OF GAMES, REPRESENTATION, AND WOMEN'S CHEEKBONES

Yes, please do. Max, Snowowl, I am hereby asking you to remove yourselves from the conversation if all you're going to do is make with the stupid and derail actual interesting talk. I'm fucking sick of shutting down threads because of shit posts that deliberately try to push an agenda and refuse to see another shut down because of it. If you can't behave I will remove your posts in this thread.

This is all the warning you get.


Honestly, I hate even resorting to this but really, if you can't actually converse in a normal manner then you don't deserve to be seen in this thread. It's stupid that anyone has to go so far but god damnit, can we have one god damned thread about women and the representation of them in media/games/whatever where assholery isn't present?

Yes, we can. This thread.

People doing the right thing, please continue to discourse and ignore any posts here-on from anyone who is being an asshole.

author=Ratty524
I think it's just a mere reflection of our society (in the USA), where men have historically held more opportunities and power over women, only it's applied to character roles instead of political roles. Men are the badass action heroes, the outspoken nobodies who deal through the trials of life, the chief villains, the mentors, the velociraptor wild animal tamer, the military man, the demon overlord, the valiant vigilante, so on and so forth.

Women are typically the love interest of the main hero, the action girl who also happens to be a hooker, a horror victim or a flippant businesswoman (who also looks attractive)...

There's an episode of Star Trek TNG where wacky space hijinks results in the crew being in a Robin Hood timepiece. So of course there's a sword fight and all the guys get the swords and the girls get pots to break over bad guy heads. Except that Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis were actually trained in fencing and none of the male cast were. It's pretty clear why the actors who knew how to sword fight didn't get to do it.


Relatedly on media's representation of peoples I'd recommend giving Reel Bad Arabs a watch. I don't want to drive this thread away from the problems women and transpeople face in game culture though so I'll leave it at this.

Because you break things, Max, and until you learn not to, you're banned from the china cabinet.

author=Solitayre
I swear to God I sensed a disturbance in the Force a few minutes ago, and I knew if I checked RMN I'd find something like this happening.

Soli Wan Kenobi

I'm glad this is getting back on track. I'm not lucid enough at this point to participate (it's almost 5am), but it has been very interesting to read.

You can post, Max, but don't shitpost. Read what I wrote carefully.

author=me
Max, Snowowl, I am hereby asking you to remove yourselves from the conversation if all you're going to do is make with the stupid and derail actual interesting talk. ... If you can't behave I will remove your posts in this thread.

In other words, post, but if I feel that you're destroying the discussion with toxicity I will not hesitate to delete that post. You have been warned, so if a post disappears, know that it was too much and turn it down a couple hundred notches.

SnowOwl: You are not a toxic person. You are awesome. And you make awesome games. Keep it up.

Ok Liberty, well...I've asked you for some more clarification via PM on what you considered problematic about my posts, so we'll continue that discussion there.

In the meantime I'm just going to repeat my basic question then out of politeness I won't say anymore until the OP is able to rejoin the discussion or at least someone who knows attempts to answer the question.

Can someone meaningfully explain to me what is "hegemonic" about this portrayal of the character?



Can someone meaningfully explain to me what is "non-hegemonic" about this portrayal of the character?



The biggest difference I see is that she is no longer holding a main gauche in her off hand.

Bangs = hegemonic, no bangs = non-hegemonic??

I mean also, if you see the second character as being "mannish" or "old" or "ugly" or "a transvestite" like...I would also like you to explain how you see that (and what the hell is wrong with you?). Because almost literally the only difference I see here is "pretty fencer chick" and "pretty fencer chick with one less knife".

E: For clarification, the actual definition of "the political, economic, or military predominance or control of one state/nation over others". I do not understand the OP's use of this term to describe the portrayal of a character.

So why do people see a small change in her character as a reason to go on a flamewar?

A lot of people are assclots. Pardon my french.

And do characters really need to be designed to be "fuckable" first and foremost (as this term was used by those people)

I don't think anyone here is saying that.

The problem was not that anyone here thinks there is a big difference .. in fact, we can all agree there is nothing to complain over. They just added a little bit more of a stylistic direction which pissed people off for no good reason.

As FG pointed out, people do hate change. But unless I misread, the OP described old Fiora as "hegemonic" and new Fiora as "non hegemonic". That's specifically the piece of language that I'm trying to decode/understand.

Let me put this another way: I think that the few jerks on the Riot forums who said transmisogynstic things about the new character design are reading something in the character's visual update that is not there. I am asking if it is also possible that the OP is reading something into the character's visual update that is not there.

Y'know I'm actually just gonna address the OP's questions at the end. idk, I'm working on so much game stuff I can only spend so much time hollering on the internet.

Creating uncommonly represented characters:

Yeah I would say there's concerns. Lots of them, and the more aware of idk, representation-related matters you are, the more concerns u will find that make it seem daunting. It's stressful when you know, often personally, how BAD shitty representation can feel. It's stressful when you know how much it sucks to FEEL a lack of representation, to try and go enjoy yourself with a book/game/movie/whatever and walk away with reminders that too much of the world thinks you shouldn't exist/are defective in some way. It sucks when you try and create stuff with people like you, for other people like you, and get smacked with a bunch of crap about how you shouldn't be doing this.

That shit sucks.

All of the above can make writing like, really stressful for meta-reasons. At least for me, because I'm aware of all the above and like, genuinely just want to see more games featuring ppl like me, yeah I go out of my way to include marginalized groups in my writing.

It should probably go without saying I do this while also trying to shoot for fleshed-out and well written, just in case anyone wonders. A lot of the more inclusive media I've seen/read/played has been poorly handled on other fronts, and while I can appreciate the heart and effort involved, depending on the type of bad I might not be willing to stick it out. Plus another frustratingly common thing is finding something that's like, maybe has an amazing trans woman character, but then is hella racist.

When it comes to giving a crack at this nebulous "representation business", the first thing I always do is just...research. Which yeah. Obvious. But I mean research beyond "look stuff up about X thing". I try and find the words of ppl from the group I'm writing, and I research with an eye for identifying the most common pitfalls. Black characters? Probably good to avoid writing them as animalistic and primal while other characters don't get this. Trans characters? Let's not focus on how they felt like an "X trapped in a Y's body". Stuff like that.

I approach it from the angle of "I don't want someone from X group reading this, and feeling that 'slap in the face' feel I've gotton from other bits of media." I know it's a bad feeling! I don't wanna be the source of someone else feeling that

however, I also approach it with "I'm going to fuck this up" already in mind, and "I will never make a single piece of media that Represents All The Things", with a bonus side dish of "even if I somehow did, you can't 'represent' yourself out of social opression." Not to say that representation isn't important! But I mean that I try to avoid feeling that the responsbility to write all the groups, perfectly, is on my shoulders and my shoulders alone. Even if I somehow did, that doesn't change the other 90% of media that's rolling in its own shit.

In a nutshell: when it comes to writing characters from marginalized groups, I try my best but acknowledge I'll probably make mistakes and that's okay, I can learn from mistakes. When it comes to anxiety, I've found just being honest about "I'll probably fuck this up" helps undercut it a lot. It's not a license to throw your hands up and do whatever, but it can lower the stress of "oh my god what if I upset people". You probably will. SOMEONE will get upset with what you write. Someone always does. So at least try not to upset ppl you don't wanna upset. Which brings me to...

Dealing with violence, inside the bit of media itself:

OP, I know you say symbolic violence and this isn't a bone to pick with you or anything, but I'm just gonna roll this up into violence. For reference, when I say violence here I mean stuff outside of just physical violence. Sticks and stones may break my bones but some words fuel ideologies that could get me murdered and that's another form of violence, too.

Another frustrating thing when it comes to writing ppl from marginalized groups...is that there's often an expectation for IRL circumstances to transfer onto entirely fictional, constructed worlds. Black people in your fantasy settings? Probably slaves or discriminated against. Hell, with that one in particular, one of the reasons Medieval POC exists is to challenge the ways fantasy media often includes antiblackness as "historically accurate" to the source of inspiration (often medieval europe).

This can leak into my own writing. The idea that if a character from X group shows up, they must face Y issue. There's so many ways you can handle that and lol I'm so long-winded, this is getting so long, but like... Y'know, if you're writing something that's purely for escapism? you don't have to include violence of any kind against groups you're representing. Oftentimes that's preferable.

For things set in the "real" world, I have a hard time getting into "realistic" media that NEVER addresses violence against a particular group. And I don't mean showcasing actual violence, sometimes even an offhand mention is enough. This is a real complicated thing and I dunno how well I can articulate myself in this one paragraph of a v large post, but I wanna be explicitly clear I DO NOT mean "if you're writing someone from X group that experiences violence, you need to include that violence in your writing".

Dealing with violence outside the Thing in question:

BOY DOES IT FEEL BAD

I wish I had some kind of wisdom for you here. I've gotten some people saying shit about characters I've written in the past and like, I wish I handled it better? I usually just made some jokes and laughed it off but y'know I wish I'd rocked the boat and said "hey that's not okay". If people are making these comments on "your" space, like coming to your blog/gamepage/website/whatever, you do have a bit more authority there. Use it!

If they're saying shitty things in general, in Internet Public, most of the time I think it's best not to engage it. Involving yourself in incredibly hostile discussions is verrrrrry draining, and so much of the time you're dealing with people who a) have already decided they don't like what you're doing and b) are not going to change their minds about this. It's such a case-by-case basis thing, but I think your blood pressure will thank you if you come across a group of people trash talking you/your work and walk away rather than try to fight them all at once.

I tell myself these things, and I tell myself very often:

I can't control what other people think/say/do.

There are people who will think I'm not worth listening to before I even open my mouth.

There are ALSO people who will sincerely appreciate what I'm trying to do, and who would love to see more of X in the world.

I will be happier, less stressed, and get more done if I try and focus my attention on the second group of people.

None of this translates to "ignore criticism" or "bury your head in the sand".

author=PentagonBuddy
If they're saying shitty things in general, in Internet Public, most of the time I think it's best not to engage it. Involving yourself in incredibly hostile discussions is verrrrrry draining

This amuses me, posted in a political hot topic discussion that has already been accused of being hostile