Male and female-specialized baxxid actually sound identical by default, but almost every single one trains their voice to be lower or higher in order to mimic human male or female vocal characteristics, and to be recognizable as male or female when speaking.
(High-res version available for free over on my Patreon!)
That’s epic. Kalgkur has his mind blown, lmao. This whole strip is gold.
Kal’s visible confusion is so precious. I wonder if the headtilt is coming up next. ^^
Ah, poor Kalgkur, having to learn more about the outside world through the most confusing plotline possible when just being jumped into it. I can only imagine he has quite a lot of adapting to do.
Just wait until Kass learns that thing tried to turn _everything_ into female yinglets…
Kalgkur has become the question mark meme! I love it!
Who did it better: Kalgkur or Vizlet (oops 20)?
I am going to withhold judgement until we have a sample of Deep Thought from a Human, an Indrel, and an “Isher”, but so far I prefer Vizlet’s.
Personally, I’m in favor of Kal’s version. Vizlet was working things out in her head.
Is Kalgkur going to ask if Kass would prefer to go by male pronouns and terms now? I’m sure Kass has gotten used to ignoring people using the wrong pronouns, because it would be too troublesome to explain why to Every person. But I’m sure he’d appreciate being called the correct pronouns by those closest to him.
Kass’ comment in the third panel suggests to me that they believe the correct pronouns are those according with an individual’s biological sex. Kalkgur is now fully male, therefore ‘he’. Presumably this might have either been either incorrect or non-exclusive with ‘she’ before his biological specialization process concluded.
I would assume Kass avoids telling others how to properly refer to him, because it’s too much work to explain to everyone, and/or because he can’t risk letting info about his change get out.
Back on page 210, he told the elevator attendant, who refered to him as “ma’am”, to refer to him as “Sir”, just as preference. So clearly Kass still considers himself as a male, and likely, despite his current circumstances and outward appearance, still as a human deep down.
The assumption of ones pronouns being according to ones current biological sex would be relevant to most other species, considering they can’t change sexes as freely as Baxxid apparently can. But Kass’ current circumstances are an exception to that rule. He may be a female Yinglet, but he Was a human male, and was involuntarily changed.
I don’t know about this “…is now fully male”, Kalgkur stated the behavioral models of males appealed to him from a young age, so he likely has been male for quite some time. Baxxid most likely are not intersex, but unsexed before their “puberty”, and based on their preferences when their “puberty” comes, would they develop the correct equipment, be that one, the other, or both.
Relevant to the description, Kass already assumed, based on Kalgkur’s voice, that he was male, in panel 2, but, because of the complexity and looser standards of gender and sex of Baxxid biology and society, it’s common courtesy to ask the preference regardless of assumption.
I just checked, and there is also page 216 where Viracroix himself states that Kass is reluctant to reveal his current circumstances to the other people of House Ivenmoth. Viracroix himself stating he can’t blame him, and that it’s easier that way, though unsustainable. And with page 304, Ran’s new informational pamphlet, it seems they are trying to spread the information of Kass’ circumstances, but apparently also to contain it to just House Iventmoth.
I could be wrong here, but I think “sir” is less gender-specific when used in a militaristic structure. It’s used to address a superior, male or female.
Sir is specifically a term to addres men. Be it for your father, a male elder, or male in a position superior to yours. And, in your context, a man of higher military rank, specifically that of an Officer. The use of Sir in modern military terminology was a short lived lack of modernization, for one stupid reason or another, as well as a force of habit. The use of the term is rooted when only men could serve in the military, so the use of “Sir” was the expectation, because there could never have been any “ma’am”s.
But this has been modernized recently in the United States military.
I guess ran never made a Baxxid version of that paper to give to Kalgkur like his note said…
That seems like a weird thing to just give away to a representative of an allied-but-separate species. Sure, they’re on the same team, but isn’t this state secret territory? Officers and need-to-know only?
Does seem a touch frivolous, but Kass is clearly assuming that Kalkgur is joining the various-species research project with this assignment, and regardless, as essentially his bodyguard he’s gonna end up hearing it eventually.