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[aphrodite_mine]

General question/comment post for RW 2015.

Comments will be automatically screened, then un-screened as they are answered if the matter is not private.

Comments

[gehayi]

Anyone with an AO3 account will be able to access the sign-up form once it exists. Here is a step-by-step guide to requesting and offering through the AO3 form (though please note that cis-female centric language is not a reflection of the current exchange). If you don't already have an account, again, please ask for one.

The automated invite queue is down at the moment. According to AO3:

"Due to an influx of spam works, we are temporarily suspending invitations from our automated invite queue. Please read more in our AO3 News post, available also in Bahasa Indonesia, Deutsch, español, français, italiano, magyar, Nederlands, português, Русский, and suomi."

AO3 goes on to say:

"To that end, we're temporarily suspending issuing invites from our automated queue. Existing account holders can still request invite codes and share them with friends. You can use existing invites to sign up for an account; account creation itself will not be affected. (Please note: Requests for invite codes have to be manually approved by a site admin, so there might be a delay of two to three days before you receive them; challenge moderators can contact Support for invites if their project is about to open.)"

That may be what you were referring to, but if it wasn't--I thought that you should know that the process might not be as automatic this year.

[aphrodite_mine]

In the past we've had existing invite codes. If it comes down to it, we may be unable to add new users this year, but may be able to work out some sort of sign-up proxy, if this does become an issue for anyone who wants to participate.

[(Anonymous)]

Can we get an update on the matching progress?

[aphrodite_mine]

I've just posted an update. Assignments should go out this weekend.

[(Anonymous)]

You say that characters of "marginalized genders and sexes" are allowed, but then specify that trans men are allowed even though "male" is not a marginalized gender or sex. I'm not saying I'm opposed to trans men being included, given the focus of the exchange, but I think the wording could be better. Maybe include "gender alignment"?

[aphrodite_mine]

Gender alignment seems like a good term! I'm going to unscreen this thread so if other people have thoughts they can also weigh in.

The draft of FAQ posted here went through months of revisions with the help of a small volunteer group of not cis individuals -- but that doesn't mean we caught everything.

Thank you for this comment. Words matter, and we want this to be a safe space for everyone. Please get back in touch if you have further thoughts on this.

[(Anonymous)]

The FAQ seems to imply that in previous years only cis women were allowed in RW, but I could have sworn it was just for women, period. Weren't trans women allowed previously too?

[aphrodite_mine]

I am sorry for that implication, as you are absolutely correct. rarewomen was for women, period. If you have a moment, could you please point me at wording that is cis-centric?

[(Anonymous)]

The most glaring example is "(though please note that cis-female centric language is not a reflection of the current exchange)" when the language in previous posts was only female-centric.

[aphrodite_mine]

Thank you!

[(Anonymous)]

Completely out of left field question, but where did you get the information that Nathan Seymour uses he/him pronouns? Tiger & Bunny is not an English-language series. Third-person pronouns are totally different in Japanese.

[aphrodite_mine]

I apologize for the inaccuracy! Do you have a suggested change?

[aiffe]

I'm not anon and I haven't watched Tiger & Bunny yet, nor am I a fluent Japanese speaker, but my understanding of the language is that there's less of a focus on third person pronouns (she/he/they/ze/etc) because while Japanese has words kiiinda like this they're hardly ever used like they are in English and gender-neutral variants or simply using the person's name are much more common, but rather gender is more usually expressed through first person pronouns, which unlike in English are gendered. Like one example is the character Nuriko in Fushigi Yuugi, who very unfortunately is given male pronouns in the subtitles I've seen (people refer to her as "he" even if that wasn't in the Japanese) but her first-person pronoun that she uses for herself is "atashi," which is feminine.

My understanding of Japanese first-person pronouns goes somewhat like this:

Watashi - gender-neutral, formal, does not imply a desire to not be gendered by itself.
Atashi - informal, feminine, use by male-identified people is very rare.
Boku - informal, masculine, occasionally used by female-identified people (bokukko or "boku-girls") but seen as tomboyish, possibly more common in anime than in real life. Utena is one example of a femme-presenting character who uses "boku."
Ore - masculine, somewhat rude/aggressive. Use by female-identified people is very rare.
Atai - feminine, stigmatized, associated with low education and sex work, I almost never hear this one even from women. Used instead of "atashi" in some dialects.

There's a lot more ways to refer to the self in Japanese, some archaic/mostly only seen in old poetry or among royalty, and it's also more acceptable to simply say one's own name, though this can be seen as humble/cutesy--more or less the opposite of how arrogant it would sound in English.

There's other subtle ways a character can have gender expressed linguistically in Japanese. Honorifics can have gender implications, though not as strong as he/she/etc in English. Even the word used for "you" can imply gendery things, as well as power imbalances, and those power imbalances themselves can be gendery.

So while I'm not familiar with the character, I think this stuff is more relevant to Japanese-language discussions of gender--though it's not impossible for a very camp gay cis male to use "atashi," it's almost on the same level as a cis male drag queen using the pronoun "she." I don't know what this character uses, but I thought this might be useful in discussions of Japanese-speaking characters' gender presentation. Corrections welcome from people whose understanding goes deeper than "watched some anime and read some books."

[aphrodite_mine]

This is helpful! Thank you.

[andromache]

How do you prefer us to nominate music videos? There's a girl group kpop vid I want to nominate (it has a fairly clear story going on it) but none of the "characters" are named. Should I just use the group member's ames?

[aphrodite_mine]

You can use the group members, or generic titles for the characters such as Coffee Shop Visitor, for example.

[igrockspock]

I am confused about what to do for fandoms that have both a TV show and a movie. Veronica Mars, for example, started as a TV show and then the canon continued as a film, and all the characters overlap. Should I choose all media types?

Also, what should we do if we want to nominate a character who doesn't have an AO3 tag yet? I found instructions for fandoms that don't have AO3 tags, but not for individual characters (although that could just be me overlooking things)

[aphrodite_mine]

All media types is acceptable for that, or something like Veronica Mars Universe.

For a character who doesn't have a tag, just type their full name. Accepting it into the tag set will tie it to the fandom.

12 AM or 11:59 PM?

[brightknightie]

You've extended sign-ups to "3-3 at midnight CST!"

Please forgive me for the minutia, but I don't want to accidentally mislead anyone: is the new deadline Tuesday 3/03 12:00 AM (extending sign-ups 24 hours) or 11:59 PM (extending sign-ups 48 hours)? (The previous deadline was expressed as 11:59 PM.)

Thank you very much!

Re: 12 AM or 11:59 PM?

[aphrodite_mine]

Apologies: 11:59PM, extending the deadline by 48 hours.

[(Anonymous)]

The pinch hits that just went out (for the no-shows), what's the due date?

[aphrodite_mine]

May 1, 11:59PM.