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I dunno, most games the sexuality of the protagonist is completely irrelevant, and in those cases id tell both sides to stop whining or just play a different game
This is a case of double standards.
If you weren’t willing to call it out before when it was heavily one sided, you shouldn’t be calling it out now.
You’re making it relevant by calling it out at the worst possible time.
I’m calling it out right now because someone posted a meme and I’m replying to that post. I am not against more representation in video games, and I find people who whine about it to be annoying children.
I’m not seeing the double standard there. Their overall stance sounds like they don’t gaf about anyone complaining about the sexuality of characters in video games because it’s often completely irrelevant to the game itself.
Or did I misunderstand and you mean that since they didn’t call out people complaining about a lack of gay representation they shouldn’t call out everyone complaining now that the complaints go both ways?
I’m not seeing the double standard there.
If you sleep through all the romantic subplots of the last 40 years of RPGs, but you wake up offended when you discover that Ellie and Riley Kiss at the end of The Last of Us: Left Behind, you’re working from a double standard.
you mean that since they didn’t call out people complaining about a lack of gay representation they shouldn’t call out everyone complaining now that the complaints go both ways?
Basically this, yes. Although, generically complaining “Ew! Kissy stuff!” would suffice.
No one gave a fuck about Ellie and Riley kissing in 2014. It wasnt until after the culture wars started that it became a thing. Im still not even sure it is a thing, since everyone was saying that not liking part 2 was only because you dont like “the gayz”. Which is bullshit. The fans of the game, knew for 6 years that Ellie was gay, and that she was going to be the only playable character(which turned out to be bullshit), and everyone was still looking forward to it.
Then the leaks happened, and all of sudden half the fans are bigots…
It just wasn’t clear what the “this” in the comment I replied to was referring to, the OP or the comment it replied to. My own comment assumed it was saying thr comment it replied to had the double standard, but I see now that it might have been agreeing with that comment’s sentiment but saying the OP was about a double standard.
I’m in a perspective of hoping for more romantic subplots of any kind. I never played through any generation of RPGs that made those popular, and when they were there, they were hastily written in, or just optional.
It’s why I’m excited for a certain JRPG remake that puts one such relation (between a guy and a girl) front and center, so much so that it becomes a driving element of the story. Those who know, know I suppose.
One thing that helps in its case is, it doesn’t advertise on the box “Romance 1-1000 characters!!” IMO, a good romantic plot sneaks up on you after you’ve invested in the characters.
It’s why I’m excited for a certain JRPG remake that puts one such relation (between a guy and a girl) front and center, so much so that it becomes a driving element of the story.
Are we talking about FF7 or something else?
IMO, a good romantic plot sneaks up on you after you’ve invested in the characters.
That’s good writing for you.
Honestly, I suppose FF7 is another great example, but I was thinking of the Trails in the Sky remake due out in a month or two.
Sorry if that’s a vague spoiler. It wasn’t even something I knew about the game playing through, but the slow-impact delivery of it worked fantastically.
I thought I was pretty up on my JRPGs, but I’ve literally never heard of this franchise before today.
Also, nobody is forcing anybody to play a game. Every gamer already chooses to not play most of the games that exist. What’s one more?
That’s nothing, I was forced to play a snake that was eating small dots and getting longer and longer.
Transphobic dudes experiencing gender dysphoria playing as a woman
Never liked this lumping of everyone into oversimplified “gamers” as if it’s anything different besides conservatives who happen to play games.
It is always conservatives. In any hobby.
Not just any hobby, any country. You think this country still uses fax machines and are a bunch of racists? You think that country doesn’t believe in vaccines and elected a moron? You think that country is committing a genocide?
There’s a reason that particular cohort is mockingly referred to as capital-G GamersTM.
Exactly.
I like to play games that let you customize your characters. I usually avoid all games that force me to play as anyone but myself in that universe. I think all games should let you choose who you want to be and who you want to be with if romance is an option.
Honest question, can anyone actually name a mainstream game where the main playable character is canonically and explicitly portrayed as gay?
I honestly can’t even think of one.
FFXIV. Like the whole raid tier for Gia and Rynne.
last of us?
In baldurs gate 3 people of the same gender certainly hit on you. Basically all romancible characters have player characters as their sexual orientation
The MISSING: J J Macfield and the Island of Memories is a great one.
Ending
Psyche. Though much of the dialog and written messages could lead you, like myself, to believe Macfield is a closeted lesbian undergoing community/family abuse for her quiet obsessions with a girl…it’s actually the less common form of LGBT. Macfield is a closet trans woman; much of the game’s horrific bodily mutilation themes take a stand-in for the dysphoria of being uncomfortable in her own masculine body. Of course, many of the same types who’d retch at a gay protagonist would throw up at the idea of being someone they didn’t identify with - which ironically is exactly what the game is teaching you.
Last of Us.
Life is Strange games.
Guild Wars 2
That’s what makes it even more pathetic, literally just being given the option of a gay subplot is having it shoved down their throats.
It’s so ridiculous that I question how many of the complaints we see online are even sincere, because surely people aren’t that dumb.
I have an example that’s not gay, but trans - one of the two protagonists of Tell Me Why is a trans guy. (The other protagonist is his cisgender twin sister.)
Yuji Naka once said that NiGHTs gender was “up for interpretation”, which I think makes them nonbinary. That’s a pretty deep cut though.
I remember reading about that because I went on a SA2 Chao Garden binge at one point and really got into trying to get a perfect flying one, I even went and played a bit of Into Dreams and read the wiki.
It’s because they’re “dream beings” and don’t really truly exist so they have no gender.
I will ask a different question. In how many mainstream games can you actually confirm the main character is straight? Sure it may be more than the two examples of gay main characters, but still very few compared to where it just doesn’t come up.
Pretty much every GTA, Duke Nukem, the Witcher series, the God of War series, Yakuza, Unchartered, the Final Fantasy games, the Super Mario games (including Donkey Kong), even Pac-man… and that’s just the ones I’ve played. Then you’ve got virtually everything featuring Disney characters, Star Wars, as well as most other TV and movie tie-in games (of which there are many).
That’s the thing about defaultism, is you can play a straight character and not even remember you’ve done it because it’s just the default. I’ll bet you didn’t even notice that Pac-man was canonically straight, and yet if Ms. Pac-man was instead called “Pacman’s Husband Steve”, suddenly Pac-man’s one defining trait would be his sexuality.
If nothing else, you’ve provided an object lesson in just how true OP’s meme is.
I’ll bet you didn’t even notice that Pac-man was canonically straight
Well, I never played the official Pac-man so yeah, had no way to notice.
But while you do have a point about defaultism, I still believe large majority of games just doesn’t say one way or another, which is as it should be.
Yes, Life is Strange and The Last of Us. Pretty major games
Life is Strange series, Before the Storm. Not sure about the others.
Mainstream? No, but my character decided he was gay in Disco Elysium.
A bunch of characters in Apex Legends are canonically gay, trans, nonbinary, bi, pansexual, and Mirage. As a hero shooter, I guess there’s no real “main” character as such.
Aloy in Horizon is pretty much there if the Burning Shores DLC is any indication, although she seems to be a work in progress as a fully developed person.
I remember when dinoflask did YTPs of Overwatch’s lead designer, he poked fun at how, whenever the game needed a progressive image boost, they would retcon a character to be gay at random. He sentence-mixed something like “Our fans are always wondering who’s going to be gay on our next update.”
I did learn a lot of modding with my commitment to play gay characters at least. Thanks compulsory heterosexuality for teaching me to Google things like “Carth gay”!
One of the first mods I tried to mess with was The Underground for Morrowind (which Skyrim’s Dawnguard is 100% a rip off of btw) because it forces you into a het relationship as part of the storyline. Unfortunately, it was such a crashy mess that just changing all the gender checks didn’t help.
People assume heterosexual is the default and get pissy at anything else, they’re completely spoiled. I can’t really think of any video games which force you to be a gay dude, unless you’re playing like Dream Daddy? The Last of Us Part 2 has you play as a lesbian, and I guess the usual crowd did have a meltdown over Abby not looking like a Princess.
Ah more of this Anti-Straight bigotry
You need to put a /s on there so that readers know you’re not a colossal bellend
You know how it’s not racist to point out others being racist because bigot isn’t a protected class?
Protected class is a legal status, probably want to make that point from an ethical basis rather than US law.
I think the implication is clear. It’s not bigotted to be biased against the bigot if you need it clearer.
No the sentiment was clear and intention agreed.
Would be nice if you could play a gay dude. It feels like most lbgtq representation is only women
Yes! It’s that whole disgusting “two chicks at the same time” trope that allows them to get away with it more, I assume.
Also sexism. Women can do it because they’re silly creatures who don’t know what they’re doing without a man controlling them so obviously being a lesbian is acceptable. But a man choosing to do those things? He should know better
Sexism for sure, in all sorts of permutations.
Women with a sex drive must be bi. Therefore bi women are hot.
Of course women can mess around with women, it’s not “real sex”.
She just needs a “real man”.
It’s so gross, and makes no sense to me. Guys seem much more situationally indiscriminate, sailors, people in jail, and honestly who cares if their guy is bi? Either you are monogamous and it’s a non-issue, or you aren’t, and your opportunity is wider for fun stuff than with a straight guy. No downside I can see.
To me it also kinda rhymes with the way bisexual men vs bisexual women are often regarded in wider society. “Bisexual men are actually gay” while “bisexual women are actually straight”. So only the part of their attraction that relates to men is taken seriously 😐
This place is just turning into reddit.
Always has been.
“forced” to play
because the path of the gamer isn’t a choice™
Making the straights uncomfortable is great fun. :D
maybe the connotation behind this is, gay people making straight (homophobic) people uncomfortable.
Because every other meaning would derive into a form of hatred one way or the other
Yes, but unfortunately some people in this thread lack the reading comprehension to understand that. That’s ok. I’m sure if they keep practicing, they’ll get there eventually.
“I didnt say what I mean(yes you fucking did), and now Im going to cry about it.”
Since the first time some asshole cried “die, cis scum, die” we have known exactly who some of you are.
bruh who knows what they meant, but what you mean is, I am pretty sure, kind of mean.
Don’t be a meanie bennyboybumberchums, spread love, even if they don’t love you(consensually ofc)
We know exactly what they meant, because they said the words. Thats how you know what people mean. If they meant to say make bigots feel uncomfortable, they would have said that. But they didnt. Why? Because they see all straight people as the enemy in this weird little culture war they have going on.
Im a firm believer in you doing whatever you want in life, as long as it doesnt hurt anyone else. Trans, gay, straight and everyone else in between. You do you. But when I see this shit? Dude, rubs me the wrong way. Its just hate to fuel the stupid as fuck culture wars. And people are eating it up and spreading it around. Straight people are not the enemy. Some of them might be, that that doesnt mean you get to hate them all, any more than you get to hate all black guys because some of them sell drugs to kids. Thats just bigotry, and it makes hate so much easier to spread. Just look at MAGA, and how easily it spread amongst them. All because nuance left the conversation, and everyone started to generalise. Its enough, it really is.
Yes I agree with all of what you said here. But I also believe that if they say they didn’t mean what they said, and the original statement has the possibility to get misconstrued then I think they can be given a chance.
Unlike maga figurehead, who contradicts his every statement on hourly basis
Its working real well in America right now… Almost like being a prick to people for “great fun” had negative consequences or something… But lets imagine someone said “Making the gays uncomfortable is great fun. :D”… That would be bigotry, right? Yet for some weird reason, you feel totally fine and safe to say something like that… How odd…
Get back to me when straight people start facing systematic oppression. Until then, kindly go fuck yourself.
lol Ah, yes. The excuses. “Its ok for me to be a bigot because reasons!!!”. And then you wonder why you get that hate back. What a spoon eating cunt you are.
Cry a little more, you whiny inbred twatwaffle.
Man, they ruined a perfectly good bum when they put teeth in your mouth.
“They called me a fascist bigot, so I had to start acting like one!” is the argument you’re accidentally making here.
Yeah, thats pretty much how it works. If you treat people like theyre pieces of shit long enough, they start acting like pieces of shit. Its fucking basic psychology.
If everyone calls you a dick for long enough, it will chip away at your self esteem. Eventually, in order to try to improve your situation, you’ll reach out to something bigger than your self. Thats happens every single day for things MUCH less than treating people like they are fascists. For most people, the thing they reach out for is a football team or something like that. But for others, it can be something much worse. Like race, or religion, of political parties. People often ask “How is racism still a thing?” Well, this is how. Low self esteem. And it happens every day with out the help of fuckwits like the guy I responded to, who has clearly already made their choice to be a bigot.
Theres never any excuse to hate a person because of their skin colour, their sex/gender, or who they love. And if youre trying to make an excuse, you might not be the hero of the story you think you are.
Or… perhaps some honest self-examination is in order?
Or perhaps, its fucking text book? Christ, pick up a book and actually read it sometime, instead of just getting all your information from facebook.
Did you just now blamed gay people for what’s happening in US? For real?
Removed by mod
I remember when I actually met Nazi’s in Kotakuinaction over on Reddit. And the mods banned me for pointing it out.
Anytime I see anything from that sub in Google results I immediately skip it.
I mean they worship Asmongold as some hero of masculinity, among others.
I mean. They are all losers. You can smell it in the way they talk. None of them have ever had their dicks touched without over paying.
What game?
Last of us part 2?
Part 1 too but only addressed in DLC.
Do people really complain about playing as a lesbian? That’s like double the tits.
I did hear whining about having to play as a trans character though, despite the fact that you don’t. I can only imagine those people never played it and were just “hur dur big arms = man”.
Sadly yes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us_Part_II#Audience_response
The Last of Us Part II was the subject of review bombing on Metacritic, resulting in a user review score of 3.4/10 at its nadir.[129][130] Reporters noticed the review bombing occurred shortly after the game launched—too early for users to feasibly have finished it;[131] some suggested that the reviews were based on the incomplete plot leaks.[102][130] Many negative reviews criticized the characterization and plot;[129][131] some complained of “social justice warrior” politics, with vitriolic responses to LGBT characters
https://collider.com/last-of-us-2-controversy-explained/
They also thought that because Abby had muscles she was trans.
Do people really complain about playing as a lesbian? That’s like double the tits.
Alright, I doubt you were going in this direction, but I’m going to rant anyway.
As guy, I’ve been sick and tired of male fetishization of lesbians in media for years. It’s creepy. They are not interested in you. Stop acting like you’re going to be the one to convert them into being bi. You aren’t.
Thank the stars that media is (slowly) growing out of this stereotype, because it’s not funny anymore, if was ever funny.
/ Rant over
Anyways, sorry to dump on your comment. It’s (hopefully) not directed at you. It just needs to be said somewhere
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
Edit: it’s optional, yet people still complain about it. I’ve even seen a forum post of someone who gleefully explained that he murdered an NPC because that NPC is canonically gay
Disgusting
Feel like dudes who refuse to ever play as women or in simulated gay relationships are just depriving themselves of some quality content. I haven’t gotten to this BG3 playthrough yet, but you can’t tell me Ascended Astarion and Ambition Gale won’t be the most toxic codependent enabling shit ever, and it is gonna be enthralling to watch that heat up and burn down.
Stay away from Gale. The mechanics of romancing him are more toxic than the character themself. There is no indication of when he locks you out of other options. It’s like playing “Set a Boundary Simulator”. Least fulfilling romance imo. What a fucking weirdo.
Definitely go full in, “I can fix him” with Astarion.
Talking from many patches ago fwiw, maybe some of the mechanics were fixed.
