Ugh that's what I get for making a serious post in a joke topic.
Ok, you know what, I had made a big wall of text to explain to you how you missed the point, but it's New Year's Eve, I'm starting to get drunk, so I scrapped all of it. I just can't be bothered.
Needless to say nobody will remove the tits in your vidya games.
Medieval Games: Don't wear armor that exposes skin/cleavage. If your armor has gaps that allow a sword to go through so males can see your skin, your armor is wrong.
Ugh that's what I get for making a serious post in a joke topic.
Ok, you know what, I had made a big wall of text to explain to you how you missed the point, but it's New Year's Eve, I'm starting to get drunk, so I scrapped all of it. I just can't be bothered.
Needless to say nobody will remove the tits in your vidya games.
Needless to say nobody will remove the tits in your vidya games.
Anita tried
I kinda feel sorry for my mortal enemy tbh... I used to be like her. My theory is if I bring her sexy back by forcing her to exercise and eat clean, maybe she would stop the jealous crusade on hot game/movie/con babes.
## equips tower shield for incoming white knight counter-attack ##
Medieval Games: Don't wear armor that exposes skin/cleavage. If your armor has gaps that allow a sword to go through so males can see your skin, your armor is wrong.
Wrote a response. Deleted it. Because nothing anyone says will change anything here. Enjoy your tits in gaming, but as a new year hope: I sincerely hope that having a "mortal enemy" doesn't lead to you harassing or doxying anyone. Or encouraging others to do so.
Wouldn't a powerful trans cleric or mage just cast a Limited Wish spell to change his\her gender permanently, though? Trans people have indeed been a thing since the FR started. But so has the possibilities to make a gender-change permanent.
Yeah that was a large part of the criticism among the anti-mizhena crowd that beamdog should have addressed. Her giving no explaination whatsoever is an example of the sheer laziness in her writing.
....and before anyone gives me a lecture about 1000 trans variations, her wanting to [keep the goods] isn't an excuse either. This is DnD both magic and mundane measures can be customised. Her wish for example: "with the exception of my package, please change everything about my body into a woman".
Personally if i was her I would choose a combination of more mundane methods like grafting (i.e breasts), female clothes, make-up etc as wishes are way too unpredictable.
I mean you didn't even bother adding a rude option, a romantic option, a "don't care" option etc. All you have done is give a lazy solution to lazy writing? Might as well just leave her unchanged...
Sure, those options could be added. But the conversation is incidental, it has no consequences for the rest of the game, it doesn't start a side quest. It's just exposition for a non-essential character.
My post wasn't a suggestion of what should be done; it was an offering of how it could have been conveyed in a way that would have likely received less criticism. My point being that the biggest problem with that conversation is that all the information comes at once, with no input from the player that they want to hear more. Breaking it up eliminates that problem.
You still have the problem that the player doesn't have sufficient options to respond. But I'd still argue that because the information is non-essential, it's more important that the player be able to get back to their other questions--rather than giving them the chance to fetishize or abuse the character. I don't think I'd include two options to show empathy or appreciation, though. To neutralize the conversation more fully I might even distill it down to just a "Thank you for sharing. I have some other questions." response to get the player back to the earlier tree of questions. No judgment, no opinion; the player is left to make up their mind without having to voice it through their character.
That still leaves us with an intimately personal blurt ("Whoa! Too much information! Why are you telling us this, stranger?" Your party takes a step back ...) coming out of nowhere, from a stranger whom you first met one sentence earlier.
If the writers really want to get this disclosure into the first meeting, then I reckon it'd feel more natural if it were behind an extra level of dialogue, so that Mizhena only makes such a disclosure to a stranger when badgered about it
But that exchange is already gated, isn't it? Here's the gating:
Mizhena: I am Mizhena, faithful of Tempus. Praise be to the Lord of Battles!
Player (3): Mizhena? That's an unusual name. I don't think I've heard it before. This is the first gate.
Mizhena: I created the name myself several years ago. My birth name proved unsuitable.
Player (1): What was wrong with your old name? This is the second gate.
OR Player (2): How did you invent this new name? This is the second gate.
OR Player (3) : That's very interesting. Let's talk about something else.
OR Player (4): I have to be going now.
In my above suggestion, option 1 would have her talk about being raised a boy, with the option to learn more.
Option 2 would skip straight to the explanation of how she came up with Mizhena, with maybe a backstep to allow the player to ask why she wanted to change it in the first place.
Either way, you're looking at at least 2 steps to find out how she came up with her new name (ask about her name and then ask how she came up with it), and as many as 3 steps to find out that she's trans (ask about her name and then ask why she changed it--or ask about her name, ask how she came up with it, and then ask why she changed it).
Even without my suggested change, it's a 2-step gate. That should be plenty. Anything more than that would make it a facet of her personality that isn't currently there: shame or fear regarding her being trans.
Yeah that was a large part of the criticism among the anti-mizhena crowd that beamdog should have addressed. Her giving no explaination whatsoever is an example of the sheer laziness in her writing.
Two arguments inevitably come up in every Mizhena thread:
1) She is horribly written because when asked about her name, she reveals she changed it because she is transgender, which is totally unrealistic because it's a massive infodump (it isn't, but let's ignore this).
2) She is horribly written because she never gives a random acquaintance the complete lowdown as to exactly how she changed her body and the current state of her genitals.
Also, bringing up Poison as a positive example of anything? Ahahahahahahaha. And I like Poison.
Also, bringing up Poison as a positive example of anything? Ahahahahahahaha. And I like Poison.
And this train of thought from people here is so confusing (the fake overdone laugh doesn't help your cause either btw)
Examples in these forums of t-girls that are allegedly "not appropriate" to compare Mizhena with: * Cant use Naruto or any other manga, not serious enough * Can't use Edwina, apparently using someone with forced conversion is "trolling" (wtf?) * Can't use poison, how dare a t-girl be sexy!! * Can't use Cremisius Aclassi, no mention why. Maybe he is just too bland and boring?
So to the high and mighty people like you who keep dismissing our examples... who the bloody hell will be an acceptable example to compare Mizhena with!? Here is an entire list of known trans in gaming, take your damn pick argh.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_themes_in_video_games
I mean Edwina was played off as a joke in literally every dialog and even the epilogue y'know. Like "har har Edwin is a woman now what a terrible and hilarious fate".
I maintain that Poison is actuallyyyy a rly good example of trans representation in video games, except literally by a mistake because Capcom is terrible and are too afraid of stating any fact that isn't weirdly veiled and "it's actually up 2 u to believe". Japanese-style.
Erica from Catherine is an okay example in that she's cool and normal and her being trans is like barely flagged in the game, and wouldn't be a known thing if the main character wasn't a massive asshole. But him being an asshole is literally the story lmao.
Yeah that was a large part of the criticism among the anti-mizhena crowd that beamdog should have addressed. Her giving no explaination whatsoever is an example of the sheer laziness in her writing.
Buddy, pal Trust me, literally nobody wants to hear about how that process went precisely from the medical point of view.
Using Edwina as an example isn't trolling, but it isn't correct, either. Edwin didn't become a woman by choice. It was essentially karmic backlash for his arrogance as a mage and recklessness for trying to use a scroll when he really didn't know what it would do. Also, I imagine his general dickishness to others(women, particularly) helped to direct the nature of the curse.
Wouldn't a powerful trans cleric or mage just cast a Limited Wish spell to change his\her gender permanently, though? Trans people have indeed been a thing since the FR started. But so has the possibilities to make a gender-change permanent.
It's not always about biology, genitals, surgery or permanent change. Gender and biology are not necessarily the same thing. And a "permanent gender-change" as you say, doesn't make a trans-person suddenly into a cis-person, do you understand that ?
Yeah, because every male is heterosexual, "it is known"
Unless the battle is taking place in Tel Aviv I just don't see the point being politically correct by bringing up a statistically irrelevant minority. Imagine how stupid this will look in game: [add 2-5% chance male is immune to perv distraction due to queer sexual preferences].
And a "permanent gender-change" as you say, doesn't make a trans-person suddenly into a cis-person, do you understand that ?
Why not?
A [woman] (by birth or otherwise) being attracted to a [man] sounds "straight/cis" to me. Especially if the subject is magically reborn/transformed into a biological woman which makes it even more convincing. Again it just feels like you're forcing political correctness to over-complicate things.
Buddy, pal Trust me, [*your original post before it got edited*]
Hehe I would be morbidly curious tbh, sounds kinda fascinating. I doubt trans women would have been offended by your original post, they are not humorless thin-skinned weaklings that need a safe space from blunt red-pilled comments.
Yeah, because every male is heterosexual, "it is known"
Unless the battle is taking place in Tel Aviv I just don't see the point being politically correct by bringing up a statistically irrelevant minority. Imagine how stupid this will look in game: [add 2-5% chance male is immune to perv distraction due to queer sexual preferences].
And a "permanent gender-change" as you say, doesn't make a trans-person suddenly into a cis-person, do you understand that ?
Why not?
A [woman] (by birth or otherwise) being attracted to a [man] sounds "straight/cis" to me. Especially if the subject is magically reborn/transformed into a biological woman which makes it even more convincing. Again it just feels like you're forcing political correctness to over-complicate things.
I stopped reading at "statistically irrelevant minority"
I stopped reading at "statistically irrelevant minority"
*sigh* it is so hard discussing topics with holier-than-thou touchy progressives without causing offense... I will try dumb it down even more then
Politically correct rephrase: A tiny 2-5% chance of immunity to a weak 30% chance entropy style defense by any powergaming standards is too small to be of significance and looks pretty ridiculous tbh.
Trans is not a sexual preference. It's a gender identity. Liking boys or girls doesn't make you male or female, biologically or otherwise.
Sure infinite combinations of preferences to identities may well exist, who knows maybe a trans-woman-pansexual actually exists?
However it would be pointlessly exhausting nit-picking every possible tiny minority of a minority just to make a point... So to save my sanity in a discussion regarding trans-females (or any sentient beings for that matter) it seems sensible to just assume their sexual preference is typical according to their identity unless the specific example in play suggests otherwise.
And this train of thought from people here is so confusing (the fake overdone laugh doesn't help your cause either btw)
If you want to try and use Razor Ramon Hard Gay as an example of appropriate and thoughtful usage of homosexual males in Japanese media, I'll laugh at that too.
Poison is a godawful inhuman caricature that's about as relevant to real transgendered individuals as Blanka is to the situation of Japanese Brazilians. It is only because of the sheer lack of other options that she's ever brought up at all.
Why not use Birdo? Poison and Birdo are pretty much the same character, give or take a dominatrix theme.
So to the high and mighty people like you who keep dismissing our examples... who the bloody hell will be an acceptable example to compare Mizhena with!?
First, it is necessary to establish why Mizhena needs to be compared with anybody to be evaluated, and no other NPC does. You haven't done this. Nor has anybody else.
Second, it'd be cool to pick somebody whose entire on-screen role isn't being a sex object, since that's PRETTY irrelevant to Mizhena. It will also eliminate almost all Japanese examples (aside from Hourou Musuko and the odd character elsewhere).
I think that the only character to compare Mizhena with is Krem.
Krem is a PC, Mizhena is an NPC. So the comparison isn't that good a match (i.e.: an entire game worth of banter with a detailed background vs an NPC healer with a few lines of flavor text).
But if you want to see how to approach gender and sexuality issues, I'd say that bioware does a good job. Whether the issue isn't important to them, or is a major part of their identity and background, they take a serious job at making relatable and realistic characters.
As you all probably know by now, I think that for her role Mizhena is fine. But if she was a fully fleshed out NPC, I'd expect her to probably be a mix of Krem and Branwen.
The only problem with Mizhena is that she isn't joinable
That's how I feel about Hurgan Stoneblade. He should have been a Dwarven Defender who joins you in getting the dagger back
Speaking of Dwarves.. I find it a little amusing and also shameful how weak willed they made the duergar with Viconia. After he complains about you taking their cleric away.
Viconia ''Go away I want nothing more to do with you''
And he just runs away..No snappy retort or anything^^
The only problem with Mizhena is that she isn't joinable
That's how I feel about Hurgan Stoneblade. He should have been a Dwarven Defender who joins you in getting the dagger back
Speaking of Dwarves.. I find it a little amusing and also shameful how weak willed they made the duergar with Viconia. After he complains about you taking their cleric away.
Viconia ''Go away I want nothing more to do with you''
And he just runs away..No snappy retort or anything^^
Well...they are duergar. Cowardly creatures who strike from the shadows and who force others to toil for them. If they would just accept the words of their ancestors, then perhaps something could be made of them.
I sort of agree with @Grum that bioware nailed it. Even though I found Crim to be a bit bland there was no denying companies like Bioware actually care about their trans characters with much effort, unlike beamdog.
Speaking of Dwarves.. I find it a little amusing and also shameful how weak willed they made the duergar with Viconia. After he complains about you taking their cleric away. Viconia ''Go away I want nothing more to do with you'' And he just runs away..No snappy retort or anything^^
I have my suspicions that this is some more subtle feminist "empowerment" agenda forced on us. This example isn't too bad though, misandry suits Viconia after all.
Poison is a godawful inhuman caricature that's about as relevant to real transgendered individuals as Blanka is to the situation of Japanese Brazilians. It is only because of the sheer lack of other options that she's ever brought up at all. Why not use Birdo? Poison and Birdo are pretty much the same character, give or take a dominatrix theme.
NEVER INSULT MY QUEEN POISON!! Birdo and Poison are pretty much the same character?? As in the egg spitting mario Birdo dinosaur that no one really cares about? Erm.... on what planet are they even remotely similar >.>
Second, it'd be cool to pick somebody whose entire on-screen role isn't being a sex object, since that's PRETTY irrelevant to Mizhena.
I try my best not to giggle everytime someone throws up "sexy = sex object" train of thought. I mean I dress more skimpy than poison, I show off my assets (and I love whips too). I guess by progressive standards I am a male sex object? oh my...
Back on topic I don't see how a trans game character is irrelevant in comparison to another trans game character. Especially when there isn't much comparisons to choose from due to trans characters still being "abnormal" in pop culture. The whole Mizhena fiasco didn't help the cause to normalize trans in art/gaming either (if anything it regressed it back a few years).
Comments
Ok, you know what, I had made a big wall of text to explain to you how you missed the point, but it's New Year's Eve, I'm starting to get drunk, so I scrapped all of it. I just can't be bothered.
Needless to say nobody will remove the tits in your vidya games.
I kinda feel sorry for my mortal enemy tbh... I used to be like her. My theory is if I bring her sexy back by forcing her to exercise and eat clean, maybe she would stop the jealous crusade on hot game/movie/con babes.
## equips tower shield for incoming white knight counter-attack ##
....and before anyone gives me a lecture about 1000 trans variations, her wanting to [keep the goods] isn't an excuse either. This is DnD both magic and mundane measures can be customised. Her wish for example: "with the exception of my package, please change everything about my body into a woman".
Personally if i was her I would choose a combination of more mundane methods like grafting (i.e breasts), female clothes, make-up etc as wishes are way too unpredictable.
My post wasn't a suggestion of what should be done; it was an offering of how it could have been conveyed in a way that would have likely received less criticism. My point being that the biggest problem with that conversation is that all the information comes at once, with no input from the player that they want to hear more. Breaking it up eliminates that problem.
You still have the problem that the player doesn't have sufficient options to respond. But I'd still argue that because the information is non-essential, it's more important that the player be able to get back to their other questions--rather than giving them the chance to fetishize or abuse the character. I don't think I'd include two options to show empathy or appreciation, though. To neutralize the conversation more fully I might even distill it down to just a "Thank you for sharing. I have some other questions." response to get the player back to the earlier tree of questions. No judgment, no opinion; the player is left to make up their mind without having to voice it through their character.
@Gallowglass But that exchange is already gated, isn't it? Here's the gating:
Mizhena: I am Mizhena, faithful of Tempus. Praise be to the Lord of Battles!
Player (3): Mizhena? That's an unusual name. I don't think I've heard it before. This is the first gate.
Mizhena: I created the name myself several years ago. My birth name proved unsuitable.
Player (1): What was wrong with your old name? This is the second gate.
OR
Player (2): How did you invent this new name? This is the second gate.
OR
Player (3) : That's very interesting. Let's talk about something else.
OR
Player (4): I have to be going now.
In my above suggestion, option 1 would have her talk about being raised a boy, with the option to learn more.
Option 2 would skip straight to the explanation of how she came up with Mizhena, with maybe a backstep to allow the player to ask why she wanted to change it in the first place.
Either way, you're looking at at least 2 steps to find out how she came up with her new name (ask about her name and then ask how she came up with it), and as many as 3 steps to find out that she's trans (ask about her name and then ask why she changed it--or ask about her name, ask how she came up with it, and then ask why she changed it).
Even without my suggested change, it's a 2-step gate. That should be plenty. Anything more than that would make it a facet of her personality that isn't currently there: shame or fear regarding her being trans.
1) She is horribly written because when asked about her name, she reveals she changed it because she is transgender, which is totally unrealistic because it's a massive infodump (it isn't, but let's ignore this).
2) She is horribly written because she never gives a random acquaintance the complete lowdown as to exactly how she changed her body and the current state of her genitals.
Also, bringing up Poison as a positive example of anything? Ahahahahahahaha. And I like Poison.
Examples in these forums of t-girls that are allegedly "not appropriate" to compare Mizhena with:
* Cant use Naruto or any other manga, not serious enough
* Can't use Edwina, apparently using someone with forced conversion is "trolling" (wtf?)
* Can't use poison, how dare a t-girl be sexy!!
* Can't use Cremisius Aclassi, no mention why. Maybe he is just too bland and boring?
So to the high and mighty people like you who keep dismissing our examples... who the bloody hell will be an acceptable example to compare Mizhena with!? Here is an entire list of known trans in gaming, take your damn pick argh..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_themes_in_video_games
I maintain that Poison is actuallyyyy a rly good example of trans representation in video games, except literally by a mistake because Capcom is terrible and are too afraid of stating any fact that isn't weirdly veiled and "it's actually up 2 u to believe". Japanese-style.
Erica from Catherine is an okay example in that she's cool and normal and her being trans is like barely flagged in the game, and wouldn't be a known thing if the main character wasn't a massive asshole. But him being an asshole is literally the story lmao.
Trust me, literally nobody wants to hear about how that process went precisely from the medical point of view.
That's one of the wisest thing I read here
It's not always about biology, genitals, surgery or permanent change.
Gender and biology are not necessarily the same thing.
And a "permanent gender-change" as you say, doesn't make a trans-person suddenly into a cis-person, do you understand that ?
[add 2-5% chance male is immune to perv distraction due to queer sexual preferences].
A [woman] (by birth or otherwise) being attracted to a [man] sounds "straight/cis" to me. Especially if the subject is magically reborn/transformed into a biological woman which makes it even more convincing. Again it just feels like you're forcing political correctness to over-complicate things. Hehe I would be morbidly curious tbh, sounds kinda fascinating. I doubt trans women would have been offended by your original post, they are not humorless thin-skinned weaklings that need a safe space from blunt red-pilled comments.
I stopped reading at "statistically irrelevant minority"
Politically correct rephrase:
A tiny 2-5% chance of immunity to a weak 30% chance entropy style defense by any powergaming standards is too small to be of significance and looks pretty ridiculous tbh. Sure infinite combinations of preferences to identities may well exist, who knows maybe a trans-woman-pansexual actually exists?
However it would be pointlessly exhausting nit-picking every possible tiny minority of a minority just to make a point... So to save my sanity in a discussion regarding trans-females (or any sentient beings for that matter) it seems sensible to just assume their sexual preference is typical according to their identity unless the specific example in play suggests otherwise.
Poison is a godawful inhuman caricature that's about as relevant to real transgendered individuals as Blanka is to the situation of Japanese Brazilians. It is only because of the sheer lack of other options that she's ever brought up at all.
Why not use Birdo? Poison and Birdo are pretty much the same character, give or take a dominatrix theme. First, it is necessary to establish why Mizhena needs to be compared with anybody to be evaluated, and no other NPC does. You haven't done this. Nor has anybody else.
Second, it'd be cool to pick somebody whose entire on-screen role isn't being a sex object, since that's PRETTY irrelevant to Mizhena. It will also eliminate almost all Japanese examples (aside from Hourou Musuko and the odd character elsewhere).
Krem is a PC, Mizhena is an NPC. So the comparison isn't that good a match (i.e.: an entire game worth of banter with a detailed background vs an NPC healer with a few lines of flavor text).
But if you want to see how to approach gender and sexuality issues, I'd say that bioware does a good job. Whether the issue isn't important to them, or is a major part of their identity and background, they take a serious job at making relatable and realistic characters.
As you all probably know by now, I think that for her role Mizhena is fine. But if she was a fully fleshed out NPC, I'd expect her to probably be a mix of Krem and Branwen.
Viconia ''Go away I want nothing more to do with you''
And he just runs away..No snappy retort or anything^^
Still..better than Drow, I suppose.
Birdo and Poison are pretty much the same character?? As in the egg spitting mario Birdo dinosaur that no one really cares about? Erm.... on what planet are they even remotely similar >.> I try my best not to giggle everytime someone throws up "sexy = sex object" train of thought. I mean I dress more skimpy than poison, I show off my assets (and I love whips too). I guess by progressive standards I am a male sex object? oh my...
Back on topic I don't see how a trans game character is irrelevant in comparison to another trans game character. Especially when there isn't much comparisons to choose from due to trans characters still being "abnormal" in pop culture. The whole Mizhena fiasco didn't help the cause to normalize trans in art/gaming either (if anything it regressed it back a few years).