David's opened the door, is anyone else going to follow?
At the risk of opening a can of worms... (because we all know how these threads like to attract the "less than helpful" posts)
We have 30 survivors. That's a pretty sizable roster, and covers a diverse selection of individuals, different ethnicities and religions, and now, sexualities too. Statistically, it would not be unusual for there to be 2-4 other non-heterosexual characters within that number.
So there's room for more LGBT+ representation, that wouldn't be out of place.
So who would you like it to be?
Existing characters, or new characters?
Gay? Bi? Is there scope for trans?
And why?
I think Yui Kimura would make a good option. Gay, bi or pan.
Kicked out of her home for flouting her mothers preferred gender stereotypes, joins up with an all-girl biker gang with a side mission of protecting women from stalkers and abusers. There's more than enough room in there for a romance with one of her biker pals. Sure it falls into a couple stereotypes, but sometimes stereotypes are true, and these aren't exactly negative ones, they're empowering ones.
Comments
This would be all understandable as an argument if it was ever used as an argument outside of LGBTQ+ inclusion.
several tomes have added (sexual) partners to already established characters: David got a girlfriend mentioned in his first tome story (not the release background lore), Yui got a partner mentioned (though not gendered but that kinda also confirmed her not being aromatic/asexual), Frank and Julie were made a sexual active couple in their tome story while in the initial lore I think it was just hinted at that Julie had a crush on Frank. And there are many more I am not even thinking of right now.
now is the first time it’s an explicit non-heterosexual relationship being added. And suddenly there are plenty of people here being against these kind of additions? This just seems very suspicious - especially if they brush any of the other examples off and we are in the 11th rift with all of them adding lore to at least two characters..
It’s just so funny how they even refuse to acknowledge my direct question regarding Wraith being retroactively ‚changed‘ to like women in a similar way they claim David was changed.
Did you even read the post? Not only did I never imply that the two parts of david's lore (old and new) were incompatible, I made a point that there was nothing to imply about my personal opinions outside of the words that were typed.
for the second paragraph, you're arguing with literally nobody. I stated my personal opinion but made it extremely clear that it had absolutely zero to do with the subject at hand. It was brought up because of how it could cause mixed reception. You don't have to agree with someone to understand why they might think or feel.
Your third point is not, again, disagreeing with anything I said. All I have done is attempt to eludicate how someone with your stance might be misunderstanding someone with another. Again, sensitive topics especially need people to not strawman one another for anyone to get any value out of the discussion.
Now that I've been nice and civil, I don't think you should be telling anyone to get over themselves.
Then say so instead of trying to talk the writers down. I wouldn’t have questioned your motives if you just said it like in this comment..
you really don’t have to like David being gay.
but saying it didn’t take effort or it’s bad because David was probably not created as gay is just not really working as arguments against it as there is no way of proving or disproving it.
And again, I have not made a single argument against inclusion, quite the opposite. I only tried to help both sides of the situation understand one another. I already typed not to make up my opinions on anything from my post. I have absolutely no issue with "being against these kind of additions" nor have I ever insinuated I did.
I never accused you personally at all.
I hope BHVR doesn't announce any of the existing characters are cisgender or heterosexual, that would be pretty forced and just obvious tokenism. It would also be less effort than making a new character.
It would retcon my made-up headcanon that every single character is LGBT+ and would make it feel like a bait-and-switch because I assumed on my own they were all LGBT+ despite no story evidence or explicit confirmation.
For one, sexuality/gender has absolutely zero impact on the trials, nor should it. I'm reminded of almost every single form of mainstream media where there's stuff that has various impacts on the story or significance, then there's just being cisgender/heterosexual. In these sorts of media, being cisgender/heterosexual affects... nothing. Just your gender/who you like, that's it. I thought this is an outstanding way of handling it, especially because it inherently fortified the aspect that being cisgender/heterosexual makes absolutely zero difference to the viewer/player what your/a character's gender/orientation is outside of what meaning you, yourself, provide.
My stance is not against characters being cisgender or straight, just not in favor of it.
In the above example from basically all mainstream media ever, the impact would be completely different if being cisgender/heterosexual was something that was put on the player without them knowing. Gender/sexuality is not a good topic to surprise people with in video games (or even stories in general) where it is both completely irrelevant and completely unrelated to said game or story.
The long and short of the matter is that mainstream media and culture has, for years, been structured around a "just automatically assume all characters are cisgender and heterosexual by default" because how uninclusive society started, while being slowly "caught up" with each progressive struggle for rights.
Hopefully someone doesn't try to find a way to put words or opinions in my mouth from this post, or try to demonize me for something they assume i must have been implying or something, but thats about it.
Just in case I'm being included in this, my opinion is "If that upset people at the time, they're allowed to have whatever reaction they wanted to that, including no reaction at all. Its possible to disagree respectfully without painting anyone who disagrees as vile."
Then why would you imply it, when I made it extremely clear? Why would you argue with someone else AT me, if not to imply that I share their value or opinion?
Didn’t include you.
and I have said to plenty of people it’s okay to have negative feelings about this and express them. As long as they are not rooted in homophobia. Which in some cases wasn’t really clear as some made either indirect homophobic statements or used complete irrelevant ‚arguments‘.
I didn’t imply it. You are making this about you right now, not me.
you have tried to explain how people might feel about lore additions down the line etc and I actually agreed with you but said that it’s not something that can be generally applied to everyone using that argument.
Fair enough. We can certainly agree where we agree and disagree where we disagree, then.
If it's not the minimum (which we've already established it isn't), then it doesn't matter whether it "feels like that."
This is literally what a strawman argument is, in case you were unaware.
I’m glad we both agree this following post is a strawman argument:
>A straw man (sometimes written as strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one.
You certainly have a strange interpretation of the concept.
You sound a bit confused. You shouldn’t use strawman arguments.
The funniest part is their post includes messages that you didn't even post to begin with
Idk why you'd go through the effort of re-editing someone elses post like that lol
The other parts are stuff included from Bran, which you’d realize if you were paying any attention to the thread at all. You have this weird idea removing Bran’s parts makes the overall post any different. It wasn't just about Ryuhi in the first place, that's on you and them for making that assumption.
"With a situation like David, after all the years of the game, cosmetics, jokes in the community, headcanons people have been building over the years, it starts to feel like it was decided for the player."
It sure does. I'm glad you made this point because I do think this is how a lot of people feel about it. It really couldn't have been said clearer than that. This is why I say leaving areas like a character's sexuality alone and letting the player create their own narrative about the characters is always the best approach, and most inclusive. Of course someone will come along and call me a bigot because they think bigots don't deserve any kind of inclusiveness. Well, that is an opinion and being inclusive means including the people, ideas and beliefs of those you disagree with. We live in a diverse world. Diversities of faiths, cultures, perspectives, philosophies and so on. No 2 people think alike. The inclusiveness of one thing will always lead to the exclusion of something else and no one should have to conform their convictions to please something or someone that excludes them. So in my opinion if DBD insists on continuing with this representation approach then I hope over time there is something for everyone to relate to or be represented by added to the game. If it does happen then of course not everyone will agree or like everything but the point would be that it wasn't all just about one or two things. It would be about having something for everyone to relate to.
So in my opinion if DBD insists on continuing with this representation approach then I hope over time there is something for everyone to relate to or be represented by added to the game.
what kind of representation do you think is currently excluded and missing?
edit: what is this??
Of course someone will come along and call me a bigot because they think bigots don't deserve any kind of inclusiveness.
I didn’t think what I said was homophonic yet I still got accused of that lmao
i don’t know what you said and what you were accused of (pretty sure it wasn’t me though)
of course there are also false accusations of homophobia. But there are also people using that as a shield to make homophobic statements and then victimizing themselves.
All I said was that I was cool with any other character coming out but just want Kate left alone. So 18 characters I am ok with coming out with just one being left alone
"It is most inclusive when people like me can pretend "certain" types of people don’t exist in the game." People that don’t like LGBT+ characters being added in need to get over themselves. Not everything is a "but both sides" argument when one side is "for LGBT+ inclusivity" and the other is “actively against LGBT+ inclusivity". It is not some monumental thing to """conform""" to being supportive of LGBT+, and yes, people should be expected to be. It's called being a decent human being.
Also, you need to read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Want to give an actual reason why you’re against it? Kate’s sexuality changes literally nothing else about her. I’ll wait.
Also, not addressed to anyone in specific, but unconscious discrimination is a common thing that has been studied and known to exist. For instance, growing up in a society that has been extremely homophobic until way later in society, and having internalized homophobia because there is still a lot of societal traces of it that people unconsciously and subconsciously pick up. An example would be shows making jokes about being gay/using the term as an insult. Or showing the "ideal" family to only ever be straight in media. So on and so forth. The person in question would not realize it about themselves, that is just how they have grown up. But that does not change they still have adopted certain perspectives even if unknowingly.
Hard Agree
The reason why multiples of the same survivor is allowed in game is because the canon is there's multiple versions of that same survivor.
Nothing changed about that though 🤷♂️
I’m not completely against it I just rather them not mention anything about her. I’m a dude attracted to hot blondes. It’s why I play her a lot lmao. Hope you can understand where I’m coming from
And? Her being lesbian or some other non-heterosexual sexuality doesn’t prevent being attracted to her. That’s not a reason. A video game character in a game that doesn’t even reference the player through character-to-player dialogue isn’t going to like the player regardless.
To be fair, it’s completely understandable to hope/want a specific character to be revealed to have a specific sexuality or stay vague. Just because LGBTQ+ representation is important and needed doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any heterosexual representation or that every char should get their sexuality revealed.
I have been playing with a lot of survivors recently. If they made let’s say 90% of them lgbtq+ I wouldn’t have a problem at all. Just got want the hot blonde to not get anything revealed😅 you should see the other hot blonde characters I like in other media lmao
edit here’s one
Give us this skin for jill please bhvr
People have cishet representation in almost every single piece of main media ever. Obviously, it's not like every single character needs to be LGBT+.
You should take some time to re-evaluate yourself if your belief system tells you that you shouldn't support your fellow person for something that isn't their choice, and also isn't a bad thing. Also one of them doesn't advocate hate against stigmatized groups.
My "belief system" doesn't advocate hate towards anyone. Quite the opposite actually but because of the forum rules I don't think I can go into detail to explain to you why. Unfortunately my faith is often stereotyped because of the ignorance of others who claim to adhere to the same faith as I do. I live everyday of my life with many things assumed about me that are not true due to nothing more than a lack of understanding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
Don’t use a religion as an excuse to be against LGBTQ+ inclusion. That is disgusting.
I have asked you before, but again: what kind of people do you think deserve representation in DbD that are not currently represented?
I'm closing this here.
At this point it's just the same people trying to create arguments on multiple threads with things that are barely related to the topic, so let's avoid that in the future, thank you.