What's wrong what an LGBTQ+ character in Dead by Daylight?
No seriously, tell me. What's wrong with that kind of representation. When Jane Romero (Latin American), Zarina Kassir (Lebanese), Yui Kimura (Japanese), Felix Richter (German) and Élodie Rakoto (French Madagassian) were added to the game, everyone was just all fine and dandy, like any person with a brain would be. Representation is nice, it's important to us. As soon, however, as a hypothetical LGBTQ+ person even begins to be discussed, all I see are angry casual people complaining about it.
"Muh horror, no relationships"
So should we just absolutely void and remove the pre-existing straight relationships that are already in the game like Felix and Nurse? Or are gays exclusively not allowed?
And before you start typing "I don't care, as long as they don't rub it in our face" and as much as I HATE that kind of response, I think that goes for just about everyone. Behaviour has to remember to make them an actual character.
Comments
They said they don’t want to do a 1-dimensional character whose only trait is being LGBT.
and there is already one char in the roster that was created with being LGBT in mind, but they haven’t revealed who it is.
I'm sorry, but it appears you don't understand what I said. Please try to read what I said with a clear mind, empty of assumptions.
Answer this. How do you represent LGBQT people in this game? How do you represent it in a game with no character interactions past gameplay mechanics, no real voice acting past grunts and screams, no personality aside from maybe the killers? There's no way to represent it aside from forcing it in a players face to the point where it seems like a giant sign that says "Hey Look! I'm gay!"?
If survivors for example had proper voice acting, interactions with other survivors, proper personalities that weren't as flat as cardboard and a bit more flair to their design I wouldn't oppose it. However as far as interactions with characters go it's literally just survivors heal each other, killers hit survivors and put them on hooks. That leaves little room for other subtle nods unless you give a cosmetic a flavor text. Maybe a survivor with a shirt that has a bracelet that he got by attending a gay pride parade or something. How do you fit it in the game aside from maybe a tome?
And again - I'm a gay guy and I don't want gender politics or any other politics in my game. I play video games to escape that ######### because it gets annoying. Yes the world sucks and there is poor representation on all these topics everywhere. However I'd like to come home and just forget about this nonsense for a day especially with the past 4 years.
If BHVR does it right then okay I have no problem but I don't see a proper solution and the community is constantly pressuring them in such a stupid manner to ADD REPRESENTATION like it's the end of the world if they don't. Let BHVR design characters at their own pace and if it happens it happens quit trying to force it. My whole issue with it. The community wants a MANDATORY GAY CHARACTER. They're so vocal about it they're going to make BHVR just haphazardly make one because it was in demand.
I can already see the headlines by game journalist - Game developer finally adds LGBQT character by popular demand by the community. It shouldn't even be that big of a deal but the community is so vocal about it a journalist would eat that right up. This game while it would draw in positive attention would also draw in the trolls.
TL;DR - If done right I do not oppose however I see very little openings to properly add such a character - The communities demands are also putting too much pressure on BHVR. They are aware of what the community wants - Please just let them work on this with a bit more silence.
tl;dr tl;dr - My main issue is what the community deems as inclusion - What does this mean and why does it matter? Right now it's pretty well open to interpretation on what the community wants on this subject. What actually is representation to those of you who support it?
And again - Not exactly against it I just don't see a right way to do this.
I am sorry, I did not try to answer everything you said in my post.
i just wanted to clarify some things that you said about both sides, such as the For side pushing their anger towards people that are not actually homophobes. You made some generalizations for both sides..
maybe I should have quoted the points from you that I answered directly but I thought that was clear enough. It was definitely not written with anger towards you or the ‚against‘ side and in the end I just -rationally- listed the most common arguments against inclusion and why they are holding no ground (but that one was obviously not directly for your post)
And I am saying by the content of your posts you do not seem to understand my statement. If you did, you'd understand why what you're saying doesn't make any sense. I'd be happy to talk about anything to help clarify it if you'd like.
how do you represent LGBQT people in this game?
just in the lore. That is all that has been asked for. It was asked for because the devs stated they wanted to leave sexual orientation and identity complexity open for all character - but they actually did add heterosexual relationships for several chars. So now they revised their previous statement and they said -also because their focus on lore got way bigger- that they want to be inclusive. and they Said they won’t add a token LGBT char whose only trait would be that.
that’s all, actually the vast majority is happy with this. It doesn’t affect gameplay at all, straight was already included and now there is no explicit exclusion anymore.
there is nothing forced here, there is no more politics involved in this game than before (we already have Yuis feminism and kind of Zarinas racism, adding a line that a char was in a same sex relationship is not more political than that)
Well said, this isnt exclusive to dead by daylight or lgbt issues either, recently here in Ireland a news publication tried to claim a black man was a white supremacist because he opposed our governments kowtowing to each and every whim of the European Union.
this is the exact opposite of what bhvr wants to do and what anyone would want them to do. saying 'oh yeah dumbledore is gay' after the series was over was really just trying to say 'look see this character is diverse', which a lot of people here are arguing against anyone doing in the first place, lol. also bringing up rowling is really really ironic considering she's really bad about trans rights.
I already said, I took SOME of your points and tried to answer those. Eg ‚The For side is unfairly pushing their anger at legitimate homophobes onto to people who are frustrated because...‘
regardless what comes after this, you are saying that the For side unfairly pushes anger towards non-homophobes because of the homophobes. My answer to that -as I am one of the For side- was that I never pushed any anger towards anyone.
you may say i took it out of context - and I admitted that already, I only answered some of your points- but the sentence you formulated there definitely was a generalization of the For side that I wanted to distance myself from. Nothing more. I also never tried to invalidate your complete post and mostly I agree with it..
[Your first point was also ‚the reality is that the majority of the people arguing have no issue with an LGBT character.‘ which is just an assumption from your side that’s not necesserily true]
Three words... rocky horror picture
I feel like part of the problem is you see my lack of specifics in quantity as a statement of mass accusation. That wasn't my intention in fact I tried to avoid using those words as much as I could. I do of course use them, and ultimately hoped that not using them would communicate a lack of attempt to guess haphazardly rather than a mass judgement. Fun fact I have a great deal of trouble expressing myself to people, typing doesn't make it better.
I'm not saying there are no legitimate homophobes, in fact I am saying the exact opposite. There are, and they act horribly, and it causes people to unfairly judge and over react to other people who aren't the same.
Everything after your second point in your first post has nothing to do with what I am talking about. I'm saying to listen to what they are saying and recognize what they are actually saying not what you feel like they are saying. Someone can be afraid of something without evidence. They are called irrational fears, and it's not just about balloons. Irrational fears aren't fixed by mockery, there fixed through patience and compassion. Which is what my post is advocating.
I'm not saying any of the arguments are correct, I am saying they speak to the worries and concerns they may feel to pressured and threatened to share, so they transfer it to another argument because they know revealing being vulnerable rarely amounts to anything but mockery. Simply recognizing that a lot of men feel isolated and alone and it's not all their fault can throw people into such a shitstorm of anger. Which more often than not is the problem. There are people who insist they stand for equality to shield themselves from acting like total monsters, say horrible things, and advocate terrible behaviour if not perpetuate it. And rarely will anyone stand up to them or call them out for being a ######### person. Instead people get ridiculed for acknowledging them, because they acknowledged being harassed.
Which is why were in this place... As well, you have to believe people are ultimately better. If you don't you are going to approach every situation with the wrong mentality. I mean if you don't, what is even the ######### point.
I'm going to bed... The long and short of this is it was never my intention to accuse you or make you feel accused. I feel like a lot of what I said didn't come through so I tried to elaborate more.
I would just bring in some pride cosmetics or a pride event. Just making a character to „have“ LGBTQ in The game is Not the way in my eyes (and im gay as well)
somthing broken my letter size
I didn’t feel personally accused so don’t worry about that. I didn’t want to accuse you either, just wanted to clarify that since I have been a pretty active part in this discussion for the Pro side. I also tried to listen to what the individual people against inclusion are saying but it almost always boils down to what I wrote, or they leave the discussion altogether. If it’s really irrational then we can’t really discuss this on the internet, there is no argumentation to make them less irrational. In the end, the inclusion should show them that the fears they were having didn’t have any ground.
And expressing and understanding is a difficult thing especially in a public forum where also language barrier plays a big part (I am not a native English speaker as you can tell by the way I am writing).
have a Good Night, and again I didn’t take anything as personal accusation and didn’t want to attack you, although I said you were generalizing I didn’t think you were doing it in bad faith and don’t think anyone took it like that (or so I hope)
agree
I wouldn’t be against cosmetics as well.
It they are not just making a character just LGBTQ, they want to create characters and they will not restrict themselves for them to not being LGBT. I think that’s a difference.
that’s why we don’t have a Char even month after that dev statement I think: they don’t just slap the tag onto any char. They will just include it once they created the char the way they wanted them to be anyway.
I would love to see such a character in the game
but OP you are comparing race to gender they arnt the same thing
for example Yui will always be Japanese even if she is straight or gay.
using race as a bargaining chip to introduce gender just doesn’t cut the mustard
Aren’t most, if not all current survivors in game sexually ambiguous?
the sexual orientation has never been stated for any char. There are just some mentions of heterosexual relationships in several backstories. That obviously doesn’t mean they must be hetero. But there is a notable absence of anything non-straight.
the devs pretty much just said they won’t exclude LGBT+ topics anymore..
I'm going to be honest with you here. NO existing character has had their orientation revealed as of yet.
We know that Felix and the Nurse had marriages with partners who identified as female and male. We do not know if they had other partners in the past, or at the same time as their marriages. We know David had an ex-girlfriend. We do not know if he had an ex-boyfriend as well. Ace is described as a womanizer, but that doesn't mean he didn't enjoy pretty boys as well. Or transwomen. Etc.
As of right now, the lore is heteronormative, but that doesn't mean any character (well, except perhaps for licensed ones, which might be a bit hinky) is confirmed as straight. Or anything else. The closest thing we have to an actual confirmed identity is the use of gendered pronouns which match the characters' presentation, which is a fairly good indicator, but not 100%.
Like, if someone were to say that Kate was into girls as well as guys, I wouldn't bat an eye. Or whatever. There is absolutely no lore saying that any character is straight, after all.
I hope Kate is the character they pick for this BTW. I'd very interested to see how all the people who 'don't want a character purely defined by their sexuality' would get on with a character who has no stereotypical visual signifiers of their sexuality (OK, the biker outfit is an exception).
I actually do not, just because it would make the "token generic hot white chick" into "also the token lesbian-porn bait" character. Too many people need bonked as it is.
I would prefer an entirely new character (or several, don't really care) be a part of the LGBT+ grouping, but it doesn't bother me much one way or the other.
there isnt anything wrong with it- Not_queen stated that they just dont want to implement a token LGBT character for the sole purpose of diversity, which is good to hear.
honestly though, my only problem with this is that they stated they were gonna do it, instead of just... doing it. Because now people are gonna complain about pandering/it not being enough no matter how they go about it.
Honestly being Lgbt isn't super important gameplay wise, just lore wise but that's it. Honestly what amazes me people over react to the fact being Lgbtq+ is like a quality of a person not the definition of them
If they hadn’t made the statement, people cry like crazy because they said they wouldn’t add anything about sexual orientation of the chars (those people are also okay with there being heterosexual relationships with implied sexuality though)
Have you ever thought that representation matters to more than just you? Skin color, sexuality, and beliefs are all pieces that make up a person's identity, and everyone varies. It's refreshing to see characters that aren't white and straight, not because it's bad to be like that, but because there are so many already represented in media. I mean, there has to be a point where 'representation' in media just becomes another person or character and that's for the better. Only showing one type of person makes it less relatable, and if people want to relate, let them go ahead and ask. There's no harm in it, and there will always be more to a character than their identity. Also, the reason I'd like to see more representation of LGBTQ+ characters in this game is because of all the gross people who have said the f slur in end game chat, and I'd love to see their reaction to characters like that. Also, don't you think Frank represents a handful of people in a sense? A person who disagrees with the system and wants to rise above? That must represent a few people. I don't want to sound rude, I genuinely think it's good to have representation to have better connections between the character(s) and those consuming media.
Yeah, they ARE pieces of a person's identity, but wanting an LGBTQ+ character for the sake of representation isn't really the way to go. I mean, I'm on the autism spectrum, along with afflicted with ADHD, Depression, and mental abuse, but I'm not combing over characters like "ooh, I'm represented in this autistic character!" "ooh, I'm represented in this mentally abused character". There's no harm in it, and I'm not against it per se. I'm just against adding a canonical LGBTQ+ character for the sake of having one.Besides, so what there are a million straight white males in media? I personally couldn't give 2 flying ######### what you have in your pants, what color it is, or who you prefer touching it, I really don't. I just want characters with good, well, character.
I remember reading Magnus Chase and The Gods of Asgard Book 3: The Ship of the Dead, and (spoiler) When Alex (a genderfluid character, typically identifies as female) makes a move on Magnus at the end of the book, Alex is currently male and kisses Magnus. Magnus then thinks "wait, Alex is a dude right now. How do I feel about this?" "I'm being kissed by Alex Fierro. I am 100% OK with this". Alex also has some character development at the start when she gets taken to Valhalla where we learn she prefers to be flexible and thought that if she wouldn't age or change in Valhalla, she thought that meant she wouldn't change genders either. THAT is how you do an LGBTQ+ character in a new character to a series, or revealing a character may be LGBTQ+. Don't just add a character that's LGBTQ+ for the sake of it. Make it be a critical part of their character. Otherwise, it doesn't matter.
Are you allowed to have an honest opinion about it, it you don't want such a character? Just asking.
Agree to disagree, I suppose. I have a lot of mental stuff and such, and seeing people live with it helps me gain perspective even if it's just a character. Sexuality is taboo, I understand that it doesn't define me or anyone else, but knowing I'm not an outsider to the media is refreshing. If they gave us a character with an LGBTQ+ background, I imagine it would be like how they gave away Felix having a girlfriend and a baby (which nobody questioned or was in an uproar over) which is how I think they'd hint at LGBTQ+ characters in the future. It doesn't have to be major.
lol
sounds like you mind. you're saying you or others might have to change their mains if they found out there were lgbt.
why do people care about representation? because we exist. we should be reflected in media.
Didn't stop them including that Felix had a girlfriend in his biography, so I don't understand their reasoning tbh.
Everybody can have their opinion.
but we will still get ‚such a character‘, which is btw just a normal character like anyone that’s already in. Actually there already is such a character.
nothing is wrong with it, but they aren't adding a character whos personality is they are LGBT they are adding a character for who they with LGBT being part of their identity not the whole Identity, being LGBT isn't a personality, its a personality trait a part of the whole not the whole character, so they are doing it right.
they also work on characters 9 or more months before they come out so its probably coming soon, so don't worry about it for now and just let them take their time to do it proper
At this point they need to make sure it's done well r it could blow up in their faces, see what happened with Supernatural, they will need to employ a sensitivity adviser, to come up with a action plan to make sure they deliver in a way that isn't derogatory, if they decide to reveal existing characters as LGBT+ then they need a set that are picked and then reveal them in the proper order, you want to lead with the best option in terms of likability and such so you can make it clear you are aware of the pitfalls and trying to avoid them, and to ensure that you have numbers that make it so one bad person isn't the only rep for a group,
I.E. LGBT Survivors before killers, and trying to have enough rep that one or two stumbles don't doom the whole thing, so like confirm 2 non stereotypical survivors as lesbians and then Rin as a lesbian before revealing Huntress as a lesbian, would be an example, lots of Lesbians already like Huntress, but if she was the first or only officially lesbian character it would be borderline lesphobic,
Also look to see who brings the most to the table, for example Hillbilly would probably be the best pick for a gay killer because you can work in allegory with his existing back story, using it as metaphor for being closeted or gay conversion therapy, and framing his past as a gay power fantasy about lashing out at abusers and oppressors,
to be blunt though i think they should do something sooner than later, as inaction is a invitation for unsavory people to see the team as being on their side which will only result in more people like those whose posts had to be deleted, it really wouldn't be hard to just slip in, like you can legit do it as easy as having Feng mention in a memory how she commissions pin ups of the female characters from games, it's not that hard, but once it's done it makes it so you have to be a bit careful about it, there after,