That actually makes me feel a bit better -- that it's not an obvious problem with my code, but something that requires more digging. And thanks for reminding me about the debug thing; it's been so long since I modded that I'd forgotten all about it.
White space has never been a problem for me; I've been coding since well before the turn of the century and that sort of feels like native punctuation to me (like the way people who are fluent in English and skilled in the use of language will typically know where to put a period or how to break things into appropriate paragraphs). My brain's well specced for it, and actually finds it a bit hard to conceptualize the people who don't notice the "tiers" there. (Also the spaces vs. tabs thing amuses me because I've recently started working as a proofreader and was just laughing with my friend about how the person whose work I'm editing uses spaces instead of tabs... just like my dad, sigh.)
And I'm relatively certain that I have the futanari/enby thing correct (added in one place, subtracted in another), but I'll double-check that I didn't inadvertently drop it in one spot when trying to troubleshoot the rest of the issues.
I have modified the contents of, but not the structure of, the names list (and the variables leading to it, which apparently go through three layers, sigh); basically I've been trying to mimic existing structure, and it's been frustrating when existing structure can't be easily mimicked. I don't like overhauling existing things, but like branching off to a piece of my own that I have to the side, and letting it do its thing, and then redirecting back to the original code, ideally so that less of it breaks. Or like turning a thing with two parts into a thing with three parts (as I did successfully with the pronouns code some months ago).
So, it sounds like your second piece of advice is key: I need to set aside a bit of time and go through a tutorial, with a focus on getting a grounding in the specific implementation details. The concepts are old hat, but given the number of languages I've studied over the years, it's more than likely I'm "speaking Spanish when I meant to speak Italian" as it were. That, or missing something unique to Godot.
Thanks for giving me a bit of confidence, though -- that my code (even if not efficient) doesn't look broken. (I have mixed feelings about the efficiency thing, because part of my frustration with the existing code is that some of the coding efficiencies have led to implementation opacities, such as "where the hell does it even set the surname? oh right there as part of a section to set all the things in this set, not specifically the surname" -- which is why I couldn't find the word "surname" anywhere useful.)
And in the meantime, I shall encourage myself with the thought that even if my code sucks, at least it isn't made by AI.