The official Animal Crossing: New Horizons guide revealed the relationship between Flick and C.J.

[Faux]

You're right that the word "partner" has additional connotations in law and law enforcement. But I disagree that the "average person" doesn't know about the romantic meaning of the word. This is obviously anecdotal, but I recently had a conversation with my parents where we discussed how despite that when my mom hears the word "partner" she still primarily associates it with the connotation of "romantic partner" -- as in, a synonym for "significant other", regardless of the gender of the person using the word. My dad has been a lawyer for many decades; my parents are both cisheterosexual people and are not any or less more familiar with elements of queer culture than your "average" boomer cishets (other that what my best friend and I have taught them with our gay little ways).

Sorry, I didn't mean to say they don't know, but more to say it's less likely that in a connotation of saying, " I'll give this to x and they can make you awesome art, " adding partner in there sounds a lot more like a business situation to the average person. It's not like when someone introduces you to their significant other and says this is their partner..

I have been in the LGBT+ community for over 17 years. My best friend of 15 years is genderqueer as is their romantic partner.
My mom has known them for as long as I have.

She still doesn't call their partner the right terminology. I have to argue 'girlfriend' is not the case because he is transitioning. That he doesn't like boyfriend because it sounds infantilizing to a thirty year old man.

We forget the average person is not and does not have much deep involvement with the LGBT+ community, which is why we have to fight to be seen in these games as it is.

It was not, in my opinion, even slightly purposeful, and unless the writers themselves come and say it was, I will never believe it is because that is giving them credit for even trying when we cannot prove they were doing so in any way.

What everyone else chooses to do and conclude is on the, but I really don't care to allow them to claim even something as simple as pretending they did it in such a way as to let people feel comfortable with their interpretations.

 

[Sir Takoya]

Just because they're roommates doesn't mean they can't be mates.

 

[queentylerqueen]

Sorry, I didn't mean to say they don't know, but more to say it's less likely that in a connotation of saying, " I'll give this to x and they can make you awesome art, " adding partner in there sounds a lot more like a business situation to the average person. It's not like when someone introduces you to their significant other and says this is their partner..

I have been in the LGBT+ community for over 17 years. My best friend of 15 years is genderqueer as is their romantic partner.
My mom has known them for as long as I have.

She still doesn't call their partner the right terminology. I have to argue 'girlfriend' is not the case because he is transitioning. That he doesn't like boyfriend because it sounds infantilizing to a thirty year old man.

We forget the average person is not and does not have much deep involvement with the LGBT+ community, which is why we have to fight to be seen in these games as it is.

It was not, in my opinion, even slightly purposeful, and unless the writers themselves come and say it was, I will never believe it is because that is giving them credit for even trying when we cannot prove they were doing so in any way.

What everyone else chooses to do and conclude is on the, but I really don't care to allow them to claim even something as simple as pretending they did it in such a way as to let people feel comfortable with their interpretations.

Who is this average person you’re referencing?

The translators, for the sake of translating with this ambiguity in mind, probably won’t come out and /say/ this, if NoA/Nintendo wanted their first gay couple they’d have it. I know you want better representation, as do I, but I don’t understand why you’re dismissing subtext or other readings.

Proof is already here that this was a possible interpretation of the dialogue — the proof of omission: not “business partner”, not “friend”, not “cohort”, not “buddy” was used in the dialogue. Claiming that the whole point of view is invalid because an interpretation is not solid is to dismiss subtext itself.

Also you’re equating difficulty of your mother using correctly gendered descriptors boyfriend v girlfriend against an implied difficulty or lack of familiarity with using partner in a romantic context. These are not the same, aside from being unrelated to the topic at hand.

 

[Faux]

Also you’re equating difficulty of your mother using correctly gendered descriptors boyfriend v girlfriend against an implied difficulty or lack of familiarity with using partner in a romantic context. These are not the same.

Thank you for not reading. I will lend you the same courtesy.
Have a great rest of your day/night.

 

[SheepMareep]

No, I never said that _the LBGT people_ are delusional, stop misinterpreting my words. I was merely annoyed at a vocal but loud minority of people who claimed that CJ and Flick are canon couple, when it was evident that was not the case. Not aimed specifically people here at all, this happened to be the place to vent out. And no, I didn’t join the site to call people, but because I wanted to take part in the topics. This happened to be my first topic to take part in and currently the most used one, because people keep sending me retplies and I reply back when I can after work. Understandably the topic is something that sparks strong opinions, so misunderstandigs opinion clashes are bout happen.

You must be a bit naive to think that’s the only definition of what partner is. And I didn’t really think you would copypaste the front page of google search. I give you Ö for effort. Let me expand your horizons a bit, no pun intended.
P.S. Do you honestly believe that Nintendo sends their players subliminal messages trough their games? Don’t you think you are going a bit overboard? I’m slightly concerned about you.

Was not going to reply to this at all but you definitley struck a cord and kind of pissed me off so I am going to make this EASY for you to understand.

1. The people you are talking about being delusional saying flick and cj are together? We are primarily lgbt. So YES. You did call us delusional. Dont get mad about something you said. If you're going to say something so offensive to a group of people own up to it and APOLOGIZE not treat us as though we cannot point out such poor behavior.
2. In my post which you quoted I provided 2 separate definitions and did NOT say that was the only one. You clearly have not read my responses to anything in this thread as I've pointed this out multiple times that it is ambiguous in language.
3. This isnt necessarily a "subliminal message" it is context clues my dear. You use critical thinking skills to dissect meaning out of words. This is a basic skill used in all forms of communication.
4. Dont be concerned about me. I am on my way to be an RN next month and can say for sure I am in a much better place morally than you. Not to mention I dont join a site then immediately make fun of and make rude remarks to a group of people who have done nothing to me unlike you. There is an introduction board and you skipped right past it.

Please, continue to be rude towards me for no reason. I am eager to see your next uneducated response.

 

[diamond is unbreakable]

Anyway, flick and cj are boyfriends and savannah and audie are girlfriends

 

[SheepMareep]

Chevre and nan are also lesbians

 

[Faux]

savannah and audie are girlfriends

u sayin my girl audie cheating on whitney ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
or are they poly

 

[MayorMudkip]

Sorry, I didn't mean to say they don't know, but more to say it's less likely that in a connotation of saying, " I'll give this to x and they can make you awesome art, " adding partner in there sounds a lot more like a business situation to the average person. It's not like when someone introduces you to their significant other and says this is their partner..

I have been in the LGBT+ community for over 17 years. My best friend of 15 years is genderqueer as is their romantic partner.
My mom has known them for as long as I have.

She still doesn't call their partner the right terminology. I have to argue 'girlfriend' is not the case because he is transitioning. That he doesn't like boyfriend because it sounds infantilizing to a thirty year old man.

We forget the average person is not and does not have much deep involvement with the LGBT+ community, which is why we have to fight to be seen in these games as it is.

It was not, in my opinion, even slightly purposeful, and unless the writers themselves come and say it was, I will never believe it is because that is giving them credit for even trying when we cannot prove they were doing so in any way.

What everyone else chooses to do and conclude is on the, but I really don't care to allow them to claim even something as simple as pretending they did it in such a way as to let people feel comfortable with their interpretations.

Sorry to hear that about your mom, I've been in similar situations with my parents and I know how frustrating and hurtful that can be. I'm genderqueer myself, and basically all of the people I have my closest non-familial relationships with are either genderqueer or non-binary as well. Trust me, I don't forget that the "average person" doesn't have much involvement with or knowledge of the queer community.

Maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree, though I do think we're agreeing on quite a bit. I don't think we can split the semantic hairs of the specific linguistic uses of the word "partner" any more than we already have, we probably just don't see eye to eye on this. I still agree with your basic premise, that Nintendo should not get credit for any perceived representation people feel Flick and CJ present, and I would argue against anyone who disagreed with that premise if they were to present that view here or anywhere else.

But I disagree that simply acknowledging the fact that ambiguous language was used for CJ's dialogue is also giving Nintendo "credit" in any way. I am literally doing exactly the opposite of that and so are many other people in this thread. I haven't seen anyone defend or advocate for Nintendo's use of such ambiguous, easily-hand-waved-away terminology; we're discussing the choice to use it, what that means, and why people obviously have such a wide range of strong feelings about it. None of us are on the localization team at NOA, and can say definitively why this particular word was chosen and what the specific intent behind it was, you're right.

That being said, the indisputable fact remains that the word "partner" has a meaning that is in common use which signifies a romantic relationship, and it was chosen for CJ's dialogue, deliberately, without modifiers, phrased exactly as it is. You can view CJ and Flick however you like, no one's insisting that you have to see them as anything in particular. As I've said before, this isn't a matter of shipping or fandom to me (I really couldn't care less about that, though if anyone reading this does, more power to you), it's simply a matter of looking at the game, the text it offers, the potential queer context that surrounds that text, and the reception of that text by the audience. Even if Nintendo didn't make this choice for the right reasons, or for any reason at all, it's worth discussing those concepts. That's not the same thing as giving them "credit" for anything.

Also I don't say this as a gotcha and I don't want to be one of those people who waves their credentials around but I just want to reiterate that I literally have a degree in exactly this and have lectured at ivy league universities about the history/exclusion of queer content in games (nintendo games specifically), which is why I keep writing five paragraph essays in this Animal Crossing fan forum thread about whether a digital cartoon beaver and lizard are gay when I should be asleep, if anyone's wondering

 

[SuperK98]

Absolutely in awe of the fact that there's 10 pages of this all over a chameleon and beaver in a video game that may or may not be gay

 

[MayorMudkip]

Absolutely in awe of the fact that there's 10 pages of this all over a chameleon and beaver in a video game that may or may not be gay

One page of discussion for every Nintendo executive who would be pissed off by acknowledging this truth: CJ and Flick are gay and love each other, and I will be officiating their marriage them during wedding season.

 

[Faux]

Sorry to hear that about your mom, I've been in similar situations with my parents and I know how frustrating and hurtful that can be. I'm genderqueer myself, and basically all of the people I have my closest non-familial relationships with are either genderqueer or non-binary as well. Trust me, I don't forget that the "average person" doesn't have much involvement with or knowledge of the queer community.

[ snipped for length gjukhi ]

To simplify and shorten this whole thing for us:
I agree we are pretty much in agreeance.

And I want to also clarify that I don't disagree that it can be ambiguous.
I guess my literal only issue is people saying the ambiguity was a choice and on purpose and was done for a reason?? because many people, here and elsewhere, are giving nods saying that someone on the team purposely sought out this word to allow interpretation, when I personally do not think that is the case.
The fact they made the clarity in the guidebook does not seem like some correction or anything to the phrase used in the game so much as an expansion of it.

For game dialogue, it just feels like that is what the writers felt fit CJ's personality ( since, as a writer, I tend to think of 'what feels realistic' for a character to say, not so much 'how will the audience assume this means,' because too many people overanalyse literature where they do not need to, very much disliked that when I attended schooling in the States for a brief time ), not because anyone was purposefully looking for a term people could use however they want.

 

[LambdaDelta]

technically nothing of the image debunks them being lovers and them being lovers doesn't contradict anything in the image

 

[queentylerqueen]

there’s a big difference between overanalyzing and looking at subtext, also a little weird to assume exclusively US schooling in this thread for everyone that disagrees with you

when writing snippets of dialogue, where small choices have big impact on the understanding of the nature of relationships between characters, word choice is important

partner was chosen for a reason and saying you disagree that there was authorship on the part of the translator in this one instance without reasoning is just a blank assertion

 

[MayorMudkip]

And I want to also clarify that I don't disagree that it can be ambiguous.
I guess my literal only issue is people saying the ambiguity was a choice and on purpose and was done for a reason?? because many people, here and elsewhere, are giving nods saying that someone on the team purposely sought out this word to allow interpretation, when I personally do not think that is the case.
The fact they made the clarity in the guidebook does not seem like some correction or anything to the phrase used in the game so much as an expansion of it.

For game dialogue, it just feels like that is what the writers felt fit CJ's personality ( since, as a writer, I tend to think of 'what feels realistic' for a character to say, not so much 'how will the audience assume this means,' because too many people overanalyse literature where they do not need to, very much disliked that when I attended schooling in the States for a brief time ), not because anyone was purposefully looking for a term people could use however they want.

I understand what you're saying here, but I just briefly want to push back slightly. I've brought up the idea several times in this thread that it's possible the word "partner" was chosen intentionally by a queer person or people on the NOA localization team (I've also already stated this being true wouldn't negate the nature of the queerbaiting in the dialogue, so I won't get into that again).

The reason that I float that possiblity, though, is because I know queer people who work at Nintendo. I don't think any of them work in localization, but the reason I bring that up is simply because...queer people work at Nintendo. Do I know for sure that there are queer people on the NOA localization team? No, I don't (and even if I did, I can only guess at their motivations for their work). But I'd say it's at least fairly likely, statistically speaking, that there's at least some queer presence on the localization team (as I've pointed out in past posts here, other queer vernacular that made it into NH seems to indicate this). My only point here is that it's certainly not impossible for there to be multiple reasons for this particular language choice, and I certainly don't think it's far-fetched to ponder whether the choice itself was made by a queer person, for whatever reason. Queer people? In my Nintendo franchise? It's more likely than you think!

Respectfully, I am also a writer, as well as a narrative designer, and I don't really know that I'd go so far as to say the word "partner" fits CJ's personality necessarily? It's the job of a good writer/narrative designer/localizer to take into account not just what feels "real" but also precisely what you said -- how the audience will interpret the dialogue you write. If the player can't interpret your dialogue or if they're given too much room to interpret when you don't want them to, well...you probably need to rewrite or risk that they won't get very far in the game, which is why game writers/narrative designers need to be very precise in their language choices. This may just be a creative/vernacular difference, but if I were writing a character for a game who's supposed to be a young, cool streamer in the year 2020, if I meant "friend" I'd probably use "friend", or "buddy", or "bud". If I meant business partner I'd say business partner. If I meant roommate I'd say roommate. But I'd only make those choices if I didn't want to invite interpretation of the word "partner", knowing as I do that it has many potential connotations depending on who's reading it, and I want to be as precise as possible.

 

[Saaga]

Was not going to reply to this at all but you definitley struck a cord and kind of pissed me off so I am going to make this EASY for you to understand.

1. The people you are talking about being delusional saying flick and cj are together? We are primarily lgbt. So YES. You did call us delusional. Dont get mad about something you said. If you're going to say something so offensive to a group of people own up to it and APOLOGIZE not treat us as though we cannot point out such poor behavior.
2. In my post which you quoted I provided 2 separate definitions and did NOT say that was the only one. You clearly have not read my responses to anything in this thread as I've pointed this out multiple times that it is ambiguous in language.
3. This isnt necessarily a "subliminal message" it is context clues my dear. You use critical thinking skills to dissect meaning out of words. This is a basic skill used in all forms of communication.
4. Dont be concerned about me. I am on my way to be an RN next month and can say for sure I am in a much better place morally than you. Not to mention I dont join a site then immediately make fun of and make rude remarks to a group of people who have done nothing to me unlike you. There is an introduction board and you skipped right past it.

Please, continue to be rude towards me for no reason. I am eager to see your next uneducated response.

1. So, because you think that most people who shipped them are LBGT, I must have meant LBGT even when I didn’t say so or refer to that group in anyway. And even if they make a portion of those who ship them, again I wasn’t calling them specifically delusional, but that’s just your reading. It’s not all about you. That kind of assumption making isn’t healthy. If you don’t understand something or it is unclear to you, you could have asked me. But to clarify, I meant those who are vocal but loud minority in social media who enforced their views on ship as canon, even when the dialogue, the context, original and the other localizations tells the opposite.

2. While you didn’t say only definition, you brought me only one definition of the the word and nothing else and stated that as the official definition. ”Also if you truly wish to go for the "Definition" route I'll have you know you are very wrong my dear.
As my lovely friend google so kindly brought up for me here are the official definitions. #2 will shock you!”.

3. Do you ever think that may be text you read is just that and there is no ”clues” and you may be reading too much into it? You have a one very clear example in the game that clearly states same-sex relationships (the princess comic), so it doesn’t make any sense for Nintendo to suddenly ”hide” a second example under vague terms, if they were to be a couple. It doesn’t make sense.

4. While it is encouraged to make a introduction as a first post, I’m not obligated to do it as the first step and but if I do eventually write there, I want to have weekend off or more time to actually put some effort in it and not write it half-assed because I have limited free time due work during days.
I noticed that you are referring to me in endearing terms, which I find weird as we clearly don’t know each other or aren’t even close. Or is this some American thing? Because you mentioned it, I hope wherever you are going that it helps you. Though I find going to an RV trip in the middle of global pandemic a questionable for health reasons as you are supposed to be quarantined in the most parts of world.

 

[Clock]

I don't really understand why this is controversial, but I see the two of them as roommates working together as a business.

 

[Chris]

Second reminder to keep things friendly. There have been some unnecessary put-downs in this thread, even if they were not full-blown insults. Remember that on the receiving end of your posts are real people who will feel hurt by your words, no matter how kindly or subtly you try to phrase your opinion of them.

Also, if you have nothing to contribute to the thread then please do not respond. I have had to remove several posts that were irrelevant to discussion. This topic is perfectly valid.

 

[chameleoncommunism]

I don't want to look through 11 pages of thread so I'll just add my personal opinion, sorry if it's already been said:

I don't mind at all if players don't think that Flick & CJ are dating...there are lots of other reasons why you might not like that, from you just don't think they have the chemistry.

However it does become quite...glaring when people choose now to say there shouldn't be romance in Animal Crossing, when the newest update literally has you giving a cute heterosexual couple a wedding-themed anniversary photo. If you go through a series with occasional, but quite in-your-face, straight relationships and then choose the speculated gay couple to air your uncertainties about romance being in the series, people have the right to wonder why.

Normally I also get annoyed when people state headcanons as fact, but when it comes to LGBTQ+ headcanons, I think you need to remember the dark and horrific history behind the oppression of our communities. Considering straight people haven't been regularly oppressed for their sexuality, I think they can cope with LGBTQ+ people stating a chameleon and beaver are dating as if it's fact. All it is is projecting onto cartoon characters as a way of saying "we exist" in a world that consistently acts as if we don't.

 

[thatveryawkwardmayor]

this is some tumblr style toxicty can we not freak out or police people's headcanons. its a headcanon. thats it