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2% is wildly optimistic.

That said, I've been working on linear fiction for the past few years, with an eye to eventually pursuing traditional publication. I want to someday see a book I wrote in a bookstore, while there are still bookstores. Making some amount of money would also be nice, but I don't expect it to exceed minimum wage.

I was also going to say something about still using "gay" as a pejorative in 2022, but in light of recent events... yeah. Please consider expanding your vocabulary, because equating "gay" and "bad" is not as dated as I'd like it to be.

That's the thing, the English language itself would have to be altered in order to make its use irrelevant here. No amount of expansion to one's vocabulary can help this condition, because a suitable replacement word does not yet exist. Because it's not simply equating "gay" with "bad". Gay in this environment and context has taken on a very particular kind of alternate definition that simply "not good" or flatly "bad" doesn't quite cover. It's hard to explain, but it's kind of like how 'dumb' and all its synonyms can never hope to compete with retard for the exact linguistical niche that the word has picked out for itself.

The lack of syllables and the complete negligible of effort to type or say lends it a certain dismissiveness and irreverence that allows the meaning to be inherently known particularly when its use has nothing at all to do with queer people. It typically refers to a kind of sentimentality, sensitivity, lameness, or the contrived nature of something, which "stupid" and its relatives are simply too broad to convey, and "silly" too endearing. Sure, it does seem to touch on negative stereotypes in a very very abstract way, but we can only use the tools we have to categorize our experiences, and it's not our fault if the picture is useful- You don't need to hate poor people and peasantry to call something 'boorish', or refer to someone as a clown. It's the same with idiot, imbecile, etc. which were all the retards of their day and age. We just aren't sensitive to it because it's old. And one day, gay will be, in all its meanings.

I'm pretty sure it's certainly not just people saying gay the wrong way that led to 'recent events' anyhow. In a wacky butterfly-effect sense, maybe. But I think something that had a lot more to do with it would be shit like how our political representatives being senile obstructionist bug-people with extreme nepotistic influence that can protect their relatives from prosecution and responsibility for their actions even when their grandchildren are basement ogres at least twice as retarded as they are generally disaffected, and full of the maladaptations that come from being raised by a braindead and genuinely homophobic meth-monkey. I'd say those ingredients have far more to do with the resulting shitsoup than people's colloquialisms. It's a bit like the argument for trying to rigorously regulate personal waste and fuel footprint when the real problem is industry itself. I mean sure, every once in a while there's people who throw car batteries in the ocean for fun and they probably ought to be stopped, but little lifestyle changes don't really change the system as much as they just alter how the consumption machine is driven.

Altering the English language is precisely what I'm attempting to do. The language is constantly changing, and honestly my first thought WAS that "gay (pejorative)" was dated. And the less people who use it, the less people will use it, until it's gone. That's what I'm hoping to see.

As for substitutes... "cringe"? Or are there nuances that this increasingly old owl is missing?

I admire your ambition, but cringe is pretty fuckin' gay.

I'd say the subtlety of the matter is that it's a neologism new enough that people are still fighting over because some people are butthurt about how cringe they are, so they want people to stop saying it, while others consider themselves an authority on cringe, which is a cringe thing in itself, so it hasn't had time to crystallize the way gay has. In a lot of contexts, using the word cringe is cringe in itself, and kind of negatively dates people in the opposite way. Cringe also draws on a kind of aspect of uncleanliness and the idea of social faux pas that gay doesn't. Cringe implies something should not be done, because it is a humiliation or a depravity, while gay takes the far less abrasive, "This is dumb/pussy shit but in a kind of amusing way". Something that is cringe is genuinely less than, and to call someone cringe is to imply that. It's got that schoolyard hatred edge that gay is old enough in 2022 to have dulled significantly in company that minds other peoples' sexuality as little as we generally do here. There is vitriol in gay, for certain, but not disdain, disgust, or discomfort. (Another ninja edit, but I realized one-line funni jokes weren't conducive to discussion.)

Interesting. I kind of think cringe is... not cringe, but something there might not be a word for. Lacking in empathy and/or imagination. And not, as you've pointed out, synonymous with gay. Nor is there another precise match. Language is fascinating! I'd still rather see the usage fall out of favor, and something that isn't linked to anyone's intrinsic and morally neutral traits arise in its place... we'll see!

Re: Your last paragraph, aka your NINJA EDIT: You're not wrong, but I still want to live in a world where my young nephew never hears the words "that's so gay" from his schoolmates. But I had a very specific experience of realizing that I WAS gay* when that felt like the worst possible thing I could be, so. Kind of biased here.

*as I contextualized it at the time

That makes a lot of sense, considering especially how in more genuinely, widespread hateful times, even as late as when I was in elementary school, gay had a meaning rather more similar to the way cringe is now. And it's maybe a sign of positive change that the sort of thing kids are using to describe cringe is now separate from the sexual identity component. But language is a vast decentralized web and I think it works very well within this spectrum for its purpose. In spaces like a first grade classroom, it's not appropriate, but in communities like this, I don't know. It says what it means very well, like other words don't, and it's generally being used in the correct cystian way by anybody who's been around here long enough. If kids young but precocious enough to want to write storygames themselves ever wander on here, they generally have a good sense of what they probably shouldn't repeat. If they haven't come of their own volition, then it's honestly kind of a funny barb because if they honestly did learn anything too colorful for class, (though I doubt it really would come from here specifically) it's probably for the best that their teachers learn a thing or two about responsible precautions in where they lead their kids. Notably, maybe away from forums.

Honestly I figured Thara was using "gay" as in "dumb" rather than "bad"

She should have used retarded rather than gay. It fits better and is apparently just as offensive nowadays.

God, Morgan is so fucking gay and LAME.

If only my gender matched my AGAB, you'd be half right! ^_^

You could be any gender in the world, and you would still be gay. 

I don't even know what a AGAB is. 

Assigned Gender At Birth. What they put on your birth certificate, basically, and then treat you as until you manage to convince them otherwise. IF you manage to convince them otherwise... >_<

They should convince you to get into a street fight with a moving train. 

My sensei would disapprove!

Do you always wish death and/or maiming on people who critique your language?

Thara has wished death and manglement on people for far less!

Oh, really? I would never. I'm very nice all the time.

Wish death, maiming? Where'd you get that from?

I'm brown, so I'm naturally obsessed with locomotives.

See this gif:

Trains represent great strength and fearsome power for brown people. Being told to fight one is the highest compliment one can receive. Open up your sensibilities to learn the customs/traits of another race.

I actually think you have a good chance of winning.

I heard this thing about certain types of 'gays' having force field powers of a sort in times of great distress or action. 

XD

Ah, so not only are you gay, you're also retarded. Got it.

being ugly and having no friends doesn't mean you're a different gender

I'll have to take your word for it. ^_~

Hmm.

I get where you're coming from.  Sent is right that using "gay" as an insult has become completely divorced from its original meaning on CYS (and many other corners of the internet).  And you're right that using "gay" as an insult does continue to perpetuate homophobia, even if it's meant in an entirely innocent way by the person using it.  So... what does one do in that case?  Do the intentions or impact matter more?  Whose linguistic interpretation of the word is the correct one?

The linguistic side of things is really interesting here.  It's related to the trend of medical terms for intellectual disabilities being taken and turned into insults--like how "moron" and "retard" used to be a medical terms, and now people are doing the same thing with "special" and "autistic". 

In a more innocent way, people naturally trend towards hyperbole, and end up doing this with any medical term.  We say we're OCD when we're feeling a little stressed, or feeling ADHD when we're feeling distractible.  Teenagers frequently say they are "literally dead" when they find something slightly amusing. 

This is all technically inaccurate, and in the case of medical term usage, potentially harmful.  Using OCD/ADHD/autism as a common word trivializes the condition, and makes it harder for people without those conditions to understand how extreme the experience of having it actually is.

But at the same time, this isn't something that's going to change.  It's been shown time and time again that people will always wind up using new medical terms in this way.  On what grounds would you go about stopping or regulating it, anyway?  It can't be stopped, it's just a perpetual linguistic arms race.  It's messy and imperfect and has no clear and fair solution.  It just isn't a hill worth dying on. 

It's a grey area.  I've thought about this a lot, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

In linguistic issues like this, the side I ultimately fall on is "majority wins".  Whichever side has the most people using the word a certain way is correct about its definition.  Given the current linguistic trends, I suspect "gay" as an insult is probably on its way out.  It's getting less and less innocent usage, and being associated more and more with its negative origins.  Majority rules--if everyone agrees "gay" as an insult is bad, then it is.

But things are different on CYS.  On CYS, CYS majority rules.  And on CYS, the majority clearly believes that the use of "gay" as a non-homophobic insult is okay and acceptable.  So I figure people using "gay" as an insult is okay on CYS, even if it's probably not acceptable anywhere else.

Is this going to be a shock to gay people coming to CYS to the first time and seeing it used this way?  Yeah.  I was shocked myself the first time I saw it.  But you're going to get culture shock in some way any time you enter a new community.  I bet most Americans and British people are appalled when they first arrive in Australia and hear "cunt" being used in casual conversation.  CYS is not under any obligation to make its cultural idiosyncrasies palatable to casual strangers.  It sucks that some people's feelings are going to be hurt by this (and yeah, they will be hurt by this), but it doesn't mean CYS's linguistic oddities are necessarily bad and evil.  It's all about context.  The context here is pretty innocent.  No gay people were harmed in the making of this post.

Gryphon, did you know I'm a gay icon?

I was part of a very popular lesbian ship with me and mizal.

Although I had nothing to do with any formation of said ship, fan-art, or even any story-games about it. To say I did is lying, deep fakes, and doctored footage. 

Yup.

I demand to see the fan art! ... MHD?

A very thoughtful reply, thank you.

And I'm either too old or too full of turkey to have the energy to argue the point further, so you may end up having the last word!

To be fair cunt is merely rude in England, and scottish people use it almost the same way australians do, so the concept wouldn't be quite as foreign to them. I have no idea how exactly it became the nearly the "N-word for Women" in the US, but it seemingly has.

Damn, thread split already. This whole discussion turned gay pretty fast.

That gay bitch Owl sperged out about my thread title and tried to ruin my thread with their gayness.

She said something about critiquing my language, despite never having critiqued a story on this site, written one, or well, done anything but sit and collect points like a welfare whore! and contributing nothing of tangible note. Modify my language? She's lucky I didn't modify her points!

Thankfully, End split my thread for me. 

But I can't have my niggas see me getting disrespected by some wack-ass CoG type nigga, you feel me?

Let's try to be fair to her, lots of people are feeling very sensitive about this mass shooting that didn't even reach a double digit kill count before a couple of unarmed queers nearly kicked to death the fattest and most inbred fucktard from a whole wacky cast of Mormons, methheads, politicians, and prosecutors that inexplicably didn't feel like doing their jobs a year ago in a way that would've prevented it.

This was a terrible day for the dignity of our nation. Why can't we just be cool with gayness like the Dutch, Enterpride says they never have these problems. Man, just look at them:

I only found out when I was in high school about the term blackface. We don't have an exact dutch translation of that word. There was once a time where I thought that everyone in the world celebrated Sinterklaas, quite a culture shock to find out otherwise.

I literally critiqued a storygame of yours, Thara. It's still in my points log, because admittedly I don't crit much. "Never" is definitely overstating the case, however.

As for writing a storygame... well, I'll refer you to your own thread, the one this was split off from. I considered how I wanted to invest my limited time, and decided that linear fiction was the better bet.

And how's that working out for you?

Three finished novel-length manuscripts... all with various issues that I can't figure out how to fix. Give me a few more try-fail cycles and I might produce something I'm willing to query.

YEY!! ^_^

Now that you've brought it up, I do find the history of the word "gay" to be really interesting, since it's meant so many things over the years. Everybody knows that the word "gay" used to mean "happy" before it meant "homosexual", but it's actually had way more meanings than that.

For example, in the Christmas carol "Deck the Halls" we have the line "Don we now our gay apparel" which roughly translates to, "We are going to put on our best clothes" with the word "gay" meaning "best" or "most expensive" but even that's a relatively modern meaning, the song being written in the mid 1800s. The word "gay" goes back way earlier, and the meanings are pretty surprising.

As far back as the 14th century, the word started to become associated with "sexual immorality" ... But, not the way you'd think. It was more to do with promiscuity than homosexuality, and around the 17th century, the term "gay woman" was generally used to describe a prostitute, "gay house" was a brothel and, ironically, the term "gay man" was used to describe a womanizer.

So... Over the centuries, the word "gay" has been used to mean, "good", "bad", "homosexual man" and "womanizing man"... Pretty cool little word, that. ^_^

Amusingly, one of the possible etymological origins for bad is bæddel. Apparently it’s an old English word for a womanish man or hermaphrodite. If that’s true, then the English language is built on homophobia, just like my life