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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29422 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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I don't think it's that difficult to drop Hammerlock-style hints and not treat it as a big deal, especially if it wouldn't be a big deal in-universe.

Example, minor spoilers for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, also tagging @TowardsPanna , who asked about it in the Friday thread.

There's a NPC character who is a "trans" woman. I put that in quotes because this is a universe where you can literally take a magic potion and permanently transform into the opposite sex (or, presumably, like, a giant spider if that's more your style). You only find out if you pick up some random junk item, then ask the character's spouse about it (spouse wants to keep it private and won't tell you the details), then ask the character about it again much later in the game. You could easily finish the game and not come across that detail.

That seemed totally fine? It respects the worldbuilding and doesn't come off as unrealistic, or in your face.

Contrast with the Hogwarts Legacy character that stood out like a sore thumb, not so much because she was a non-passing transwoman, but because the HP universe has transformation magic, and if that exists, why would any transwoman not avail themselves of it?

You could also do ambiguously-trans, like this character in the recent pokemon games. When I saw this market, I was pretty baffled - hadn't even considered that when playing through the games - but reading the evidence, it does seem plausible.

Huh, that is NOT the character I thought it would be! I assumed Jacq, the home room/biology teacher.

Pokemon handles things well enough. During character creation you choose to be a boy or girl, but none of the hairstyles or clothing are gender locked. There's lots of NPC's who have a femme appearance and masc pronouns or vice-versa. NPC's commonly get gender-swapped between versions, I seem to recall one in a previous generation kept the same appearance but used different pronouns.

I don't think Penny is intended to be trans-coded, though. There's some gender-bending and misdirection around her two alter-egos Big Boss and Cassiopeia. The statements "Penny is pretending to be a boy" and "Penny is pretending to be a girl" are both literally true, we don't need to posit another layer! Also, I know two Eevee-obsessed little girls who would be devastated if their hero turned out to secretly be a boy...

Contrast with the Hogwarts Legacy character that stood out like a sore thumb, not so much because she was a non-passing transwoman, but because the HP universe has transformation magic, and if that exists, why would any transwoman not avail themselves of it?

I've had one game in mind for a while that plays some kind of dangerous games with gender and race, in that there are random events where the racial makeup of the character's party is actually kinda important on a gameplay level. I think this is doable without it being a complete nightmare!

I was never able to work sexuality or trans into the mix, though. At least for sexuality, I was going to say "look, they are all afraid for their lives, there is not time to get naked, that's just never going to come up".

For trans, though, I figured my best answer was "yeah, trans people exist in this world. medical science is really good though, you just go get a shot, then you have, like, a really bad flu for like a week, it sucks, it's miserable. once it's done you've just changed sex. not a big deal. nobody brings it up because it's not relevant."

I seem to recall there was a weird issue like that in the Baldur's Gate remix, where you can literally get a girdle of gender change, but for some reason you can't just give it to the trans person to solve their problem. I admit it's extra-weird when games try to make it a Political Thing when it isn't even compatible with the universe.

I seem to recall there was a weird issue like that in the Baldur's Gate remix, where you can literally get a girdle of gender change, but for some reason you can't just give it to the trans person to solve their problem

Yes. Also from what I heard (not having reached that character on any recent playthroughs), unlike almost every other NPC in the game, you can only respond positively in dialogue. You don't get the choice to dislike, or be snarky or mean, just accepting.

Honestly, I think a simple quest where they want you to get "a girdle that this ogre bandit has", without telling you why (and then after completion if you press them they tell you, or maybe they show up again later wearing the girdle and thank you) would have been the way to go, but I'm sure there would have been complaints all the same.

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