct usage. As such, you are welcome to that opinion, but you must recognize that other opinions in the matter are valid and have meaningful evidence to support them.
 
Singular they is in Shakespeare and KJV which makes it only slightly newer than singular you as used by Elizabeth I whose father Henry VIII was still using thou
 
Singular they is in Shakespeare and KJV which makes it only slightly newer than singular you as used by Elizabeth I whose father Henry VIII was still using thou
My friend, singular they is in Chaucer.

EDIT: I should be more precise.

The earliest attestation of singular they I can find dates to 1382. The spelling of the original doesn't match modern orthography, but the words are very clearly "Each one in their own craft is wise." This isn't Chaucer (it's from Wycliffe's Bible) but Chaucer has an attestation from only a few years later (updated to modern orthography, "And whoso findeth him out of such blame, they will come up"). Note how these are very clearly intelligible to modern English speakers; it's obviously the same language.

By contrast, the earliest attestation I can find to grammarians insisting that you SHOULDN'T do this doesn't come up until the mid-1800s, and it was a contentious issue at that time because other grammarians were going out of their way at around the same time to point out uses of singular they in contemporary writing.

That's not to say that generic he wasn't in use in middle English; it certainly was. But it was originally not explicitly a masculine pronoun, but rather a non-specific one that only gained a masculine quality when compared to the specific word used for female individuals. The use of singular they was -- at least in part -- an evolution to accommodate the increasing association of "he" with the masculine gender as opposed to being untagged. (Compare: Anglo-Saxon "man" generic, "wir-man" masculine (modern cognate: "virile"), "wif-man" feminine (modern cognate: "wife"), with the generic becoming eventually tagged as masculine.)
 
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Ah, perhaps we've reached the point where we should start reeling things back?
 

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