LET'S (NOT) RESPECT EACH OTHER?S TASTES (OR: "THIS GAME ISN'T FOR YOU, AND THAT'S (NOT) OKAY")

TheMysteriousGX

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CritialGaming said:
Dreiko said:
I sometimes wonder if it just becomes nit picking at that point.

"Oh this game is amazing....if only it didn't have this terrible porno character/theme/whatever." Somebody finds everything about the game to be great, except the fanservice part. And while that's a valid opinion, it doesn't mean the game should be crucified because of it. And if someone wants to be that shallow about it, then okay, the only person they hurt is themselves by not letting them experience something that they could otherwise enjoy due to some misunderstood viewpoint.
Or they just don't like the thing maybe? Like, I'm getting tired of Zone-tan. Yes, yes, wink-wink, here's that porn character you saw a lot of 5 years ago, very clever. Kinda weird they show up to sell cum in a not-porn game.
but that's the extent of it. Can people complain about a thing anymore without it being shots fired in a culture war? Or hell, *like* a thing without it being some culture war shit? Gail Simone, after all, is one of those"SJWs who're ruining comics with their political correctness and pronouns"

She also thinks Gun Gun Pixies is hilarious sexy trash with some decent story elements.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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altnameJag said:
CritialGaming said:
Dreiko said:
I sometimes wonder if it just becomes nit picking at that point.

"Oh this game is amazing....if only it didn't have this terrible porno character/theme/whatever." Somebody finds everything about the game to be great, except the fanservice part. And while that's a valid opinion, it doesn't mean the game should be crucified because of it. And if someone wants to be that shallow about it, then okay, the only person they hurt is themselves by not letting them experience something that they could otherwise enjoy due to some misunderstood viewpoint.
Or they just don't like the thing maybe? Like, I'm getting tired of Zone-tan. Yes, yes, wink-wink, here's that porn character you saw a lot of 5 years ago, very clever. Kinda weird they show up to sell cum in a not-porn game.
but that's the extent of it. Can people complain about a thing anymore without it being shots fired in a culture war? Or hell, *like* a thing without it being some culture war shit? Gail Simone, after all, is one of those"SJWs who're ruining comics with their political correctness and pronouns"

She also thinks Gun Gun Pixies is hilarious sexy trash with some decent story elements.
I wish we could like these games without being insulted for doing so and having implications placed upon us that question our maturity and so on. (some even make more egregious charges such as for example Zone being a CP artist or some such nonsense because he drew cartoon teenagers lol)

Just to make it clear, it wasn't the case that everything was going smoothly with our bouncing mammaries and colorful undergarments fluttering around making everyone happy and suddenly someone started being negative to someone else for being an SJW out of the ether when both persons were similarly having fun with their stripped pantyshots.

No, what happened was you have a history of people trying to smear other people for what they like, which is now finally getting the deserved reaction in being decried as prudish. Gail Simone liking this basically shows everyone ELSE for being an SJW and having no ground to stand on, nobody's mad at her. We're just acknowledging that if someone who isn't already an SJW were to make a post praising the story of GGP about its themes regarding bulimia, they'd be waved of as a creep trying desperately to justify their porn.

How can that not breed a climate of antagonism?


And sure, you can not like this thing. I don't like sports and racing games. Do you know what I don't do? I don't go shit on sports game fans or talk about how dull I find them on twitter and I don't go and imply some deficiency in those who do like sports games. I just do my own thing and let the sports games and those who like them be in peace. Why the need to bemoan something that's just not your thing? Why can't you just go find something you do like and play that?

Oh and if it's an element I dislike in a game I love, such as for example Blitzball in FFX (which is a pretty basic magical sports game) do you know what happens? I end up linking it at least some due to it being in an otherwise amazing thing and having that good thing's themes rub off on it. If someone is otherwise in love with Indivisible but having a random easter egg in the game somehow completely ruins that, I have to call BS on how much they liked the game if their love could be shaken so easily.
 

Silvanus

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Dreiko said:
No, what happened was you have a history of people trying to smear other people for what they like, which is now finally getting the deserved reaction in being decried as prudish. Gail Simone liking this basically shows everyone ELSE for being an SJW and having no ground to stand on, nobody's mad at her. We're just acknowledging that if someone who isn't already an SJW were to make a post praising the story of GGP about its themes regarding bulimia, they'd be waved of as a creep trying desperately to justify their porn.

How can that not breed a climate of antagonism?
Well, in this thread for instance, there's a lot more anger aimed towards the phantom critics than there is actual criticism of the game itself.

Also, I imagine the climate of antagonism has been exacerbated by politically-tinged insults like "SJW".
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Silvanus said:
Dreiko said:
No, what happened was you have a history of people trying to smear other people for what they like, which is now finally getting the deserved reaction in being decried as prudish. Gail Simone liking this basically shows everyone ELSE for being an SJW and having no ground to stand on, nobody's mad at her. We're just acknowledging that if someone who isn't already an SJW were to make a post praising the story of GGP about its themes regarding bulimia, they'd be waved of as a creep trying desperately to justify their porn.

How can that not breed a climate of antagonism?
Well, in this thread for instance, there's a lot more anger aimed towards the phantom critics than there is actual criticism of the game itself.

Also, I imagine the climate of antagonism has been exacerbated by politically-tinged insults like "SJW".

Is it a phantom when the TC links to the actual critics? How can it not be a phantom if an actual cited thing (and other such examples like my mention of Indivisible and Dragon's Crown) doesn't suffice to not make it one?


SJW isn't politically tinged when uttered by people also on the left politically, it's just a personality trait descriptor in that context. Nowadays, the prudes aren't the traditional conservatives but rather the hyper-left people who are offended by sexual things because of their gendered traits and power dynamics and so on (as opposed to the BS reasons the Christians would come up with to control the lives of strangers) so it may seem political to call prudes SJWs but it's actually not, it just happens to seem that way because it's mainly one side that's doing what the religious right was doing in the 90s and if you're consistently against that side it unavoidable will come off as being political when it's actually just pro-game. It wasn't political in the 90s when we told the right to get off our violence and it's not now when we tell the SJWs to leave the anime tiddies alone.


You know how everyone jumped to point at Japan having almost no shooting deaths when some politicians tried the 90s playbook of blaming videogames for shootings in the wake of all these recent mass shootings? That's not a political act (the defense of videogames, blaming them sure is haha), that's just a factual correction that any honest individual will admit is true. We somehow are able to see telling the right that they're wrong in that sense as a simply apolitical response that is just concerned with representing reality right. The same should be possible with the unfounded SJW nonsense.
 

Silvanus

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Dreiko said:
Is it a phantom when the TC links to the actual critics? How can it not be a phantom if an actual cited thing (and other such examples like my mention of Indivisible and Dragon's Crown) doesn't suffice to not make it one?
Hardly a "smear" for goodness' sake. It's a relatively mild critical review-- outclassed in terms of harshness by your own comments alone.

SJW isn't politically tinged when uttered by people also on the left politically, it's just a personality trait descriptor in that context. Nowadays, the prudes aren't the traditional conservatives but rather the hyper-left people who are offended by sexual things because of their gendered traits and power dynamics and so on (as opposed to the BS reasons the Christians would come up with to control the lives of strangers) so it may seem political to call prudes SJWs but it's actually not, it just happens to seem that way because it's mainly one side that's doing what the religious right was doing in the 90s and if you're consistently against that side it unavoidable will come off as being political when it's actually just pro-game. It wasn't political in the 90s when we told the right to get off our violence and it's not now when we tell the SJWs to leave the anime tiddies alone.
Ignoring for a moment the fact that you said it's not at all political, and then in the next sentence contextualized it in reference to the "hyper-left"...

This doesn't really account for the biggest chunk of uses: you're an "SJW" if you want gay characters in games, or female protags; you're an "SJW" if you like the ones already there. I've seen people deriding others for going against the artist's vision when games are criticised as being too homogeneous or stereotyping... and then I've seen game developers themselves termed "SJWs" when they include gay characters in their own damn games.

No, the vast majority of times I've seen it hurled about, it's nothing to do with prudishness whatsoever; it's another insult in the perceived "culture war", aimed at people who're apparently being too loud about what they like & don't like. Bollocks.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Silvanus said:
Dreiko said:
Is it a phantom when the TC links to the actual critics? How can it not be a phantom if an actual cited thing (and other such examples like my mention of Indivisible and Dragon's Crown) doesn't suffice to not make it one?
Hardly a "smear" for goodness' sake. It's a relatively mild critical review-- outclassed in terms of harshness by your own comments alone.

SJW isn't politically tinged when uttered by people also on the left politically, it's just a personality trait descriptor in that context. Nowadays, the prudes aren't the traditional conservatives but rather the hyper-left people who are offended by sexual things because of their gendered traits and power dynamics and so on (as opposed to the BS reasons the Christians would come up with to control the lives of strangers) so it may seem political to call prudes SJWs but it's actually not, it just happens to seem that way because it's mainly one side that's doing what the religious right was doing in the 90s and if you're consistently against that side it unavoidable will come off as being political when it's actually just pro-game. It wasn't political in the 90s when we told the right to get off our violence and it's not now when we tell the SJWs to leave the anime tiddies alone.
Ignoring for a moment the fact that you said it's not at all political, and then in the next sentence contextualized it in reference to the "hyper-left"...

This doesn't really account for the biggest chunk of uses: you're an "SJW" if you want gay characters in games, or female protags; you're an "SJW" if you like the ones already there. I've seen people deriding others for going against the artist's vision when games are criticised as being too homogeneous or stereotyping... and then I've seen game developers themselves termed "SJWs" when they include gay characters in their own damn games.

No, the vast majority of times I've seen it hurled about, it's nothing to do with prudishness whatsoever; it's another insult in the perceived "culture war", aimed at people who're apparently being too loud about what they like & don't like. Bollocks.

You're not an SJW for liking a gay character, you're only an SJW for liking a gay character because they're gay. Similarly, you're not one if you want good characters and are open to them being gay as long as they primarily are just good characters and are made not to enhance diversity or inclusion but just because they fit the artistic vision the creators had for their game.


People don't dislike any and all gay characters being included, they dislike the ones who are included as a political act or to virtue signal or to seem open minded, because when these chars are added those issues take center stage and the actually important aspects of coherence in the universe and them being well-written and so on take a back seat, which is anti game because it treats making a good game as less important than advancing a social cause. It treats games as tools for propaganda, as means to a different end, not as end in and of themselves.


I'll give you a good example. There's this mage dude in Dragon Age Inquisition. You meet him during a really cool part of the game and he's witty and silly and all in all a cool dude. Eventually it turns out he's also gay. We're cool up to that part, very well-done character, promising. Lets see what epic thing he gets around to in his backstory/sidequest part...gay conversion therapy...really? You have this cool character and this epic universe with dragons and demons and so on...and the best thing you could come up with to give this character as a backstory is...magical gay conversion therapy and reconciling with his conservative dad? Could this be any more trite and mundane? Not to mention disappointing. Did anyone actually think such a storyline is in any way compelling in the context of high fantasy? Or was it just something appealing to write to seem progressive and cool with the gay folks, damn the character and his promise?

Being against gay characters being included just for being gay is for the sake of the gay characters who are actually just good characters and happen to be gay too. They benefit from such a stance just as much.
 

Silvanus

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Dreiko said:
You're not an SJW for liking a gay character, you're only an SJW for liking a gay character because they're gay. Similarly, you're not one if you want good characters and are open to them being gay as long as they primarily are just good characters and are made not to enhance diversity or inclusion but just because they fit the artistic vision the creators had for their game.

People don't dislike any and all gay characters being included, they dislike the ones who are included as a political act or to virtue signal or to seem open minded, because when these chars are added those issues take center stage and the actually important aspects of coherence in the universe and them being well-written and so on take a back seat, which is anti game because it treats making a good game as less important than advancing a social cause. It treats games as tools for propaganda, as means to a different end, not as end in and of themselves.
When you say "those issues take centre stage", am I to understand that you don't want games to approach any LGBT themes then?Gay characters are alright... if they're just quiet about being gay and it never comes up?

The fact is it doesn't seem to matter. The "SJW" line comes flying out regardless of how the character is presented. If they discuss gay stuff, then people moan because they're "shoving it down our throats", "virtue signalling", etc etc. If the character doesn't discuss any gay stuff, and it just seems incidental, then people moan because "there's no reason for them to be gay", "why make them gay", "it's tokenism".

Nope, honestly, I've never-- not once-- seen a gay character who hasn't been received with the same anti-"SJW" drivel, and I'm inclined to believe the people who tend to throw that term around just don't want certain kinds of people in their games at all.

Dreiko said:
I'll give you a good example. There's this mage dude in Dragon Age Inquisition. You meet him during a really cool part of the game and he's witty and silly and all in all a cool dude. Eventually it turns out he's also gay. We're cool up to that part, very well-done character, promising. Lets see what epic thing he gets around to in his backstory/sidequest part...gay conversion therapy...really? You have this cool character and this epic universe with dragons and demons and so on...and the best thing you could come up with to give this character as a backstory is...magical gay conversion therapy and reconciling with his conservative dad? Could this be any more trite and mundane? Not to mention disappointing. Did anyone actually think such a storyline is in any way compelling in the context of high fantasy? Or was it just something appealing to write to seem progressive and cool with the gay folks, damn the character and his promise?
You find conversion therapy as a theme in a game to be "trite and mundane"? Even though it's extremely rarely approached in games, if ever?

Why does that particular quest need to be exclusively linked to high fantasy? Hundreds of fantasy RPG quests aren't fantasy-specific. You get fantasy quests about heirlooms, about lost parents, about finding treasure, about blackmail, about bandits, about fucking anything. But suddenly, if it has a gay theme in it-- something which actually hits pretty fucking close to home for a lot of gay people-- then it's "trite" and "not in context". No, fuck that, you're applying a nonsensical standard.

Dreiko said:
Being against gay characters being included just for being gay is for the sake of the gay characters who are actually just good characters and happen to be gay too. They benefit from such a stance just as much.
I'm sure you approach straight characters in the same way. Why include them just for being straight, eh? I'll remember that next time a straight game character won't STFU about their wife/ GF, since romance (well, straight romance) seems to be almost a requisite in most modern media.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Dreiko said:
No, what happened was you have a history of people trying to smear other people for what they like, which is now finally getting the deserved reaction in being decried as prudish. Gail Simone liking this basically shows everyone ELSE for being an SJW and having no ground to stand on, nobody's mad at her. We're just acknowledging that if someone who isn't already an SJW were to make a post praising the story of GGP about its themes regarding bulimia, they'd be waved of as a creep trying desperately to justify their porn.

How can that not breed a climate of antagonism?
1) The gal with the eating problem is 20, proving you can actually do this sort of thing without perving on high school kids. (Incidentally, every other character you perv on is either 15 or 17, which fuck me, I guess. I'd heard otherwise until I bought it and opened the art book. Fucking hell)
2) from the SJWs I follow, they've got no problems being horny on main if it doesn't involve children

Dreiko said:
If someone is otherwise in love with Indivisible but having a random easter egg in the game somehow completely ruins that, I have to call BS on how much they liked the game if their love could be shaken so easily.
Not a thing that happened. Just people complaining about that specific part. Because you don't have to ignore a thing's flaws in order to love it.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Silvanus said:
When you say "those issues take centre stage", am I to understand that you don't want games to approach any LGBT themes then?Gay characters are alright... if they're just quiet about being gay and it never comes up?

The fact is it doesn't seem to matter. The "SJW" line comes flying out regardless of how the character is presented. If they discuss gay stuff, then people moan because they're "shoving it down our throats", "virtue signalling", etc etc. If the character doesn't discuss any gay stuff, and it just seems incidental, then people moan because "there's no reason for them to be gay", "why make them gay", "it's tokenism".

Nope, honestly, I've never-- not once-- seen a gay character who hasn't been received with the same anti-"SJW" drivel, and I'm inclined to believe the people who tend to throw that term around just don't want certain kinds of people in their games at all.
Right so, whether it befits such themes to take center stage will ultimately depend on the type of game you have and the sort of story. In persona 2 innocent sin you have a gay party member that's pretty clearly into the protagonist, and it fits just fine. In FFXIII you have Fang and Vanille and Fang was initially made to be a dude but they ended up making them both girls and absolutely nobody complained about them being as close as they were (Fang in fact is my fav char in the whole game). But when you have certain themes and terminology that really doesn't belong in the world narrative just appear it feels trite and artificial. Ultimately it's about not being lazy and trying to go for easy virtue points.

The "why make them gay" thing is idiotic btw, it's the same answer that you get to "why make this magician a 12 year old girl", you do that cause the artist wanted to. I never supported that. You're free to think a choice is bad but you don't get to question it, if you don't like it make your own game.




You find conversion therapy as a theme in a game to be "trite and mundane"? Even though it's extremely rarely approached in games, if ever?

Why does that particular quest need to be exclusively linked to high fantasy? Hundreds of fantasy RPG quests aren't fantasy-specific. You get fantasy quests about heirlooms, about lost parents, about finding treasure, about blackmail, about bandits, about fucking anything. But suddenly, if it has a gay theme in it-- something which actually hits pretty fucking close to home for a lot of gay people-- then it's "trite" and "not in context". No, fuck that, you're applying a nonsensical standard.
Ok so I need to clarify, this isn't any old basic sidequest in an rpg. This is a special set of important sidequests that act as the supporting cast's main story in a sense, how you resolve them has huge impact, may cause you to enter romance with the party member or become enemies and have them leave the party or have them gain new jobs. There's this one dude who you choose between letting all his old comrades die and tie him back to his homeland's religious war or not for example. They're the most important sort of sidequest in the game basically. They are cut from a different cloth than the typical "go kill 10 wolves and bring me their pelts" sort.


And the reason gay conversion therapy is trite is that it doesn't actually fit in the world. The DA world is pretty open and accepting to gay people. The idea that you'd even try to magically un-gay someone through a ritual makes absolutely no sense in the world either. This was all conjured up to give the people in the real world something to feel virtuous about playing. This isn't the same as you being able to kill the KKK in red dead 2, the KKK being in that game actually fits and makes sense and Arthur would take them out indeed.

altnameJag said:
1) The gal with the eating problem is 20, proving you can actually do this sort of thing without perving on high school kids. (Incidentally, every other character you perv on is either 15 or 17, which fuck me, I guess. I'd heard otherwise until I bought it and opened the art book. Fucking hell)
2) from the SJWs I follow, they've got no problems being horny on main if it doesn't involve children
I...don't think this proves what you think it does.

See, if you need to read the artbook to ascertain someone being not of age and you can't do that through seeing the character, then they all quack like ducks either way and complaining about their fictional age which has no impact is indeed virtue signaling.

What you probably heard was that this took place in an academy and not in a highschool, what you didn't realize probably is that in Japan there can be all girl academies that go from grade school all the way into college, all in one campus, and that you can have people from all such age groups living there.

Calling it an "academy" is basically them bypassing the stringent and arbitrarily dumb standards some localities set against depicting particularly schoolgirls in lewd situations. They literally have to do nothing beyond calling it something different and going on with their day lol.

And no 15-17 year olds are not children. Depending on where you happen to be born at it's even in the age of consent (15 was where I was born for example) and this is about real people. Anime/game characters are not real people or children even if they are drawn to resemble them. They don't have ages of consent outside of the fictional ones in whatever world they exist in.



Not a thing that happened. Just people complaining about that specific part. Because you don't have to ignore a thing's flaws in order to love it.
Actually saw tweets about people not getting the game any more due to Zone-tan, so it did happen lol.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Dreiko said:
I...don't think this proves what you think it does.

See, if you need to read the artbook to ascertain someone being not of age and you can't do that through seeing the character, then they all quack like ducks either way and complaining about their fictional age which has no impact is indeed virtue signaling.
It's not that hard man: I got a rule that says no kids

Dreiko said:
What you probably heard was that this took place in an academy and not in a highschool, what you didn't realize probably is that in Japan there can be all girl academies that go from grade school all the way into college, all in one campus, and that you can have people from all such age groups living there.

Calling it an "academy" is basically them bypassing the stringent and arbitrarily dumb standards some localities set against depicting particularly schoolgirls in lewd situations. They literally have to do nothing beyond calling it something different and going on with their day lol.
I heard they were adults. And I don't think standards against sexualizing kids are dumb. And you're right: if that art book had the magic gal listed as 19, I *would* be going about my day, happy that the game I bought doesn't involve bringing a child to orgasm. But they couldn't even clear that low, low bar, and just had to include a character that couldn't consent by Japanese law.

It's disappointing and more than a little creepy.

Dreiko said:
And no 15-17 year olds are not children. Depending on where you happen to be born at it's even in the age of consent (15 was where I was born for example) and this is about real people. Anime/game characters are not real people or children even if they are drawn to resemble them. They don't have ages of consent outside of the fictional ones in whatever world they exist in.
Ah yes, the famously fictional world of Japan, where anybody younger than 18 is legally a child.
The age of consent is not the age of adulthood. Some provinces recognize that teens are going to have sex with each other and set consent at 16 or 17, other provinces ride that line all the way up to 18. Hell, you can't get married in Japan if you're less than 20 without parental approval.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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altnameJag said:
I heard they were adults. And I don't think standards against sexualizing kids are dumb. And you're right: if that art book had the magic gal listed as 19, I *would* be going about my day, happy that the game I bought doesn't involve bringing a child to orgasm. But they couldn't even clear that low, low bar, and just had to include a character that couldn't consent by Japanese law.

It's disappointing and more than a little creepy.
See, now you're advocating for a standard which doesn't care about what the character looks like, as long as they arbitrarily are written to be of age, but where there to be a character that looks young but is actually 4000 years old according to the artbook, you'd also complain about them looking young.

We can't have that. Either it's fine for people to look of age or it's fine for people to be of age in canon no matter what they look like.


Ah yes, the famously fictional world of Japan, where anybody younger than 18 is legally a child.
The age of consent is not the age of adulthood. Some provinces recognize that teens are going to have sex with each other and set consent at 16 or 17, other provinces ride that line all the way up to 18. Hell, you can't get married in Japan if you're less than 20 without parental approval.
Firstly, you may be confusing real Japan with whatever world that game takes place in which has miniature alien pixies with orgasm guns and assuming they share things with real world Japan. Secondly, consent laws don't really...apply in this context where you have magical orgasm guns to begin with. You have to break the fourth wall and insert yourself in the alien's tiny tiny shoes to even have that be slightly coherent. That's...not really how everyone enjoys these games. People aren't living vicariously through the alien pixies and self-inserting. People are just seeing this funny silly thing and they have simple fun with the antics of the cute and pervy pixies and that's kinda it.


Maybe your issue is being unable to disassociate yourself and whatever feelings spring forth when you play these games, which makes you feel icky, but you do have to know that not everyone else is actually like that. Some people can just...have fun cause it's fun, even if the object of the fun would be horrific in a real-world context. (cue in violence, killing people with swords, guns, scythes, that blood draining glove from Code Vein, the list goes on, people aren't monsters for enjoying these things, a fun game has just that; the ability to make enjoyable things that aren't necessarily purposed for enjoyment in the real world)
 

CritialGaming

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Since we are on this now about characters and sexuality in gaming.

Dreiko is correct, that side character is a dope dude and is really well written and fun for 90% of the game. The problem comings when doing his side mission and instead of helping him on some quest, you instead give him gay counseling.

The problem is that video game writers have no idea on how to portray alternate sexualities in games. People keep thinking that someone being gay/trans/etc is the character, and that's wrong! Sexuality is only a small tiny tiny tiny part of who that character should be within the context of the game.

I find the best gay characters in games are the games that let the player character be the gay one. Mass Effect 3 Shepard was great, because the player had a choice to make Shepard whatever they wanted, and the entire story and character didn't revolve around what hole Shepard wanted to play with. If you wanted a gay man Shepard then you could have your romantic gay couple scene, if you wanted Lez Shep, then you could have that too. But the most important part about it is that it didn't hover over the character like a cloud the rest of the game.

But when you have to set down with a character and either listen to then talk about how gay they are, or talk to that character about being gay (usually with your character going "Oh yeah I'm gay too" or "Man that's odd, but whatever you're still part of my team" Or other crap) then it becomes too much a focal point and the character might as well have a big neon fucking sign around their neck saying "GAY!"

A character (and a person) shouldn't spark their entire being on their sexual preference. Another example I liked was the Hunter from The Witcher 3. Geralt listens to his tale and you find out through his brief but well told backstory that he is gay and he got kicked out of his home for it. Geralt comforts him the best he can and then the mission continues. It's good because it's brief and subtle where it's easy to miss if you aren't paying that much attention to it. Then the hunter continues on the mission with Geralt because his sexuality doesn't matter, he is capable of the job you need him to do and who he loves doesn't effect his ability to do that job or help Geralt out. CD Project didn't have to make that character gay, that story could have been delivered any number of ways, but they chose to have him be a gay man to show that he is just as human and just as useful as anyone else in the game's world.

There is nothing wrong with the flamboyance either, if it serves the character. Slyvando from DQ11 is as flamboyantly gay as you can get, but his character is never hindered by it. He is capable, strong, determined, loyal, and all the other things you could want from an RPG teammate. His flamboyance is part of him as a character and it is never played off as a symbolic way to mock people who act like him in real life, but rather to embrace people like him because it doesn't define him. It doesn't hold him back and he doesn't resent himself for being who he is.

Gay or straight, good characters are good characters and shit characters are shit. Any character is bad when the writer only gives them one note to stand on, one characteristic, one purpose, one drive, one morality. And I've said it before and I'll say it again, your sexuality is such a small part of who you are as a person that it should NEVER be a driving force or dominant part of a character's motivation. The DA:I character fails this because instead of an interesting adventure sidequest it's a fireside chat.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Oh yeah, Sylv is a great character. And his backstory with his dad ACTUALLY made sense and fit the world. (dad's a knight, he trained from a young age to also be a knight, saw a circus and fell in love with performing, abandoned knighthood and became a famous performer betraying his dad's expectations, the two haven't spoken for decades until you bring them together, see, this now is an interesting character)

Also, let us not forget DQ11 has you lead what is basically a gay pride parade while wearing what I can only describe as a peacock tutu and stockings, as you prance on. (and the Hero is straight since you do get married to one of the girls in the end, he's just easygoing like that lol)

And nobody complains about either thing. It was all in good fun coming from a non-preachy, positive place.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Dreiko said:
See, now you're advocating for a standard which doesn't care about what the character looks like, as long as they arbitrarily are written to be of age, but where there to be a character that looks young but is actually 4000 years old according to the artbook, you'd also complain about them looking young.

We can't have that. Either it's fine for people to look of age or it's fine for people to be of age in canon no matter what they look like.
That's not actually the standard I'm advocating though. Like, 2 of my favorite characters in Granblue Fantasy are Cagliostro and Scathacha, who both fit the "900+ year old in a child's body" trope. The key difference is that they do not act like children. (They're also not terribly sexualized for various reasons. Mainly tact)
Petite women that aren't 15 and are actually adults exist. It would be nice to occasionally see them in media.

Dreiko said:
Firstly, you may be confusing real Japan with whatever world that game takes place in which has miniature alien pixies with orgasm guns and assuming they share things with real world Japan.
If they didn't, why call it Japan?
Dreiko said:
Secondly, consent laws don't really...apply in this context where you have magical orgasm guns to begin with. You have to break the fourth wall and insert yourself in the alien's tiny tiny shoes to even have that be slightly coherent. That's...not really how everyone enjoys these games. People aren't living vicariously through the alien pixies and self-inserting. People are just seeing this funny silly thing and they have simple fun with the antics of the cute and pervy pixies and that's kinda it.
Maybe your issue is being unable to disassociate yourself and whatever feelings spring forth when you play these games, which makes you feel icky,
Buddy, I'm already ignoring the aspect where our heroines are sexually stimulating strangers to orgasm without their consent, I'm fine with that bit. I'm damned tired of the country of Japan (or ecchi game proxy country) having six women of legal drinking age in it.(The kotaku article called it, and I quote, a dorm occupied "mostly by college-age female students". That was a lie) I exist in a fairly horny sphere of the internet that won't give games like this a change because they're just...not interested in children. Set this exact game up after a 3 year time-skip? Sales would double.
Dreiko said:
but you do have to know that not everyone else is actually like that. Some people can just...have fun cause it's fun, even if the object of the fun would be horrific in a real-world context. (cue in violence, killing people with swords, guns, scythes, that blood draining glove from Code Vein, the list goes on, people aren't monsters for enjoying these things, a fun game has just that; the ability to make enjoyable things that aren't necessarily purposed for enjoyment in the real world)
It ain't that deep. It's a thing I find gross and I'm willing to say so. Like, take the context out and Gun Gun Pixies is basically the same gameplay wise as Sniper Elite III. Incidentally, Sniper Elite III is *also* one of those games who's context would change dramatically with minor alterations to cosmetic details.
 

Erttheking

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Dreiko said:
Maybe your issue is being unable to disassociate yourself and whatever feelings spring forth when you play these games, which makes you feel icky, but you do have to know that not everyone else is actually like that. Some people can just...have fun cause it's fun, even if the object of the fun would be horrific in a real-world context. (cue in violence, killing people with swords, guns, scythes, that blood draining glove from Code Vein, the list goes on, people aren't monsters for enjoying these things, a fun game has just that; the ability to make enjoyable things that aren't necessarily purposed for enjoyment in the real world)
Oh lord forbid that some of us prefer being sexually attracted to women that we could bone IRL and not get asked pointed questions by the police. I looked at the linked articles and my brain promptly screamed: "pink-haired girl looks like she's 13 years old tops, ABORT, ABORT, ABORT!" I'm so sorry that that's a very niche kink that the majority of us on this website do not share. Also, you always play the "well games can be violent" card, except you miss the point that violence AND sex can be used in ways people consider tasteless. I mean, I'm going to assume you aren't going to go bat for Ethnic Cleansing or Super Colombine Massacre anytime soon. Also, game that mixes sexualization with violence, for example, gets a "nope from orbit" reaction from me.

Also, can I just point out that Jag and I have not said anything about the people who play these games, and you're the one throwing shade around about unfounded claims that people can't separate what makes them uncomfortable IRL with what makes them uncomfortable in-game...in a thread where the OP went on a rant about people who don't respect the tastes of other people. For me, not for thee, eh?

Dreiko said:
You're not an SJW for liking a gay character, you're only an SJW for liking a gay character because they're gay. Similarly, you're not one if you want good characters and are open to them being gay as long as they primarily are just good characters and are made not to enhance diversity or inclusion but just because they fit the artistic vision the creators had for their game.
I regularly interact with gay people IRL Dreiko, they find great pleasure in actually seeing people in media that represent them and as a result, like characters, in part, because they're gay.

I guess that makes them all SJWs? Get that horseshit the fuck out of here.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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erttheking said:
Dreiko said:
Maybe your issue is being unable to disassociate yourself and whatever feelings spring forth when you play these games, which makes you feel icky, but you do have to know that not everyone else is actually like that. Some people can just...have fun cause it's fun, even if the object of the fun would be horrific in a real-world context. (cue in violence, killing people with swords, guns, scythes, that blood draining glove from Code Vein, the list goes on, people aren't monsters for enjoying these things, a fun game has just that; the ability to make enjoyable things that aren't necessarily purposed for enjoyment in the real world)
Oh lord forbid that some of us prefer being sexually attracted to women that we could bone IRL and not get asked pointed questions by the police. I looked at the linked articles and my brain promptly screamed: "pink-haired girl looks like she's 13 years old tops, ABORT, ABORT, ABORT!" I'm so sorry that that's a very niche kink that the majority of us on this website do not share. Also, you always play the "well games can be violent" card, except you miss the point that violence AND sex can be used in ways people consider tasteless. I mean, I'm going to assume you aren't going to go bat for Ethnic Cleansing or Super Colombine Massacre anytime soon. Also, game that mixes sexualization with violence, for example, gets a "nope from orbit" reaction from me.

Also, can I just point out that Jag and I have not said anything about the people who play these games, and you're the one throwing shade around about unfounded claims that people can't separate what makes them uncomfortable IRL with what makes them uncomfortable in-game...in a thread where the OP went on a rant about people who don't respect the tastes of other people. For me, not for thee, eh?

Dreiko said:
You're not an SJW for liking a gay character, you're only an SJW for liking a gay character because they're gay. Similarly, you're not one if you want good characters and are open to them being gay as long as they primarily are just good characters and are made not to enhance diversity or inclusion but just because they fit the artistic vision the creators had for their game.
I regularly interact with gay people IRL Dreiko, they find great pleasure in actually seeing people in media that represent them and as a result, like characters, in part, because they're gay.

I guess that makes them all SJWs? Get that horseshit the fuck out of here.

The pink hair girl is one of the aliens actually, so she's the one you play as, not the human girls you shoot at. Either way though, you're putting arbitrary limitations to things which are actually just pure fun and making life difficult when you insert these concerns into something that has no need for them.


And see, I get enjoying seeing someone of your rare group in something, I just don't see why someone stops there. This joy you speak of is an initial reaction but you then have to delve deeper and the character has to have something more to them (a lot more) for the character to actually be someone you like from an artistic and cerebral and not a tribalistic standpoint. And if they DO have those traits, well, them being your group whatever that is will pale in comparison to all those other things that make em interesting, so when you speak of what you like about the character you'll have a lot more to pull from and mention than just this abritrary thing that you personally share with them but which is otherwise completely uninteresting to the average person and you'll instead mention all the other good stuff about the character.

When I see people bring up their personal common traits that they share with characters they like as to why these characters are good, I take that as a show that the character has nothing else going for them since if they did that'd be the thing to be prioritized and brought up first. If all it takes for you to like the character is just this much, that just means that you're a very shallow thinker and aren't worth taking seriously because you literally base quality and judgement decisions on arbitrary things.

At a bare minimum, one should be able to discern them liking a character for being this group versus the character being a good character for being of that group. The inability to at least do this much does indeed indicate a severe political if not cult-like form of bias at work which makes people into SJWs.
 

McElroy

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erttheking said:
Oh lord forbid that some of us prefer being sexually attracted to women that we could bone IRL and not get asked pointed questions by the police. I looked at the linked articles and my brain promptly screamed: "pink-haired girl looks like she's 13 years old tops, ABORT, ABORT, ABORT!" I'm so sorry that that's a very niche kink that the majority of us on this website do not share.
The anime police are all 17-year-olds too.

I mean, do you honestly make a difference between ecchi (or I dunno... hentai) in which the characters are 18 vs the one in which they are 16? They all look the same; it's all pedo bait anyways. To me it seems to take a lot of mental gymnastics to defend an almost indefensible habit with "at least they could consent" as if 2D cartoons had lives of their own.
 

Erttheking

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McElroy said:
erttheking said:
Oh lord forbid that some of us prefer being sexually attracted to women that we could bone IRL and not get asked pointed questions by the police. I looked at the linked articles and my brain promptly screamed: "pink-haired girl looks like she's 13 years old tops, ABORT, ABORT, ABORT!" I'm so sorry that that's a very niche kink that the majority of us on this website do not share.
The anime police are all 17-year-olds too.

I mean, do you honestly make a difference between ecchi (or I dunno... hentai) in which the characters are 18 vs the one in which they are 16? They all look the same; it's all pedo bait anyways. To me it seems to take a lot of mental gymnastics to defend an almost indefensible habit with "at least they could consent" as if 2D cartoons had lives of their own.
No, I have a problem with them looking like they?re 13, which is what I was calling out in this game. I don?t like girls. I like women.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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erttheking said:
McElroy said:
erttheking said:
Oh lord forbid that some of us prefer being sexually attracted to women that we could bone IRL and not get asked pointed questions by the police. I looked at the linked articles and my brain promptly screamed: "pink-haired girl looks like she's 13 years old tops, ABORT, ABORT, ABORT!" I'm so sorry that that's a very niche kink that the majority of us on this website do not share.
The anime police are all 17-year-olds too.

I mean, do you honestly make a difference between ecchi (or I dunno... hentai) in which the characters are 18 vs the one in which they are 16? They all look the same; it's all pedo bait anyways. To me it seems to take a lot of mental gymnastics to defend an almost indefensible habit with "at least they could consent" as if 2D cartoons had lives of their own.
No, I have a problem with them looking like they?re 13, which is what I was calling out in this game. I don?t like girls. I like women.

Then you're raising a different issue, the other guy was saying he thought they looked adult and was dismayed the artbook says some are 15-17 and that they looked as thought they could be all college students.

Hence, there's no objective standard here, and both of you that agree overall do also disagree about what age the chars seem to be.

I say we just not worry about something that's this degree of subjective with a game this decidedly silly and fun.
 

Erttheking

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Dreiko said:
erttheking said:
McElroy said:
erttheking said:
Oh lord forbid that some of us prefer being sexually attracted to women that we could bone IRL and not get asked pointed questions by the police. I looked at the linked articles and my brain promptly screamed: "pink-haired girl looks like she's 13 years old tops, ABORT, ABORT, ABORT!" I'm so sorry that that's a very niche kink that the majority of us on this website do not share.
The anime police are all 17-year-olds too.

I mean, do you honestly make a difference between ecchi (or I dunno... hentai) in which the characters are 18 vs the one in which they are 16? They all look the same; it's all pedo bait anyways. To me it seems to take a lot of mental gymnastics to defend an almost indefensible habit with "at least they could consent" as if 2D cartoons had lives of their own.
No, I have a problem with them looking like they?re 13, which is what I was calling out in this game. I don?t like girls. I like women.

Then you're raising a different issue, the other guy was saying he thought they looked adult and was dismayed the artbook says some are 15-17 and that they looked as thought they could be all college students.

Hence, there's no objective standard here, and both of you that agree overall do also disagree about what age the chars seem to be.

I say we just not worry about something that's this degree of subjective with a game this decidedly silly and fun.
That?s not quite what the poster I replied to was talking about. Though I will admit I am ruddy exhausted with Japan?s struggle to make someone who is sexy and also able to legally drink. Something?s wrong when Fire Emblem Three Houses, of all things, shakes things up so much.

Also, looking fifteen is definitely getting into icky territory. If they?re too young to give consent in Alabama, they?re way too young.