LGBT in Overwatch Mega(y)thread šŸ³ļøā€šŸŒˆ

Story Discussion
16005

i meant real world Vs an alternativ History ficiton where they crazy US experiments with the Gay bomb actually worked and was used vs both sidesā€¦

Itā€™s an absurd example but itā€™s meant to highlight what would re required to shift normal demograpics of gender orientationā€¦

A similar narrative example woudl be saber marrionet J where there is only a male population since their female settlers did not survive and they are forced to use cloning and for some reason they cant get females)

something can be unnatural when you compare a fictional unnatural senario to a real life oneā€¦

so freaking cut out the stupid quote mining please because your totally of on what i actually meant

My point is you cant just have an untatural absense or abundance of gays compared to what you would expect irlā€¦ either is wrongā€¦ unless you have a narrative device to explain why

Look let me give you an example of what i meanā€¦

One of my favorit book series is Cape highā€¦ but i am every annoyed that there is absolutely no mention of any homosexual or bisexual or what ever characters in itā€¦ even though the cast of characters is huge! statistically there should be one or two by now at least mentioned in passingā€¦ but nothingā€¦

the reason whyā€¦ well itā€™s written by a sunday school teacher so obvious christian biasā€¦

this is what i consider unnaturalā€¦you dont have to write about such a characterā€¦ you just have to achnoledge that they existā€¦ the damage is when you write groups of existance as if they never existedā€¦

i dont see any problem with not having gays or bisexuals or what ever activly in a story but they must be achnolegedā€¦

at the same time this should not be over doneā€¦ especially not by corporations who have no business getting political either wayā€¦ they should simply take a reasonable neutral stanceā€¦ i.e statistically normal representation nothing more nothing lessā€¦ just the plain boring base line as best we can account for at this moment.

1 Like
16006

But talking gorillas are fine.

I donā€™t even know what you are talking about at this point, it just makes very little sense.

4 Likes
16007

if you write a narrative where gravity happens to be reverse and there is a murder mystery happening and you never explain why gravity is backwards in that world that would be oddā€¦

itā€™s the same thingā€¦

Also the talking gorillas are accounted for there is a reason why they are thereā€¦ itā€™s been explainedā€¦

itā€™s not that complicatedā€¦

well i have two points a) divergent phenomenons from the real world need to be accounted for in the narrative

b) corporations are not people and should stay the FĀ¤%k out of politicsā€¦ i.e they should do representation as it is in the real world and no moreā€¦ no lessā€¦ no virtue signaling or writing minorities out of existenceā€¦ just stay away from either F%&Ā¤ed up extreme and be neutral.

16008

Well I completely disagree with you.

16009

I donā€™t see any discrepancy here though. If you look at the ā€œmain castā€ as your only pool to pull from than, sure, that might be weird when it comes to the ratio, even if itā€™s still possible.

However, look at the whole universe. Look at the amount of straight couples they have shown in the various cinematic. The different characters that arenā€™t a part of the main cast are still considered characters in the story and are acknowledged.

Hell, the first couple you see is in the Alive short between a male omnic and female human. If you look in that crowd Iā€™m sure youā€™ll find more relationships and even so, those not in a relationship are assumed to be straight.

We can say that things represented percentage wise without explanation can be easily construed as falsehood or pandering but, the only way we can do that is to ignore the vast amount of characters in the series that arenā€™t main cast.

You also canā€™t say that itā€™s because they arenā€™t ā€œmentioned to be straightā€ because the real world doesnā€™t do that either. No straight person has a coming out, only LGBT.

That being said, I believe the number for representation is completely reasonable factoring in character that arenā€™t of the main cast as well as how LGBT do come together in groups (something that Non-LGBT might not understand).

Iā€™m saying this while actually being an outlier in that stastic (my group of friends being 5 straight people, 1 bi person, and me playing the role of gay guy)

2 Likes
16010

What is a ā€œdivergent phenomenonā€ in the context of LGBT representation though? As Urso said, if we account for all characters currently existing in the Overwatch universe (heroes, secondary characters, minor characters, background charactersā€¦), there arenā€™t enough LGBT characters. The divergent phenomenon here is actually the lack of LGBT individuals in the fictional futuristic presentation of the year 2076/2077.

Also I heavily disagree that characters having regular basic traits like skin colour, nationality or sexuality should be considered as some sort of a phenomenon that has to be explained by the narrative. It is explained with ā€œOverwatch features a diverse cast of characters from planet Earth.ā€ On this planet, thereā€™s a wide variety of different human beings from all walks of life. The narrative doesnā€™t have to ā€œexplainā€ why thereā€™s more LGBT people than ā€œusualā€ (when we donā€™t even know whatā€™s usual and what is going to be usual in 60 years). Weā€™ve also established there arenā€™t more LGBT people in Overwatch than usual so thereā€™s that.

Will this nonsense ever cease, I wonder.

Every piece of media and every artist or even a corporation (that employs artists and authors who create products) has politics. Overwatch decided to have politics with their basic premise of ā€œdiscrimination of omnics is bad.ā€ That is a political statement. The entirety of Overwatch as an organisation is deep in political questions of ethics of warfare, ethics and politics of black ops divisions running operations in sovereign states without explicit permission of foreign governments, the ethics of science, research and medicine, as well as more SF topics such as animal experimentation with the goal of uplifting them, cybernetics, brainwashing and indoctrination to the point of slowing someoneā€™s heart beat and making people turn into smoke. I didnā€™t even touch on other non-Overwatch related business such as the politics of big corporations gentrifying poor neighbourhoods without permission of the existing population, revolutions, orphans of war, criminal underground violence, government propaganda and so on.

If you missed all of these themes in Overwatch, thatā€™s your problem. If you think all of these themes arenā€™t political and Blizzard started being political when they said Tracer and Soldier are gay, you need to sit down and have a deep conversation with yourself as to why you consider gay people existing inherently political, but none of the above as such.

Politics in media happened long before any LGBT content ever existed and LGBT content simply existing isnā€™t inherently political.

Not to mention that your implication of this being ā€œextremeā€ is really strange. Ah yes, the extreme politics of Tracer having a girlfriend. Truly there is nothing in this game that is more political than that.

3 Likes
16011

New Overwatch short story.

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/gallery/MH2T6XNHIXXZ1560535557651.pdf

1 Like
16012

read it, loved it, and highly suspect mauga is an upcoming ā€œheroā€. also, new baptiste skin!

16013

I wouldnā€™t mind, but I didnā€™t really fall in love with anything else except his appearance, which is like 95% completely my type. But weā€™ll see.

1 Like
16014

heā€™s probably that Talon heavy unit people have been asking for since they were revealed 2 years ago in archives. so i probably wont be surprised much by how he worksā€¦

16015

I really just glanced over the story but youā€™re right, his armor in one of the pictures is completely the same as the heavy unit.

16016

the background of the comic is the tacky shirt print Mauga was wearing. those two were more than friends, im tellin u bud.

16017

in the story though it mentions a shield, which is pretty interesting considering we could really use a new shield tank to compete with orisa and reinhardt as an anchor

16018

I donā€™t want more shields though eugh.

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16019

I mean fair stuff bunker compā€¦is 2 much, but on the other hand variety in shield tanks will help break some of that apart.

16020

The worst thing about this game is shields and big heals. So any kind of addition to that will make me annoyed and worried. Tanks and supports and their ultimates will continue to dictate the meta and 3 tanks 3 supports is justā€¦ eugh.

16021

3 tank 3 support is a bit tiresome but ill take it over bunker.

On the other hand, i cant imagine overwatch would b very fun if DPS ultimates were the thing that dictated meta. DPS is already the most appealing role to most people, if power was moved out of the tank and the healing role then really what would be the point to playing them? Youā€™d really only be playing the thing for your teammates to stand on more than you already do. I just think we need 2-2-2 lock already, rip that bandaid off.

16022

But the thing is, tanks and supports are so powerful and important that DPS are irrelevant. You donā€™t need DPS in your team, but you absolutely need tanks and healers. What kind of sense does that make? Supports and tanks can often do what DPS do, while providing the perks of being a tank or a healer.

16023

That itself doesnt make sense since the roles that lack most in the game are tanks (especially) and to a much lesser extent, healers. if DPS werenā€™t necessary than why are they played so much? The reason you absolutely need tanks + healers is because typically you load into a QP game and you get 4 autolock DPS.

3-3 can easily be rid of with a strict 2-2-2 lock and then we can reevaluate the overall power levels of each role. I agree that some tanks are too ā€œfat DPSā€-y but most supports have to trade in value at their role to get access to DPS-ish mechanics. Even the supports that are accused of being played as DPS have the disadvantage to DPS that their damage output is far far lower.

Then thereā€™s also DPS who are tanky or supportive in nature. Doomfist and Mei have a lot of tanky abilities. Sombra, Soldier and Symm all have supportive utilities.

16024

DPS are popular because they are fun to play, not because they are necessarily better than the optimal comp.

I think you are clearly focusing on quickplay in your argument, rather than 4000+ competitive gameplay, and Overwatch League. But thatā€™s fine.