as small as a world and as large as alone, soilrockslove: clatterbane: ...

3:11am June 25, 2013

soilrockslove:

clatterbane:

amydentata:

Question by cocksucking-accent:

This! Not only are nonbinaries absolutely not represented when you pick a gender for your character, but many features are exaggerated. Some trans women don’t have wasp waists, and that’s okay and should be okay and their character should be able to look like that. Some trans dudes do have wasp waists and don’t mind said waists and having a male character with a teeny waist would help them normalize their body and feel more at ease with themselves. Gender isn’t just boobs v. not boobs!

Also there is a problem very similar to an already known RPG story fault. Most RPGs are written for male characters, and use the same script when you play as a woman, which results in awkward and/or nonsensical situations.
This is why you can’t just flip a switch and keep everything else the same. Women characters are not male characters with tits. Trans characters are not cis characters with a superficially different backstory. We are different people who interact with the world differently and are treated by others differently. The same goes for race, which faces similar problems but I’ll leave to someone more qualified to comment on in detail.
These traits matter. We can’t design meaningful characters with a colorblind/genderblind/anythingblind mentality. Otherwise we’re just writing cis white men with a different character model.

Made rebloggable by request.

I have meant to write more about this, myself, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.To the original ask, I would add: not all AFAB people have wasp waists, either. I’m nonbinary, and that is a major reason I almost always choose a male character model these days. It’s bad enough having only the exaggerated binary choices, but as an AFAB person I have already gotten enough messages about being totally “wrong-shaped”. I can do without character models in games reminding me of this shit nonstop. It also sets off some dysphoria that the exaggerated male choice does not.This is also very much a racial diversity issue.One thing I liked about Saints Row 2 was the ability to customize your character so much. Not just skin tone and facial structure, but to a bit more limited extent body shape and size. (So SR:TT reduced the body options…) More games should give us those choices.
These traits matter. We can’t design meaningful characters with a colorblind/genderblind/anythingblind mentality. Otherwise we’re just writing cis white men with a different character model.

I have not given the “one size fits all” storyline aspect as much thought yet, but well said.

I <3 Games that let you customize your character in all ways.
But most games have 2 options that are *exaggerations* of the “2 sexes”. With a big chunk of humanity left out.
I can’t ususally even make a character that looks like me In Real Life. And I especially can’t put the physical traits I admire most about myself on any character. It’s frustrating. And there would be absolutely no harm in having more options.

Second Life is the only place I could even approximate my appearance. And that took creating my own face template because they didn’t have mouths or eyebrows at all like mine. I got my figure from my dad. Big stomach, for awhile I had a bigger waist than hips, smaller butt than I ought to have, barely visible hips. And then (this part not my dad) breasts so large they hung flat and looked like a gut instead of breasts. I had to get a reduction for pretty much every single health reason at once you can get a reduction (especially pain, and the skin was so thin that gravity was PULLING HOLES IN IT), and weirdly my smaller boobs actually look more like boobs and sometimes disturb me. But at any rate none of my appearance looks like either male or female character models. I usually choose female just because I like looking at them more than I like looking at the male ones, not because they look anything like me. I never see anyone that looks like me anywhere. (One of my friends said he didn’t even know people in general who looked like me, until he met my family.)

clatterbane:

amydentata:

Question by cocksucking-accent:

This! Not only are nonbinaries absolutely not represented when you pick a gender for your character, but many features are exaggerated. Some trans women don’t have wasp waists, and that’s okay and should be okay and their character should be able to look like that. Some trans dudes do have wasp waists and don’t mind said waists and having a male character with a teeny waist would help them normalize their body and feel more at ease with themselves. Gender isn’t just boobs v. not boobs!

Also there is a problem very similar to an already known RPG story fault. Most RPGs are written for male characters, and use the same script when you play as a woman, which results in awkward and/or nonsensical situations.

This is why you can’t just flip a switch and keep everything else the same. Women characters are not male characters with tits. Trans characters are not cis characters with a superficially different backstory. We are different people who interact with the world differently and are treated by others differently. The same goes for race, which faces similar problems but I’ll leave to someone more qualified to comment on in detail.

These traits matter. We can’t design meaningful characters with a colorblind/genderblind/anythingblind mentality. Otherwise we’re just writing cis white men with a different character model.

Made rebloggable by request.

I have meant to write more about this, myself, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

To the original ask, I would add: not all AFAB people have wasp waists, either. I’m nonbinary, and that is a major reason I almost always choose a male character model these days. It’s bad enough having only the exaggerated binary choices, but as an AFAB person I have already gotten enough messages about being totally “wrong-shaped”. I can do without character models in games reminding me of this shit nonstop. It also sets off some dysphoria that the exaggerated male choice does not.

This is also very much a racial diversity issue.

One thing I liked about Saints Row 2 was the ability to customize your character so much. Not just skin tone and facial structure, but to a bit more limited extent body shape and size. (So SR:TT reduced the body options…) More games should give us those choices.

These traits matter. We can’t design meaningful characters with a colorblind/genderblind/anythingblind mentality. Otherwise we’re just writing cis white men with a different character model.

I have not given the “one size fits all” storyline aspect as much thought yet, but well said.

I <3 Games that let you customize your character in all ways.

But most games have 2 options that are *exaggerations* of the “2 sexes”. With a big chunk of humanity left out.

I can’t ususally even make a character that looks like me In Real Life. And I especially can’t put the physical traits I admire most about myself on any character. It’s frustrating. And there would be absolutely no harm in having more options.

Second Life is the only place I could even approximate my appearance. And that took creating my own face template because they didn’t have mouths or eyebrows at all like mine.

I got my figure from my dad. Big stomach, for awhile I had a bigger waist than hips, smaller butt than I ought to have, barely visible hips. And then (this part not my dad) breasts so large they hung flat and looked like a gut instead of breasts. I had to get a reduction for pretty much every single health reason at once you can get a reduction (especially pain, and the skin was so thin that gravity was PULLING HOLES IN IT), and weirdly my smaller boobs actually look more like boobs and sometimes disturb me.

But at any rate none of my appearance looks like either male or female character models. I usually choose female just because I like looking at them more than I like looking at the male ones, not because they look anything like me.

I never see anyone that looks like me anywhere. (One of my friends said he didn’t even know people in general who looked like me, until he met my family.)

Notes: