International Women's Day

How about deliberately making the background ambiguous to allow that to happen?

 

For their own characters, sure! But for the characters in the written game? Design is a statement that informs community, inclusionary communities require overt design statements.

Okay, If 10-20% of Infinity characters were written explicitly as LGBT, either a subtle element or a significant part of their personal history, would that cause any problems for you guys? I think not! So why not do it? Why not get ahead of that wave, push the game and community into a more progressive and inclusionary space?

 

I believe you have your heart in the right spot, but I do think you are misrepresenting the situation. At least as far as the western world goes, homosexuality is widely accepted. The problem with being overt in your inclusion is that it feels forced and artificial. I'd rather people accept other people's sexuality organically and through their own reasoning instead of injecting every facet of their live with notions of inclusion and risk achieving the exact opposite, when they feel like it is being forced down their throat.

Again, which Infinity character is explicitely heterosexual? The game does put very little emphasis on individuals, so it would be wildly out of context to casually mention someone being homosexual.

 

Absolutely. The stuff that's going on in Uganda is just as stomach-churning. And, I much prefer a grittier, realistic take like Moonlight, or London Spy to that; for representation to work it's got to actually be more than a flippant, throwaway, played for laughs thing. That said, for Disney to have a gay character would have been unthinkable once, too.

 

I don't know what to say; the SJWs I hang out with are more than happy to criticize places like Iran for their anti-gay (or anti-whatever) practices, and are perfectly capable of doing so without sounding racist, anti-islam, etc.

 

What will stop someone from having his own alternate imagination where X character is his preferred orientation? As long as it is implemented in the story nicely and not "breaking news: from now on X is gay" I am all for it. Universe and gameplay should be what draws people to the game, not orientations.

 

I don't believe it is. Certainly I think things are better, but I don't think that it's nearly as broadly acceptable or normalised to be lgbt as I'd ever desire. How many MCU or SW characters are gay? The biggest pop cultural icons of the day are all straight. How many non-straight relationships do you see in blockbuster movies? Barely any. Because it's okay to be gay... In private. Its okay to be lgbt but not publicly, that is not accepted broadly. Yet, anyway. I think it will be. But wanting Infinity to be part of that is important!

 

So we're agreed! We should have more well written openly lgbt characters in Infinity! Excellent.

 

"Barely any" is representative of the actual world proportionally, though. Lando Calrissian is a black pansexual now, I believe? I felt like Finn and Poe Dameron might be shipped eventually, but now it seems that Rey and Poe seems more likely. I hope they just leave this subject untouched, so people can make up their own story.

The thing is, if sexual orientation is not an important part of the characterization or otherwise necessary for the story of a movie, series, book or game, then there is no reason to mention it. It detracts from the overall quality if it is just in there for the sake of some external agenda, even if it is a well meaning one.

 

Characters should be able to have attributes that aren't vitally linked to the core narrative. You don't need a reason to make a person black, a woman, islamic, gay, or whatever. The same arguments you gave can be used for anything that makes a person "different" versus whatever norm you're comparing to.

 

Fair enough, I will concede that point. I guess I'm too adverse to overt real-life agendas in fiction and went too far there.

 

Being white isn't a core required narrative element to be spiderman or James Bond either but look at all the keyboard warriors getting up in arms when Donald Glover or Idris Elba's name enters the discussion. Representation matters. The hero that saves the world has saved the world. And if he's seen as a gay/black/transgender man/woman then it helps people understand that these characteristics/traits are not the same as Character - something worth mentioning given gay people historically and black people both historically and currently have been vilified by society and its institutions as criminals or perverts. There's a reason that people say representation matters.

Back to the OP: Down with combat heels! Booooooouuurns to the Tech-Bee!
I admit to owning Kingdom Death Pin-ups which I defend as not being hypocrisy: The pin-up minis aren't dressed for combat. They're exaggerated caricatures for display purposes. KD warrior women look like they've both seen some shit and are ready for fighting big-ass monsters. While Infinity warrior ladies look like they're ready for the catwalk...

 

Yeah, I wouldn't want some kind of box-ticking, quota-filling, cookie-cutter background story either. But, there are ways of dropping hints without it getting in the way. I'd prefer that over a clunking, gawking stereotype - which, to be honest, is the aftertaste of that Uprising storyline

 

Yeah, I missed the mark with the second paragraph of my last post, please disregard it.

To your point:

Making James Bond or Spiderman black would face backlash because those are established characters. Also, there is this absurd notion being propagated by some of the more extreme activists (also in Hollywood) that one should feel guilty for being white. This, coupled with calls to make Bond or Spiderman black would lead to tensions more than anything else. If character should be seperated from characterization, then why is everyone putting that much emphasis on these superficial traits these days?

Making black Panther a white dude in the next installment would conjure up a veritable shitstorm, so there is no reason not to treat other established characters the same way. If representation matters that much to people, there is plenty of room and demand for new fiction. Make a transgender superhero movie and see how it goes. Handled responsibly and maturely it would make for a compelling story, I'm sure. It's just that notions of diversity and inclusion tend to go hand in hand with anti-white rhetoric, which I personally object to.

 

Some won't like and agree with me, but instead of complaining sjw could try to create something new and interesting. Forcing someone can bring mediocre results at best, let the creator decide what to do. Corvus Belli didn't complain about lack of cyberpunk sci fi anime, they created one. I usually don`t like anime style, but I like infinity.

 

Spider-Man doesn't have to be white and, in fact, one of the best movies last featured a Spider-Man who wasn't white. Peter Parker, however, is white. Mile Morales isn't. Peter Parker doesn't need to be white, but Miles Morales absolutely can not be white. I'm a big fan of making new characters to allow for better representation or using alternate reality versions of popular characters to play with how them being of a different race or gender may affect that character. DC has done this plenty. There is a black Superman who was designed to look like Barack Obama, and, when the New52 reboot first happened, Alan Scott was now a gay man.

Miles Morales has been a very popular Spider-Man for a good while now, and Into the Spiderverse was an awesome movie. The Spiderverse comic story also gave us Gwen Stacy's Spider-Woman, who herself has become very popular and managed to maintain her own solo book. There is definitely a market for more difference characters, and there is a way to do it without pissing off or alienating people. OH! And I totally forgot about Kamala Khan. Apparently, she's been doing pretty well, too.

The issue with changing extant characters is that it looks a lot more like pandering than it does inclusivity because it usually isn't done very well. When new characters are created, however, they have a better chance of making it and, when they're done well, are fantastic new characters for everyone! So I'm a fan of that, personally, but only because I think it really does work better.

On the topic of Idris Elba as James Bond, I say fuck the haters, give us a fantastic actor making a great movie, damn it!

 

I understand your point of view but I disagree with it because I believe its based on a misconception. Ignoring the white-guilt stuff -
Black Panter starring Michael Cera would be poorly received but not because "A" black hero is being white washed. It would be poorly received because "the only" mainstream black hero with his own film franchise was being white washed. It comes back to there being inadequate representation because the only other black comic book heroes in the MCU-movies are sidekicks/supporting actors etc. But also, the other problem would be that Africanism is a core part of Black Panther while Spiderman is simply a New Yorker: a city renowned for its diversity. Black Panther needs to understand and be an active representation of African culture (specifically African, not African american) while the other mentioned heroes are American. But the main point stands. Its taken this many years and this much effort to get ONE mainstream black hero that wasn't mired in cliches. Prior to that was I guess Blade? Wouldn't call that mainstream, or a positive role model(?). And Shaft isn't much of a hero. I think Donald Glovers stand-up on this sums up the point. Why does a guy that goes around slapping hookers count as a "black hero" to white people? XD

All of this also digresses from the established MCU universe itself: The current(?) Green Lantern is black and had been for at least 10+ years when that awful CGI suit movie game out. Yet when the movie was being planned, they decided to adopt the original white guy Green Lantern instead of the version more current young people would be familiar with - for a movie targeted at a PG audience...
See, Marvel itself is surprisingly diverse. The criticism is that Hollywood is not hence why the ignoring of famous non-caucasian/female versions of established superheroes.
Hence the call for diversity in hollywood movies.

It's not an 'anti-white' sentiment. Name literally any category and you're very likely to find that the majority of protagonists are male Caucasians. Its about getting the numbers up for non-male, non-Caucasians in these categories. You can be pro-something without being anti-something else my friend.

 

I'm not too familiar with the MCU, so thanks for the write-up. Good point about Black Panther - he is very much african by definition.

As for your closing sentence, I very much agree and I wished people would take this sentiment more to heart.

 

While it has been "fact" for some time now, the "science" behind these "biological differences" is not unassailable. I'm still waiting to see what comes of this, but new research is showing that the gendered interests and proficiencies we always thought were inherent to our biology are almost 100% a result of external cultural factors.

 

And the last 5 pages of 'conversation' in this thread is why I was sounding so upset about someone starting it.

Backpacks do come in different sizes.

But firearms magically changing size based upon the gender of the bearer annoys me to no end.

Please stop insulting the talking orange Chee-toh(tm).

?

Ep7 was generally a good story. Not enough time spent on selling just how exactly Rey could pull off those force tricks, though (and that's a major flaw in the storytelling, drops the overall movie to a 5/10 when it's about a 7/10 if you ignore those points).

Ep7 had all these fun little plot hooks and bits of story that someone could have picked up and run with. JJ Abrams did his job as a single-movie storyteller pretty well (barring that thing about Rey's abilities).

It was the writer of Ep8 that threw all that stuff out, and then killed off the apparent big-bad of the entire trilogy in a blink. That is straight-up bad storytelling.

They might "harmonize with the miniature," but they make it obvious that someone 'designing' weapons and armor has no clue about either one.

You shouldn't be laughing. I have seen folks scared right out of the store by toxic neckbeards. Usually the hypercompetitive ones.

So how exactly do you describe a person in words, without mentioning physical attributes?

When talking about me, I have to start out with "I am 5'11" tall, have a 17.5" neck and wear a size 50 suitcoat." And those numbers are true whether I weigh 190lbs or 290lbs, though I did need to get my suitcoat let out under the arms a bit after I put on 100lbs. Add in, "I am a redhead that wears glasses" and you could almost certainly ID me at the airport. Include "I wear my hair buzzed short and have a goatee" and you could ID me at the airport. (And yes, that really is my description.)

Were I female, I'd probably have to mention chest size instead of suit size.

Uhm, you do know that the actual % of non-hetero folks in the population is only 1-4% (depending on how you're measuring), right?

The population % appears higher in the cities where you get clumps. It also appears higher online, where people tend to congregate among like-minded.

And in a wargame, what difference does it make who someone is physically attracted to?!? It's not like this is an RPG where we're all trying to pick up chicks, dicks, or both for the night!