#give the option of male or female player and then treat the woman as canon

[raptorsenshi]

Some of y’all really need to stop being WEIRD about Stelle being the ‘canon’ Trailblazer.

[19-bellwether]

Instead of replacing Male/Female with Type A/Type B, here's my pitch for making video game character creators more inclusive:

Keep male/female, but portray them as presets since most people will end up using one or the other anyways. Then connect them via a masculinity/feminity slider like the Saints Row series.

On top of that, allow customization on specific parts of the body without being locked out by the preset. Breasts or no breasts, this or that genitalia, hips and shoulders width, voice options, etc.

Then decide how your character is viewed by other characters completely independent of their body type. Choose their pronouns and whether they're treated as a man, woman, nonbinary, or something else. Get to decide their behavior in certain scenarios like in The Sims.

In games with romance options, solve the problem of Playersexual vs Canon Sexuality by tying it to the previous option. For specific cases (like playing a nonbinary character that's only interested in men), give the option to turn off romance options of a specific gender, or romance options of a specific sexuality you don't want interested in your character.

It's impossible to be inclusive of every single scenario and there's still room for improvement in my idea, but actual player choice is better than renaming male/female and calling it a day.

[mtreebeardiles]

Gaah idk how to articulate this well but I think more games need to consider platonic aspects of male/female relationships instead of falling into the same old shit of “men and women can’t be friends.”

Games like Mass Effect and Cyberpunk, for example, treat most m/f interactions as hetero-by-default, regardless of the player’s actions and choices, with the only real exceptions being when the NPC’s sexuality is canonically confirmed (ex, Judy). So even if your masc V does his best to avoid having any romantic/sexual dialogue with Panam, the game treats it as if you were pursuing this route regardless. You can say no during the pivotal Scene, of course, but it sucks that masc V’s can’t be treated similarly to femme V’s as a matter of course, that you never **really** have a choice to dissuade Panam from trying it because the game just… does not give you the opportunity to pursue something platonic

It’s an interesting contrast to Kerry’s romance, where iirc, either V has to instigate it directly rather than respond to something Kerry does. That first kiss is initiated by V, the boat scene is initiated by V. The game has no issue assuming the hetero relationship, but the queer one for masc V has plenty of opportunities to abandon ship (no pun intended) even though the PC instigates the actions each time.

Masc V’s who choose the least flirty options with Panam will still get the option of sex in a basilisk while literally neurologically linked to Panam (talk about an awkward refusal eh), but masc V’s who kiss Kerry on the balcony of Dark Matter will not receive any overt flirting from Kerry during boat drinks.

Now I’m not saying the Panam route is correct and should’ve been applied to the gay/bi romance, I’m merely commenting on the **assumptions** being made. Ideally both het and gay relationships in games with romance options will have clear, robust platonic options as well.

This is pretty stark in ME, too, when playing a masc Shepard. Your options in ME1, for example, are to be Mean or risk the two romance options available to mshep if you interact with Ashley or Liara at all, which also means letting both or either woman down later — because the game doesn’t consider that 1) a man can be platonic with women and 2) that man may also be gay. Gay msheps get nothing until ME3, while het (or assumed het, since bisexual msheps are still limited to het relationships until 3) Shepards and queer fsheps have options in all three games (and this is kinda reinforced in some corners of the fandom, isn’t it? Particularly those who denigrate mshep players).

Obviously ME is a lot older, but Cyberpunk isn’t that old in comparison. It just kinda sucks, ya know, that we haven’t moved past this ingrained idea of “men and women can’t be friends, and PC’s will be assumed heteronormative even after asserting their queerness.” 😔

[saintadeline]

I need bloodborne fans to stop acting like its not blatantly misogynistic. And i mean yes of course dudebros are gonna be like that but i mean like the leftist and usually socially aware bloodborne fans. I promise you you dont have to keep licking fromsofts boots like that and you can still enjoy a game and say it is good/a masterpiece while criticizing it for what it does. If it was their only game sure id give some of it the benefit of the doubt re: "is this societal critique?" but if you look at literally all of soulsborne (and especially er but thats not surprising) you can tell it's more than simply a pattern. I feel like bloodborne is both particularly blatant about it while also being in a way that makes you wonder if it was meant as social commentary (hint: its not, at least mostly not. If it was trying to be, then it fell back into its own trap), in dark souls the misogyny is easy to see because of the roles of all female characters but bloodborne is inherently about (cisgender) "womanhood" (aka about periods and birth...) and especially motherhood so its harder to pin its misogyny down as "portrays women as inferior". But thats not the end all be all of misogyny, guys. I understand how easy it is to see it under that light but i can tell you that much, bloodborne is not the #feminist game some people try to pretend it is, a game who so harshly relies on "the horror of womanhood" as something alien as well as making Mother the highest status a woman can attain is... Not the peak of feminism. It is not a feminist take to have female characters "find meaning and comfort" in forced motherhood. We are not socially to the point where "women are allowed to be mothers" is a revolutionary opinion, it kind of feels the same as "let women be feminine" arguments to me lol. No shade against anyone in particular by the way im just speaking my mind about things ive seen a lot everywhere. Idk i think a lot of people can agree arianna's entire storyline is shitty as hell Because its the most blatant about it so why can we not analyze every other female character that way. Can we not see that annalise being portrayed (although take that one with a slight grain of salt because the narrative is biased against her for actual ingame political reasons and not just misogyny) as an evil mastermind whos sole role is to become a mother through ordering her pawns to bring her um. Well. Dubious substance. Kind of fucking sucks. And the entirety of her character revolves around her (lack thereof) motherhood. Name me one CANON actually ingame thing about her that isnt "the church treats her as evil" and "she has to be a mother". The doll too, i mean what can i even say about the doll, her entire thing reeks and in a sense in a good way? Because youre meant to be uncomfortable with the way gman treats her yes and i agree thats not a bad thing. But what sucks about her character is the fact her only two options in a storyline are to keep the same, chained to keep doing your bidding and watching over you, or to be forced into a role of motherhood. Because she cant be her own character, she has to revolve around you the player. And theres more for each character really but ill be here all day if i keep going.

However, its one thing to have a media be very misogynistic with its themes. And like sure man whatever i actually dont care That much. Ive gotten used to it and i wouldnt be playing and enjoying the game if it was really a complete turnoff for me lol. What really bothers me here is the fact fans will regurgitate the same, and most oftentimes even worse, misogynistic takes, either because they hold the game so high up in their esteem and cant even imagine it to have any flaws, or because they simply dont get it and did not ever look into it that hard or think about it. Of Course the reddit type cishet male gamers are gonna be stupid about female characters as they always are but i dont care ive made peace with that, once again im talking about people who like. ARE socially aware and dont do shit like this on purpose. Im talking about stuff like the way people treat adella, both versus alfred and as a standalone, im talking about the way people keep adding even more misogyny to the game thru their theories in places it wasnt even there before ??? (fauxsefka pregnancy theory anyone?) Its the nature of fandom that this kinda thing keeps happening always but idk its been pissing me off a lot more lately when its from people i know have good opinions otherwise. Bloodborne never was feminist, fromsoft never was "queer as hell" on purpose. You can stop lying to yourself about it its okay you can enjoy media that kind of suck and yes its ok to say bloodborne kind of sucks. Its my favorite game and the best game ever made to me and i will still say it. Make it better in your mind yeah!! Im all for fixing media i do that!! But we dont need to act like the game itself is revolutionary about it

Can i say something controversial. Would you forgive me

[trashcatsnark]

What’s your opinion on Kerry being available to only male V when it’s mentioned in-game that he’s bi (correct me if I’m wrong, I have terrible memory)?? I feel like they should’ve had bi romance options if they were able to implement both gay and straight ones.

Oh anon, oooooh anon. I love you dearly, but you intentionally or not might as well have thrown lit dynamite in my ask box. This discourse has been such a strange beast within this fandom and I have definitely shared some vague thoughts about it before. I’m putting everything under a read more, to help stave off some....harassment or putting it in people’s lives who may not want it. 

 I still remember I was frankly heartbroken and upset when I first learned Kery wasn’t romanceable by female V when the game first officially came out, but before I played it; River and Panam weren’t even really known about, cause they weren’t talked about much in the promo material,  plus Kerry was shown in romance scenes with what looked to be female V. So, if you go back far enough you’ll find me in December cope posting and being the saddest and angriest of beans, because other than Johnny who I knew was likely off the table. He was one of the only characters I wanted to potentially romance. Now, I’m further away from it, have  processed my feelings regarding it and am more rational I believe regarding the issue. 

But, that being said, a large issue of this sort of discourse is that; no matter what anyone says, someone somwhere is upset. I’ve been insulted, blocked, accused of fetishizing gay men, and so much over my opinion regarding this matter. I’m still currently debating if I even wanna tag this, cause the issue almost always brings negativity to my blog and to me. I have very little interest in being berated for this, so we’ll see how I feel after I finish typing this all out. I’m going to try to go through all my issues, my points, my troubles and feelings about the matter. But, at the end of the day, it is merely my opinion. If someone disagrees, fine, just don’t attack people or berate them over pixels in a video game. Just dont. That’s all I ask. Okay, so I’m gonna divide this into talking points and whatever, now. 

Firstly, Kerry is bisexual. Point blank, period. I’ve seen folks try to argue that his wife was like comphet, which if you dont know means that sometimes exclusively homosexual people will try to force themselves into heterosexual relationships because society has conditioned them to believe they have to be straight. While, I’m not negating the fact that this happens, as a bisexual/pansexual (I use the terms interchangeably to define my experience and feelings)  person I’ve struggled with it when making sense of my attraction to women. It genuinely is something that happens. This is not the case for Kerry; he doesn’t ever hide his attraction to men, between TTRPG lore and the video game he has had two wives , and he is stated by game developers and TTRPG creator to be bisexual.He is bisexual. Getting that out there, saying other wise, in my opinion is a level of bi erasure. That being said, I do still have my grievances with how the game chose to handle his bisexuality and bisexuality as whole, also imo, the game generally doesn’t seem...to treat players who are attracted to men well… 

But before I get into that, I wanna make clear, I feel like Cyberpunk 2077 should have had more romance options for every orientation. If you’re not going to create a player-sexual style of romance; ie where every romanceable character is attracted to the player regardless and wish to focus on each character having their own predetermined sexuality; only have one character for each sexuality is kind of bullshit. If you’re a lesbian player and you’re not into Judy, you get nothing, except a fuck around with Meredith (who I will get to later). You’re a straight woman, but not into River, shit out of luck. You’re a gay man who’s not into Kerry, sucks to suck bud. You’re a straight man who’s not into Panam (kind dont get how you wouldn’t be but who am i to judge), well, you can fuck Meredith… so woooo. Oh also, if you’re not attracted to women, you will still be forced to watch in first person pov a sex scene with Alt and if you want Johnny to like you, you gotta date a girl. Also, all the male love interests will be sidelined mostly…. Hooray… But I digress, either go in with all romance options bi/pan/player sexual, or give more options for romance. Cause now you have the issue of people not getting the partner they hoped for and not liking their only option. Now, you got people trying to make the Judy  bi, which is lesbian erasure and lesbophobic, along with people saying Kerry isn’t bi and can’t be with women which is bi erasure and biphobic. Whereas, if you had just gone in from the get go with either more options or a player-sexual romance system; we wouldn’t be here, CDPR. 

Okay, so next thing, now that I’ve addressed my issues with the entire romance system and that yes, Kerry is bi. Should Kerry have been able to be romanced as female V? Yes and no. Which sounds vague, but I’m going somewhere. With the current set up of it; Kerry being romanceable to a female V would have unfairly given female players an additional love interest over male players. Female V would have the option of Judy, River, or Kerry. And Male V’s would have the option of Kerry or Panam. That’s not fair. I get that, inherently. CDPR painted themselves into a corner, by only letting there be two romances for “each” gender, one for “each” sexuality, and then using a canonically bi character for one of them. They played themselves, they were either gonna have to give an unfair amount of love interest to one side of their gender system or make a bi character who will only pursue one gender. So, they went for the latter. 

Now, some people feel thats fine, because Kerry having a gender preference is fine and its okay for bi people to lean a certain way in regards to gender and its okay for them to not be attracted to people. And that is true. I am a bisexual woman who leans a little more towards men, I get that. However, I have only been given one reason for Kerry’s preference for male V over female V. And it was by a developer of the game who stated that Kerry pursues Male V and not Female V because Male V reminds him more of Johnny… And I hate that. I personally, hate it so deeply, because to me it does a complete disservice to Kerry and V’s relationship and Kerry’s arc. Because even with female V you see him being preoccupied with Johnny and V’s connection to Johnny, then you see him move past that. So, to then state, its still a deciding factor in him romancing V is so wrong to me. Like why???? Why would you do that to people who like Kerry??? Why would you put that in their heads, that Kerry on some level, subconsciously or not, was thinking about Johnny when he decides to romance V. Cause that’s not in the game, in the game you get the vibe he’s moving on past Johnny, like he’s growing, developing, genuinely likes V. But that stupid tweet, just radiates rancid vibes, whyyy???  

And then, outside of that nasty tweet, I have to ask what other reason is there for why he prefers male V over fem V.  They’re...the same characters essentially, just with different pronouns and body type. They also can look like whatever you want; they’re completely customizable. So, Its based off of what the game associates with  gender characteristics and nothing else, meaning, his attraction is rooted solely in their gender and he turns down fem V by virtue of them being a woman and nothing else. Which, yeah, bisexual/pansexual people have preferences but when that preference completely excludes a gender based on nothing but gender…. Uhh????? See my issue???? 

And I’ve seen people saying, well, its better than CDPR playing into slutty will date anybody bisexual stereotypes. But, the thing is...THEY STILL DO THAT which is what drives me up the god damn wall; they managed to do slutty bi stereotypes and I don’t even get kiss the boy, which again, I get the need for fairness but wow, just wow. And lemme explain. 

Meredith is the only character, other than joytoys, whom you can have sex with regardless of gender, body type, etc. She is the only character who shows that she is attracted to V on some level regardless of gender. 

She is a one night stand. Her sex animations are the same as joytoys. She treated like a promiscuous love phobic woman.  And having characters like that is fine, my own V is promiscuous and love phobic. But, we can acknowledge that in a video game by a AAA game company having the only character who is at least physically attracted to the player no matter what, be nothing but sex fodder...isn’t great bi representation, right? 

Oh, and Kerry himself still is a promiscuous bisexual man, he just won’t romance female V because apparently, according to a dev, they don’t remind him of Johnny enough. AND THATS THE DEVS WORDS, NOT MINE, I HATE THAT. Like, Kerry is shown to have people’s lingerie around his house. He’s stated by Johnny to be someone who fucks around. He gets a blowjob from a man in a stairwell. 

The two most blatantly canonically bi character in this game are promiscuous; one wont romance V at all and just wants sex, the other will only romance a male V because at worse, he’s comparing them mentally subconsciously to his dead friend and at best….because….reasons…. Literally, from what I understand for Kerry to romance V, they have to have the “male” body type and “male” voice. Meaning, fem V could literally by all appearances look like masc V, body type wise, but because she uses female pronouns and has a feminine sounding voice...no… the stars say no… 

In my honest opinion, it is bad bisexual representation and a not so well thought out romance system for a game. 

But, that being said, I literally never romance anyone, because I’m a Johnny simp. So, the fuck do I know.

oh god do i tag this.... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[maliro-t]

The most frustrating thing about the ubisoft stuff coming out right now is that there are a lot of men that are acting like the studio has been suddenly exposed as misogynistic without any tells and I’m just. 

Of course there’s a lot of stuff (thankfully!) coming out now that hadn’t before, but if this was the first hint that you had that there were people in power in the studio who didn’t respect women, maybe examine why. 

I have always been bothered by the fact that the response to calls for the inclusion of women in their substantial lineup of AC protagonists was not to give a woman her own story, but to add her in an almost entirely ignorable way. Is it not the tiniest bit suspicious that Kassandra had to be declared canon, and not just given her own game? It really feels like, ok ladies, you can have a cookie, but for all the REAL gamers who want to pretend that female protagonists don’t exist, we’re literally changing our system so that you can keep playing as a man. That really is not the equal treatment they want you to think it is. Thanks for the cookie.

Like, think about AC syndicate, a game that I love so dearly, but the first out of 9 (9!!!) main games to feature a playable female character, and even then, the way Evie was treated in comparison to Jacob is just incredibly frustrating. I mean jesus, even just look at the box art, which features Jacob distinctly in the center with Evie literally off in the shadows, something that frankly carries over to the actual game as well. Every single major assassination was carried out by Jacob (which is wild when you think about the way that she’s characterized as this perfect assassin student)- the only actual assassination mission that Evie gets is with Lucy Thorne, and she spends a good chunk of the game just dealing with the aftermath of what Jacob’s doing. That combined with the fact that the player has the option to be Jacob for the entirety of the open world sections sets her up to feel like a side character in her own game, especially if that’s how the player is determined to see her. It reinforces the idea that the man is the protagonist, even when she’s a playable main character!

And god it is SO telling that even when they’ve given the option to play solely as a woman, the advertising is so prominently centered on the male counterpart. When the Valhalla reveal dropped there was absolutely no indication in the trailer that a character other than male Eivor existed (something that thankfully changed in the gameplay) and it was frankly extremely disheartening. It’s taken two months for us to even see her in an official capacity. Through the just the reveal, the majority of the images tied to this game feature the male protagonist, and don’t require any further acknowledgment that a woman could helm the game in his place. The women in these games have always been framed in ways that make them feel secondary at best (more often like afterthoughts), and it really shouldn’t take a goddamn exposé for someone else to see that.

I really am so grateful to the people that fought for characters like Evie and Kassandra to exist, and especially given the environment they were created in, I find them so incredible and hold them so dear. But if all of this feels like a complete revelation to you please, please, ask yourself why none of this felt wrong.

[it-will-not-last-the-night]

Blegh

In terms of Persona 5 I’d been riding high mostly since P5D. I’d been positive mostly over it because P5D and fan-generated content had been lovely overall and really engaging and enjoyable. It had helped me forget that the main game itself seriously does upset me at times and I have a less than ideal opinion of it.

*Sigh*

Now I’m starting to feel like that again. Both announcements of today have left brought back to mind some of my biggest problems with Persona 5 and the way Atlus writes in general. What are they? A bit of a lesson then in me;

For myself there are three events in Persona 5 that I really REALLY just consider outright despicable. In no order they are; 1) Two homosexual adult males being negatively stereotyped as child molesters targeting Ryuji 2) Ryuji’s friends responding to one of the greatest acts of selflessness in the entire story by physically abusing Ryuji and 3) The Valentine’s Day event making Canon that Akira/Ren is horrible, Sojiro is horrible and that Atlus thinks all the girls are vapid idiots. 

‘Magical Valentine’ raises an issue I’ve always had but makes it even more forceful. You see in the game the Valentine’s Event is only ‘optionally’ canon. You can play a canonical run-through and not have it occur. So you can, legitimately, without needing headcanon or fanon, just have your own canon playthrough in which the girls are not vapid idiots. The anime however, now, makes it that, for the Animation, it is canon that Akira/Ren is an awful person and that the girls are vapid idiots. Oh and that Sojiro is just literally the worst like...like he is scum in this event. As bas as Akira/Ren is (and he’s bad in this version!) the bigger problem I think a LOT of people forget about the Valentine’s Harem Route is that it literally casts Sojiro as a Guardian of Futaba who would lie to conceal her boyfriend’s infidelities...even when said infidelities LITERALLY CAUSE FUTABA TO CRY! 

So the animation is now making it canon that; 1) Akira/Ren sees no reason he has to be honest or forthright with any females in his life 2) Sojiro holds such low regard for his daughter he will aide Akira/Ren in an ongoing deception and emotional manipulation of her RIGHT AFTER SHE OVERCAME A SUICIDAL PHASE OF HER LIFE and 3) That Ann, Makoto, Futaba, Haru, Takemi, Kawakami, Ohya, Hifumi and Chihaya all fall in love with the exact same person and are literally when confronted with incontervertible evidence of his infedilities not only tricked into instantly accepting that them all bringing him chocolate on Valentine’s Day was a ‘misunderstanding’ but, in the case of the Phantom Thieves members, this has so little impact on them that mere days later they have no reaction.

AKA the ending Valentine’s Harem Route basically says: “Akira/Ren successfully cheated on all the girls in his life, and is free to continue to do so since they are so stupid that they could be convinced to assume it was a ‘misunderstanding’ even under the most blatantly false of pretext,” the ending basically gives carte blanche to say that Akira/Ren will probably keep cheating on the women in his life because, well, they’re so stupid that even if they all end up right in front of him, confessing their love for him to each other’s faces...they somehow think this was a ‘misunderstanding’?

That’s gonna be canon now for the animation. Not ‘optional’ canon, just...just outright canon. Literally everything in the Canon is soured now. Did you like Ren’s bond with Ann in the foregoing episodes? Well bad news; Ren literally is willing to commit to an intimate relationship with her and then emotionally cheat on her with several different women at once. Did you like how Ren played a pivotal role in building Futaba’s character and helping her grow out of her emotional turmoil? Well sucks for you cause Ren is literally willing to lie to this girl’s face and tell her he loves her whilst carrying on behind her back with numerous other women.

It sort of goes without saying that this kinda wrecks P5A completely since, canonically, Akira/Ren is now just an irredeemable asshole and the female characters are reduced to stock harem-style idiot love interests with basically 0 individuality because everyone has to love the Protagonist (self-insert!).

But when you think about it even in the original game...this was a problem. Sure you could choose not to do it...but you could also choose to do it. This means, technically, as far as Atlus’ writing is concerned, canonically Akira/Ren has it in him to be a complete asshole with no respect for women or his friends...and the females in the game are all vapid idiots. That’s technically canon since that’s required for the Valentine’s Route to work.

Oh, also, that Sojiro is the worst. The worst.

The Valentine’s Harem Event, like the Ryuji abusing event post Shido’s Palace. does irrevocable damage to the characters and the content itself, kinda ruining it since for it to be canon...well it means the characters are terrible people or stupid. Why I sort of have to choose to ignore them to actually like the story.

Of course what does all this writing have in common? It’s a JOKE! Haha! Ryuji’s being abused, isn’t this funny? Haha! The girls are all vapid idiots and Joker’s such a chick magnet they have no varying tastes in partner at all! Haha! Gay men want to force Ryuji to undress for them! 

Isn’t this funny? I mean, no, of course not. In almost all these cases the ‘humour’ is...someone suffering. A common retort I then see is; it’s not canon, its just for a joke.

But the problem is it is, all, strictly canon. I could definitely understand if these things were packaged as clear ‘not canon’ events. 

Here’s an example; the Blazblue game series has ‘joke’ endings which are explicitly not canon but usually feature bizarre or ‘funny’ scenes. One of said scenes is a reoccuring bit in which the protagonist Ragna is made to wear glasses that causes the female cast to all fall in love with him. Putting aside the fact for the moment that, to me, this still isn’t funny since its treating the Mind Rape of the entire female cast as a ‘joke’ the fact remains that it is, however, not canon. The creators make sure that nothing that happens here technically infringes on or diminished the canon character content by making it explicitly non-canon.

Persona 5, both the game and now the Animation, take no such efforts. There are no efforts to make clear that Ryuji being beaten up is a ‘comedic non-canon overreaction’ or that Akira/Ren being a womanizing prick and Sojiro being the WORST are just ‘comedic non-canon skits’ all these are played as explicitly, irrefutably, canon. That is how the characters are, as far as Atlus is concerned. That is their opinions, their beliefs etc.

Is it weird that P5 Dancing has the best, most wholesome, most healthy characterization of the entire Persona 5 Franchise? I suppose maybe the mangas are good to, I must admit I’ve never read any of them since from what I can tell Ryuji is basically ignored in all of them in favour of focus on the girls.

Atlus has a writing problem and that problem is centered I fear on a simple fact; the protagonist is a self-insert who is assumed to be a self-insert for a very specific formula; a young male who sees female characters as things he wishes to collect for himself and wants to feel adored by. Almost all of the major writing problems stem from this; Girls seem exploited or turned into vapid haremettes? Well, obviously, gotta appeal to that ‘chick magnet’ fantasy. Homosexuality is cast as negative or frightning? Well, obviously, the fantasy being appealed to is explicitly heterosexual in nature, everything else is ‘icky’. Other males seem to constantly be the butt of a joke or consistently shown up compared to the protagonist? Naturally since the fantasy is about making the player feel like ‘the man’ and all other men are simply lame by comparison so that the girls will only love the protagonist (the self-insert).

What really bums me out about all of this is that Atlus can write such amazing scenes as Ryuji’s ‘the place I belong is next to you,’ but then in that same game or anime have the Valentine’s Event and the Ship scene. I imagine in part this is due to it being a game first, story second, so they feel there are ‘beats’ that need to be there (the loser must be made fun of, the protagonist must get all the girls) even if, from a storyboarding point of view...it just makes the characters look A) Very inconsistent in personality and attitude (Ren’s infamous standing up for a stranger being assaulted but then instantly refusing to step in to help Ryuji in Shinjuku) or B) Like massive asshats (The entire Valentine’s Event from Ren and Sojiro’s perspectives.

It is just...its sad. I want to like this story because there is legitimately good characters and writing but...in the name of appealing to the lowest common denominator it gets weighted down by stuff which is explicitly canon and makes the characters awful. 

It really makes it tough to like it at times.

*Sigh*

At the end of the day I don’t know how to handle this. Accepting its canon makes a lot of people awful or stupid. Headcanoning it away is fine but...then I gotta accept I don’t like Persona 5 per say, I like what I, or other fans, create from Persona 5.

Also can we please just be able to date Ryuji. Please Atlus. We don’t need another female character to be another fangirl for Joker, to be another vapid idiot who can be duped by the WORST Sojiro, please Atlus, please. Please. There are ENOUGH love interests Atlus, please try perhaps instead stop treating women like little toys for a protagonist to effortlessly collect and dupe. 

Watching all the Persona 5 Girls (sans Sae) in the Valentine’s Event is painful. They are characters I like, many of them have good writing...and then they are reduced to props to make a player feel “Oh yeah! Such a chick magnet! They all want me! Women are simply a commodity by which I inflate my own sense of self-worth since having multiple of them attracted to me and betrayed by me makes me feel as if this is a positive development and not a negative one!”

And I do mean that seriously. Look at most content or statements around the Valentine’s Event. They frame it positively. The ‘harem’ ending, Joker is such a ‘chick magnet’ and so ‘alpha’ etc. etc. 

Terrible emotional betrayal? Deep seated trust issues? Sojiro treating his own daughter like garbage? Ignored because ‘Joker is a PLAYER! WOOO!” And this is overall seen as a positive development. 

By now I’ve rambled on ridiculously long but if I must have a conclusion it is thus; Please give us a Female Protagonist who can date the other boys and stop selling this sexist approach where non-protagonist males and all females serve the same purpose; inflating the ego of the player character. 

[tumblunni]

I'm so conflicted on Sylvando cos half HELL YEAH CANON GAY PARTY MEMBER but yeah gah he's kind of a stereotype...

Also the whole fact that in Japanese this character wasn't even "he" but that sort of.. specific bad stereotype of blurring the lines between gay men and trans women and acting like they're one and the same and being a trans woman just means being a gay man who's SOOOOO FABULOUS that he does the over the top drag performance 24/7...

But I don't think the solution was to change "Sylvia" to "Sylvando" and remove all instances of the character using feminine or gender neutral language...

Especially since the dub absolutely didn't remove any other stereotypes, and if anything they added even more!

Its all a bit confusing and bad.

But still GAHHH I like the character, I just wish they'd handled this stuff a little better...

Ehh...

It's just damn confusing that I don't know how to correctly refer to this character, I don't know what the intentions were really supposed to be. Were they always meant to be a gay man and it was just that sort of "oh honeyyy darlinggg you tell big sis allll about it~ uwu I'm such a princess~" over the top fuckin cliche kind of dialogue? Or an actual trans woman? Or a genderfluid or nonbinary person? The portrayal really is full of that sort of stereotypical dialogue so yeah.

I'm just gonna personally go with "trans woman" interpretation since Japanese Sylvia calls herself Sylvia and uses feminine language about herself and the feminine "atashi". I'm inclined to believe what the character actually says about herself, yknow? Even if it conflicts with what the dub went with. I'd feel bad using the pronoun "they" because of the ambiguity and all, cos I don't know if that's what this character would have actually chosen aaaa... The only answer we have on Sylvando/Sylvia's own opinion of their gender is "FEMALE", even though their design is very butch and treated more like a gay male stereotype. I feel sad there isn't even one dress outfit option, which would probably indicate that "gay man who just talks in drag queen stereotypes" was indeed the intention but AAAAA

I feel bad using the pronoun the dub chose and I feel like "am I grasping at straws? Am I pushing transness onto a character who wasn't meant to be trans?" if I use "she"...

So I guess probably "they" would be the closest equivelant to "character whose gender is never stated, who is of ambiguous appearance and heavily queer coded". But then I feel like "am I pushing my own identity onto the character"??? And if she really is a trans woman then I'd feel awful erasing that with dumb nonbinary headcanons...

Gahhh this is why I hate the "this character is every LGBT stereotype all at once" thing...

But then on the other hand I don't wanna complain too.much cos this is like the first time DQ has been like "ok we're gonna give the gays something" instead of more.negative jokes, so like.. even though it's now just the same jokes but positive, at least it's still a step forward...

Also honestly it's nice to see a queer character who's bombastic and having fun and being awesome, even if it's a bit cliche. And it seems a lot of non gay or trans players ended up liking the character too because of this humourousness

Ugh... Conflicted feelings...

[akstune]

time to be controversial. some spoilers for AC:Valhalla but only isle of skye related this might be incomprehensible but i need to talk abt it. i've got feelings about the protagonist choice.

i played as Alexios in Odyssey, because i’m a dude and i generally pick the character closest to me and also he gives me gender envy. after about 200 hours in Odyssey, i’d basically forgotten the 30 seconds at the start i took to choose my character, and after 200 hours Kassandra was pretty firmly set in my mind as Deimos, because that was who she had been in my playthrough. watching the cutscene with her fighting Eivor was weird because it wasn’t until i read her codex entry after the fight that i realised this wasn’t Kassandra, ex-servant of the Cult but actually Kassandra, the Eagle-Bearer. so, yknow. that cutscene came across very differently to me than to someone else who played Odyssey as Kass.

and i just want to make it really clear: i like Kass. a lot. there need to be more women in video games that aren’t purely for sex appeal or dressed in chainmail bikinis, and i think AC has been pretty good with its female protagonists. my issue isn't sexism, it's that the game gives you a choice of who you want to play as, and then after you’ve made you choice proceeds to tell you that you chose wrong. if Alexios was treated as the 'canon' protagonist i'd be mad too, because surely it should be the player's choice that determines how to story goes?

i’m not a game dev, so i don’t know how feasible it would be but i think it’d be neat if the game could check for save data and use the protagonist from your most recent playthrough of Odyssey for the cutscene (like how the Life is Strange and Walking Dead games could carry choices across). if that’s not feasible, a question at the start of the game (did you play Odyssey? which protagonist did you choose?) would have been neat to reflect the player’s experience.

i dunno. after playing Odyssey and then being told my choice of protagonist wasn’t the right one, and playing through Valhalla only to be referred to as a ‘dove’ and ‘Valkyrie’ (the latter of which were women-only warriors of Odin) when i’m playing as male Eivor feels like the game doesn’t want you to pick the male character. likewise, if Alexios showed up on Skye but not Kass, or the Eivor was referred to by masculine endearments i’d be mad because it’s telling female players that their choice is wrong.

if Ubisoft want there to be a ‘right’ protagonist, surely it would be better to just have Kassandra as the protagonist, and Eivor be a woman? rather than allowing for choice and then telling a chunk of the players they were wrong and should have chosen the other option.

i dunno. maybe i'm just the whiny gamer everyone complains about and if that’s the case i’ll accept the title. i just feel like there’s maybe a better way to reference the older games without telling a group of players their playthrough didn’t happen in game canon, or was somehow wrong.

[meggannn]

ignore me bc i just need to do my weekly bioware rant this is one ive kept inside for a while

something about default femshep (the looks, not necessarily the name jane) has always irritated tf out of me and even tho i reblog fanart/gifs when i like the content i’m starting to think i always will be lowkey pissed when i see her in like default imagery and shit lmao. all i can think about is the missed fucking potential

like it’s no secret to any of us that bioware is sexist and racist so it’s never really been surprising to me that their most featured heroes are usually their default white male protagonists (garrett, john, scott). and of course the female protags are always white to match because expecting them to take a risk is just playing yourself at this point. but something about default shep, femshep in particular, grinds my gears because: this is a futuristic universe in which white people are now the minority and they still pick goddamn white protagonists! (the follow-up to this is “why aren’t you as upset about the ryders” and the answer is that while i am definitely irritated that scott looks like everybody’s white douchebag cousin, ellen is still visibly brown no matter how much you customize the twins and alec. i always thought sara could be passably mixed but even though i know a biracial family was not bw’s intention, seeing as ellen got .02% of screentime in shit lighting, i’m not gonna give them that credit but i’m still gonna snatch this canon with both hands.)

yet the fact that default femshep’s appearance was picked in a gd beauty contest is honestly the most insulting thing lmao. it was the method through which bw washed their hands and said “well we gave the fans what they want! you can’t blame us for being racist and image-conscious if they all pick the conventionally attractive white woman” leaving aside the fact that there was only one woc option of all five (i guess if you’re not white or black you’re SOL, but even if you’re black you’re STILL sol bc you’re outnumbered by four identical looking white women who will inevitably get picked), and also leaving aside that heterosexual male participants just picked the one that they thought looked the sexiest because that’s what fucking matters when you’re a stressed-out high-ranking navy seal-equivalent marine put in charge of saving the galaxy

i mean like don’t get me started on the makeup

then when the results came out everyone was most pissed that she was Barbie Doll Blonde, so they held ANOTHER contest and picked red, as if like....... that fixed the actual problem.......

somehow i get less angry when it comes to default marian, bc like. yeah it does really irritate me that she (and garrett) is pale af. still i feel like there was at least some semblance of effort put into her design from the start, because she looks polished from the beginning? even though bw marketing treated her awfully. and even though it would make a lot of thematic and meaningful sense for real world players if the hawkes were poc or mixed (immigrants fleeing their home due to a catastrophe out of their control and being treated like shit when they arrive at their refuge, needing to climb their way up to while avoiding detection and brutality from a corrupt police presence, and STILL facing discrimination after years of living in the city? come on) i’m willing to press the issue more in the mass effect universe bc this is a universe in which white is now a confirmed minority race, and now the average humans is supposed to look like kaidan.

anyway my point is that like by me3 it was far too late for bioware to save this hot mess of a debate. they didn’t even get their act together w femshep by me2, which was only a year before they released marian. and shep has so many more reasons to not be pale-skinned and redhead (both recessive traits by the mid 22nd century)

i don’t wanna hear “you can still be badass and blonde/redhead/freckled/wear makeup, so stop talking like default femshep is lesser bc she’s conventionally pretty!” or “i’m a redhead and i like seeing myself represented and stop making me feel bad for liking that” and i know ppl headcanon their shep might have dyed red hair or something, yada yada, but like i hope that by this point people who remain in leftist spaces and understand the meaning of words like “marginalization” and “black lives matter” understand things like that are so Not the Issue im talking about

[tumblunni]

ALSO TO FIX EXCELLUS

Because tangeants again lol

Recognise that its fuckin stupid and bigoted to expect us to believe someone is a villain INSTANTLY after seeing that they're queer, before they even do anything. Don't spend your entire damn game having the characters go "eww its that disgusting person of ambiguous gender we should kill them because gross" rather than.. Yknow.. "Excellus fuckin murdered those people". Recognise that literally doing this is gonna make your character LESS villainous and MORE sympathetic long before you finally get to goddamn showing them do anything bad except say "ohoho i wanna be a princess". And it'll make bunni REALLY PISSED OFF because nobody wants to feel sad for an asshole murderer yet THAT SADNESS IS FOREVER ENGRAINED IN MY SOUL NOW

Seriously fuckin hell it even made the heroes look less heroic! I felt like Excellus was almost justified in becoming a murdering selfish monster if she spent her entire life being treated that way by both sides in this big good or evil conflict. Why the fuck should she give a shit if she's being degraded? Like FUCKIN OBVIOUSLY murdering people and wanting to conquer a random japanese country as a mad dictator is not a remotely logical reaction to being misgendered. But like they could have changed some stuff and made a perfectly good sympathetic villain who gets manipulated by the bigger bad because of her sad past of being treated like shit and like she feels like this is her only option to be herself. And then maybe you can reignite her hope in the world and her self esteem and moral centre and help her redeem herself and team up with you to take out the real horrible fucks with no sympathetic motives. Instead she's friggin played as THE one who's evil cos she has no sympathetic motive. Like that's her whole Thing, she's supposed to just be selfish and greedy and horrid. Your damn bigotry somehow failed your own story as well as failing all trans people ever!

Or like yknow.. If you want an asshole fuckboi then actually write an asshole fuckboi. Scrubby scrub the trans = bad shit from this plotline and you do indeed have a selfish monster who murders a bunch of innocent people and gets his just desserts. You had a ready made simple character archetype and you were so preoccupied shoving your transphobic screed into your game that you fucked it up!

So yeah i think either make this goofy ohoho trans auntie a good character, make the asshole ohoho bad character a cis man, do both at once, or like even i'm not opposed to having a trans villain exist but like seriously make them a synpathetic villain. If they're the only trans character in the plot its already gonna send a bad message if theyre in the role of "worst most underhanded jerk villain", even if it WASNT also transphobic as fuck. So a sympathic trans villain or adding more LGBT characters so it doesnt seem like this one individual was designed to make a statement on your entire feelings for a minority.

ALSO

like seriously please do not do this stupid thing of mooshing every stereotype together from every LGBT identity and acting like theyre all the same thing?? Like man i fuckin HATE that anime trope that yknow.. The gay man says all this trans stuff cos he's ~just that flambouyant~ Like being a drag queen is what 100% of gay men are, 24/7, and anyone saying theyre a trans woman is just one of those drag queens who's really getting into character. Or just.. I dunno. I cant even wrap my head around what train of logic must have led to that stereotype in the first place! And its so fuckin annoying as a queer person trying to talk about why this is bad queer stereotyping, it just makes me extra sad to straight up not know what pronouns to use for the character so i feel like i'm being just as horrible to them as their creators were. Like man i've only settled on going for "she" for Excellus cos after years of looking into it it does seem like the original japanese was indeed specifically using stereotypes of trans women and not trans men or nonbinary people. Though all languages do seem to call the character male it seems pretty strongly to be a "i believe that trans women are men and can never be women" kind of thing, rathe rthan the character herself calling HERSELF male. She calls herself a woman in both english and japanese, and its just that the english has everyone else use male pronouns for her and added the non-canon "explanation" that she only acts like a trans woman because she has something wrong with her balls. (Ugh!) And in japanese on top of calling herself a woman she also uses feminine (and specifically trans/drag queen coded) variants of "I", and other common speech pattern traits used for negative stereotypes of trans women. Though again we do have other characters calling her a disgusting perverted man instead. Sigh!

Ok ok ALSO BIGGEST FUCKIN FIX! dont draw the character like a horrible distorted cariacature goblin in an entirely different art style to everyone else. Seriously its so annoying how they tried to make you agree with "excellus is disgusting just for acting queer" by LITERALLY DRAWING A DISGUSTING CHARACTER. If you take away the weirdass overdetailed horror movie monster face, there is nothing ugly or even "manly looking" about her! She's just like somebody's perfectly normal chubby aunt or something. You could go out in any street all over the world and see five of her! I hate it cos its almost like psychological manipulation or something? Like i've seen so many lets players who arent bigoted but merely oblivious still agree that excellus is ugly and disgusting and comical because of it, cos all the implications of transphobia/homophobia flew over their heads and all they saw was a character drawn to look monsterous. And just.. This is so common. Its the overwhelming japanese stereotype of trans women. Draw them looking INFINATELY MORE MANLY than the cis male characters. So manly that it really hammers home how "obvious" it is that a man in lipstick or dresses "just looks wrong" and of course there's NO way they could ever pass and ha ha look how deluded they are that they think they look pretty. It's horrid. It really is. Seriously I like to point at Tabitha from Pokemon ORAS for a good counter example, cos he's also an ambiguously transgender character from a game that came out around the same time and by some weird coincidence they look very similar. Except for the literal entire face. The literal entire exact same face, just its drawn hideous and distorted on the one who's supposed to be a negative trans stereotype, and drawn exactly like everyone else on the positive one. And there's not one example in the whole game of anyone calling Tabitha ugly because he looks trans, or even insulting his weight or anything. Same damn character design, just drawn without bias and treated like a human being. I mean seriously right down to them having the small "evil eyes" but with Tabitha he's always drawn with them in a perpetual sort of happy face and then his pose with them looking similar to Excellus is supposed to be a BADASS MOMENT of this comic relief villain showing his worth! And hw literally has red eyes on top of it! His design is even MORE "evil" yet just not drawing it as a stereotype entirely changes the player's perception and he became beloved by many. Whereas with Excellus even the trans people in the audience couldnt relate to her and just felt fuckin sad.

Oh also i guess Excellus is implied to be a trans woman and Tabitha is implied to be a trans man? But i don't think game freak was trying to say anything about trans men being more valid or whatever, cos the first canonical LGBT character of any sort was a trans woman npc in the battle maison. And tabitha being trans isnt really confirmed as clearly as she was. i hope someday theyre able to confirm an LGBT main cast member but until then i will forever hold onto the glimmer of hope that was given to me by Beauty Nova.

Also seriously Tabitha and Excellus both also look EXACTLY LIKE ME IN REAL LIFE so I kinda took Excellus extra hard and latched onto the Tabitha headcanon so much more because it was good healing after all that nonsense. Tho I also did considee nonbinary Tabitha at the time, because his japanese name is a gender neutral one that's merely like 75% female, rather than a 100% feminine one. But then his old RSE design was very masculine so i think maybe a trans man is what they were trying to imply if they did indeed do it on purpose. Anyway i probably would have translated his name as Ashley cos it has the same "technically neutral but more popular with girls" aesthetic while also keeping the same fire pun as Homura. I have no idea how on earth Tabitha is supposed to be a joke, honestly. Tho i meam maybe he's just the one type specialist on the entire poke-earth who doesnt have a joke name?

ANYWAY thank you terrible transphobic stupid manga i read today for reminding me that i love Tabitha. And also the developers love Tabitha. And also all the characters in universe love him, like seriously the only difference between the devon dialogue of him and Shelly is that they mention the other scientists nicknamed him tabitabi. And its so cute how seriously they said it too?? Its like "our boss tabitabi,the most feared and respected genius man".

Lovv dat tabb