…if you are not LGBT+ you don’t really get to decide what is or isn’t good LGBT+ rep, or what is “enough,” or what “counts.” You can determine for yourself whether you think an LGBT love story was well written or not, sure, because you’re just looking at the actual writing itself. But on the topic of whether it is good in terms of how it represents the LGBT experience, how would you even know if you’re straight? I only say this bc Every time someone who is LGBT wants to ask for a specific LGBT rep/ a certain condition in which to include this rep some straight people want to crawl out of the woodwork like termites and say “but you have X isn’t that enough?” or “why can’t you relate to straight people?” and I see it a lot in these forums.
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Generally speaking, when I see people saying “you have enough,” they’re either reacting negatively to the approach that Overwatch “needs” more lgbt content or don’t want to see whatever it is being suggested (ie any of the various lgbt ships that are often pushed under a veil of necessity for more lgbt representation).
Saying you want it is fine and no one should criticize you for that. However, if you approach with the idea that it needs to happen, you should expect to be challenged.
The Overwatch team loves to posture when it comes their LGBT content and community, so there will certainly be more in the future anyway.
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God that’s so true, OW has absolutely too many canon lgbt ships, countless, it’s about time they start caring about representation for heterosexuals
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That’s not the point at all. If you tell people that your ship needs to be made canon for lgbt representation, or excuse me I’m sorry, “enough” lgbt representation, you will typically get shut down because that’s ridiculous and comes off as manipulative. It’s as simple as that. That aside, you can hope for whatever you want.
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I mean I am 100% trying to appeal to people’s emotions and sense of decency when I say that lgbtq representation is important, so yes, under that logic you can call me manipulative
The relationships we have are exactly the relationships that make sense to have.
Character defining relationships:
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Widowmaker - Exists because of Amelie/Gerard
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Brigitte - Exists because of Torbjorn/Ingrid
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Pharah - Exists because of Ana/Sam
The protagonist’s relationship - Lena/Emily
And an extra layer of antithesis towards two characters who have layer upon layer of anatomical traits:
Soldier 76 vs Reaper:
- Catholic, white, gay, rural raised and forever alone Jack on the side of justice for his revenge - Jack/Vincent
- Atheist, ethnic, -----, city raised and former family man Gabriel on the side of villainy for his revenge - Gabriel/???
I would say its implied Gabriel is straight to provide an extra antithesis to Soldier. IF we are to get any more relationships, I would like it to be Reaper’s ex-wife, so we have the completed chain of opposites.
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Amelie is Widow and Gerard was her husband before she killed him.
But i agree on the others. For Tracer, Emily represents what shes fighting for. In the OW2 trailer you can see that she has a picture of her on the piloting board for example.
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And this is what I’m talking about. Most people above a certain age know what you’re trying to do and the lgbt communities are notorious for doing this. It pushes the idea that what you want specifically from the lore needs to happen for the sake of a social justice. You can make that case, but it’s a fallacious one that will be rejected in most cases. Especially if your response to what you already have is that it’s not enough.
Yes. Widowmaker exists because Amelie MADE herself a WIDOW, and she was only conditioned into Widowmaker so she could kill her husband Gerard. If they weren’t together, Widowmaker would not exist.
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Congratulations, you have uncovered the gay agenda, wanting to see ourselves represented in media as more than two random women kissing for 0.5 seconds in a Star Wars movie or vague hints that can be edited out/censored easily in other countries like what Blizzard is doing with Tracer and Soldier. Like, the whole point of OP’s post is that it’s up to lgbtq people to decide what good lgbtq rep is and I can tell you right now that Overwatch isn’t considered the pinnacle of good rep in the lgbtq community.
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OP also explains that the reason for this topic existing is the negative response the lgbt community tends to get when they say there isn’t enough. I’m merely explaining why that’s the case. If you approach with the idea that Overwatch needs this and the lgbt content the OW team has already gone out of their way to include is not good enough, it will be panned.
You complain about how the devs of Overwatch are “cowards” because they don’t do more lgbt stuff with the two characters they’ve revealed, but they didn’t have to do this at all. Tracer and Soldier both could’ve been straight or left undefined and the series from a business perspective would not be any worse off because Overwatch is not a dating simulator. It gains nothing from having variety concerning who the characters have sex with. The only thing they’d lose is their good guy points, which they’ve already lost thanks to the Hong Kong situation anyway.
Am I saying you need to be grateful for that? No. But Overwatch is doing fine in terms of diversity. It’s open to more, but it doesn’t “need” more. Feel free to disagree, but being constantly salty and bitter about it isn’t going to change anything. There isn’t going to be lgbt compensation for every Genji/Mercy interaction.
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See, the point of OP’s post, but worded in a more diplomatic way, is that your opinion on lgbtq rep doesn’t matter. At all. You’re right about one single thing, and that is that the dev didn’t absolutely have to include lgbtq rep. But they did, and why? To attract more lgbtq fans. So who gets to decide if the rep is good? The lgbtq fans Blizzard wants to court and look good for. If lgbtq people call them cowards even after Soldier and Tracer being declared officially gay on twitter and one censored comic, then they are cowards. It’s almost 2020, the lgbtq community has higher standards than what Blizzard is doing.
If lgbtq players decide Blizzard are still cowards and could do more than have two out of more than 30 characters be gay in certain countries in certain tangential media then guess what - that’s the opinion that matters. Not your opinion, not Blizzard’s. In fact, in theory, all lgbtq people in the world could get together and vote that we’re owed lgbtq compensation for every Mercy/Genji interaction - and once again, your opinion would not matter.
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Okay. My opinion matters more than Blizzard’s. I vote no and say this is absurd.
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You called them that because you didn’t get your way regarding Mercy. The reaction to Tracer and Soldier was positive in the lgbt communities. Now because Genji and Mercy are casually flirting, you somehow think that you deserve compensation when you don’t. Bitter delusion.
Uh, are you sure about that? Because I’m pretty sure Blizzard’s opinion is the one that matters lmao. If they decided to say “this is enough” and never add another lgbt character, your opinion on that decision would certainly not matter. This goes back to delusion; you’re trying to push idea that only the opinions of people who agree with you matter, and in doing so, you’re saying the opinion of the company who makes the content doesn’t matter. Do you really not see the flaw in that logic?
My opinion may not matter, but I’ll take solace in knowing yours will not either, because it’s absolutely crazy.
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^ Blizzard, or any creator, gets the final say bc it’s their story. But LGBT+ communities’ criticism/opinion of the way the content represents themselves should be the most valued. This is not always the case I believe. And if LGBT+ people want to pick a bone - or be perfectly happy with it too - with it that’s their prerogative. I think people who are not LGBT+ can definitely think something was unnecessary if it was poorly written or added nothing to the story, but that should because they just didn’t like it as a romance, not because it was an LGBT one (or a character was LGBT), and they shouldn’t feel justified in calling it pandering or fulfilling a SJW checklist because they are looking from the outside in, it’s not their experience being appealed to (or “pandered to”), nor is it theirs to think there is “too much of” it when there is clearly a large disparity in LGBT representation in media. I mean things are definitely a lot better than they used to, but maybe it feels like “pandering” because it’s so rare and not normalized yet.
And yes I know people on the Internet will always disagree with anything anyone says at any given time. But this is me disagreeing with them.
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To a certain extent, I can see what you’re saying here, and the mere existence of lgbt content shouldn’t be immediately written off as unnecessary or pandering. But just as an example, as an lgbt woman, can you really tell me with a straight face that something like Widowtracer would not feel like pandering at this point? Or Pharmercy after everything that happened with the Valentine’s Day freakout and the lead writer being harassed? The LGBT community can often tell when they’re being pandered to whether they enjoy said content or not. A straight person can tell from the outside too.
I think those would be more “fanservice,” not “pandering” because they would just be wlw relationships between cis women which we “already” have in the form of tracer and emily (according to the definition of pandering, which is including something just to include it) and would be “redundant” because it’s not including anything we don’t “already have.” But they would be fanservice because they are romances that were not originally intended to be written, but they saw that some fans want it to happen so they cave to their demands. It would be the same if they made Reinhardt/Ana a ship just because they know some people like the idea - and they are straight.
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Yeah I’ll admit, fan service is probably a better term for it and the logic you presented is more likely to be used in the event this happened.
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Actually, a straight person doesn’t decide when it’s pandering or not, because again - their opinion doesn’t matter. At all. Your opinion has no value when it comes to the quality of lgbtq rep. Also, I’ve only talked about Soldier and Tracer, you were the first to bring up Mercy and Genji lmao (not my fault they’re not as popular as literally every gay ship involving either of those characters). Genji and Mercy could have a whole romance novel dedicated to them for all I care if Tracer and/or Soldier got as many in game explictly gay romantic interactions as the heterosexual couple between playable heroes does.
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I find the choice in which of the people here you chose to reply to. According to your definitions, my opinion matters, yet mine is the one ignored.
It sounds more like the only opinion that matters is the one that agrees with what you have to say.