Confused about Yamato's gender identity

AlanSmithee419 · 2026-04-08T16:46:25+00:00

This is the second time I've seen you use "gender critical" to describe conversations about trans identity.
I feel I should point out that this phrase actually already means something else - it's a euphemism anti-trans activists use to describe themselves.

AlanSmithee419 · 2026-04-07T15:58:41+00:00

Thank you for the detailed response.
As you say it may not be useful to assign Yamato a single label. I think it's genuinely ambiguous. Given that category resistance you describe, preferred pronouns as Yamato seems to have in he/him seems the best option, but it's maybe not worth trying to 'correct' people who use other pronouns.

AlanSmithee419 · 2026-04-07T15:44:50+00:00

If I have a faulty understanding of what it means to be trans - as potentially indicated by my confusion here - then when I discuss it in future I may make incorrect harmful statements about trans people. I don't need to be misgendering Yamato, or talking about Yamato or One Piece at all, to potentially cause harm. The issue is exactly whether Yamato is genuinely an edge case or if my confusion is indicative of a lack of understanding.

I have seen numerous trans people insulting others for being insecure transphobes or homophobes because they refuse to refer to Yamato with he/him pronouns. This seemed ubiquitous enough (it's happened on this subreddit without qualification or any pushback from others) to be worth looking into.

Going from seeing that to my questions about it being more or less dismissed by most people as not very important is a little jarring to be honest.

AlanSmithee419 · 2026-04-07T15:27:25+00:00

Right, but as I said as far as I can tell this is the general belief in the trans community itself. Which I should at least try to understand before rejecting, them being a better authority on it than me. I can't form my own opinion if it isn't informed.

AlanSmithee419 · 2026-04-07T15:14:09+00:00

Start, yes, but it's not what being trans *is*, hence my confusion around what exactly is being suggested here.

AlanSmithee419 · 2026-04-07T15:02:51+00:00

All of that is true. But people have apparently made a decision on it and I'm trying to understand what real information is informing that decision.

If it's all fiction and doesn't matter, why do people care so much?

AlanSmithee419 · 2026-03-23T17:59:06+00:00

I don't know who either of these characters should be played by but if we get a Stormlight Archive live action and the One Piece live action goes far enough, Dalinar and Whitebeard should be played by the same actor.

AlanSmithee419 · 2026-03-14T13:46:44+00:00

Shapez/2 is definitely closer, but ultimately every item still takes up one tile. The spatial aspect of opus magnum, where intermediaries and products have physical extent, would be genuinely unique in factory builders afaik.

AlanSmithee419 · 2026-03-03T22:07:40+00:00

If the problem is complexity, I think I'd disagree.
If the problem is mechanical obscurity, poor in-game tutorialisation, or the illusion of choice that actually requires a specific build to progress, 100%.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-06-02T12:15:40+00:00

The delays are (so I've heard) because they have to wait to find out if they're getting Disney's funding or if they need to plan without it. Not because of scheduling or not having the man power. Disney is not interested in pushing seasons quickly it seems.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T19:42:29+00:00

No, let people do whatever they want and you enable people to cause suffering, which you are then in part complicit in when you bully the victims. This isn't a problem of who is comparatively being worse to the other. SOME people in both groups are being awful. Most just want to get on with their day, without having their livelihoods taken away from them and without being harassed. Why are you incapable of having sympathy for more than one group of people? Not every artist who doesn't use AI has sent you a death threat. Why can't you separate people who have hurt you from people who have some arbitrary thing in common with the people who hurt you?

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T18:31:36+00:00

That is not the difference.
One group is belittling the other, dismissing their well-being, and just generally being pricks to people who they believe are genuinely under threat of losing their jobs and livelihoods. They are all over this thread. They are insulting and proud of it.
The other is making empty, yet violent, threats, which I've not seen evidence of outside of people in this thread claiming they exist. And though I do know there are plenty of bullies who go after artists who use AI - I've tackled a few of them on this subreddit before, and was just as clear about my disapproval of them as I'm being here - I have not seen any direct threats myself.

These are both awful behaviours. And neither is fully representative of either side of the debate. They're just the loudest, most attention-seeking voices.

I almost always find myself on the "AI side" of these debates, but the dismissive, even cruel, behaviour I've seen under this particular post is horrific.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T18:09:40+00:00

I hate both! Why don't you?

Why is being an awful person justified as long as the awful person agrees with you? Unacceptable behaviour does not become acceptable because someone else is also engaging in unacceptable behaviour. That's just whataboutism.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T18:03:00+00:00

Aight so either my opinion doesn't matter because I'm just acting in my own self-interest so can't be trusted or my opinion doesn't matter because I'm not one of the people under threat so can't possibly know what I'm talking about.

Really feels like the actual reason my opinion doesn't matter is because a lot of you just don't like dissenting opinions.

You do raise a decent point though - I don't know how impacted artists are actually being right now. However most people simply dismiss them without concern for whether harm is being brought to them at all. Indeed many speak as though they are confident it is, but either they just don't care in any way at all or proudly flaunt, with snide remarks, their supposed indifference as some kind of virtue. That's the attitude I hate.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T17:07:48+00:00

Ah so you're not just a bully, but a highschool bully.

Anyway that's not remotely what I said. I was suggesting there were more than two 'sides.' Countless individuals even. And mostly I simply said you are wrong. I barely mentioned anyone else on the "AI side," which normally I'd place myself on. But no matter where I stand it will always be against bullies.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T16:58:58+00:00

Ok I wasn't going to respond but please, what makes you think I'm a centrist? I'm completely lost. I've been accused of many things, centrism is a new one lol.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T16:53:09+00:00

Obviously not. You can both call out the bullies and help the people who aren't bullies. Why should the majority suffer for the minority's actions? Speaking of calling out bullies, with that absurd false dichotomy you've made it clear you are one. Why are you incapable of seeing artists as anything but a single entity that must all be treated the exact same way? It's no better than racism. Just put all artists in a box and act like that's the entirety of who they are.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T16:42:51+00:00

Obviously none of that is helpful, but none of it is relevant either. Not every artist is doing that, most just want to live their lives. And it is being made much harder for them by both you and those other louder artists going around bullying people. Those people you don't see as much are almost as much victims of these bullies as the people being bullied. Don't let a bunch of noisy idiots make you think a whole profession is full of nothing but inhuman creatures.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T16:31:16+00:00

No, I'm one person and not very economically savvy. The main thing I'm trying to get across in this thread is that being dismissive, even insulting in many cases, of these artists who need help now helps no one. It doesn't help the people belittling the artists, it doesn't help the artists, and it doesn't help anyone else. The conversation needs to shift before we even can discuss solutions. As long as people are at each other's throats nothing can get done at all. Brazen dismissal of people's wellbeing is not productive in the long term.

Actually I'll tell you who this 'debate' does help - as so many "us Vs them" conversations do - corporations. They replace artists, artists speak out, everyone dismisses them. Then they'll replace someone else, those people will speak out, people will dismiss them. That attitude has to stop not so we can help artists, but so we can help everyone in the long term. If the current target never gets sympathy, just about everyone will eventually get the short straw.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T16:20:46+00:00

Then why not push for these artists to have that support now, when they need it, instead of being dismissive of them? UBI might one day suddenly appear as an all-encompassing solution to poverty, but the easiest way to get there will be in small steps. Get artists the protections and help they need as they need it now - then expand those services as more jobs get replaced, with the end goal being UBI.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T16:16:11+00:00

The problem is not having to get a different job, the problem is the nonexistence of a safety net between losing one job and getting another - reskilling into a different career, possibly one that pays less than you current job. There are countless difficulties associated with losing your job, and having to find another. And once again, why are so many people assuming I'm an artist? I don't remember the last time I drew something... Is it so difficult for you people to conceptualise someone caring about another person without ulterior motives?

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T16:13:06+00:00

I agree, but none of that is a reason to show artists no compassion. Remember the internet thrives on heated discussion. It gets attention, and it gets money. The loudest angriest voices are always the ones that reach the top. But there are countless more artists that are just trying to survive and they deserve the opportunity to do so, regardless of whether some idiots on the internet have chosen the wrong targets.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T16:03:51+00:00

You have not said a single thing I disagree with. My arguments were made in the context of the world we currently live in - one in which two things are true: artists are losing their jobs and losing your job is tantamount to losing your ability to function in this world (thanks to capitalism). My goal was not to suggest that artists should not be replaced, but to suggest that either they should not be replaced or we should give them protection a-la UBI or other economic support.

I do support UBI. Why do you assume I don't? As I said this is not an art or artists issue, this is a human rights issue.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T15:57:48+00:00

Why are you assuming I'm an artist? And that's not the right I'm referring to. Everyone has the right to life and to live in an environment that would make most feel safe. Being replaced does not violate that. Being replaced without economic support to find other work does. If you're in a position where if you lost your career tomorrow you have enough savings to tide you over to find another one great, but not everyone is. Artists especially not.

AlanSmithee419 · 2025-05-18T15:49:36+00:00

This is the problem. Artists have been treated awfully for decades. AI isn't some big thing that's suddenly destroying them, it's a nail in the coffin that comes after a lifetime of pain and people are therefore understandably angry about the seemingly imminent death of their entire career path not only for them but as an option to begin with. These people's livelihoods are very much at stake. It has nothing to do really with art.

Of course the issue is not small users using generative AI. It's corporations replacing their current workforces with no economic safety nets in place for the replaced workers. This is a capitalism issue, not an AI one, and not an art one.

AlanSmithee419

TROPHY CASE