I'm making a video game, which is sort of a mixture of a puzzle game and interactive fiction. I'm a little uncertain about some name and pronoun choices that I currently offer to the player and I thought that you guys might be able to help me.

The game is in English. At the beginning of the game, the player chooses the main character's name and pronoun. This is presented through two screens that offer the choices through textual narrative. It goes something like this, with [brackets] marking the options that the player can currently choose between.

This is the story of...
[...Alice Aster.]
[...Alan Aster.]
[...Al Aster.]

It is...
[...her story.]
[...his story.]
[...their story.]

Detached from the wider narrative context, this method may seem clunky, but I believe it works within the game itself. Mechanically, that is. I'm less sure about the options that I'm offering.

The player can choose any of the three options in the first screen and again any in the second, regardless of what they chose in the first. This affects the player character's name and pronouns used throughout the game.

Now, there clearly are also many other pronouns that people identify with in English, just like there are many other names. However, for technical and design reasons, it would be challenging for me to have the player freely type in their preferred name or pronouns, and neither can I really present a long list of options. At the same time, by condensing all non-binary choices into the most common (?) "their" and by assuming that "her" also equates to "she" and so on, I wonder if I end up coming across as someone who thinks they are on top of things, but clearly has only a very superficial understanding of the topic. Which, to be honest, might not be that far from the truth.

Similarly, of the three names offered, "Al" is intended as a more gender-neutral or non-binary option than the other two. Does that make sense? Would there be a better way to handle this? Are there names that better signal non-binary or gender-neutral identity?

Or am I simply approaching this wrong?

The game itself does not deal with gender identity. As you can see, I'm not the right person to write about the topic. The choice of gender in fact has relatively little effect on the story itself. The player also has no choice over other matters of identity, including their character's cultural background or family structure. The character is not intended to be the player, but someone whose story the player follows. But it still feels important for me and for the story to offer a choice about the name and the pronoun. And I wouldn't be comfortable with it being just a "traditional" choice between male and female, as it would quite explicitly imply and reinforce assumptions about the world that I think we should move away from as a society.

Not that my game is of course going to change the world in any meaningful way. But having worked on it for about six years now, it has been one long personal learning experience for me. And this feels like another opportunity to understand something better.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts and advice.

This has been a thread I’ve wanted to make for a while but I’ve hesitated to for fear of it going badly. Recent events, however, have made me think it’s a topic that’s we can’t really afford to ignore.

When people read the phrase “toxic masculinity”, some see a clear collection of bad behaviors or mindsets that exist independent of men as a whole, while some see an indictment of an entire gender or identity. I’ve talked to men who have admitted to not knowing how to be masculine without being “toxic”because they can’t see a clear line where one ends and the other begins.

Thus, I’m interested in exploring what specifically gets defined as “toxic masculinity” and how we distinguish it from neutral or positive masculinity.

Part of what has kept me from asking this is that I see in people here two different experiences that I fear might collide in bad ways. I know we have people here (myself included) who have been directly harmed by behaviors and mindsets that would fall under the umbrella of “toxic masculinity”. Likewise, I know we have people here who have been harmed by an over-application of the phrase — being seen or treated as “toxic” simply for being men and thus being denied the dignity of their own identity. Giving credence to one experience can feel like it overrides the other.

Even just the phrase itself is the kind of thing that often divides people into camps and causes conflict, and I’m hoping we can avoid that here. (Though, to be honest, Tildes always impresses me with how we handle difficult topics, so I’m not sure where my worry is coming from). My goal for this topic is for everyone to have the opportunity to speak openly to convey understood truths and lived experiences in ways that maintain dignity for everyone involved.

The guiding question is about distinguishing masculinity from toxic masculinity, but answers don’t have to be limited to that. I’m interested in hearing about people’s relationship with masculinity in general, both in people who identify with it and those who don’t.

Previous topics in the series (which are still open should anyone want to add to them):

What's hard about being a man?
What's hard about being a woman?

This topic is for people who do not fit into the roles of "male" or "female": what is hard about being non-binary?

As before, please be mindful of the atmosphere of the post and the lived experiences of the individuals posting and try to keep things not only civil but welcoming to them. Furthermore, please be aware that majority voices can easily override a thread like this. As such, please make room for and elevate the voices of the non-binary people who choose to participate.