LOUISCYPHRE'S PROFILE

author=Max McGee
But others I would argue are social constructs derived from the politically unpopular but undeniable fact that human beings have sexual dimorphism.

The biological context is the only context in which gender isn't arbitrary, I'd argue.

"Gender roles," as pertains to society, are several levels removed from that "base," though. In broad strokes, I am saying that many, many more things are classified in a gendered way than needs be.

I'll try to explain with an example. It is logical to have masculine and feminine hygiene products for parts that differ between biological sexes. It is illogical to have masculine and feminine soaps or scents--but we have these things because society is under the impression that we ought.

Suppose there's a brand of woodsy, rustic, outdoors-themed scented shampoo. Who "should" use this product? Ideally, anyone who wants to smell woodsy and rustic. However, because this is largely considered a "masculine" scent, women are discouraged from wearing it on peril of societal scorn and harassment. "The outdoors" are a traditionally masculine setting... for some reason. A woman who uses this product will be ostracized for smelling "like a man," because that is considered A Bad Thing For A Woman To Do(tm).

Do you think this should be the case? I doubt it. You probably think it'd be stupid to give a damn about what shampoo someone uses--and you would be correct.

I think it's stupid to label the product as being "masculine" in the first place. We have hundreds of better words to describe such a product--outdoorsy, natural, sylvan, pastoric, verdant, and more. However, society dictates that we have "manly" soaps and "girly" soaps, to spare people the horror of using the "wrong" gender's soap.

It is well known that, say, men tend to (but not always) produce more skin oils than women. In a less backwards society, the unfortunate women that do produce larger than usual quantities of oil would be able to buy appropriate products without being asked if they're lesbians or if they're "trying to be like the guys."

I trust in your ability to extrapolate a larger point from this admittedly winding and very specific example.

author=Max McGee
I don't see how that is so. If lots of guys want to embody the traditional masculine gender role or lots of gals want to be 'traditionally feminine' how is that fact in itself an argument in favor of abolishing those roles? Can you explain?

You singled out the practice of attacking such persons for being "gender traitors," which is a concept that can only exist in a society that demands that you behave in certain ways depending on your chromosomes. Operative word being "demands."

fight me, nerd

Strongly consider inverting the colors of the minimap, so that light areas are walkable and dark areas aren't.

Yeah, the best way to handle any DOT is to make it "attack" the victim over time, as if the source of the poison was using an attack skill.

Then you can have, say, "Fire" which has 100 power and "Burning" which has 250 power, but only over its full duration. It creates interesting ways to optimize your damage--Burning is a damage increase over Fire whenever the enemy isn't already Burning. If you know you're not going to be attacking in a few turns (say, a large AoE attack is coming and you'll be healing instead), you might refresh Burning early as a damage increase.

It introduces an element of skill.

take the banners up to 11