Without having a story mode in the game, how would you let people know a character is gay? Would they just have a bunch of random barks where they yell I'm super gay?
Without having a story mode in the game, how would you let people know a character is gay? Would they just have a bunch of random barks where they yell I'm super gay?
Wait... wait... carry the 2... yes... YES.
Put SonicFox in Overwatch.
as long as one of his skins is the one from a certain recent furry calendar
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I guess the question is how much does this actually matter, in the end? Individual meaning is one thing, but I guess the question bumping around is if Blizzard even can put queer characters into the game in a radical fashion.
If the answer to that is 'No' then I guess I still don't see a reason to pat Blizzard on the back and tell them how great they are? Casually showing that we exist should be basic shit for fictional work in general.
Hm I feel like there is a difference between saying ‘blizzard is doing a good job’ and saying ‘I like that soldier 76 is gay’. But I don’t like blizzard games so I don’t have much of an opinion of my own here.
Also yes Dorian is (one of my? Maybe #1) favorite npcs of all time, but I played as a lady so I just had excellent double dates where sera and I went adventuring with Dorian and iron bull and we were all friends even though Sera was pretty put off by the fact that Dorian and I were mage bros (but eventually decided it was an aspect of my inquisitor she could live with, so ok).
I actually thought that the moment where you hit on Cassandra cause she seems sooo gay and eventually she’s like ‘ok this is way awkward and to be clear I really respect you like as a strong woman and a friend but ummmm ummm I’m not gay sorry aaaa’ is kind of great actually.
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
Romancing Sera as a qunari is delightful.
Also hey videogames can we maybe cool it with the actual nudity in sex scenes and then lingering casual nudity because some people have to play those games in homes where other better people live and don't want anyone to know their horrible nerd shame/assume that it's a tiddy game.
God that part was stressful. Broad ass daylight on a Sunday just playin' Dragon Age and then suddenly I have to play the balancing act of "I desperately do not want someone to see these video game boobs but I do not want to skip this cutscene because Plot please just hurry this along thank you."
Yeah, I don’t really get it. Their queer stories are just as mediocre as their non queer stories and based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the game no one really talks about their sexuality in game either way
I don’t see how they’re being lauded other than a handful of articles in kotaku or whatever
Mostly it seems that the fan base is happy that there’s queer characters because they see representation and/or they get to ship them
I don’t really see the issue if a company puts the same effort into queer story lines as it does it’s non queer stories. Blizzard makes fun, well-designed games but their writing, all of their writing, tends to be pretty bad as of late
I certainly understand wanting a good, rich character like Dorian. I often feel starved of good queer representation - but I don’t think overwatch is the place to get it given how thin basically all of their characters are
I guess the question is how much does this actually matter, in the end? Individual meaning is one thing, but I guess the question bumping around is if Blizzard even can put queer characters into the game in a radical fashion.
If the answer to that is 'No' then I guess I still don't see a reason to pat Blizzard on the back and tell them how great they are? Casually showing that we exist should be basic shit for fictional work in general.
Hm I feel like there is a difference between saying ‘blizzard is doing a good job’ and saying ‘I like that soldier 76 is gay’. But I don’t like blizzard games so I don’t have much of an opinion of my own here.
no, no, I definitely agree with you, here
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Yeah, I don’t really get it. Their queer stories are just as mediocre as their non queer stories and based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the game no one really talks about their sexuality in game either way
I don’t see how they’re being lauded other than a handful of articles in kotaku or whatever
Mostly it seems that the fan base is happy that there’s queer characters because they see representation and/or they get to ship them
I don’t really see the issue if a company puts the same effort into queer story lines as it does it’s non queer stories. Blizzard makes fun, well-designed games but their writing, all of their writing, tends to be pretty bad as of late
I certainly understand wanting a good, rich character like Dorian. I often feel starved of good queer representation - but I don’t think overwatch is the place to get it given how thin basically all of their characters are
my annoyance is more aimed at folk who are gonna tout this as being an amazing awesome thing we should be grateful for
this isn't theoretical, they are out there
someone jumped down my throat the other day about this whole deal and I'm still feeling wary about it - so I might be coming off as a little extra testy
I got no beef with other queers having fun with this; if we weren't allowed to enjoy anything that's problematic or profit-driven then we'd have a whole lot fewer things to enjoy out in the world
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The Guardian were pretty good at hiding it by putting out "just asking questions" pieces once every few months and quietly letting people like Julie Bindel into the opinions section. Once you see their full list of anti-trans pieces stacked up though... it's a fucking lot.
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
It's bizarre that a tiny group of people (the right wing owners/editors of british media and foaming terfs) get to set the tone for the whole conversation on trans people.
Also hey videogames can we maybe cool it with the actual nudity in sex scenes and then lingering casual nudity because some people have to play those games in homes where other better people live and don't want anyone to know their horrible nerd shame/assume that it's a tiddy game.
God that part was stressful. Broad ass daylight on a Sunday just playin' Dragon Age and then suddenly I have to play the balancing act of "I desperately do not want someone to see these video game boobs but I do not want to skip this cutscene because Plot please just hurry this along thank you."
Is this just a me thing?
I live alone so it’s fine for me, but when I was playing Mass Effect at my parents’ dinner table one summer it was not fine eep
I don’t think they saw Shepard sideboob but there was definitely a risk that they might appear at any time and it made the scene stressful rather than fun.
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
edited January 2019
I'm not very... knowledgeable about queer issues and representations, since i'm barely included in that (EDIT: I'm still very closeted, Ace and NB but presenting as Cishet, so i don't live a lot of the issues that affect others in the Queer community). I'm wondering what you folx think is good representation. To take the OW example, how should Soldier76 be designed to be good representation, for instance?
(I'm already getting all the representation i need from the agender, asexual Bastion.)
Yeah, I don’t really get it. Their queer stories are just as mediocre as their non queer stories and based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the game no one really talks about their sexuality in game either way
I don’t see how they’re being lauded other than a handful of articles in kotaku or whatever
Mostly it seems that the fan base is happy that there’s queer characters because they see representation and/or they get to ship them
I don’t really see the issue if a company puts the same effort into queer story lines as it does it’s non queer stories. Blizzard makes fun, well-designed games but their writing, all of their writing, tends to be pretty bad as of late
I certainly understand wanting a good, rich character like Dorian. I often feel starved of good queer representation - but I don’t think overwatch is the place to get it given how thin basically all of their characters are
my annoyance is more aimed at folk who are gonna tout this as being an amazing awesome thing we should be grateful for
this isn't theoretical, they are out there
someone jumped down my throat the other day about this whole deal and I'm still feeling wary about it - so I might be coming off as a little extra testy
I got no beef with other queers having fun with this; if we weren't allowed to enjoy anything that's problematic or profit-driven then we'd have a whole lot fewer things to enjoy out in the world
Fair enough
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
I'm not very... knowledgeable about queer issues and representations, since i'm barely included in that. I'm wondering what you folx think is good representation. To take the OW example, how should Soldier76 be designed to be good representation, for instance?
(I'm already getting all the representation i need from the agender, asexual Bastion.)
I think the problem is more these sort of, I'll use this word again because I think it's apt, perfunctory types of representation where a company will retroactively point at a character and say "they were always gay! We never hinted at it or anything but they sure have been gay this whole time yup. Even when we definitely could have mentioned it since we do comic tie ins and shit with the characters like all the time. Just trust us! They're gay and this makes sense and is Good and Noble and not at all a thing we're doing because we know it will grab attention."
I truly truly hate the phrase virtue signalling. It makes my skin crawl and it's used pretty exclusively by alt-right Nazi shitheels. But major companies like Blizzard or, say, creators like JK Rowling arbitrarily selecting characters from a grab bag and then, posthumously in some cases and JK's particularly, assign them a letter of the Acronym and then they all wait for the fanart and social media hot takes to start rolling in so they can get that good good viral trend and bask in the back-patting over doing quite literally the absolute bare minimum.
Perhaps it's a function of the cynical time in which we live, that I have absorbed that cynicism, but it seems so nakedly, blatantly obvious that it's a disingenuous attempt for a company that's been under some pretty bright lights over the past few years (Activision/Blizzard of course) to aquire some positive cultural currency.
Again, I don't play overwatch. But I've seen pretty much this exact story play out a few times, and it always feels pretty much the same.
I will say though, that the most valid take on this whole thing is "any positive representation is good, but the fact that the bar is so low is fucking appalling and we need to do better."
I'm not very... knowledgeable about queer issues and representations, since i'm barely included in that (EDIT: I'm still very closeted, Ace and NB but presenting as Cishet, so i don't live a lot of the issues that affect others in the Queer community). I'm wondering what you folx think is good representation. To take the OW example, how should Soldier76 be designed to be good representation, for instance?
(I'm already getting all the representation i need from the agender, asexual Bastion.)
I think a couple things would have made this better.
- Revealing this at the launch of the game. Perhaps they always intended this, perhaps they didn't. I know Overwatch is a repurposing of an MMO they decided to scrap but wanted to do something with the universe they'd crafted. As it stands, it feels like they just tacked this on later after someone in a meeting said "He we should probably have more gay characters".
- Don't just reveal it in a comic. Add in character dialogue. Maybe give the characters costume some tweaks. Maybe a tattoo of the logo for an in-universe LGBT veterans group or something.
- Put it in a cinematic. They do those occasionally. They could have a flashback of him with his former partner or something.
- Pride month is in June. Pride costumes. (hopefully non-tacky ones)
TLDR - They should show this in-game. Somehow. Let people actually see it, in a way that can't be written off as non-canon.
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I don’t really get it. Their queer stories are just as mediocre as their non queer stories and based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the game no one really talks about their sexuality in game either way
I don’t see how they’re being lauded other than a handful of articles in kotaku or whatever
Mostly it seems that the fan base is happy that there’s queer characters because they see representation and/or they get to ship them
I don’t really see the issue if a company puts the same effort into queer story lines as it does it’s non queer stories. Blizzard makes fun, well-designed games but their writing, all of their writing, tends to be pretty bad as of late
I certainly understand wanting a good, rich character like Dorian. I often feel starved of good queer representation - but I don’t think overwatch is the place to get it given how thin basically all of their characters are
my annoyance is more aimed at folk who are gonna tout this as being an amazing awesome thing we should be grateful for
this isn't theoretical, they are out there
someone jumped down my throat the other day about this whole deal and I'm still feeling wary about it - so I might be coming off as a little extra testy
If you're talking about in the Webcomics thread, I have thoughts about the person who did the jumping, but I'll only say (not that you need me to say it, but) you're allowed to feel however you feel about the damn thing without being policed for being too "purist" or whatever the fuck.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I'll just hit the report button the next time it happens
fucking done with this shit
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
(Full disclosure: I'm on-and-off trying to write for a game ((Visual Novel)) with various queer characters and, honestly, i don't even feel qualified to write the enby one despite being one.)
I think the most important thing is that making a character gay, in my opinion, should be a decision that informs the rest of the character.
How has this changed their worldview, if at all? How has it impacted their personal lives, their profession?
It needs to feel like a part of a person, not, like, a bullet point for the trivia section on their trading card.
To build on this thought if I may, it's not like your make a character and then go, "Ooops, forgot to mention they're black/Asian/Jewish/etc. I'll just add that in at the end, it'll be ok."
There's a lot of development that comes with being part of a subset or minority of society. There are effects, consequences, ticks and flaws and gnarly bits that come with the collective unconscious of belonging to those groups. And a good character should have those things built in and created from the wholecloth of who they are, not just thrown on at the end in a whim of trying to be different.
mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
I've been trying to figure out why it feels to me like the Dumbledore and Soldier 76 things feel different. They're both just fiat/word of god declarations, but I find the former eye-rolly, while I think the latter is at least a small net positive.
As far as I can tell, it's because Dumbledore is still in stories, and specifically stories where his sexuality and relationship to another character (Grindelwald) should be informing his actions, but they aren't. I should add "apparently" to that sentence, because I haven't actually seen Fantastic Beasts 2. Whereas, I get the impression that there's nothing in current lore that has anything to do with Soldier 76's sexual orientation. So it's still in the "oh really? huh, okay neat" stage for me - same as when Rowling initially made the announcement about Dumbledore.
If Blizzard doesn't do anything with this in the future in any way, I'll continue to just think it's a mildly positive thing, if for no other reason than it pisses off a bunch of bigoted Overwatch players (which is good), and is a thimbleful of gay representation (which is good). If they release some media that references it in the future, hey, nice. I appreciate the discussion that's happened in the thread, because it made me think a bit harder about just how much this kind of "effortless" representation is actually worth; not much, but more than nothing.
especially not the most beloved kids book franchise or whatever the fuck you wanna call it
I'm really tired of JKR's shit at this point. I really really loved the first Fantastic Beasts film but the second one just frustrates the shit out of me because of this, so much wasted potential
I have to wonder how much of the movie adaptation of Crimes of Grindlewald is JKR waving her creative license around, and how much is getting stifled by Hollywood executives because $$ is on the line. The lack of relationship building with Dumbledore is almost assuredly old white men who fund the venture saying "keep this out of our movie."
I have to wonder how much of the movie adaptation of Crimes of Grindlewald is JKR waving her creative license around, and how much is getting stifled by Hollywood executives because $$ is on the line. The lack of relationship building with Dumbledore is almost assuredly old white men who fund the venture saying "keep this out of our movie."
Rowling is an anti-Semitic TERF so really you don't need to look too far to point fingers.
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yeah same, my second playthrough was as a Qunari and I only played long enough to see all the stuff with Sera
Wait... wait... carry the 2... yes... YES.
Put SonicFox in Overwatch.
as long as one of his skins is the one from a certain recent furry calendar
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
Hm I feel like there is a difference between saying ‘blizzard is doing a good job’ and saying ‘I like that soldier 76 is gay’. But I don’t like blizzard games so I don’t have much of an opinion of my own here.
Also yes Dorian is (one of my? Maybe #1) favorite npcs of all time, but I played as a lady so I just had excellent double dates where sera and I went adventuring with Dorian and iron bull and we were all friends even though Sera was pretty put off by the fact that Dorian and I were mage bros (but eventually decided it was an aspect of my inquisitor she could live with, so ok).
I actually thought that the moment where you hit on Cassandra cause she seems sooo gay and eventually she’s like ‘ok this is way awkward and to be clear I really respect you like as a strong woman and a friend but ummmm ummm I’m not gay sorry aaaa’ is kind of great actually.
Also hey videogames can we maybe cool it with the actual nudity in sex scenes and then lingering casual nudity because some people have to play those games in homes where other better people live and don't want anyone to know their horrible nerd shame/assume that it's a tiddy game.
God that part was stressful. Broad ass daylight on a Sunday just playin' Dragon Age and then suddenly I have to play the balancing act of "I desperately do not want someone to see these video game boobs but I do not want to skip this cutscene because Plot please just hurry this along thank you."
Is this just a me thing?
I don’t see how they’re being lauded other than a handful of articles in kotaku or whatever
Mostly it seems that the fan base is happy that there’s queer characters because they see representation and/or they get to ship them
I don’t really see the issue if a company puts the same effort into queer story lines as it does it’s non queer stories. Blizzard makes fun, well-designed games but their writing, all of their writing, tends to be pretty bad as of late
I certainly understand wanting a good, rich character like Dorian. I often feel starved of good queer representation - but I don’t think overwatch is the place to get it given how thin basically all of their characters are
no, no, I definitely agree with you, here
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
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At least the title of the actual article is John/Eleanor Rykener
This is a person I posted about two years ago, I doubt anyone remembers
my annoyance is more aimed at folk who are gonna tout this as being an amazing awesome thing we should be grateful for
this isn't theoretical, they are out there
someone jumped down my throat the other day about this whole deal and I'm still feeling wary about it - so I might be coming off as a little extra testy
I got no beef with other queers having fun with this; if we weren't allowed to enjoy anything that's problematic or profit-driven then we'd have a whole lot fewer things to enjoy out in the world
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
I live alone so it’s fine for me, but when I was playing Mass Effect at my parents’ dinner table one summer it was not fine eep
I don’t think they saw Shepard sideboob but there was definitely a risk that they might appear at any time and it made the scene stressful rather than fun.
(I'm already getting all the representation i need from the agender, asexual Bastion.)
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
Fair enough
I think the problem is more these sort of, I'll use this word again because I think it's apt, perfunctory types of representation where a company will retroactively point at a character and say "they were always gay! We never hinted at it or anything but they sure have been gay this whole time yup. Even when we definitely could have mentioned it since we do comic tie ins and shit with the characters like all the time. Just trust us! They're gay and this makes sense and is Good and Noble and not at all a thing we're doing because we know it will grab attention."
I truly truly hate the phrase virtue signalling. It makes my skin crawl and it's used pretty exclusively by alt-right Nazi shitheels. But major companies like Blizzard or, say, creators like JK Rowling arbitrarily selecting characters from a grab bag and then, posthumously in some cases and JK's particularly, assign them a letter of the Acronym and then they all wait for the fanart and social media hot takes to start rolling in so they can get that good good viral trend and bask in the back-patting over doing quite literally the absolute bare minimum.
Perhaps it's a function of the cynical time in which we live, that I have absorbed that cynicism, but it seems so nakedly, blatantly obvious that it's a disingenuous attempt for a company that's been under some pretty bright lights over the past few years (Activision/Blizzard of course) to aquire some positive cultural currency.
Again, I don't play overwatch. But I've seen pretty much this exact story play out a few times, and it always feels pretty much the same.
I will say though, that the most valid take on this whole thing is "any positive representation is good, but the fact that the bar is so low is fucking appalling and we need to do better."
I think a couple things would have made this better.
- Revealing this at the launch of the game. Perhaps they always intended this, perhaps they didn't. I know Overwatch is a repurposing of an MMO they decided to scrap but wanted to do something with the universe they'd crafted. As it stands, it feels like they just tacked this on later after someone in a meeting said "He we should probably have more gay characters".
- Don't just reveal it in a comic. Add in character dialogue. Maybe give the characters costume some tweaks. Maybe a tattoo of the logo for an in-universe LGBT veterans group or something.
- Put it in a cinematic. They do those occasionally. They could have a flashback of him with his former partner or something.
- Pride month is in June. Pride costumes. (hopefully non-tacky ones)
TLDR - They should show this in-game. Somehow. Let people actually see it, in a way that can't be written off as non-canon.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
If you're talking about in the Webcomics thread, I have thoughts about the person who did the jumping, but I'll only say (not that you need me to say it, but) you're allowed to feel however you feel about the damn thing without being policed for being too "purist" or whatever the fuck.
fucking done with this shit
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How has this changed their worldview, if at all? How has it impacted their personal lives, their profession?
It needs to feel like a part of a person, not, like, a bullet point for the trivia section on their trading card.
To build on this thought if I may, it's not like your make a character and then go, "Ooops, forgot to mention they're black/Asian/Jewish/etc. I'll just add that in at the end, it'll be ok."
There's a lot of development that comes with being part of a subset or minority of society. There are effects, consequences, ticks and flaws and gnarly bits that come with the collective unconscious of belonging to those groups. And a good character should have those things built in and created from the wholecloth of who they are, not just thrown on at the end in a whim of trying to be different.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
As far as I can tell, it's because Dumbledore is still in stories, and specifically stories where his sexuality and relationship to another character (Grindelwald) should be informing his actions, but they aren't. I should add "apparently" to that sentence, because I haven't actually seen Fantastic Beasts 2. Whereas, I get the impression that there's nothing in current lore that has anything to do with Soldier 76's sexual orientation. So it's still in the "oh really? huh, okay neat" stage for me - same as when Rowling initially made the announcement about Dumbledore.
If Blizzard doesn't do anything with this in the future in any way, I'll continue to just think it's a mildly positive thing, if for no other reason than it pisses off a bunch of bigoted Overwatch players (which is good), and is a thimbleful of gay representation (which is good). If they release some media that references it in the future, hey, nice. I appreciate the discussion that's happened in the thread, because it made me think a bit harder about just how much this kind of "effortless" representation is actually worth; not much, but more than nothing.
I saw the movie and basically the grindkewald stuff is not explicit. It’s subtext. It’s better than before but not good enough.
Basically, they made it “obvious” that they were romantically together while keeping plausible deniability.
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I might crawl out of my skin.
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especially not the most beloved kids book franchise or whatever the fuck you wanna call it
I'm really tired of JKR's shit at this point. I really really loved the first Fantastic Beasts film but the second one just frustrates the shit out of me because of this, so much wasted potential
now please enjoy your film about wizard fascism
*extremely Otakon voice* It's just like one of my japanese animes!
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Rowling is an anti-Semitic TERF so really you don't need to look too far to point fingers.
She's vile.
Yeah she keeps having "middle aged moments" on twitter
Right down to interacting positively with Glinner.
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UUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH