Dronkey's gender

[that guy who's absolutely pissed off]

There's a bit more to it than that. Only one of the Dronkeys shown in the film has fur as red as the one in-game. The idea that that Dronkey might be named after Dragon's mother (since it has more Dragon characteristics than the other Dronkeys) is an interesting titbit and definitely worth including on the wiki page even if it's from, at best, circumstantial evidence. Please don't strawman an argument then accuse us of "fabricating arguments from unrelated information" after trying to argue Dronkey's gender based on their voice actress.

From what I can tell you feel this way because Sleeping_Beauty said: "I think the community needs to come up with an answer on what gender we need to refer Dronkey as" which was probably just poorly worded. No one is going to force anyone to refer to any characters in a certain way. Even if the devs come in with information or something is found in the manual or game files you can do what you want but certainly having an "official community stance" isn't something that's actually going to happen. Lalzu and Lord Ape aren't going to swoop in with their ogre hands and set it in stone in the Official Shrek SuperSlam Competitive Community Charter.

I'm going to get my major points regarding this issue down:

1. In-game Dronkey might be Debbie, might not be. No official word. Wiki page should include this information but remain gender neutral: they, their, etc. (but not "it" because that's rude )

2. The idea of "official community" stances and decisions of this kind are stupid. We're a diverse group of individuals that don't agree on everything and don't HAVE to. This is distinct from decisions regarding game rules. (Which, even then, are at the TOs discretion)

3. Suggesting someone is sexist and/or transphobic because they want to look into the gender of a character is a very not nice thing to do. Transphobia is horrible and comparing it to what's going on in this thread is silly.

And just a few things to direct at specific users:

A51 Trooper - I'm not blaming you in any way for this or having a go at you. Implying the community had to make a decision was poor wording, that's all. You are the communitiy trivia champion!

m0th64 - I think it's great that you're passionate about this issue. I have trans friends and I've seen the statistics and read the horror stories and it makes me sick that this is the world we live in. I hope this thread hasn't caused too much upset and I understand why you'd lash out when you thought the community was going to make a decision like this. I genuinely hope this hasn't soured your opinion of the community because you are a valuable part of it.

Let's not fall out at Shrekmas of all times!

[A51 Trooper]

So, is it a good idea to create a 'gender confusion/controversy' on Dronkey's page for now? Also, even if the English teacher at my school finally gave me an A in that subject, it does not make my grammar perfect. I just forgot how to write the topic properly at the time. Thanks for the compliment Dan!

[m0th64]

I appreciate the clarification, that guy who's absolutely pissed off. I apologize if I came across as hypersensitive on the issue. I volunteer at an lgbt library in my spare time (read: frequently) and I, myself, am a part of the lgbt community (though as I said before I prefer to keep that part of my identity separate from my gaming persona) so transphobia is just something I'm accustomed to seeing in my day-to-day life and I reacted out of instinct. As I said, I apologize for misinterpreting you. That was my mistake. I think at the end of the day, we all have the same goal: to expand the community and play a game we enjoy. I'm actually quite proud of the community we've created so far, and I hope to see us continue to welcome new Slammers moving forward. I still think trying to connect our Dronkey back to Debbie is tangential at best, but I wouldn't be opposed to including that theory in the character's trivia section at least. 

As an aside, any ideas why one of Dronkey's alts is blindingly bright blue? I can't think of anything for it to be a reference to. So far none of dragons or donkeys that have appeared in Shrek cannon have been that color, to my knowledge at least, though I guess blue dragons could exist somewhere in the Shrek universe. 

[that guy who's absolutely pissed off]

Nothing that grandiose. Maybe in the first paragraph:

As it's not stated whether Dronkey is any specific Dronkey from the Shrek universe their gender is unknown.

Then in trivia:

* Dronkey's default costume bears a resemblance to a specific Dronkey from the Shrek films, specifically the Dronkey with redder colouration. A current theory suggests this Dronkey is Debbie, as Debbie was named after Dragon's mother and this Dronkey has the most Dragon-like characteristics of all the Dronkeys. Whether this implies the in-game Dronkey is Debbie or it's just a reference is unknown.
   * It's possible the redder colouration of Dronkey was chosen over the more grey colouration in an attempt to make Dronkey and Donkey more visually distinct.

which is basically what it already says on the page. The thought about Dronkey and Donkey needing to stand out more just occurred to me as well, as having two donkey shaped characters that are the same colour and only have one letter different between their names could lead to some confusion.

Now I've written Dronkey so many times it's lost all meaning.

[A51 Trooper]

EIREXE posted a Trivia bit on Dronkey's page. And Moth64, while I haven't seen any possible references/explanations as to why one of Dronkey's alternate is blue, there is an Ice Dragon boss featured in the video game Shrek the Third, though I highly doubt that is a reference, since Shrek the Third was released 2 years after SSS (Both the film and the game). Maybe the developers just decided to use the color just because THEY thought it looked cool on Dronkey. Though one could also question how or why they went with a black Humpty Dumpty.

[m0th64]

Dec 23, 2015 21:27:06 GMT A51 Trooper said:

EIREXE posted a Trivia bit on Dronkey's page. And Moth64, while I haven't seen any possible references/explanations as to why one of Dronkey's alternate is blue, there is an Ice Dragon boss featured in the video game Shrek the Third, though I highly doubt that is a reference, since Shrek the Third was released 2 years after SSS (Both the film and the game). Maybe the developers just decided to use the color just because THEY thought it looked cool on Dronkey. Though one could also question how or why they went with a black Humpty Dumpty.

There are some questionable alts in this game, for sure. I'm still questioning if Pinnochio went to medical school, myself. Meanwhile characters like Black Knight have almost no color variation between alts (though I guess for BK specifically it makes sense, as the name implies a predominately black outfit.) 

[A51 Trooper]

I've seen a lot of questionable things about Humpty's black outfit, but no one has mentioned anything about Anthrax's black costume.

[that guy who's absolutely pissed off]

I imagine most of them are chose by:

"What can we do as an alternate costume for character X?"
"... colour Y?"
"Why not."

Some of them may have had thought put into them, and it's fun to work out which ones did and what the reference is.

For example, I just realised black Humpty bears a striking resemblance to a century egg.

[that guy who's absolutely pissed off]

[A51 Trooper]

Dec 24, 2015 3:03:49 GMT that guy who's absolutely pissed off said:

I imagine most of them are chose by:

"What can we do as an alternate costume for character X?"
"... colour Y?"
"Why not."

Some of them may have had thought put into them, and it's fun to work out which ones did and what the reference is.

For example, I just realised black Humpty bears a striking resemblance to a century egg.

Have you got a clue about the blue one?

[dthaipome]

I'd love to watch somebody get hysterical over somebody calling Dronkey an "it."

[that guy who's absolutely pissed off]

I think it's incredibly rude to refer to pets as "it", let alone fictional characters in video games.

[dthaipome]

Dec 25, 2015 3:16:02 GMT that guy who's absolutely pissed off said:

I think it's incredibly rude to refer to pets as "it", let alone fictional characters in video games.

*They is probably a better term for what I said.

Woops

[Mr. Misfire]

While I don't really care either way about Dronkey's gender, I really hope their name is Parfait. Even if it isn't, I want to refer to them as Parfait. Can we just call Dronkey Parfait?

[Lalzu]

Dec 23, 2015 19:20:18 GMT that guy who's absolutely pissed off said:

Lalzu and Lord Ape aren't going to swoop in with their ogre hands and set it in stone in the Official Shrek SuperSlam Competitive Community Charter.

That's what you think