bc the LIâs pronouns are used so frequently it would require separate variants for thousands of lines to match proper verb conjugations (for NB!MC by comparison, it would be more in the dozens)
Thatâs not how the coding works so itâs not that time consuming. Itâs not that they took every line referring to MC and wrote 2-3 versions, they already established a system that changes the word based on the needed conjugation.
The way it works is that they âtagâ (at least thatâs my easily consumable word for it) words that need to be changed based on the LIâs/MCâs gender. For binary, it was easy, like {he} (as they tag it usually, the brackets show itâs changeable) will be âheâ or âsheâ. And if you see (usually a masculine) pronoun that didnât change, itâs because they forgot to tag the word. Another common mistake is them saying his/her instead of his/hers because they tagged it as a {his} (his/her) instead of a {hisp} (p meaning possessive which changes into his/hers).
(IMHO itâd be infinitely easier if they just always used they/them/their/theirs even for binary characters because that leaves no questions and is even possibly less jarring if they forget to tag it... but PB just has to be cisnormative. Or more like, I think, they write the original script with m!LI in mind and just tag the words later... ANYWAY.)
For non-binary (MC for now), they have these suffixes coded (âyâ in the example means âyouâ) that will change any word they apply it to:
{y.s} (e.g. work{y.s} -> work/works)
{y.es} (e.g. do{y.es} -> do/does)
{y.ies} (e.g. cr{y.ies} -> cry/cries)
{y.is_'s} (when itâs sheâs/heâs/theyâre instead of she/he is or they are)
{y.has_'s} (when itâs sheâs/heâs/theyâve instead of she/he has or they have)
If they did end up adding it, though, that would be super neat, and Iâd be extremely interested in seeing how they handled it from a technical angle. Because I canât really think of an efficient way to do it myself.
So thatâs the answer to your inquiry. (I hope the way I explained makes sense and the exact examples from the coding donât confuse people.)
And I recognize that even with the established coding it definitely takes effort to tag all the words for a non-binary LI. But if only they just wrote them as enby itâd be easier... Or, hear me out, use AI for good (e.g. proofreading the script) instead of stealing art cough sl cough, just a thought...
