alias_sqbr (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alias_sqbr) wrote2018-10-02 10:07 pm
alias_sqbr) wrote2018-10-02 10:07 pm
Entry tags:
Gender Neutral Emma in Space
There are so many other things I should be working on but the idea for this popped into my head, inspired by my worldbuilding idea where the society is ungendered by default and referring to someone's gender is like using a given name etc, something informal only done with people you know well.
I was thinking about what it would be like for a 19th century setting, which got me thinking about adapting a Jane Austen novel, and I decided Emma is the most gender neutral plot, since Emma's defining feature is her wealth not her gender. But regency England just makes no sense if you take out the sexism. So naturally IT'S IN SPACE. With artificial wombs etc, but still a super hierarchal space empire type society a la the Radch.
(You could also just straight up write Imperial Radch fanfic, but that is less appealing to me personally)
This also means I can steal bits of Chinese and Japanese name/language stuff and have POC around. And ROBOTS.
Thinking about various characters:
Can stay the same plotwise:
Emma: Mostly defined by being An Heir To Money. Non binary because why not go all out with the self indulgence.
Knightly: Mostly defined by being a wealthy landowner. A lady.
Harriet: A poor nobody, should probably be trying harder to find A Job. A dude.
Mr Elton: Hierarchal space empires probably will have some sort of religion. Emma refuses to ever mention their gender because NO WE ARE NOT THAT INTIMATE. A woman?
Mrs. Elton: Mention's everyone's gender, he is the WORST.
Martin: Still a farmer and a dude.
Causing me some trouble:
Miss Bates and Jane Fairfax: Need to be Unable To Work and Reliant On Others. Clones? Robots? Aliens?? To keep the "there for the grace of god go I" is Emma one too? Are Jane and Emma the same model of robot?
I feel like if I'm making non-binary an option, I need two sets of non binary terms: the default ones everyone uses for formal speech, and the intimate sort you use for people who are actually non-binary. I think they/them makes the most sense for default/formal. Maybe thee/thou can come up? I liked that in The Goblin Emperor. This would be easier if I actually knew anything about language lol.
The thing that got me thinking about this today was the fact that in Chinese the prefix "A" is added to names for both servants and family. I kind of like that as another marker. Also keeping the "people below you in the hierarchy get referred to informally" thing, so servants all get gendered.
Also stolen from Chinese: people have a childhood name their parents give them, and a name they choose as an adult. Thus, being trans is no big deal, maybe all children are treated as (informal) gender neutral and deciding your gender is a coming of age thing (but you can always change it again)
I'm thinking names can be gendered, and so people are formally referred to as, say, Mx E. Woodhouse when Mx Woodhouse is too ambiguous. Using the full given name is an informal thing.
Part of me thinks it would be cool to make the society China inspired in general, and then I feel overcome by certainty that I would screw that up SO BADLY. I'd want it to be set in the future, so this would be people drawing on a mixture of modern Chinese and English etc societies. HMMmmm.
WAIT. If I make it Chinese/Japanese inspired everyone can be wearing kimono/hanfu type stuff. Pretty gathered dresses for everyone o.O Hanfu has a more regency-ish sillouhette. Regency hairstyles would be useful for people with curly hair. I feel like Emma is black? I'm inclined to go for implausibly varied diversity rather than the more plausible "everyone of the same class and background is a similar ethnicity, which may be a mixture of current ethnicities". And if there's some, like...cloning/artificial babies from stored DNA thing that makes some sense? It makes a rigid class system even more irrational but when has THAT stopped anyone.
I like the idea of Jane and Emma being the same Thing, but am not sure what that Thing is. Something that makes you have Potential For Greatness, but have legal restrictions on what you can do to earn money. Genetically engineered clones? Jane is like...a castoff extra from the Emma-making process? Maybe there was some Weird Alien Thing that happened and some kids were born Different? Or maybe like...Emma was carefully made at great expense, and the company cut corners and just repeated the design when the Bates ordered a baby for cheap.
I was thinking about what it would be like for a 19th century setting, which got me thinking about adapting a Jane Austen novel, and I decided Emma is the most gender neutral plot, since Emma's defining feature is her wealth not her gender. But regency England just makes no sense if you take out the sexism. So naturally IT'S IN SPACE. With artificial wombs etc, but still a super hierarchal space empire type society a la the Radch.
(You could also just straight up write Imperial Radch fanfic, but that is less appealing to me personally)
This also means I can steal bits of Chinese and Japanese name/language stuff and have POC around. And ROBOTS.
Thinking about various characters:
Can stay the same plotwise:
Emma: Mostly defined by being An Heir To Money. Non binary because why not go all out with the self indulgence.
Knightly: Mostly defined by being a wealthy landowner. A lady.
Harriet: A poor nobody, should probably be trying harder to find A Job. A dude.
Mr Elton: Hierarchal space empires probably will have some sort of religion. Emma refuses to ever mention their gender because NO WE ARE NOT THAT INTIMATE. A woman?
Mrs. Elton: Mention's everyone's gender, he is the WORST.
Martin: Still a farmer and a dude.
Causing me some trouble:
Miss Bates and Jane Fairfax: Need to be Unable To Work and Reliant On Others. Clones? Robots? Aliens?? To keep the "there for the grace of god go I" is Emma one too? Are Jane and Emma the same model of robot?
I feel like if I'm making non-binary an option, I need two sets of non binary terms: the default ones everyone uses for formal speech, and the intimate sort you use for people who are actually non-binary. I think they/them makes the most sense for default/formal. Maybe thee/thou can come up? I liked that in The Goblin Emperor. This would be easier if I actually knew anything about language lol.
The thing that got me thinking about this today was the fact that in Chinese the prefix "A" is added to names for both servants and family. I kind of like that as another marker. Also keeping the "people below you in the hierarchy get referred to informally" thing, so servants all get gendered.
Also stolen from Chinese: people have a childhood name their parents give them, and a name they choose as an adult. Thus, being trans is no big deal, maybe all children are treated as (informal) gender neutral and deciding your gender is a coming of age thing (but you can always change it again)
I'm thinking names can be gendered, and so people are formally referred to as, say, Mx E. Woodhouse when Mx Woodhouse is too ambiguous. Using the full given name is an informal thing.
Part of me thinks it would be cool to make the society China inspired in general, and then I feel overcome by certainty that I would screw that up SO BADLY. I'd want it to be set in the future, so this would be people drawing on a mixture of modern Chinese and English etc societies. HMMmmm.
WAIT. If I make it Chinese/Japanese inspired everyone can be wearing kimono/hanfu type stuff. Pretty gathered dresses for everyone o.O Hanfu has a more regency-ish sillouhette. Regency hairstyles would be useful for people with curly hair. I feel like Emma is black? I'm inclined to go for implausibly varied diversity rather than the more plausible "everyone of the same class and background is a similar ethnicity, which may be a mixture of current ethnicities". And if there's some, like...cloning/artificial babies from stored DNA thing that makes some sense? It makes a rigid class system even more irrational but when has THAT stopped anyone.
I like the idea of Jane and Emma being the same Thing, but am not sure what that Thing is. Something that makes you have Potential For Greatness, but have legal restrictions on what you can do to earn money. Genetically engineered clones? Jane is like...a castoff extra from the Emma-making process? Maybe there was some Weird Alien Thing that happened and some kids were born Different? Or maybe like...Emma was carefully made at great expense, and the company cut corners and just repeated the design when the Bates ordered a baby for cheap.
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Thank you :)
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At least in Taiwan, calling people Ah-whatever isn't just a family or servants thing, it's just a sort of nicknamey, familiar way of calling someone, including friends, friendly classmates, friendly neighbors, etc. Hell, people used to call Chen Shui Bian (a former president) "Ah Bian". Obviously you would not address a president that way, but it's like saying "Dubya" to refer to the second Bush or whatever (sorry, that's the first nicknamed English-language-country president I could think of).
Choosing a different name upon adulthood isn't a universal thing among Chinese speakers, which is as sensical as anything else given the vast number of Chinese speakers in various cultural niches. None of my family have ever done or referred to such a thing (again: Taiwanese; we're not that much in touch with the mainlanders on my yeye's side).
Just don't Firefly it :P
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Trying to get a feel for the way this reflects in culture, would this be similar to the affectionate way that I've heard anglo Australians refer to Queen Elizabeth II as 'Our Liz'?
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Thank you! I didn't know that about "Ah". And yeah I skipped writing down about 3 mental steps from "In Ancient China adults generally didn't go by the name their parents gave them as children" to "Choosing your name could be part of a gender choosing ceremony!", it's stealing as much from bar mitzvahs etc as anything else.
Definitely not doing the Firefly thing of making everyone white! A bit worried I have done something Firefly-esque with the class/race dynamic, but I'm going to poke at it some more.
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(Not that I've ever read Austen myself)
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Thank you!