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DiscussionThe trend of TRA insisting 'representation' in games
Now, I realize gamerant is a click-bait probably written by AI website, but I was still pretty irritated about a recent article that popped up on my generic browser news feed because I'm sure it's based on real complaints: https://gamerant.com/pokemon-scarlet-violet-customization-gendered-language-master-miss/
Relevant quotes
Clavell is the character who does this most frequently, but most of the other Academy teachers and even some Pokemon Center staff also use the "Master" or "Miss" wording. Given how much time is spent at school, a player is constantly reminded that their character is assigned a gender regardless of what the player themselves may want.
While some could argue that the old-fashioned Clavell's way of speaking fits the games' "past vs. future" themes, it does so at the cost of player comfort and safety.
Emphasis mine. If gendered terms in a video game make you feel unsafe.... Idk what to tell ya.
And of course this is referred to as an "LGBTQA+" issue and now what it obviously is, a Trans narcissist issue. I've seen similar complaints for other games and I ask, what happened to role playing? It took 5 games before Pokemon even offered a girl protagonist and even longer for the marketing to be somewhat equal.
What other examples have you seen of the blatant whining about minor "safety issue" or colonization in gaming?
BTW the whole insistence on tWaNz RePrEsEnTaTiOn—which just means TIMs of course—is a tacit admission that TWAM.
because after all, if TWWW then TIMs would be adequately rEpReSeNtEd by... well, Women. In general. 😉
Exactly! I always found it odd that games went out of their way to make you able to create trans characters.
Isn't the entire point of transitioning that they already see themselves as their "true sex"? Don't TIMs see themselves as women? Then female characters should feel representative to them! It's definitely an admission
They like their dicks too much. Srsly i think that's at least 50% of it right there.
Then female characters should feel representative to them!
They don't because, unlike TIMs, real women don't make "I'm trans" the centerpiece of their personality
I can think of so many games I played when I was younger, that made me roll my eyes from all the unnecessary sexism... and then I just kept playing the game. Despite seeing the problem, I never felt unsafe. Maybe annoyed. Maybe tired of the same old tropes over and over again. Unsafe is not the word I would use to describe how I felt back then.
If I was sitting in my own home, and a video game made me feel genuinely unsafe, I would shut it off immediately. And then probably question my sanity. It's a video game! It's not alive. It can't hurt me. The people who made it don't know me. How would I be "unsafe" in this context?
And I have played so many games that made me play as a guy. Too many. I lived through the experience and even enjoyed some of the games. The fact that the main character was a guy barely factors into my memories of the story honestly.
These people need to get a grip.
These TIMs can't handle the idea that not everything is made for them. And, since they now have the power to get their way by throwing tantrums, they're doing just that.
And I've had to quit a few games for being boring, overly difficult, etc. But I don't recall any making me feel actively "unsafe". The misogyny in GTA pissed me off. But I could easily avoid that by not buying/playing that game. Its not hard
I stopped playing Gears of War when they started pushing the women are breeders and only the sterile women are allowed to be soldiers rubbish, total sexism and unnecessary they could have pushed exactly the same native without the blatant sexism by saying only women over a certain age were allowed to be soldiers.
World of Warcraft has renamed "male" and "female" to "body type 1" and "body type 2". It's hella weird. Every single developer on that game knows it means male and female. Every single player of that game knows it's male and female.
World of Warcraft has a problematic history with how they represent women. Like how some armor, when put on a female character, suddenly reveals their midriff and bosom, but on a male character, it covers them up completely. There has been a severe lack of major female characters in the game as well. Most major characters are men. And this is a high fantasy universe, physical strength is completely out of the equation here. There's no excuse for most characters being male.
If we pretend that characters aren't male or female, how will that representation ever improve? By pretending that women are "body type 2s" and not women, you're just pretending the problem isn't there. You're not solving the problem.
Which kind of sums up the problem with redefining "woman" or pretending biological sex isn't real or doesn't matter.
Do they actually think they are hiding the sex binary by renaming the sexes as a literal binary, 1 and 2? Where's body type 3, eh? 😉
I don't think their TIM overlords are thrilled with the fact that not only can't they be women in real life, but now they can't even be called women in a fantasy game.
i stopped playing sims 4 once they started adding pronouns and sexuality in a game pack centered around teenagers … gross
I know it's not new in Pokemon that you're kind of supposed to be yourself but what happened to just experiencing someone else's character and journey. That's what got me into stuff like FF7 or Chrono trigger back in the day, i found the main characters interesting and wanted to dive into their world.
Idk maybe I'm completely off but to me it feels so narcissistic to create a little mini me in every single game you play. Are they that in love with themselves? Can't they get over themselves ever, not even to play a fun game for an hour?
When i was younger most the guys played women while i played guys. If i have to create a character i always go crazy, different skin color (apparently that's evil too?), different species than human if i can, neon hair in crazy cuts... It's a fantasy! If it wasn't my god, i could just play myself going in an office every day, how exciting!
I really like this version of pokemon and i thought it was sweet being called miss. I got Harry Potter boarding school vibes. I would have hated having some Umbridge style TRA shit like folx. Their words are so fake and empty, like their minds.
Idk maybe I'm completely off but to me it feels so narcissistic to create a little mini me in every single game you play. Are they that in love with themselves? Can't they get over themselves ever, not even to play a fun game for an hour?
I always go as far away from me as possible its a game, in fallout 3 I am a blonde man with a goatee, in Skyrim I tried my best to recreate Lion-o from Thundercats, in new vegas I was a a very tall women with a massive blue mohawk.
wanting to be yourself exactly in a game is a massive red flag, total narc move, it also screams to me a lack of imagination like they don't fully want to or can't immerse themselves in a fantasy world, their egos wont let them unless they can somehow bring it all back to them.
wanting to be yourself exactly in a game is a massive red flag, total narc move, it also screams to me a lack of imagination like they don't fully want to or can't immerse themselves in a fantasy world
I don't agree with this at all. People role play in different ways. Sometimes people like to create someone like them and fantasize about having special abilities or doing something exciting. Creating yourself as an avatar isn't a red flag at all. Completely normal behavior.
Also, if that's the case, then men are catered to in video games by default and would be considered the narcissists because they throw a tantrum if they're forced to play as a woman.
I will never understand what trans want with these complaints, at all times they are the ones who say they want to be women or that there is no difference between a man and a woman, they can create a female character and that's it, the character is what they supposedly want to be, a woman.
choosing whether the character can be male or female should be enough to make everyone happy.
They won’t be happy until the main character wears the baby pink/baby blue stripes, waves the mutilated pride flag, and chants ‘TWAW’ every time they toss a pokeball.
Hah! So true!
There's a character in the new games that has a blue and pink color pallette and I've read a few 'i know iono isn't explicitly trans but i just feel so represented!' ...by colors???! well I feel represented by Pokemon Emerald because it's a pretty stone that is green, just like me 💚
what happened to role playing?
More customization became a monkey's paw. If you want female options or more skin tones, that also means you must want fake genders, sexual orientations and other weird shit.
It also became a Trojan horse for politics. I do not want to log into Splatoon and see a "transsquid" asking for HRT in the plaza. Or look for creative designs in Animal Crossing but have to scroll through TRA flag spam to find anything good.
Given how much time is spent at school, a player is constantly reminded that their character is assigned a gender regardless of what the player themselves may want.
....then don't play??
I just finished a game with a male protagonist. And, somehow, I didn't die of dysphoria. LOL
While some could argue that the old-fashioned Clavell's way of speaking fits the games' "past vs. future" themes
So there's a narrative reason for the character to speak that way! But the developers are supposed to throw that out the window!? Just so some non-binary trender-queer can feel "seen"? Fuck that!
it does so at the cost of player comfort and safety.
If someone's sense of comfort and safety is genuinely threatened by a character saying "master" or "miss" in a Pokémon game, than they need to turn off the game console and touch some grass. This goes beyond a First World Problem. This is just pathetic
We are teaching people that mild discomfort is the same as feeling "unsafe".
When I was little, I just pretended my character in Pokemon Red was a girl.
Game designers, and people in general, need to stop trying to pander to people like this. They are never satisfied and in fact like to make everyone else as miserable as them. Stop seeing video games where you can customize the protagonist as an excuse to be an asshole to everyone, ya weirdos.
uhh do you realize how many game designers ARE people like this?
I'm not sure that undermines my point.
I suppose not, but it sure lays some long odds. SMH
If only the bright line between gaming escapism and real life would hold here, as it does most of the time... I mean, it's not like e.g. GTA players are going out and shooting up the block IRL when they aren't playing.
Speaking of GTA, they patched some "transphobic" gags out of the existing games. Because its perfectly cool for the player to be able to rape a prostitute and then kill her to get their money back. Its cool for the player to hear all manner of sexist and ethnic slurs. But GOD FORBID the player has to hear a man in a dress referred to as a "she-male"!
Shemale is so cute though. lol
Oh my.
Seriously. I am concerned with the amount of people who can't distinguish between fantasy and reality. The amount of literal (or mentally) children running around screaming about how fiction, especially a children's series like Pokemon, makes them feel unsafe is alarming. It makes me wonder how they'd react to fiction that is truly meant to be disturbing, like Octavia Butler's Kindred.
Yeah, well, that's why it'd be covered in trigger warnings 🙄