So, I know this is kind of silly and minor, but I'm gonna throw it out there anyway. I love Major Drills and will gladly take time out of my day to gallivant around subeta smoochin statues for him and feeding dragons and whatnot. That being said, can we take "pansy" out of his vocabulary? I think his yelling is fun, and I'm fine with most of his lines. His football-bat-related-insults are way more creative than anything I could ever come up with. But pansy, specifically, is almost always used to denigrate an effeminate gay man. Some people don't mind it, others consider it a slur, but either way it feels kinda weird seeing it 20x a day from a tough-love drill sergeant on a site that values inclusivity (and has a bunch o' gays using it constantly). Maybe switch it up with something more... broadly insulting?

I never really liked it... its something small and easy to change, and would be MUCH appreciated, for real

It doesn't bother me personally, but I'm not a gay guy so I don't have a horse in this race. :'| Then again, Major Drills is also the NPC that dresses up as a ballerina for Halloween Morostide, so I don't think his "pansy" comment is intended to be homophobic.

If it truly bothers people, I'm alright with changing it. Maybe to "maggot", "posy/posey" (insert other wordplay on flower names here), or "wussbag" or something else not gender-or-sexuality specific.

Oh yeah, I'm sure the person who originally wrote his lines had good intentions! They might've just been unaware of the history/connotations of the word. Subeta has a great track record with LGBT stuff from what I can tell, so I don't think they'd include any sort of homophobic content intentionally.

@ Hamilton Yeah subeta's really chill and good about being inclusive and lgbt+ friendly. Drills quests were added a good long while back, so this is just a language hiccup that hasn't aged well. It'll be easy enough to change.

I found this definition of the word in the Urban Dictionary (See definition 3)

Even though the word can be used for women I still think it needs changing because of the confusion bit.

I've felt uncomfortable with this word as well. I support changing it.

I think we're on the same page, but keep in mind that the quoted definition is only true according to whoever submitted it to urbandictionary. You can call anyone you want a pansy, but it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of the time it's used as a specific (albeit old-fashioned) insult for gay men.

If we do need to bring a dictionary definition into it, we'd probably be better off using a non-crowdsourced one with a little more clout, i.e. Merriam-Webster ("disparaging + offensive : a male homosexual"), Oxford English Dictionary ("informal, offensive : An effeminate or homosexual man."), or Collins English Dictionary ("If someone describes a man as a pansy, they mean that he is a homosexual. [informal, offensive, old-fashioned]")

I think the urban dictionary definition shows that some people are familiar with the word being used for men and women but the person who submitted this definition did point out that it's "often confused with fag, sissy and other rather small-minded terms for a homosexual man." Maybe the person who wrote Drills' lines was familiar with the word being used for men and women.

The meaning of words is forever changing so maybe, in the future, everyone will regard pansy as meaning "pathetic and wimpy, generally used as an insult against both sexes" but the time isn't now because most people still associate it as being an insulting term for a gay man. This is why it should be changed on Subeta.

As a footnote to this, the word 'gay' used to mean carefree, joyful, merry. I remember finding a very old children's book about Robin Hood which ended with "And so died Robin Hood the gay outlaw." Then there's the dance which alludes to the Gordon Highlanders called the Gay Gordons.