I think people got upset about Soldier's announcement because it seems forced

Fair enough. I’m not going to harp on that; the major point of contention though was that such is usually the argument given for why we can’t have representation. “What will the third world think?” as if A) those markets were relevant to Blizzard before Reflections and B) As if places that are being characterized as having virulent homophobia are totes magotes cool with two gay characters because they’re white. The homosexuality is the issue, regardless of race, and by trying to make a distinction between LGBT white people and LGBT people of color you inherently set back intersectionality in storytelling.

you are right ofcourse .

I also dont think they are cool with 2 characters that are gay because theyre white.

I’ll explain a bit more what i meant.

The people who tout the diversity train ,talso often say representation is so important. So you need a black female,and a brazillian male ,and an african dude. And supposedly because a person is black he will automatically play doomfist (i dont actually believe this is the case,but people spouting diversity often do)

So if black people identify with doomfist,and play him, then also counting lots of african countries have lots of homophobia (not exclusiveliy ,i’m simplifying for the sake of the argument) then making that character gay is a pretty bold thing to do. As you risk the backlash of black people ,that you tried to include with a black character in the first place.

Obviously many people wont have an issue with this. But i’m fairly certain soldier is gay because its easier and you will have less backlash from black communities,so blizzard cant be called racist etc for mishandling "their " character.

This seems too farfetched to you maybe,and you may think i’m reaching.

but looking at what companies do, they often take the easy path of least resistance and still try to get brownie points. Look at the "forced straight " debacle with ubisoft and Assassins creed. After all that diversity they f*ck up because they are lazy and uncreative.

The culture (movies,games) these past few years have been with lots of pandering,but because money still has to be made they make the safe choices usually. Its not brave,its calculated and usually makes the story worse because they want to hit several points,and want to seem progressive because that’s what they think will sell .

The homosexuality is the issue, regardless of race, and by trying to make a distinction between LGBT white people and LGBT people of color you inherently set back intersectionality in storytelling.

intersectionality as i understand it is a bad thing. Just treat characters as characters. But I will point out when companies take the easy way out.

People got upset because it’s pointless.
Why?

Yeah because gays born with a huge tattoo in their faces that says “Gay”/s .

That’s basically what I’m saying, gays on’t have a dressing code and not everyone of them is following the stereotype.

Anyways, I’d love to read the source if your claim.


They have their obvious reasons. but why not?

Because, it is pointless to make any video game character gay or straight just for the sake of “progressive” points.

Why doesn’t anyone rally to Nintendo and complain how they are not represented in a Mario game.

In fact they do have a trans character in Zelda BOTW, but they have an actual point in the game.

This is funny to me, because if you read the story carefully, Jack isn’t looking at that picture in that moment. It was tucked in-between the others, what he was looking at is the picture of him, Gabe and Ana.

And this also goes for everyone who claims he’s “still not over Vincent, he cries over that picture”. Not at all, he simply has it, along with many other pictures.

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Christmas comic, not the new one.

Christmas comic is supposed to be the same scene, though. It was confirmed.

Who says I’m not, though? Where’s my back story behind that as well? How else is he considered “geeky”? Why can’t I have more on him as well?

And an even larger part of gamers just doesn’t care about the sexuality of characters because it doesn’t actually affect them. A negative vocal minority does not represent the entirety of a group. It’s seen in almost every major group yet for some reason people still think that anytime someone is upset about one thing, it’s suddenly due to the absolute worst reason.

Honestly, the lore of overwatch is so patchwork that we can’t really even see a “pattern” to how it’s developed, since several of the stories and such have been vastly different in what they’re trying to portrey. The Hanzo and Genji short is vastly more telling than the Dva short, for example. One tells the story of the emotional trouble of two brothers and the other shows what everyone already knew about the absolute best gamer ever who’s absolutely perfect in every way.

Except the assumptions I had were literally “nothing” because there was no information. Blasting someone with information out of the blue, no matter what information, with no actual explanation, can be considered a curveball.

And how do you know I haven’t personally emailed the lore development team for Overwatch on this exact issue with an emotionally heated request for further information? Or how do you even know whether I actually don’t want that? Didn’t you yourself basically say that assuming things about another person was bad?

Because when I asked you of proof that you cared equally about all lore that wasn’t given a War and Peace-style treaty of explanation, you dodged me altogether.

Again, the idea that every single fact of a fictional world needs its own short story of explanation is ridiculous and isn’t how writing works.

Because you would’ve provided that info when I asked you when were just as mad as characters being confirmed straight as you were them being confirmed gay. You dodged around it and now I’m entertaining this obviously-false notion that the way stories are written is that every unique fact you can find in any fictional world is only acceptable if it is, in turn, given its own short story.

Don’t be disingenuous.

Well, yes. Sorry, but the reality of the world is that straight is normal. A vast majority of people ARE straight, because, you know, biology.

Right?

I don’t think it was forced at all. It didn’t take away from his past, his character currently - it was insight on what made him join and stay in Overwatch. Which - that’s super valuable!

It wasn’t even directly, “He was my lover” - it was “this is a person I deeply cared about” and it could have been anyone. It can’t get anymore subtle. It’s…god, it’s so sad people are calling it “forced” when it isn’t… :confused:

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This thread is the first thread I’ve ever had any conversation at length about lore at all, so the proof would be right here in this thread, if you so wanted to see it. Otherwise, it’s me saying that because there’s basically nothing else.

The thought process that you can suddenly make up every single thing in a fictional universe and then have nothing to back it up is bad writing. Any basic literature class will explain that world building, which includes characters and their back stories, is essential to good writing. It actually is how writing works. The less information about the world and the characters within it, the worse the actual story is.

You seem to think that I’m mad that Soldier is gay. I’m not even mad, I’m annoyed. There’s a huge difference. And I’m annoyed at the fact that Blizzard has done this several times throughout their creation of overwatch, including but not limited to also revealing characters like Echo with no previous information on the character being in the world and other such incidents.

You also seem to be under the false notion that “background information” needs to be a short story, when in fact it’s just information on the background of something.

The only one here being disingenuous is yourself, as you have assumed that you know everything about me, about how writing works(which you’ve shown to opposite of), and what the meanings behind what anyone says or does. Good try though, I’ve fallen for your bait long enough. I sincerely hope you have a good day.

So basically when you were asked by Nox-

– and you answered-

You were lying. The only time you felt compelled enough to openly question Blizzard’s lore was when they revealed Soldier was gay.

Which is why I knew with this back-and-forth-

– and this one-

– as well as this bullpucky-

– that you were full of crap.

That has never been my argument. My argument is that you can develop characters and narratives over time by introducing new (read: sensible) information, and that every single minute detail does not need its own side story. To try and do the opposite- to explain literally every single background detail - is simply not how writing works because you would spend more time explaining than actually telling a story. It’s not functional to the artform. The only single work that functions like this that I can think of is literally Wikipedia, where every noun, verb, and event is an annotated hyperlink to another article to explain said nouns, verbs, and events.

It doesn’t matter the degree to which you’re upset. The fact that you are at all is telling.

Me catching you in lies is not bait.

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I think it’s best for everyone to move on you know? The writers kind of already set in stone on who Soldier is. I really don’t think they can just turn back on their writing decisions now.

I have started creating my own OC because at least I have some freedom in deciding how my gay character can be and how they’re written. Headcanons for non-confirmed heroes are also fine to make.

Yeah… You know in nature gay relationships happen… ALL THE TIME! The only reason some people think it is unnatural is because someone taught them that it was. And earlier in human history, it wasn’t a big deal either. In fact, in some societies, it was encouraged.

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I believe that at the beginning of Overwatch, it was said that many of the characters are actually gay, and that these would be announced over time. So for all we know, they had planned for Jack Morrison to be gay this whole time.

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I can’t put links. search on this. new-artificial-intelligence-can-tell-whether-youre-gay-or-straight-from-a-photograph

The reason there needs to be LGBTQ hero’s in the game is because their trying to give everyone someone to relate too. The special snowflakes need something to inspire them to make drawings of the weirdest stuff and make belief ridiculous stories they call headcanon on tumblr. Try to find something cool overwatch related on it and I guarantee you’ll find nothing but Ouran Highschool themed overwatch posts. The imagination of some people legit disturb me. Anything you like, people have changed it to have a queer perspective… anyone can say I’m wrong but perspectively you really can’t. But don’t try and tell anyone on tumblr that because it’s “artistic”.

You should have done more research. It turns out it couldn’t.