Personal Pokemon Genders

[Deleted member]

Random thread, but what genders do you use to refer to the three Pokemon? Or do you go genderless on them?

Me having played Pokemon, I'm used to using male pronouns. In Ivysaur's case, I only refer to it as female in the Japanese dub due to the voice, plus I don't view plants/nature = exclusive femininity like some people seem to do. It's a pet peeve.

 

[1FC0]

They all have male sounding voices in the language that I use and they all have a 7/8 chance of being male so I refer to them all as male.

People generally agree on Squirtle and Charizard being male but the Pokemon that sounds most like a man in the English version i.e. Ivysaur is where people disagree.

In Pokemon Water and Grass where both associated with females. Both the first Water gym and the first Grass gym had female gym leaders with the Grass gym having exclusively female members and in the TCG for the gameboy the Grass and Water club where the only clubs where most members where female with the Grass club having exclusively female members. People associate water with women because women tend to flood you in bills and people associate grass with women because women often just sit somewhere all day doing nothing.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

They all have male sounding voices in the language that I use and they all have a 7/8 chance of being male so I refer to them all as male.

People generally agree on Squirtle and Charizard being male but the Pokemon that sounds most like a man in the English version i.e. Ivysaur is where people disagree.

In Pokemon Water and Grass where both associated with females. Both the first Water gym and the first Grass gym had female gym leaders with the Grass gym having exclusively female members and in the TCG for the gameboy the Grass and Water club where the only clubs where most members where female with the Grass club having exclusively female members. People associate water with women because women tend to flood you in bills and people associate grass with women because women often just sit somewhere all day doing nothing.

You might wanna be careful with those stereotypes, even if they're "jokes". Things like this are why our community is accused of sexism... because it is sexist. I normally don't care when it's just a small comment or whatever, but that was pretty bad mate.

 

[1FC0]

You might wanna be careful with those stereotypes, even if they're "jokes". Things like this are why our community is accused of sexism... because it is sexist. I normally don't care when it's just a small comment or whatever, but that was pretty bad mate.

No, our community is being accused of being sexist because some people want to be offended and will therefore seek out things to be offended by. There are even instances of people who made being offended profitable.

Though I admit that I make it easy for them.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

Im

No, our community is being accused of being sexist because some people want to be offended and will therefore seek out things to be offended by. There are even instances of people who made being offended profitable.

Though I admit that I make it easy for them.

I'm not even personally offended, but yeah, you do make it easy for them, by passing actual sexist remarks. Sorry dude, but public forums for all demographics are no place for stuff like that. Smash needs to be a lot more inclusive about this stuff or it will remain a somewhat scunmy community forever. We can be better than this.

 

[Kith]

Im

I'm not even personally offended, but yeah, you do make it easy for them, by passing actual sexist remarks. Sorry dude, but public forums for all demographics are no place for stuff like that. Smash needs to be a lot more inclusive about this stuff or it will remain a somewhat scunmy community forever. We can be better than this.

Thank you for calling it out. You can't make a comment like "women often just sit somewhere all day doing nothing." and then claim that our community doesn't have sexism problems lol

 

[Deleted member]

I was not expecting this thread to take a sharp turn. I didn't ask for a debate.

 

[Wiinner159]

Ahem.

Back on topic I'm in the same boat as OP, although I only ever really use the English dub because that's my native language and I prefer being able to understand what's being said. I think the primary reason why is probably due to a subconscious thing brought about from watching the original Pokemon tv show as a kid, but given how I barely remember it so I don't know if even there Ash referred to his Pokemon with a specific set of gendered pronouns I can't say that's for certain the case. It probably also has to do with the fact that generally, I ascribe certain genders to certain species of Pokemon just due more to their design as most people do (how often do you see people refer to Gardevoir as a he, even before Gallade was a thing?), and because Squirtle and Charizard have more of a boyish design I always think of them as male unless proven the contrary. With Ivysaur it's probably just because the rest of the team is male (pre-Ultimate that also included the trainer) alongside the generally more masculine sounding voice that the English dub provides. The design of Ivysaur to me doesn't really give me a strong masculine or feminine feeling, just a general teenage one which makes sense in my mind given the deeper voice Ivysaur has compared to Bulbasaur in most appearances

 

[Deleted member]

Ahem.

Back on topic I'm in the same boat as OP, although I only ever really use the English dub because that's my native language and I prefer being able to understand what's being said. I think the primary reason why is probably due to a subconscious thing brought about from watching the original Pokemon tv show as a kid, but given how I barely remember it so I don't know if even there Ash referred to his Pokemon with a specific set of gendered pronouns I can't say that's for certain the case. It probably also has to do with the fact that generally, I ascribe certain genders to certain species of Pokemon just due more to their design as most people do (how often do you see people refer to Gardevoir as a he, even before Gallade was a thing?), and because Squirtle and Charizard have more of a boyish design I always think of them as male unless proven the contrary. With Ivysaur it's probably just because the rest of the team is male (pre-Ultimate that also included the trainer) alongside the generally more masculine sounding voice that the English dub provides. The design of Ivysaur to me doesn't really give me a strong masculine or feminine feeling, just a general teenage one which makes sense in my mind given the deeper voice Ivysaur has compared to Bulbasaur in most appearances

Thank you so much for steering this back on track and giving a non-sexist answer.

I also use whatever the design suggests. Ivysaur looks like both but English VA Ivysaur is male to me.

 

[TreeBranch]

Well that was certainly not how I expected the first reply to go haha. What a plot twist. I have to admit, that got me, but it was still completely uncalled for and off topic lol.

As for the topic at hand, I think due to being a male, I imagine a lot of Pokemon being male as well. It's like what my mind defaults to I guess. I don't think this really influences what I refer to the Smash Pokemon as though, as I think I'm in the majority here with my choices. As stated in other posts, I also consider Ivysaur a female. Jiggs and female pikachu are also obviously refered to as females. For Pichu I flip around a lot. He/She has both masculine and feminine accessories so I usually just switch to whichever I feel like using. Spiky eared Pichu is also canonically female, so there's that

 

[Deleted member]

Well that was certainly not how I expected the first reply to go haha. What a plot twist. I have to admit, that got me, but it was still completely uncalled for and off topic lol.

As for the topic at hand, I think due to being a male, I imagine a lot of Pokemon being male as well. It's like what my mind defaults to I guess. I don't think this really influences what I refer to the Smash Pokemon as though, as I think I'm in the majority here with my choices. As stated in other posts, I also consider Ivysaur a female. Jiggs and female pikachu are also obviously refered to as females. For Pichu I flip around a lot. He/She has both masculine and feminine accessories so I usually just switch to whichever I feel like using. Spiky eared Pichu is also canonically female, so there's that

I really can't see Ivysaur being female with an English voice like that.

I didn't know Spiky Eared Pichu was canonically female, but hey, I see Pichu as female anyway due to the voice, as with Jigglypuff.

Pikachu managed to avoid this conflict since Brawl. Good for him/her.

 

[1FC0]

Thank you for calling it out. You can't make a comment like "women often just sit somewhere all day doing nothing." and then claim that our community doesn't have sexism problems lol

How often do you read sexist things like my joke here? I have been a while on Smashboards and have never read anyone else saying something like that as far as I know. And I am getting burned tight here for an innocent one-liner.

Do you really think that this whole community who burns people for making sexist jokes no matter how innocent those jokes were and where the only sexism is a small stray joke once in every few years has too much sexism as a problem? If the amount of sexism in this community offends someone then that person will be perputually offended by every large community on the internet. This community is as anti-sexism as a large community can reasonably get.

Well that was certainly not how I expected the first reply to go haha. What a plot twist. I have to admit, that got me, but it was still completely uncalled for and off topic lol.

No it was on-topic actually. The last paragraph responded to his comment about the association between nature and femininity by pointing out that there is also an association between water and femininity in Pokemon. This was relevant due to the fact that Squirtle gets referred to as male. So it would mean there is a double standard if Ivysaur gets referred to as female due to such an association but Squirtle referred to as male.
Even the last joke played on something ontopic, though obviously being a stray one-line joke it was not meant to be taken as the focus of my post.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

How often do you read sexist things like my joke here? I have been a while on Smashboards and have never read anyone else saying something like that as far as I know. And I am getting burned tight here for an innocent one-liner.

Do you really think that this whole community who burns people for making sexist jokes no matter how innocent those jokes were and where the only sexism is a small stray joke once in every few years has too much sexism as a problem? If the amount of sexism in this community offends someone then that person will be perputually offended by every large community on the internet. This community is as anti-sexism as a large community can reasonably get.



No it was on-topic actually. The last paragraph responded to his comment about the association between nature and femininity by pointing out that there is also an association between water and femininity in Pokemon. This was relevant due to the fact that Squirtle gets referred to as male. So it would mean there is a double standard if Ivysaur gets referred to as female due to such an association but Squirtle referred to as male.
Even the last joke played on something ontopic, though obviously being a stray one-line joke it was not meant to be taken as the focus of my post.

I mean....rampant sexism exists all over the *Smash* community as a whole, especially at actual tournaments where my female friends get talked down to and play friendlies with dudes that sandbag and then ask for phone numbers because "girls are just here to meet people, they don't care about games, they're bad at them anyways". Things like this are well-documented and talked about often, and it's keeping members of our community from feeling safe and welcome, as well as hindering its growth. Perhaps this is not as much of a problem on Smashboards specifically, but that's not the point and still doesn't justify rude remarks directed at roughly fifty percent of the global population. Just apologize and move on. Sorry to be off-topic.

 

[Kith]

Do you really think that this whole community who burns people for making sexist jokes no matter how innocent those jokes were...

Innocent sexist jokes. Now that's a take I've never heard before lol

 

[Fell God]

I'm surprised this thread turned out like this hahaha

 

[1FC0]

I mean....rampant sexism exists all over the *Smash* community as a whole, especially at actual tournaments where my female friends get talked down to and play friendlies with dudes that sandbag and then ask for phone numbers because "girls are just here to meet people, they don't care about games, they're bad at them anyways". Things like this are well-documented and talked about often, and it's keeping members of our community from feeling safe and welcome, as well as hindering its growth. Perhaps this is not as much of a problem on Smashboards specifically, but that's not the point and still doesn't justify rude remarks directed at roughly fifty percent of the global population. Just apologize and move on. Sorry to be off-topic.

Things like what happens on those tournaments are things that I do not do and therefore unrelated to me. Do not pretend that I am one of those people. I will not apologize for any of that since I have nothing to do with it.

My behaviour is related to Smashboards specifically. Those tournaments have the sexist problem, not Smashboards. So why are you bringing this to Smashboards specifically?

I am respectful and welcoming towards women and men alike. Personally a joke like this about men would not even phase me. Assuming that my joke would harm women would be equivalent to assuming that women are more fragile emotionally than I am. I just tend to treat women as equals and assume that what I can handle they can handle. Sorry for that.

And just to clarify, that apology was not sarcastic. Just because I have thick skin does not mean that other people ought to have equally thick skin. I ought tone down on the offensiveness to a level well below what I myself would be able to take. And I will.

 

[Masonomace]

I've considered Squirtle male, Ivysaur female, and Charizard male.

 

[1FC0]

I consider them all male mostly due to their 7/8 gender ratio and male sounding voices.

 

[Deleted member]

I consider them all male mostly due to their 7/8 gender ratio and male sounding voices.

I don't really pay attention to gender ratios, but everything about them screams male for me.

Ivysaur's gender treatment reminds me of Male Corrin's unpopularity.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

Things like what happens on those tournaments are things that I do not do and therefore unrelated to me. Do not pretend that I am one of those people. I will not apologize for any of that since I have nothing to do with it.

My behaviour is related to Smashboards specifically. Those tournaments have the sexist problem, not Smashboards. So why are you bringing this to Smashboards specifically?

I am respectful and welcoming towards women and men alike. Personally a joke like this about men would not even phase me. Assuming that my joke would harm women would be equivalent to assuming that women are more fragile emotionally than I am. I just tend to treat women as equals and assume that what I can handle they can handle. Sorry for that.

And just to clarify, that apology was not sarcastic. Just because I have thick skin does not mean that other people ought to have equally thick skin. I ought tone down on the offensiveness to a level well below what I myself would be able to take. And I will.

I respectfully disagree with the overall logic of the first part of the post, but you're still planning on being more considerate, and that's what matters. Thanks