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DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
That looks like it’s there to appeal to some weird fetish

They lack the sequined tights of the original custodes but otherwise look about right.

Hey, remember when a company decided to make Hobbits black, and Gathandrial a girl boss in the One Ring TV show? Man, Arch got god knows how many clicks and ad-revenue off that. Just off the pagesense data alone, he made almost 25,000 USD off his content during that. By saying that Hobbits can't be a certain Color.

So yeah, this stuff sells. It puts butts in seats. It gets President's elected somehow. People tune in to watch the Kardashians. It's all the same thing.

Brickfix wrote:I believe GWs reply on X could have been better/different but maybe they really wanted to stir up the pot?

This was actually the main gist of the question I asked - what *should* GW's reply have been, assuming that the state of women Custodes doesn't change (ie, that they are eligible in 30k and 40k, and that they have always been present in both settings)

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Hey, remember when a company decided to make Hobbits black, and Gathandrial a girl boss in the One Ring TV show? Man, Arch got god knows how many clicks and ad-revenue off that. Just off the pagesense data alone, he made almost 25,000 USD off his content during that. By saying that Hobbits can't be a certain Color.

So yeah, this stuff sells. It puts butts in seats. It gets President's elected somehow. People tune in to watch the Kardashians. It's all the same thing.

Or that time the internet exploded because they had an African American guy as a stormtrooper?

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Hey, remember when a company decided to make Hobbits black, and Gathandrial a girl boss in the One Ring TV show? Man, Arch got god knows how many clicks and ad-revenue off that. Just off the pagesense data alone, he made almost 25,000 USD off his content during that. By saying that Hobbits can't be a certain Color.

So yeah, this stuff sells. It puts butts in seats. It gets President's elected somehow. People tune in to watch the Kardashians. It's all the same thing.

Or that time the internet exploded because they had an African American guy as a stormtrooper?

Do you mean John Boyega?

He is not American

He wasn’t an African American; he’s British.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Brickfix wrote:I believe GWs reply on X could have been better/different but maybe they really wanted to stir up the pot?

This was actually the main gist of the question I asked - what *should* GW's reply have been, assuming that the state of women Custodes doesn't change (ie, that they are eligible in 30k and 40k, and that they have always been present in both settings)

Riffing off that and a suggestion I made in the other thread on the subject...

If it had been me, coming up with this? I would have had a two-prong response ready to go.
Prong One:
The reply of "they've always been there".

Prong Two:
A Warhammer Community article, introducing the lore around the idea of women having been in the ranks...utilizing the concept of a "nom de guerre"(war name) to people unfamiliar with it. The Custodes are supposed to be both a 'bodyguard' organization but also to have elements of assassins and saboteurs. Having the latter two being our segway into this, introducing the idea that the Custodes overall have assumed names that were male to perpetuate the idea that they were an all male organization.

End with vague hintings and insinuations of Custodes, male and female, genemodded to appear more like "regular" humans than the ones who we've seen so far.

It adds a slightly more sinister undertone to the Custodes, insinuating that these Praetorian Guard might be influencing the shape of the Imperium in the Emperor's name in ways that we did not think of before.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
. . .and a member got a permaban for continued transphobic comments

Oh really? That's a shame. Not that what they said was ok (if it's the thing I'm thinking about), but just that I'm not a fan of permabans.

But it's not my site, and it's possible it was something that I missed.

what they were saying was violently transphobic. if those comments had been allowed to stay, it would have made it clear to any trans people on the that this isn't the place for them (so, thanks to the mods for dealing with that!)

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm totally for removing the comment (again, if it's the one I'm thinking of). I'm just not for removing the user. I'm not a fan of banning people.

But again, not my site. And my heart goes out to anyone who takes on the responsibility of being a mod.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Snord wrote:
What has horrified me is the level of lunacy that this relatively minor change has generated. I suddenly got multiple 'hits' on Youtube for various Youtubers I'd never heard of, all frothing at the mouth about GW has become Disney and how all its customers are leaving. There are also some really dumb conspiracy theories. I normally manage to stay away from the culture wars, so this was an unpleasant reminder of how people with agendas jump on this kind of thing.

Social media has unfortunately become monetized controversy. It directly financially incentivizes getting people angry and "engaged" and a lot of creators jump a the opportunity for an easy payday. Honestly, its a good reminder to be weary of all the relatively minor bouts of online angst. I was wildly disappointed today to see Auspex selling a "was power creep better?" as a lesson that no matter what gets fixed, people will find a way to make it a problem. The internet is just no longer a place to go enjoy things.

^Yeah, this is the real thing. "If it bleeds it leads" has turned into a race to increase blood pressure, which isn't good for anybody, and plays absolute hell on social discourse.

It sucks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
He wasn’t an African American; he’s British.

Lol.

If the GW lore department aren't hypocrites then we will be adding the Brothers of Silence to the faction soon as well!

That would be cool.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Or that time the internet exploded because they had an African American guy as a stormtrooper?

Not exploding, but it did seem they didn't understand the brief that the empire were space Nazi's, so white (male) humans in Hugo Boss uniforms. My overly cynical friend who will occasional be off on a march thought it was so people wouldn't feel sorry for them getting shot anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Prong Two:
A Warhammer Community article, introducing the lore around the idea of women having been in the ranks...utilizing the concept of a "nom de guerre"(war name) to people unfamiliar with it. The Custodes are supposed to be both a 'bodyguard' organization but also to have elements of assassins and saboteurs. Having the latter two being our segway into this, introducing the idea that the Custodes overall have assumed names that were male to perpetuate the idea that they were an all male organization.

End with vague hintings and insinuations of Custodes, male and female, genemodded to appear more like "regular" humans than the ones who we've seen so far.

It adds a slightly more sinister undertone to the Custodes, insinuating that these Praetorian Guard might be influencing the shape of the Imperium in the Emperor's name in ways that we did not think of before.

Not possible - remember, no model no mention!

We've gotten more mentions of things in lore with no models than you might be aware of. The majority of the Kurnothi lore, published on Warhammer Community, is completely missing in model format.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Or that time the internet exploded because they had an African American guy as a stormtrooper?

Not exploding, but it did seem they didn't understand the brief that the empire were space Nazi's, so white (male) humans in Hugo Boss uniforms. My overly cynical friend who will occasional be off on a march thought it was so people wouldn't feel sorry for them getting shot anymore.

which is funny because we have the same now
people cheering the space nazis because they are not sexist anymore (still nazis, but not sexist nazis so the perfect role model)

https://gizmodo.com/warhammer-40k-female-custodes-games-workshop-culture-1851414675

When that evil is presented as cool, it is no longer satire: it’s just something that looks cool. And in being something that looks cool, it in turn invites people who see the Imperium’s ideas about hating things that are different, controlling people through vile doctrines, and its terrifying religious dogma as ideologies that are actually worth supporting, and to feel like they and their awful beliefs have a place in Warhammer’s community, regardless of what Games Workshop says. These are the same people who blow up at the very existence of a character of a non-masculine gender, or a character of a non-white racial background, regardless of how minor or fleeting their existence ultimately is—the same people that now Games Workshop finds itself being harangued by for purportedly turning Warhammer 40,000 “woke.”

Satire without clarity is not effective satire—and not an effective defense for someone to claim as they try to push back against a hateful co-option of a universe like Warhammer’s. If Games Workshop wants a world where it can mention the existence of a diverse array of characters in its fiction without delving its fanbase into arguments and harassment, it can no longer sit back and claim satire as its guiding principal, and instead must actively push back against these bigoted elements and forcefully prove to them that they have no space in its community. To do so, it has to recognize something many people within and without the company have already noticed: Warhammer has changed since its origins, and it will always continue to do so. Defending it from becoming another front line in the endless culture war requires Games Workshop to adapt or face consequences of its own making.

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:


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shadowsfm wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
they all wear the same massive and bulky armor either way, so unless they take the helmet off, the difference wouldn't really matter

while thats true in plastic, it can be cringe on tv. do i really want to hear a deep female voice through the helmet and imagine her in the armor?

What is wrong with hearing a deep female voice? What's wrong with muscular women?

This comment is a bit odd, IMHO

are you ok with female custode all of a sudden? what about males in sisters of silence or adepta soriata? how far would you go until 40k just isnt 40k anymore? maybe burn everything that happened before and start from scratch, like star wars?

shadowsfm wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

shadowsfm wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
they all wear the same massive and bulky armor either way, so unless they take the helmet off, the difference wouldn't really matter

while thats true in plastic, it can be cringe on tv. do i really want to hear a deep female voice through the helmet and imagine her in the armor?

What is wrong with hearing a deep female voice? What's wrong with muscular women?

This comment is a bit odd, IMHO

are you ok with female custode all of a sudden? what about males in sisters of silence or adepta soriata? how far would you go until 40k just isnt 40k anymore? maybe burn everything that happened before and start from scratch, like star wars?

There are men in the Sororitas, they’re called priests and crusaders. And stop over exaggerating, 40K is still the same 40K and that’s not changing now or anytime soon

shadowsfm wrote:
maybe burn everything that happened before and start from scratch, like star wars?

It probably would be for the best.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

shadowsfm wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

shadowsfm wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
they all wear the same massive and bulky armor either way, so unless they take the helmet off, the difference wouldn't really matter

while thats true in plastic, it can be cringe on tv. do i really want to hear a deep female voice through the helmet and imagine her in the armor?

What is wrong with hearing a deep female voice? What's wrong with muscular women?

This comment is a bit odd, IMHO

are you ok with female custode all of a sudden? what about males in sisters of silence or adepta soriata? how far would you go until 40k just isnt 40k anymore? maybe burn everything that happened before and start from scratch, like star wars?

There are men in the Sororitas, they’re called priests and crusaders. And stop over exaggerating, 40K is still the same 40K and that’s not changing now or anytime soon

They aren’t Sororitsas, don’t be disingenuous.

It’s rather like saying there are women in the Space Marines, they are called serfs and servitors.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not exploding, but it did seem they didn't understand the brief that the empire were space Nazi's, so white (male) humans in Hugo Boss uniforms.

Now that’s a bit racist

robbienw wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

shadowsfm wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

shadowsfm wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
they all wear the same massive and bulky armor either way, so unless they take the helmet off, the difference wouldn't really matter

while thats true in plastic, it can be cringe on tv. do i really want to hear a deep female voice through the helmet and imagine her in the armor?

What is wrong with hearing a deep female voice? What's wrong with muscular women?

This comment is a bit odd, IMHO

are you ok with female custode all of a sudden? what about males in sisters of silence or adepta soriata? how far would you go until 40k just isnt 40k anymore? maybe burn everything that happened before and start from scratch, like star wars?

There are men in the Sororitas, they’re called priests and crusaders. And stop over exaggerating, 40K is still the same 40K and that’s not changing now or anytime soon

They aren’t Sororitsas, don’t be disingenuous.

It’s rather like saying there are women in the Space Marines, they are called serfs and servitors.

The difference is, you can play a 1,000 point game of 40k and take almost entirely men in an army taken solely from the Sisters' Index.
For Marines, you can take up to 12 Legends models totaling 165 points that could've been women at one point. And those models represent lobotomized flesh machines, not fully motive people.

going by that argument, lets call all female custode "sisters of silence." reading all previous posts on this thread, i see this debate is going to be an up hill battle

shadowsfm wrote:
going by that argument, lets call all female custode "sisters of silence." reading all previous posts on this thread, i see this debate is going to be an up hill battle

Sisters of silence don’t equal Custodes, they serve different roles

 JNAProductions wrote:
The difference is, you can play a 1,000 point game of 40k and take almost entirely men in an army taken solely from the Sisters' Index.
For Marines, you can take up to 12 Legends models totaling 165 points that could've been women at one point. And those models represent lobotomized flesh machines, not fully motive people.

While that's true, they're still definitely not Sororitas.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
The difference is, you can play a 1,000 point game of 40k and take almost entirely men in an army taken solely from the Sisters' Index.
For Marines, you can take up to 12 Legends models totaling 165 points that could've been women at one point. And those models represent lobotomized flesh machines, not fully motive people.

While that's true, they're still definitely not Sororitas.

They're from the Sisters' Index. They're not proper Sororitas, but they're much better male representation within a female faction than servitors are female in Space Marines.

the reason why Sisters of Battle and Sisters of Silence exist as female-only factions is for the idea that those are the main pillars of female representation. they're an equivalent to affirmative action, a form of saying "there are forces biased against you in other ways, so overt corrections must be made to fix this". insisting on adding men to female-only factions does not make things more balanced because those factions are existing to balance out existing injustices. in a world where warhammer was already a perfectly balanced game where people were properly represented, then these factions wouldn't need to exist. insisting on "but what about misters of battle" misses the entire point of the faction existing and does nothing but be reductive regarding sexism in the game and in the hobby. the circumstances where these factions could exist and be gender-balanced do not exist because they're build upon 40+ years of sexism within the culture, and that correction is still needed. even if GW do finally make female space marines, that correction will still be needed. sexism is not as simple as "women have models means that sexism is defeated forever"

frankly, the way that the conversation keeps circling around to these female-exclusive factions feels disingenuous because it's a way of trying to silence the ongoing conversation by going "well, if we're fixing sexist injustice, why don't we do this thing that would have the opposite effect". adding more men to women-only spaces would only serve to drown out those factions' corrective efforts. you might want to talk about a hypothetical reality where it would be okay to do so, but that is not our reality

(oh and to also all the points about how sisters of silence are underserved and need more models or lore: this has been discussed before but the effort of create more models or develop new lore is a lot more than writing a short story for custodes as they exist, but with some different pronouns. it's a reductive take which just serves to bog down the conversation of sexism)

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

shadowsfm wrote:
going by that argument, lets call all female custode "sisters of silence." reading all previous posts on this thread, i see this debate is going to be an up hill battle

Sisters of silence don’t equal Custodes, they serve different roles

Just because they don't serve the same role doesn't mean they have less value.

To my understanding, sisters of silence were created to give women more representation in 40k. So why do you want more? How much change do you want until you are satisfied?

What I'm worried about, my reason for debate, is that games workshop can't make everyone happy. There will always people that are still unsatisfied and want more change. Some people just complain to see how far a franchise will try to be accommodating to the point of becoming unrecognizable, like starwars. And dome people just want to see the world burn

shadowsfm wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

shadowsfm wrote:
going by that argument, lets call all female custode "sisters of silence." reading all previous posts on this thread, i see this debate is going to be an up hill battle

Sisters of silence don’t equal Custodes, they serve different roles

Just because they don't serve the same role doesn't mean they have less value.

To my understanding, sisters of silence were created to give women more representation in 40k. So why do you want more? How much change do you want until you are satisfied?

What I'm worried about, my reason for debate, is that games workshop can't make everyone happy. There will always people that are still unsatisfied and want more change. Some people just complain to see how far a franchise will try to be accommodating to the point of becoming unrecognizable, like starwars

Star Wars sequel trilogy isn't bad because it's diverse, it's bad because it's badly written and directed.

And, shocker this might be, a faction that consists of one box and one special character, who's defining trait is being silent at all times, who are the smaller subfaction of an already small faction, doesn't for good representation make.

This topic is the background of 40k, specifically about Custodies now also being female. It is not about Star Wars, Ghostbusters or any other topic someone randomly dredges up. Stay on topic please.

Even as far back as Rogue Trader when Custodes were shirtless they were stated as men so it's kinda been that way since the beginning.

I'm not oppossed to female custodes if there's an in-lore explanation.

With the gene editing process being woefully bad since the Big E was crippled the gene engineers had only been able to make like what? 9k custodes in 10 millenia?

All they had to do was just say something like "welp, we went thru our yearly allocation of infant sons and there's an excess of daughters so maybe we'll try this old technique that we barely understand on daughters" and thru some freak luck they found out it could work on females. It really wouldn't have been a further stretch than the primaris tbh.

But here all we get is a blurb of text and a lazy social media post from GW that just gaslights everyone saying that "no, there have always been", and not even any female models released where we could look at it and just think "oh GW just wants to sell new models whatever"

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Snord wrote:
What has horrified me is the level of lunacy that this relatively minor change has generated. I suddenly got multiple 'hits' on Youtube for various Youtubers I'd never heard of, all frothing at the mouth about GW has become Disney and how all its customers are leaving. There are also some really dumb conspiracy theories. I normally manage to stay away from the culture wars, so this was an unpleasant reminder of how people with agendas jump on this kind of thing.

Social media has unfortunately become monetized controversy. It directly financially incentivizes getting people angry and "engaged" and a lot of creators jump a the opportunity for an easy payday. Honestly, its a good reminder to be weary of all the relatively minor bouts of online angst. I was wildly disappointed today to see Auspex selling a "was power creep better?" as a lesson that no matter what gets fixed, people will find a way to make it a problem. The internet is just no longer a place to go enjoy things.

It’s also how “culture wars” are invented and fuelled.

You or your algorithm go looking for the most hatstand, pants on head, yip yip bibble, shnorf lunacy you can find, from someone on the other side of the political spectrum. You then present that as a majority view of that side of the political spectrum.

Erase the grey. Remove the many, many layers. Go straight to the bottom of the iceberg, and claim “and that’s just the beginning of their demands!!!!”. Profit.

And yes. All sides are at it. All of them. Despite that most folk won’t necessarily agree on everything, but will happily let each other be about their day.

Nail on the head, Dok. No notes. Enjoy the exalt.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Brickfix wrote:I believe GWs reply on X could have been better/different but maybe they really wanted to stir up the pot?

This was actually the main gist of the question I asked - what *should* GW's reply have been, assuming that the state of women Custodes doesn't change (ie, that they are eligible in 30k and 40k, and that they have always been present in both settings)

I see no question. GW's response was that "Since the creation of the 10,00, female Custodes have always existed". So they are present in both settings.

Duymon wrote:
But here all we get is a blurb of text and a lazy social media post from GW that just gaslights everyone saying that "no, there have always been", and not even any female models released where we could look at it and just think "oh GW just wants to sell new models whatever"

Seriously, folks, can we drop the insistence on 'gaslighting'?

A retcon is not gaslighting. It's a change to the setting. The point of GW's social media post wasn't to make people believe something that wasn't true. It was to point out that as of now that's the way things are. Last month, there were no female Custodes, because they had not been included in the setting*. And now things have been rewritten, and there have always (so far as the setting is concerned) been female custodes, in just the same way as there were no Rogal Dorn tanks... until there were always Rogal Dorn tanks. Space Marines didn't use fighter craft... until they always did. Centurions didn't exist... Until they did. Tau didn't exist... until they did.

The setting evolves, and things change. So, please, stop with the 'gaslighting' nonsense.



*aside from a couple of places where they possibly were. Yay for 40K-style consistency!

 insaniak wrote:

Duymon wrote:
But here all we get is a blurb of text and a lazy social media post from GW that just gaslights everyone saying that "no, there have always been", and not even any female models released where we could look at it and just think "oh GW just wants to sell new models whatever"

Seriously, folks, can we drop the insistence on 'gaslighting'?

A retcon is not gaslighting. It's a change to the setting. The point of GW's social media post wasn't to make people believe something that wasn't true. It was to point out that as of now that's the way things are. Last month, there were no female Custodes, because they had not been included in the setting*. And now things have been rewritten, and there have always (so far as the setting is concerned) been female custodes, in just the same way as there were no Rogal Dorn tanks... until there were always Rogal Dorn tanks. Space Marines didn't use fighter craft... until they always did. Centurions didn't exist... Until they did. Tau didn't exist... until they did.

The setting evolves, and things change. So, please, stop with the 'gaslighting' nonsense.



*aside from a couple of places where they possibly were. Yay for 40K-style consistency!

my favorite was the guy who posted the dictionary definition of gaslighting and insisted that GW retconning custodes to include women was meant to make him go insane