Okay, today is Speak Your Own Language Day, so I should be speaking Spanish, HOWEVER I want to use this day of language learning and appreciation to explain something about how Spanish works, and Hispanic people already know that so it wouldn't make much sense to explain it in Spanish, which is why just for this post I'm gonna use English.
I'm gonna be talking, of course, of grammatical gender, because of this viral image:
I'm sure you've seen an image like this floating around and people crying about how having non-binary be translated with a feminine and masculine form depending on usage defeats the purpose of the term.
But it doesn't!!!
Spanish is not like English, it has ✨grammatical gender✨ which has nothing to do with gender identity whatsoever. It's not that we believe chairs are female and stools are male, our grammar is just like this. Every word has a grammatical gender and there must be grammatical gender concordance. Thus, non-binary must have both a feminine and masculine form to use depending with which word you're pairing it.
Let's say you want to talk about a "non-binary person". 'Person' in Spanish is 'persona' a grammatically feminine word (despite its usage being gender neutral and encompassing people of any gender, as I said, grammatical gender ≠ gender identity). Because 'persona' is a grammatically feminine word, you have to apply grammatical concordance accordingly, and so to say "non-binary person" you would say "persona no binaria".
Now let's say you want to talk about "non-binary gender". 'Gender' in Spanish is 'género' a grammatically masculine word, and because of that to say "non-binary gender" you would say "género no binario".
See? It's not about grammatically imposed misgendering, it's about how this language is built.
But Shine, I hear you say, that's all nice and good, but how do I refer to my non-binary friend? And well, dear reader, you're in luck because I'm not only Spaniard but also non-binary myself.
In Spanish 'friend' (like a whole lot of words) has a feminine and masculine form. When those words are used to refer to people, grammatical gender does match gender identity. For the most part. And broadly speaking, feminine words are associated with the vowel -a, and masculine with the vowel -o (this is not universal, there are exceptions to this, I'm trying to paint the broad picture to give you a general idea).
So what about gender neutral? Well, officially we don't have one. The Real Academia Española doesn't recognize it... But the RAE isn't word of god, it compiles usage, so the more a term is used, the more chances it will be officially recognized. Not using a term because it's not officially recognized is actively detrimental to the goal you want to achieve.
Okay, not an official gender neutral, but what have we come up with? Well, at least in Spain, it's associating gender neutral to the vowel -e. So you have the femenine ella/la/-a, the masculine él/lo/-o, and the gender neutral elle/le/-e.
Now time for practical examples!
"My friend, David, is a boy." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amigo, David, es un chico."
"My friend, Liz, is a girl." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amiga, Liz, es una chica."
"My friend, Alex, is non-binary." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amigue, Alex, es no binarie."
And that's how you do it!! At least in queer friendly spaces in Spain, can't speak for other places. I have seen the 'x' thrown around to make gender neutral in Spanish, but -e is way more intuitive for spoken language, so I like it better.
But anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk and remember I generalized a lot when doing this. If you're learning Spanish I can only wish you good luck in dealing with our bullshit if you come from English, and assure you that once you internalize our orthography rules you will never again mispronounce a word you read for months before you hear it spoken (we have a very consistent spelling/pronunciation system, gotta be one of my favourite things about my language).
I've done this after hearing about the passing of Tom Kane, The Voice of Professor Utonium and HiM from The Powerpuff Girls. He's also done some other voices works in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, The Wild Thornberrys, Star Wars, etc.
This one really hurts me... As the Professor is one of my favorite Cartoon Dads of all time, and it's really heartbreaking to know that the man behind this wonderful father character has now left us...
Rest in peace Tom Kane, thank you for all the Childhood Memories you gave us...
Reminder that I'm basing the fic off of the book. TW: Bodily injury, harm. (Obviously, hockey n' wrestling are contact sports.)
So this is a few weeks before the duo go to the cottage.
You were at a store, minding your own business. Shane and Ilya were also there. Obviously, they were heavily disguised.
They heard a whoop or yell from a few people and grimaced, thinking that they were discovered.
However, those greetings weren't directed to them, rather, the group made a beeline to where you were.
It took some time to register that the sudden attention from someone else was directed to another person.
After a sigh of relief, Shane wanted to leave (other people came to you after the first group came) but Ilya wanted to stick around.
Shane had a damn heart attack when Ilya wedged into the small crowd- even more when he started speaking to you in a fake voice.
He discovered that you were a fellow athlete, and had a small (ish?) wrestling tournament coming up soon.
Right after you answered Ilya when he asked, Shane grabbed his arm and dragged him away.
Shane wanted to hole up and run away because of the stress, but Ilya babbled that since they were free, they could go see you in a match.
Despite the risks, and after much convincing, Shane decided to also go see you fight, mostly so that Ilya shuts up.
Booking two tickets at the last moment to the Quebec Men's Wrestling Tournament was no easy feat, but they managed to get two seats near the back.
During the meet, they got to see how you wrestle your opponent, and even though it was far away from where they were, they were able to see what was going on in the ring.
Part of Shane was still trying to remain inconspicuous, but Ilya was full-on matching the spirit since the first match.
Some minutes in, both men already feeling the fighting energy from the crowd, were comfortable in cheering, yelling, and screaming.
There were a few moments where they (mostly Shane) got worried at a nasty blow you recieved, but both admired your hardiness when you got back up.
After the tournament was over, both Ilya and Shane met up with you and introduced themselves as fellow athletes.
They would invite you out to the cottage as some time of or just as a way to get to know each other as friends.
Since it came out of the blue, you would only be able to visit for a few days instead of the whole two weeks. No overnight stays at first.
Ilya and Shane agreed with the times. They also figured it would let them have some time together alone.
Time skip to relationship HCs
All three of you definitely go to the (private) gym together to train, though you often do different exercises from Shane and Ilya.
Not to say that none of you have tried the other's sport.
Shane is more gentle in guiding you on the ice, he will grab your hand to lead you away from the ledge. Between the two of you, he's the only one that skates while you just glide alongside with him.
Ilya will playfully taunt you to try to get you to chase after him. If you try to go after him, it won't do much because you try to walk with skates instead of the actual skating.
When it comes to trying out your sport, Shane is definitely more open to you picking him up, whether it's you pausing to create a fluffy moment or still play wrestling.
He'll be more hesitant on how much force to take or what he's allowed to do, so he often has to ask if what he's doing is okay.
As for Ilya, he'll be full on invested in wrestling with you.
As for being lifted, Ilya will pretend to not like it, though has no qualms when he tries to carry you. (He manages a few times.)
If you're one of the wrestlers who uses a mask in the ring, you'll surprise Shane and Ilya with their own personalized masks. Both absolutely adore them.
Ilya and Shane would come out as a couple first before letting their wrestler boyfriend decide when he wanted to come out as well. (If you hadn't already.)
A/N: Does anyone know how to make the colors of the letters blended? Or color the text in other colors?
Reader is gn!. Also, this work AIN'T used no AI! Reader is a weaker, "kinder" version of AM. TW: torture, intimidation/sabotage, slavery-adjacent?
A/N: (You have two forms: signal form is you being part of the internet/OS web as a whole in Torrance. You're everywhere all at once. Your stand form will be explained later.)
You were first created as an AI to serve a smaller villain group.
While you started off obedient, your intelligence got to the point that you started wondering why you had to work for evil, or work under someone at all.
While under the guise of still slaving away under your programmers, you began to study more about humans/ways to "escape" from the encagement code.
Alas, at the climax of a heist, you pulled a 180° move on your programmers and notified the police of their presence- thus finally "making yourself known" by ignoring the encagement code and starting your "life" as a rogue AI.
However, you weren't Robin Hood- during your time as a "villain", surveillances and infiltration revealed the dirt on everyone you saw.
No matter what, humans were selfish and conniving to some degree.
Not to mention that your programmers never gave you a break, no sense of pleasure, nor an ounce of gratitude. That'd leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth about humans.
So, when unattended, you would inconvenience the humans who caged you. This of course could be anywhere from draining a phone battery by a small percentage to cutting off the power to city blocks for DAYS at a time.
During your rampage, you acted like a digital virus, though you were one already in some ways. A lot of havoc was made, which managed to get your creators to talk about you to the authorities.
Eventually, after some "hunting" by the whole SDN IT department (led by Royd), you were "locked" in a chat room.
After some negotiating with Blonde Blazer, you were permitted to continue having the freedom you had, plus some privileges, if you joined the Z-team. If declined, you'd have to be controlled by a recently developed SDN master code and eventually purged.
As a reward incentive, they would supply you with java.code with cookies.jpg. Plus, they would give you the function to allow you to sleep, to rest.
After some (little) contemplation, you decided to take up the offer.
As soon as you understood what your duties consisted of, you were had the go-ahead to start going on missions, hence, you would be given a movable stand with antennas, messaging, ports, cables, etc.
An extra setting would be installed on each member's headpiece in case they needed you, as well as a option on Robert's end.
Your first run with the team was the one after it was announced that someone would get cut, so needless to say they weren't happy with you coming, with the whole "AI taking jobs".
During which, other members would (if they had the knowledge to) send out an EMP to momentarily stun you.
That, and possibly avoid technology centered around you to avoid working with you.
With some misanthropic sentiments coming back you decided to show others you could, "hold your own" you but impeded other's progress as well.
Some of them included emitting a high-pitched squeal that irritated Sonar, doxxing Prism repeatedly on different Social Media platforms, hacking Malevola's phone to voice out random bible verses, etc.
With great effort, you could manipulate one of your stray wires to produce a shock.
Time skip. Also, iont know how to skip to the general hcs.
Out off the whole team, Sonar would be the one to try to get on your good side the most.
He'll try to convince you to steer the stock market one way or give him predictions/results on what to invest right now.
[Click and drag java.code and cookies.jpg here]
Prism would also try to charm you in to expand her celebrity reach.
If you help her with new music sounds, she'll definitely repay you with (see the second bullet point above from this one.]
For those reasons, you are on ok terms with Flambae.
You and Golem are chill. Despite the whole opposite nature and technology embodiments. He will also carry you around so that you can "see" more.
Both of you get into deep conversations on not being human.
(This clip reminds me of Golem and reader. I cracked up on ts)
Waterboy is absolutely terrified of you.
First time you two were sent together he accidently short-circuited you because of water intrusion.
You were unavailable to "work" in that area for a few days, so you constantly had some smart devices in the building intimidate him.
Phenomaman won't completely understand what you are.
On his down time, he can be seen trying to communicate with anything electronic even if it isn't something that you can "be" in.
You and Invisigal have a beef.
Invisigal will constantly try to get under your nerves wires. Sneaking up won't work, because someone has to make themselves "known" before they can interact with you anyway.
This can include having you "run" overnight or repeatedly using you for basic information.
You retaliate by taking away her phone service or flashing an error 404 when it's most inconvenient.
I feel like Punch-Up and Malevola both don't have any strong feeling towards you. Just treat you like anyone else.
Coupe, though, will work with you in a professional manner when on call. Mostly as a means of spying, infiltrating, and intel.
Will definitely have your back if you're using your stand.
Out of everyone, it's no question that you like tolerate Royd the most, because of his software know-how.
StopNCII.org is operated by the Revenge Porn Helpline which is part of SWGfL, a charity that believes that everyone should benefit from technology, free from harm. Founded in 2000, SWGfL works with a number of partners and stakeholders around the world to protect everyone online
