You interpreted it that way, as a statement of intent, which is reasonable.
Others interpreted an unambiguous statement of fact on the GW official account, which could legitimately be argued contradicts lore and previous GW directives to authors, in the context of "bigots will not be missed", as gaslighting. In context, that's also a reasonable interpretation.
"Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia" is the classic literary example of institutional gaslighting.
so how to solve this as a compromise, change the poster boy to include females or change the poster boy faction to include females, for every marine, show a sister, push that these are factions that work in concert, they are a mirror of each other and cover each others gaps and weaknesses, men and woman working in concert expressing their strengths in different ways, the marines are the shield, the bulwark against the physical threat, the sisters are the bulwark and shield against the spiritual one.
Spoiler:
Exactly but put this EVERYWHERE, see a cardboard cut out of a marine, you also get a sister, see a poster of a marine, there is a sister in there too just as prominent.
This interests me. How can you tell which gender each character is on that poster?
Are we to suppose bob cut, small wait, hips and boobs must be front and centre for inclusivity to be shown? Or is it perhaps a better idea that a female marine could wear the exact same plate, use the same equipment and be visually indistinguishable in armour?
Most of the examples of people wanting reduce male dominance of the 40k marketing seem to also be hyper focused on using (to one degree or another) sexualised body forms to get the point across, which might not be helping.
It’s..really not gaslighting, as I explained above. See also “please learn how to words”.
And whilst you’re at that? I still don’t think anyone has explained why, among the dozens if not hundreds of such retcons since the very beginning of the game (like Custodes being genhanced and swapping leather strides, black cloaks and techno helmets for Massive Suits of Armour) is the one that’s apparently A Step Too Far, and a slap in the face and gaslighting and all that hysteria inducing good stuff.
And whilst you’re at that? I still don’t think anyone has explained why, among the dozens if not hundreds of such retcons since the very beginning of the game (like Custodes being genhanced and swapping leather strides, black cloaks and techno helmets for Massive Suits of Armour) is the one that’s apparently A Step Too Far, and a slap in the face and gaslighting and all that hysteria inducing good stuff.
Why this one? Why now?
F@#!in hell man, can you not read? I feel this has been adequately responded to several times now.
1. People have been quite upset about retcons/changes prior to this one.
2. Because this is inherently part of a larger culture war, this one gets amplified.
A retcon….inherently changes the background, that’s what a retcon is.
Where was this same “outrage” when Custodes and Marines went from Just Being Warriors, to genhanced post-human monstrosities? Becuase….that just happened. And it invalidated descriptions and histories in the Rogue Trader book.
Where was it when the Basilisk became the adaptation of the Chimera chassis, flying in the face of the established lore of Titan Legions?
Or any of the other dozens if not hundreds of such retcons since 1987?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: A retcon….inherently changes the background, that’s what a retcon is.
Where was this same “outrage” when Custodes and Marines went from Just Being Warriors, to genhanced post-human monstrosities? Becuase….that just happened. And it invalidated descriptions and histories in the Rogue Trader book.
Where was it when the Basilisk became the adaptation of the Chimera chassis, flying in the face of the established lore of Titan Legions?
Or any of the other dozens if not hundreds of such retcons since 1987?
It was pointed out multiple times to you, that before 3rd edition you don't really HAVE an established lore-cannon so the custodes exemple is just not an honest exemple at all, and you know that, you just don't care, but since you are willfully thick in the head here to defend a narrative:
There are three types of retcons, hated ones and those that make sense and those that made 40k out of rogue trader (pre 3rd edition).
The later here don't count at all because rogue trader is not 40k at that stage and has not cannonised itself.
Hated ones like nucrons and primaris atleast had more lore to them than what currently happenens.
Those that make sense f.e. The chimera is the basis for the basi not inverted because that is normally how SPA happened.
Then we have whatever the feth this is, in which we would have a retconn at hand if it weren't for the communication behaviour exemplified by an official PR channel of the company. Which is why the later part is gaslighting whilest the former retcons are retcons of differing quality. (primaris come to mind as probably the worst offenders of bad writing for that matter, because deus ex cawl is probably the single most nonsensical thing.)
I don't like it because I like lore that retains internal integrity rather than bending to the exterior climate.
More representation in 40k is great. You don't have to make female marines to do that. There's a vast array of opportunities for more representation requiring zero lore adjustments. Seeing female Guard is great. More female Imperial agents would be great. And getting more attention on literally anything other than Space Marines, while we're at it, would also be great.
This is the correct position of the majority of people talking on this subject.
the sheer amount of misrepresentation going on is ridiculous and at this point should warrant a mod stepping in to caution those who repeatedly do it.
While I personally don't mind the more inclusive version, I do understand your position. Back somewhere around page 10 I remember someone writing that the problem isn't a male only faction- that's fine. It's that the posterboys of game are all male; the poster suggested that things like normalizing mixed Marine/ Sister armies for example by providing a mixed detachment and including units from both factions in Launch and Starter boxes.
That still isn't as inclusive as just opening up the faction, but it is an interesting compromise which may actually go further toward changing the culture by baby-stepping us into change rather than shocking the monkey. Others have suggested that providing a lore hook for the change might have made it more palatable to people- and it's painfully easy- someone had suggested that the Custodes involvement in Indomitus would require some recruitment to maintain the force on Terra and replace losses in the Crusade.
Just out of interest, because I couldn't find an example off the top of my head: What would a fictional veneer for segregation of human sexes look like? How can you do it in such a way that it does meet your requirements for tolerable fiction?
I addressed this a while back - if you're going to apply arbitrary restrictions in your setting, they should serve a narrative purpose. Otherwise, they're pointless, and just get in the way of creativity.
I don't like the Decree Passive as a thing, but it does at least provide a reason for the Sisters of Battle to be women, and provides narrative potential - what happens when a branch of the Eclessiarchy chooses to ignore it, for example.
Space Marines or Custodes being all male, particularly when the reason given for it is 'just because' provides no such narrative purpose, and worse, it makes no sense in a setting where roles are otherwise never restricted by gender. Sure, having them all be men means you can tell stories about 'brotherhood' (assuming that's the sort of story you feel is necessary to tell and is meaningfully different from stories of companionship or friendship with mixed genders, and would even still be a thing in a society that doesn't have segregated gender roles)... but you can still do that if female space marines exist, because male space marines also still exist. So you still have the opportunity to tell stories of a group of men doing manly stuff... you've just also opened up the potential for wider stories involving different groups.
So purely from a fiction point of view, allowing mixed Marines is a better option. And from a modelling point of view, you get the same thing... having restrictions does nothing but restrict modelling options. In a game that has been pushing the idea for 30 years that 'It's your hobby, do what you want with your models', it's just downright odd for it to simultaneously say '...oh, but not that' for no reason other than that badly sculpted female models didn't sell well in the early '90s.
To expand on this. The Vostroyan Firstborn are notably an all-male regiment of the Guard. I think I have encountered maybe two people ever who expressed a problem with this. Most people are fine with it, because they could instead collect a mixed-gender Cadian force, or a segregated Valhallan force, or a female-only Xenonian force if they choose. The Imperial Guard is mixed on the whole, and specific flavours are available within that.
If Cadians, as the primary Guard poster faction, were exclusively male, I think that would be a bigger problem. Now Space Marines take that issue of prominence and flavours and ramp it up to 11- they are by far the most prominent, are the poster faction for the whole setting, and have loads of flavours except women. I agree that if Marines were a niche faction few would care that they are gender-locked.
Men and women are, on average, temperamentally different, which has implications for group dynamics.
But the difficulty with this premise is that "temperament" is more of a result of environmental factors than biological ones.
Do boys behave differently than girls because they receive different cues from adults and the media?
We KNOW that the harshness of the 40k universe already breaks that difference in socialization due to female participation in other Imperial organizations, so these "temperamental" differences you speak of would be minimized to some degree or another, if they exist at all. Heck, 40k years might even be long enough for even biological markers to shift.
Either way, I don't think we can really compare the potential "temperaments" between 21st century boys and girls with those raised in the 40k Grimdark. Not by a long shot.
Yeah, this is very much an area where humanity does not know the answer. Differences are observable in "temperament", but the cause is not known. I think environmental causes look to be the stronger factor but it is not settled science (and difficult to study ethically).
catbarf wrote:
BobtheInquisitor wrote:I repeat my refrain from earlier: it’s not that you have a problem with retcons, is that you have a uniquely outsized problem with *this* retcon that’s the red flag.
Uh, Insectum has publicly and vocally hated the Necron retcon, among others. I did too.
'Here's some bull gak I assume you believe- gotcha, hypocrite!' isn't an incisive blow so much as it is just, well, tiring. Especially when the guy you're arguing with really isn't part of the reactionary 'anti-woke' crowd and has made his position pretty clear a couple of times in this thread.
@Bob, where you intending "you" as in Insectum7 specifically, or "you" in the general sense? If the former I agree that is unwarranted, and Insectum7 has been engaging in this thread very thoughtfully on the whole. If the latter, the wording is poor.
Your argument was that this one is the one that was a step too far, presumably because bigots. You also hilariously undermined yourself by claiming nobody had covered previous retcons.
People still don't like Primaris for example, and it's all been covered in excruciating detail that you just don't seem to want to see, because you'd apparently rather assert it's just bigots being bigots. All the while demanding receipts while providing none.
Primaris isn't a retcon, its a progression. I'd prefer it if they were a retcon, personally, because it means that a lore-accurate Primaris force could be used before the very end of M41 rather than splitting the Marine range into three epochs and phasing out the middle one for which most the existing setting was written in. But that ship has sadly sailed.
robbienw wrote: Saying there hasn't been massive reactions to previous retcons/controversial addition/changes is definitely gaslighting, and is objectively ridiculous.
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ruprecht wrote: Inherent in the social contract of a forum is that everything is an opinion unless presented as fact.
It's funny that in 30 pages of opinion, the people triggered by my opinion are ignoring the substance of the opinion and instead using lazy identity branding to discredit, and wanting receipts for opinions. You'll do literally anything to avoid thinking critically about what was actually being said. You just label, categorise and reach for a reddit screenshot that seems the right amount of edgy to virtue signal to your tribe.
Agreed, and the same people demanding proof will then go into 'that doesn't count cause reasons' mode or begin hair splitting when you provide ironclad proof of what you are saying, or will ignore your proof and keep asking the same question. They will then demand you accept their baseless claims as absolute truth. Its odd behavior to say the least.
Changes to Necrons, separating Daemons from wider Chaos etc all had a direct impact on people’s armies. Necrons to a lesser extent, as whilst Pariahs no longer exist, the models are at least comfortable proxies for Praetorians or whatever they’re called. And the background shift was significant (but not entirely mutually exclusive). Daemons being pulled from CSM left people with unfieldable armies. Those and changes like them? I absolutely get that.
But “Custodes now have males and females” isn’t on par. At all. No models have been invalidated. No armies have had their character or composition fundamentally changed. Nobody has sat you down and threatened your fingers with a hammer if you don’t change the plumes on 50% of your Custards to pigtails. Nobody has insisted you start assigning a gender to specific models in your collection on pain of losing kneecap privileges.
It’s not a big change. It’s had no discernible impact on existing model collections. It hasn’t changed the character, purpose or overall background of Custards. In fact, of all the changes and direct retcons Custards have received? This is the least of them.
So why the outrage at it? Why is this the step too far?
No. Not “people am angyr at GSC change”. Why the outrage that now, in a step which does nothing to your collection or the overall background and purpose of that armed force of the Imperium, at least some Custodes aren’t smuggling budgies under their armour.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It’s..really not gaslighting, as I explained above. See also “please learn how to words”.
And whilst you’re at that? I still don’t think anyone has explained why, among the dozens if not hundreds of such retcons since the very beginning of the game (like Custodes being genhanced and swapping leather strides, black cloaks and techno helmets for Massive Suits of Armour) is the one that’s apparently A Step Too Far, and a slap in the face and gaslighting and all that hysteria inducing good stuff.
Why this one? Why now?
Because right now GW instead of pointing out that it is a "normal retcon" (which remind me were not ever well recieved after i'd say 3-4th edition but he that is not enough for you for some reason) is banning everyone pointing out that their statement is not true on the twatter regardless how respectfully they did it
Also just because the "Zersetzung-part" wasn't achieved doesn't mean that such behaviour is not indicative of the typicall behaviour and communication formation that aims to achieve the gaslighting effect.
It is true though, that’s what the lore is now.
The fact that the lore was different last month is by the by. They own the IP and they changed it. That’s pretty much how they always do retcons.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It’s..really not gaslighting, as I explained above. See also “please learn how to words”.
And whilst you’re at that? I still don’t think anyone has explained why, among the dozens if not hundreds of such retcons since the very beginning of the game (like Custodes being genhanced and swapping leather strides, black cloaks and techno helmets for Massive Suits of Armour) is the one that’s apparently A Step Too Far, and a slap in the face and gaslighting and all that hysteria inducing good stuff.
Why this one? Why now?
Because right now GW instead of pointing out that it is a "normal retcon" (which remind me were not ever well recieved after i'd say 3-4th edition but he that is not enough for you for some reason) is banning everyone pointing out that their statement is not true on the twatter regardless how respectfully they did it
Also just because the "Zersetzung-part" wasn't achieved doesn't mean that such behaviour is not indicative of the typicall behaviour and communication formation that aims to achieve the gaslighting effect.
It is true though, that’s what the lore is now.
The fact that the lore was different last month is by the by. They own the IP and they changed it. That’s pretty much how they always do retcons.
Including the banning of people pointing out that wasn't the case? no? Again see above i explained it there.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It’s..really not gaslighting, as I explained above. See also “please learn how to words”.
And whilst you’re at that? I still don’t think anyone has explained why, among the dozens if not hundreds of such retcons since the very beginning of the game (like Custodes being genhanced and swapping leather strides, black cloaks and techno helmets for Massive Suits of Armour) is the one that’s apparently A Step Too Far, and a slap in the face and gaslighting and all that hysteria inducing good stuff.
Why this one? Why now?
Because right now GW instead of pointing out that it is a "normal retcon" (which remind me were not ever well recieved after i'd say 3-4th edition but he that is not enough for you for some reason) is banning everyone pointing out that their statement is not true on the twatter regardless how respectfully they did it
Also just because the "Zersetzung-part" wasn't achieved doesn't mean that such behaviour is not indicative of the typicall behaviour and communication formation that aims to achieve the gaslighting effect.
It is true though, that’s what the lore is now.
The fact that the lore was different last month is by the by. They own the IP and they changed it. That’s pretty much how they always do retcons.
Including the banning of people pointing out that wasn't the case? no? Again see above i explained it there.
Well, during a lot of the major retcons mentioned above GW refused to have a social media presence at all and barely interacted with their community in any overt way. So yeah, some interaction at all is different to the Kirby era.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Why the outrage that now, in a step which does nothing to your collection or the overall background and purpose of that armed force of the Imperium, at least some Custodes aren’t smuggling budgies under their armour.
As has been explained at length, because of the way they did it and the optics of doing it for culture war and Amazon reasons.
I really couldn't care any less what they have under their armour. Again as I've said, I consider them neither male nor female - transhuman - and always assumed their dingdongs (relics of XY genes) were replaced with a waste valve compatible with power armour.
Tbh I would consider it more ‘shoving politics in peoples faces’ if they made a big song and dance about ‘look how progressive we are, Custodes have women now!’.
Releasing a single vignette with a female Custodes and a single tweet noting the lore that they’ve now always recruited women is just about the most low key way to make the change.
The same people complaining about the change then in the same breath complaining GW didn’t make enough of a fuss about it just seems weird to me
the dodo
doctor who
transformers
star trek
star wars
dc
marvel
magic the gathering
witcher
battletech
and now warhammer
reading this thread, i estimate that a third are fighting for female custode, a third fights against. and finally a third are ok ether way
when this book is released, i expect a review from a third of you and tell the rest of us if games workshop trying to make everyone happy is all worth it
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So because bad faith actors have decided to hammer this into their carefully constructed “culture war”, this is bad?
When it impacts nothing?
Yes. Recreationally offended gender activists and Amazon producers with commercial and social agendas throwing culture grenades into 40k and branding genuine fans as bigoted gatekeepers for questioning the motives and method of the clear retcon is a bad thing.
Battletech got a fight on because the reddits mods had some problem and there are right-wing writers that have some other work going hence the community wants them to be gone from BT
Yet I am missing what was wrong with Star Trek, as there I am only aware of the problems with bad writing
Witcher got problems because the writers hate the source material because it is for "gamers"
Star Wars again was bad writing and hoping people ingore it because it looked "woman strong"
doctor who wasn't really a big outcry in general, just that the first ones of the reboot set a high level
Man, for people screaming about how GW is shoving politics into everything, its just odd. Women, LGBTQ, minorities and so on really should not be political at all. They should simply exist. The people screaming to high heavens about *women* and *agendas* and *culture war* are the ones dragging some stone age politics into this.
Yet I am missing what was wrong with Star Trek, as there I am only aware of the problems with bad writing.
I find it absolutely hilarious that there genuinely are people who complain about Star Trek going woke. Star Trek! And same with X-men. Like that truly shows what sort of tourists a lot of these ragemongers are, as they obviously do not understand even the basics about these franchises in the first place.
Star Trek was never woke because it was subtle and not "in your face" so it never made it into TikTok vids or memes and therefore it never happened
ST is one of the best example of people complaining about a franchise the only know from memes (or see things out of context as how controversial / woke a black woman with a Masters degree at the command centre of a military craft was in the 60ies)
Original series, by today's standards, isn't really all that amazing. It's fairly hammy and the plots are weekly with very little in terms of long running story elements.
The fact that the main bridge crew has women, multiple different cultural groups and such. The fact that Kirk kisses Uhura in one episode.
All those things don't seem progressive or amazing or really that shocking today. So when people today look back on it it just seems "normal". However they don't realise that for its time it was insanely progressive. That kiss is battling for one of the first inter-racial kisses on television; that multicultural crew is really out there.
It was one of the most progressive shows of its day. If anything ST hasn't been progressive and "what some would call woke" enough over the last few seasons if it want's to keep up with its actual history.
One thing about ST was that those things in-universe were always treated as normal and made casual appearance unlike other modern franchise were things need to be obvious for everyone to be progressive (were we are back that the bad writing when everyone else is missing from a character)
but than looking at Lower Decks it keeps up with the theme and in general often what is now wanted as "progressive" has already been there 20-30 years ago
talk about the first female action star or first female leading officer in a show, like if the 90ies never happened
this let me conclude that if something does not create and internet outrage it is not seen as "woke" or "progressive" among certain groups (not sure if this is because of US focused social media)
Overread wrote: It's also because a lot of them are younger.
Original series, by today's standards, isn't really all that amazing. It's fairly hammy and the plots are weekly with very little in terms of long running story elements.
The fact that the main bridge crew has women, multiple different cultural groups and such. The fact that Kirk kisses Uhura in one episode.
All those things don't seem progressive or amazing or really that shocking today. So when people today look back on it it just seems "normal". However they don't realise that for its time it was insanely progressive. That kiss is battling for one of the first inter-racial kisses on television; that multicultural crew is really out there.
It was one of the most progressive shows of its day. If anything ST hasn't been progressive and "what some would call woke" enough over the last few seasons if it want's to keep up with its actual history.
Fun fact about that scene?
It received a grand total of one letter of complaint. One. And even then, the author of which opposed mixing of the races, noted he didn’t blame Kirk because Uhura was a hottie.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: It’s..really not gaslighting, as I explained above. See also “please learn how to words”.
And whilst you’re at that? I still don’t think anyone has explained why, among the dozens if not hundreds of such retcons since the very beginning of the game (like Custodes being genhanced and swapping leather strides, black cloaks and techno helmets for Massive Suits of Armour) is the one that’s apparently A Step Too Far, and a slap in the face and gaslighting and all that hysteria inducing good stuff.
Why this one? Why now?
Because right now GW instead of pointing out that it is a "normal retcon" (which remind me were not ever well recieved after i'd say 3-4th edition but he that is not enough for you for some reason) is banning everyone pointing out that their statement is not true on the twatter regardless how respectfully they did it
Also just because the "Zersetzung-part" wasn't achieved doesn't mean that such behaviour is not indicative of the typicall behaviour and communication formation that aims to achieve the gaslighting effect.
It is true though, that’s what the lore is now.
The fact that the lore was different last month is by the by. They own the IP and they changed it. That’s pretty much how they always do retcons.
Including the banning of people pointing out that wasn't the case? no? Again see above i explained it there.
GW is the proverbial Voice of God. What they say, goes. If I got into a Twitter argument with George Lucas about whether or not Han shot first and he banned me, that's his prerogative in his space.
Overread wrote: The whole "woke" thing does seem to me to be more of a US than UK/EU thing.
In my limited experience of knowing/working with a few Americans it just seems to be the norm/society is generally more dramatic and overt compared to UK/EU.
Why? Help me understand why (insert demographic here) is important to be represented in (insert faction). I couldn't give one flying rat's ass that I'm not "represented" in any part of 40k except the Guard - in which I'm represented as a meatshield with a flashlight and a tshirt. Nobody is.
I think the whole idea of "having investment in 40k" the way you speak of is questionable. Who gets to decide what counts as sufficient investment? Is there a spending limit in dollars you have to meet? Do you have to win a tournament or a painting contest? Answer hard questions about the backstory?
Why? Help me understand why (insert demographic here) is important to be represented in (insert faction). I couldn't give one flying rat's ass that I'm not "represented" in any part of 40k except the Guard - in which I'm represented as a meatshield with a flashlight and a tshirt. Nobody is.
There's about 30 pages of thread, if you'd like to catch yourself up. The short version is that being able to see yourself in these kinds of roles can be empowering and inspiring, and just plain feels good.
Beyond that, it's impossible to argue empathy at you (or anyone else), so if you don't get it, I'm not sure I can help you.
I mean, sure, if we're ranking opinions based on seniority, I'd be more than happy to dance the fandango with any of y'all young pups. I've been here for close to 20 years, I've been in this hobby for close to 30. I have **invested** more of my life into 40k than most of you casuals could even count.
Why? Help me understand why (insert demographic here) is important to be represented in (insert faction). I couldn't give one flying rat's ass that I'm not "represented" in any part of 40k except the Guard - in which I'm represented as a meatshield with a flashlight and a tshirt. Nobody is.
The short version is that being able to see yourself in these kinds of roles can be empowering and inspiring, and just plain feels good.
Beyond that, it's impossible to argue empathy at you (or anyone else), so if you don't get it, I'm not sure I can help you.
.
You mean you can't empathize with a character and see yourself in that role unless you are of that demographic? That's curious, I have no such issues with Akira Kurosawa's films, and I am pretty sure I am not Japanese samurai from the 1600s.
Manfred von Drakken wrote: The short version is that being able to see yourself in these kinds of roles can be empowering and inspiring, and just plain feels good.
But how can anyone see themselves in anything other than Guard? You have nothing in common with marines, custodes, SoB, SoS, whatever. Nothing. If representation matters to you, you have one army choice.
Inspiration? So you can't be inspired by someone unless they share the same genes/gender/identity as you? That seems like a wholly intolerant belief system. Again, as a human male in 2024, I have *nothing* in common with the lowliest DA marine. Not even gender. It doesn't matter to me. Why does it matter to you.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So because bad faith actors have decided to hammer this into their carefully constructed “culture war”, this is bad?
When it impacts nothing?
Yes. Recreationally offended gender activists and Amazon producers with commercial and social agendas throwing culture grenades into 40k and branding genuine fans as bigoted gatekeepers for questioning the motives and method of the clear retcon is a bad thing.
So many pointless terms in there that are meaningless and lots of unproven claims.
Couple of notes, if GW were telling you that female custodes had always existed and they were a real historical thing then that would be gaslighting, if they were saying we always had them and they were in the fluff you just didn’t notice then changed the past texts to include them and said see, told you they were there, that’s would be gaslighting.
Saying that this thing we made up in our made up world always had made up men and women in it. Not gaslighting. Get over yourself. You are not. A victim of anything. No one is out to get you, a company is trying to make its product a bit more accessible to women, to make more money. It doesn’t stop you from buying it doesn’t stop you from enjoying your men hobby time. You lose nothing. If it makes you angry that a company should try and sell products to you and women then you need to look at why they makes you angry. You aren’t a victim, to think you are is pathetic.
Secondly. Let’s be clear, sisters of battle aren’t good examples of female representation. They are a man’s vision of what women could/should be. They are overly sexualised, fetish fantasy. Wanting to use them as the poster girls for inclusion shows just how badly some people on here don’t get it.
ruprecht wrote: But how can anyone see themselves in anything other than Guard? You have nothing in common with marines, custodes, SoB, SoS, whatever. Nothing. If representation matters to you, you have one army choice.
This in itself is kind of a bizarre thing to say. I'm not even talking about representation here, but the idea that there's nothing recognizable or relatable to us mere humans about the motivations of, say, Horus or Fulgrim or Ghazghkull or Eldrad or Farsight, that they're all completely alien and meaningless to us. At the end of the day, however alien these creatures' species are, they're still fictional characters written by mere humans like ourselves, and the stamp of their lowly origin is as pervasive as it is indelible.
This in itself is kind of a bizarre thing to say. I'm not even talking about representation here, but the idea that there's nothing recognizable or relatable to us mere humans about the motivations of, say, Horus or Fulgrim or Ghazghkull or Eldrad or Farsight, that they're all completely alien and meaningless to us. At the end of the day, however alien these creatures' species are, they're still fictional characters written by mere humans like ourselves, and the stamp of their lowly origin is as pervasive as it is indelible.
I don't know who you think you're arguing with, but this is exactly my point. Any inspiration you find in the 40KCU has nothing to do with "representation" of a 21st century human, whatever their demographic. Representation has always been precisely zero in 40k, with the exception of Guard who are more than happy to throw you into the breach whatever your pronouns.
Agamemnon2 wrote: I think the whole idea of "having investment in 40k" the way you speak of is questionable. Who gets to decide what counts as sufficient investment? Is there a spending limit in dollars you have to meet? Do you have to win a tournament or a painting contest? Answer hard questions about the backstory?
I think for Space Marines its a special case because of how heavily they are used in the marketing for the game.
Other factions come and go and for the most part anyone on the "outside" of the hobby will generally only see Space Marines as the primary marketing with some marketing around the launch year of a new edition for whatever faction joins the Marines in the starter set (with an exception around Indomitus because the SoB did feature in that video).
So from a Marketing point of view its "all men" with limited women representation in the marketing material for the leading faction.
Now this isn't in isolation, but it might be one contributing factor in some pushing for women in the marines as an element. It's not that the "game" doesn't have them, just that the leading marketing doesn't have them.
Personally I see no harm save that it requires changing the lore; which can be done without ret-coning since you can just advance the lore. Indeed some suggested it could be a Primaris thing that Cawl does.
However I do think that its not as big a thing as some make out. I think that a bigger impact is the lack of women on the Warhammer marketing team in itself. When you watch the Warhammer + all the presenters are men; all the games are played by men; the only women who tend to last out are in the painting team and even then that's a bit hit and miss at present, esp since GW pulled back on painting icons there and even for a time went for just hands on show. I think what draws people in is seeing people they identify with having fun and being an accepted part of the community. I think that carries way way way more weight than anything else and I think its a huge shame that we don't have more women on GW's marketing team that we can see regularly and who are personalities within the industry.
And its a huge shame because we know there are women in their workforce. I just think that GW has always shielded/hidden many of its artists and sculptors and even painters and that's where the women are and why we don't hear of them and many I don't think push to get out of that area into the marketing side. So we end up with a very male team, which isn't bad, but its not as diverse as it could be and I think there is where diversity really makes a big impact on people.
ruprecht wrote: I don't know who you think you're arguing with, but this is exactly my point. Any inspiration you find in the 40KCU has nothing to do with "representation" of a 21st century human, whatever their demographic. Representation has always been precisely zero in 40k, with the exception of Guard who are more than happy to throw you into the breach whatever your pronouns.
If you think that was your point, I must offer my apologies for not accurately deciphering the oblique direction of your rhetorical assault. That being said, I don't think your argument is particularly persuasive or well-formed, and you seem to hold my contribution in equally low regard, so I don't see any alternative to declaring an impasse on this particular beachhead at this time and mustering my energies, limited as they are, elsewhere. I hope this resolution meets with your approval. If not, tough.
Manfred von Drakken wrote: The short version is that being able to see yourself in these kinds of roles can be empowering and inspiring, and just plain feels good.
But how can anyone see themselves in anything other than Guard? You have nothing in common with marines, custodes, SoB, SoS, whatever. Nothing. If representation matters to you, you have one army choice.
Inspiration? So you can't be inspired by someone unless they share the same genes/gender/identity as you? That seems like a wholly intolerant belief system. Again, as a human male in 2024, I have *nothing* in common with the lowliest DA marine. Not even gender. It doesn't matter to me. Why does it matter to you.
You know what? Let's do this.
I'm a trans woman. I started coming out about a year ago. If you'd asked me before then about Custodes and Gender, I might not have given it a second thought, but I'd like the think I'd have been nonchalant about the change. Because last week, I don't think I'd even registered it. Female Astartes is a slightly different case because that fight popped up every couple of years.
But transitioning has been an eye-opening experience. Part of the process has involved confronting and dealing with my previous male privileges and biases. I'm still working on it.
And, I find it interesting that you repeatedly claim you don't see Astartes as male or female, because they're transhuman. Astartes are created through an extensive process of psychological condition, drug therapy, and surgery to get desired body. My own transition has consited of psychological assistance, several hormone-altering prescriptions, and (likely, still undecided) surgery to get my desired body. So, in that respect, I can ABSOLUTELY identify with Custodes/Astartes.
So when I talk about representation, I know what the feth I'm talking about!
It's not about what GW did, it's about why they did it.
It's about homogenising something cool into a grey, safe space to placate offence tourists and twentysomething Amazon producers who briefly turned their gaze on it while there was money or outrage to be had.
It's about those tourists completely missing the point. The Imperium of Space Racists are the bad guys.
Do you have any proof that that’s why they did this? Or perhaps people genuinely just wanted female Custodes and marines?
hello, it's me, the woman who already had a custodes army before this change
Why? Help me understand why (insert demographic here) is important to be represented in (insert faction). I couldn't give one flying rat's ass that I'm not "represented" in any part of 40k except the Guard - in which I'm represented as a meatshield with a flashlight and a tshirt. Nobody is.
i am being represented and i am happy with it. do we need to justify it more than that? or does our happiness not matter
Manfred von Drakken wrote: The short version is that being able to see yourself in these kinds of roles can be empowering and inspiring, and just plain feels good.
But how can anyone see themselves in anything other than Guard? You have nothing in common with marines, custodes, SoB, SoS, whatever. Nothing. If representation matters to you, you have one army choice.
Inspiration? So you can't be inspired by someone unless they share the same genes/gender/identity as you? That seems like a wholly intolerant belief system. Again, as a human male in 2024, I have *nothing* in common with the lowliest DA marine. Not even gender. It doesn't matter to me. Why does it matter to you.
You know what? Let's do this.
I'm a trans woman. I started coming out about a year ago. If you'd asked me before then about Custodes and Gender, I might not have given it a second thought, but I'd like the think I'd have been nonchalant about the change. Because last week, I don't think I'd even registered it. Female Astartes is a slightly different case because that fight popped up every couple of years.
But transitioning has been an eye-opening experience. Part of the process has involved confronting and dealing with my previous male privileges and biases. I'm still working on it.
And, I find it interesting that you repeatedly claim you don't see Astartes as male or female, because they're transhuman. Astartes are created through an extensive process of psychological condition, drug therapy, and surgery to get desired body. My own transition has consited of psychological assistance, several hormone-altering prescriptions, and (likely, still undecided) surgery to get my desired body. So, in that respect, I can ABSOLUTELY identify with Custodes/Astartes.
So when I talk about representation, I know what the feth I'm talking about!
i've said this elsewhere in the thread (or maybe the other thread), but like, considering what we can do with hormones here in 2024, and how much that makes the differences between biological sexes disappear, there's no reason why that should be any barrier whatsoever for the imperium 38,000 years in the future. HRT is already basically magic
Automatically Appended Next Post: oh and also the topic of representation has me reminded of that one comic, "what if we make the world a better place for no reason". there's no downside for representation unless you hate the people being represented
oh and also the topic of representation has me reminded of that one comic, "what if we make the world a better place for no reason". there's no downside for representation unless you hate the people being represented
We are talking about the same Imperium who don't arm the entire Guard with powerarmour because they consider it to be Holy item that only the sanctified can wear?
The same Imperium who use a main battle tank that's straight up a WW1/2 mashup that takes advantage of no advances in tank design in 38thousand years?
The same Imperium who consider technology a religion and where basic scientific approaches are often considered heathen?
The same Imperium where the techo-religion will have you executed for changing the configuration of your lasgun even if you've outright improved it, because you've changed it from the standard design template it was made from?
Forget the fact that the Imperium chooses not to make women into Marines; the fact that its been at war for 10thousand years and is only just getting the idea that perhaps they could just make, more marines to win, is nuts.
This is not a sane world; nor a sane faction operating as we would today. Almost everything is layered with mantra, dogma, religious connections and more. The Imperium could well not do a thing 'just because'
It is a fascist utopia making the world a better place is not the point of it
going by the in-universe story, the Emperor tried already everything in 38k years and what the Imperium now is, is what is said to be the only thing working
that is why there are no changes for 10k years, because never change a running system is taken literally on everything
and doing things for no reason is heresy and gets you, your family and everyone you know executed just to be save that this was not caused by chaos
Why? Help me understand why (insert demographic here) is important to be represented in (insert faction). I couldn't give one flying rat's ass that I'm not "represented" in any part of 40k except the Guard - in which I'm represented as a meatshield with a flashlight and a tshirt. Nobody is.
The short version is that being able to see yourself in these kinds of roles can be empowering and inspiring, and just plain feels good.
Beyond that, it's impossible to argue empathy at you (or anyone else), so if you don't get it, I'm not sure I can help you.
.
You mean you can't empathize with a character and see yourself in that role unless you are of that demographic? That's curious, I have no such issues with Akira Kurosawa's films, and I am pretty sure I am not Japanese samurai from the 1600s.
I'm just like you. I've never felt the need to identify with fictional characters, whatever the medium. In the case of video games, I've always tended to make characters who looked absolutely nothing like me (and who weren't even an idealized version of myself !), both physically and psychologically.
But I'm actually in the minority. This was particularly obvious to me during the Baldur's Gate III beta, when the developers said on Twitter that the vast majority of players had recreated the typical human (who was male and white) when they gave the players the opportunity to customize tons of things. It took a while, but I finally understood that the vast majority of people in a society need to identify, to some extent, with the fictional characters they see (or play). It also happened with Breaking Bad : I loved all characters, but I sided firmly with Skyler White because despite her flaws, I think she was right. I was very surprised to discover that many fans hated her character (to the point of sending insults and threats to the actress) ... mostly because they identified with Walter White (who was a villain by the end of the show and who was never a particularly likable character even if I empathized with him).
So yes, representation is important. I think that's a mistake, because you have to be able to detach yourself from narratives (of all kinds) and fictional universes and their characters to understand what their creator(s) and/or author(s) meant. But that's just the way it is. It's human nature.
And this is coming from someone who thinks the addition of women to the Custodes is a good thing for 40K lore in general, even if it wasn't handled in the best of ways by GW. In my opinion, GW should have accompanied this evolution not only with the release of a miniature at the very least (rather than the horrible Shield-Captain) and a novel centered around a female Custodes.
But time heals all. People will get over it. And those who don't, well ... I wouldn't mind if those people leave the hobby forever.
oh and also the topic of representation has me reminded of that one comic, "what if we make the world a better place for no reason". there's no downside for representation unless you hate the people being represented
We are talking about the same Imperium who don't arm the entire Guard with powerarmour because they consider it to be Holy item that only the sanctified can wear?
The same Imperium who use a main battle tank that's straight up a WW1/2 mashup that takes advantage of no advances in tank design in 38thousand years?
The same Imperium who consider technology a religion and where basic scientific approaches are often considered heathen?
The same Imperium where the techo-religion will have you executed for changing the configuration of your lasgun even if you've outright improved it, because you've changed it from the standard design template it was made from?
Forget the fact that the Imperium chooses not to make women into Marines; the fact that its been at war for 10thousand years and is only just getting the idea that perhaps they could just make, more marines to win, is nuts.
This is not a sane world; nor a sane faction operating as we would today. Almost everything is layered with mantra, dogma, religious connections and more. The Imperium could well not do a thing 'just because'
i meant the real world. i meant that representation makes the world we live in a better place. representation makes real life people happier. that's what matters here
oh and also the topic of representation has me reminded of that one comic, "what if we make the world a better place for no reason". there's no downside for representation unless you hate the people being represented
We are talking about the same Imperium who don't arm the entire Guard with powerarmour because they consider it to be Holy item that only the sanctified can wear? The same Imperium who use a main battle tank that's straight up a WW1/2 mashup that takes advantage of no advances in tank design in 38thousand years? The same Imperium who consider technology a religion and where basic scientific approaches are often considered heathen? The same Imperium where the techo-religion will have you executed for changing the configuration of your lasgun even if you've outright improved it, because you've changed it from the standard design template it was made from?
Forget the fact that the Imperium chooses not to make women into Marines; the fact that its been at war for 10thousand years and is only just getting the idea that perhaps they could just make, more marines to win, is nuts.
This is not a sane world; nor a sane faction operating as we would today. Almost everything is layered with mantra, dogma, religious connections and more. The Imperium could well not do a thing 'just because'
i meant the real world. i meant that representation makes the world we live in a better place. representation makes real life people happier. that's what matters here
That's a bit of a broad sweeping statement. Representation is not some sort of worldwide panacea that makes everything better by trying to cram in every identity group you can think of and you've already shown that you want to exclude groups that exist but go against your worldviews which inherently shows that your premise is false, since otherwise you wouldn't care as more representation regardless of the type of representation should make you happy.
For example, I don't think you would fundamentally feel happier seeing furries showing up in your ads for Pepsi or fundamental religious Islamic text in your science text book. Or hell why not Dogstodes since dogs are critically underepresented in the game and owned by such a large number of people on the planet IRL, without having to resort to flanderizing via factions like Space Wolves.
Oh excellent. We’re off to the races with “argument from absurdity”.
But if we let women in, we’ll have to let the Newts in. And if let the Newts in, it’ll be the Kestrels next! Is that what you want, cos that’s what’ll ‘appen.
And after the Kestrels, we’ll all be forced to clone Velociraptors we’d be legally obliged to keep stuffed down our trousers.
Not really much on point here, but I do wish people would stop beating on the "Flanderization" drum. They use that word like a gunslinger, and it's lost what little meaning it had in it's inception. Just stop. Call it what it is. Say the factions are being made into memes, or reduced to badly written character tropes. But I really hate this new word that means 50 things and nothing, simultaneously.
How do you have the mental willpower to write a 2-3 paragraph argument showing how upset you are with a situation based in your perception, and then not have the will power to write 3 or more words to accurately describe your feelings?
Also Female Custodes are great. I want the next book to be about a love triangle between Valarian, Aleya, and a new Custodian Blade Champion named Alexa, who's really good at answering questions, but holds a dark secret.....
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Oh excellent. We’re off to the races with “argument from absurdity”.
But if we let women in, we’ll have to let the Newts in. And if let the Newts in, it’ll be the Kestrels next! Is that what you want, cos that’s what’ll ‘appen.
And after the Kestrels, we’ll all be forced to clone Velociraptors we’d be legally obliged to keep stuffed down our trousers.
Is that what you want? Cos that’s what’ll ’Appen.
You. Couldn’t. Make. It. Up.
goes to show there isn't really a good argument against "being represented in fiction makes people happy, so representation is a good thing"
Catulle wrote: I see we've re-entered the "railing about the Frankfurt school" stage of reactionary engagement.
Lol, pointing out a pattern of behaviour and bad faith arguments fitting the bill doesn't make me either a fan of the reactionaries criticising that school of thought nor does it make me a reactionary. The fact that you instantly went with that label does however highlight preciscly the issue at hand i pointed out. I reccomend you to not literally pull a marcuse next time if you don't want it pointed in your face
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Oh excellent. We’re off to the races with “argument from absurdity”.
But if we let women in, we’ll have to let the Newts in. And if let the Newts in, it’ll be the Kestrels next! Is that what you want, cos that’s what’ll ‘appen.
And after the Kestrels, we’ll all be forced to clone Velociraptors we’d be legally obliged to keep stuffed down our trousers.
Is that what you want? Cos that’s what’ll ’Appen.
You. Couldn’t. Make. It. Up.
goes to show there isn't really a good argument against "being represented in fiction makes people happy, so representation is a good thing"
Actually there is, i pointed that out some time ago in another thread in regards to "girlboss" charachters which are seemingly universally disliked hence the fact that SW to this day hasn't made an inch of profit for Disney overall but please go on.
Actually there is, i pointed that out some time ago in another thread in regards to "girlboss" charachters which are seemingly universally disliked hence the fact that SW to this day hasn't made an inch of profit for Disney overall but please go on.
Wasn't that also countered by posts that followed basically noting that a lot of the issues were not the characters or genders of characters but the actual writing itself. Something which even when they've had a male lead has also been a huge issue since Disney took things over.
Also this is the first I've heard of "universal dislike". Last I checked Ripley in Alien is almost universally liked.
*It also annoys the heck out of me that Ripley is still one the best icons when you consider how old the Alien films are!
I know there's a few in the Marvel/DC line of films but those series of films have their own issues at times and I've mostly fallen of the rails keeping up with them all and all their various interconnected rewrittenparts
Riply is not a "girlboss" charachter. Riply is a solidly written and perfomed charachter, Big fething difference. Don't sully one charachter like her with the likes of Rey, or Ziegler snowwhite.
Also, stuff Star Wars. Since GW started diversifying their characters, they’ve tripled their income.
Is that what you want, because, erm….thats what actually happened.
What’s that? I’ve already explained why things are never that straight forward because the world is full of interacting moving parts? Why yes I have. Hence your claims about Star Wars are….irrelevant, ill informed and likely a conclusion formed you then went looking for evidence to support.
It’ll be Newts next! Then Kestrels! Then forced to clone our own velociraptors which we’ll be legally obliged to keep stuffed down our trousers. Then it’ll be chicken hats!
Is that what you want? Cos that’s what’ll ’Appen.
Now you are just projecting your own issues Mad doc.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Also, stuff Star Wars. Since GW started diversifying their characters, they’ve tripled their income.
Is that what you want, because, erm….thats what actually happened.
What’s that? I’ve already explained why things are never that straight forward because the world is full of interacting moving parts? Why yes I have. Hence your claims about Star Wars are….irrelevant, ill informed and likely a conclusion formed you then went looking for evidence to support.
No they didn't. They didn't Make at all any profit Off of it, Stop spouting nonsense.
I guess I missunderstand "girlboss" or its got one of those variance meanings that means a quick googling gives it a bunch of different interpretations as to what people mean.
Suffice to say I don't care the lead characters gender in a role*. I care if they are good in their role and if the story is good and all.
Unless the film is aiming to be a faithful adaptation of an existing story, then I do care. Same as I care about the ages, ethnicity, background, story, pacing, plotting and all.
Not Online!!! wrote: Riply is not a "girlboss" charachter. Riply is a solidly written and perfomed charachter, Big fething difference. Don't sully one charachter like her with the likes of Rey, or Ziegler snowwhite.
Settle down, Lancelot. Ripley isn't a real person, she has no honor to besmirch and as such, doesn't need a white knight getting upset on her behalf.
The money in star wars has never been the movies. It is in the merchandising.
That's why Pokemon is the most financially successful IP in history.
So, the only person spouting nonsense here is you, by demonstrating a misunderstanding of where the actual return of the lucasfilm purchase was going to come from.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Oh excellent. We’re off to the races with “argument from absurdity”.
But if we let women in, we’ll have to let the Newts in. And if let the Newts in, it’ll be the Kestrels next! Is that what you want, cos that’s what’ll ‘appen.
And after the Kestrels, we’ll all be forced to clone Velociraptors we’d be legally obliged to keep stuffed down our trousers.
Is that what you want? Cos that’s what’ll ’Appen.
You. Couldn’t. Make. It. Up.
Where do you draw the line though? If representation is good all the time, every time, and exclusion is the enemy, the things I suggested shouldn't be scoffed at but looked at seriously since compared to women they basically have little to no representation at all and dog owners are a huge demographic for both-sexes on the planet, so why aren't you guys fighting for dogs to be a part of a mainstream faction in the game? It's even in line with the lore that the Imperium would use all resources at their disposal so why isn't there a dedicated Adeptus K-9 unit, lore doesn't matter so let's goooo.
Overread wrote: Last I checked Ripley in Alien is almost universally liked.
Because she's a great character. Like Leeloo in the Fifth Element, Furiosa in Mad Max, Mathilda in Leon, Dana Scully from the X Files.... etc etc
If she had been bulldozed into the role by a focus group of millennials who recently put "screenwriter" on their vision board and insisted on a mary sue self-insert fantasy so they could feel personally seen... she wouldn't have been a great character. (if you want that, there's always Captain Marvel, Rings of Power... or the Ultramarines I guess).
And isn't it funny that so many men regard those films and shows as among their favourites. It's almost as if... hear me out... they don't "hate women".
Goodness! Not…the box office. Traditionally the sole source of all Star Wars related income.
They really should do like, tie-ins, toys. Maybe license it out of house. It’s got to be worth a try.
Also, GW go diverse. Triple takings. In 8 years. With no sign of slowing. Hence, what did or didn’t happen with Star Wars is….entirely moot.
You might as well claim I can’t make a decent cup of tea, because you once had a manky coffee in Starbucks.
And then came the Newts, followed by the Kestrels.
Oh no, do you know what also happened and increased sales massively, a pandemic and beforehand a decent boom. That is about as indicative as claiming the sky is allways grey because it's foggy outside.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Since GW started diversifying their characters, they’ve tripled their income.
Can you quantify what you mean by that? As in diversifying their characters in what way, and when was this diversification starting point that you are (presumably) suggesting kicked off profits tripling.
The money in star wars has never been the movies. It is in the merchandising.
Which hasbro f.e. Cut the deal? That merch? That company that just some months ago fired 20% of employees before christmas?!
You do realise it is possible for Disney to still make a nice profit off the toys while the company making them doesn't due to the profit split because Disney doesn't have any costs to producing the toys?
Also, a company doing layoffs is not actually any evidence of poor performance in all circumstances. Video games are making more money than ever and game companies still regularly lay off their staff because corporations always want more money regardless of how much they are already making.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Since GW started diversifying their characters, they’ve tripled their income.
Can you quantify what you mean by that? As in diversifying their characters in what way, and when was this diversification starting point that you are (presumably) suggesting kicked off profits tripling.
Me wrote: What’s that? I’ve already explained why things are never that straight forward because the world is full of interacting moving parts? Why yes I have. Hence your claims about Star Wars are….irrelevant, ill informed and likely a conclusion formed you then went looking for evidence to support.
Overread wrote: Last I checked Ripley in Alien is almost universally liked.
Because she's a great character.
If she had been bulldozed into the role by a focus group of millennials who recently put "screenwriter" on their vision board and insisted on a mary sue self-insert fantasy so they could feel personally seen... she wouldn't have been a great character. (if you want that, there's always Captain Marvel... or the Ultramarines I guess).
And isn't it funny that so many men regard those films as among their favourites. It's almost as if... hear me out... they don't "hate women".
IIRC the script of Alien was originally written for a male protagonist and it got flipped at some point. And if that movie was released today people absolutely would whine about woke as they do so every time a genre movie with female lead is announced, before even seeing the movie.
Overread wrote: Last I checked Ripley in Alien is almost universally liked.
Because she's a great character.
If she had been bulldozed into the role by a focus group of millennials who recently put "screenwriter" on their vision board and insisted on a mary sue self-insert fantasy so they could feel personally seen... she wouldn't have been a great character. (if you want that, there's always Captain Marvel... or the Ultramarines I guess).
And isn't it funny that so many men regard those films as among their favourites. It's almost as if... hear me out... they don't "hate women".
IIRC the script of Alien was originally written for a male protagonist and it got flipped at some point. And if that movie was released today people absolutely would whine about woke as they do so every time a genre movie with female lead is announced, before even seeing the movie.
Wasn't Alita Battle Angel pretty well received? I don't remember any outcry about her.
What was the reaction to Kill Bill back then? Was there a great gnashing of teeth over a leading lady? It's been a while, but I certain do not recall that reaction.
Maybe it's the cynic in me, but I don't believe any of us has a gnat's chance in Hell of convincing anyone else in this thread, so we're all just spinning our wheels in the mud and the dirt and the blood, waiting to die.
And isn't it funny that so many men regard those films and shows as among their favourites. It's almost as if... hear me out... they don't "hate women".
I agree with you. On the main forum of the hobby in my country, some people expressed the fear of female Custodes being Mary Sue when they learned about it. But once they read the text from the new Codex, they just said "Oh, it's just a Blood Game, moving on". Most of the critics I red were about how GW poorly managed this evolution of the Custodes ("Why no book ? Why no minis ?" etc). Other critics said they disliked it because they felt it was a corporate move to make more money rather than artistic choice which is also, in my opnion, a fair critic.
However, I can assure you that there was also some very irrational hatred towards this change which was tied to politics. Several people went so far that they threw at me links to subreddits obsessed with Gamergate, spout bizarre things about Blackrock and ESG, etc. And those guys were completely unhinged.
You do realise it is possible for Disney to still make a nice profit off the toys while the company making them doesn't due to the profit split because Disney doesn't have any costs to producing the toys?
Also, a company doing layoffs is not actually any evidence of poor performance in all circumstances. Video games are making more money than ever and game companies still regularly lay off their staff because corporations always want more money regardless of how much they are already making.
I'd agree normally, but A, we are talking before christmas, which for a toy company is basically a huge red flag. And B in the case of SW Disney doesn't release merch numbers and rather ties them in with their Parks, which were down with increased prices hence the higher reported income..
Agamemnon2 wrote: Maybe it's the cynic in me, but I don't believe any of us has a gnat's chance in Hell of convincing anyone else in this thread, so we're all just spinning our wheels in the mud and the dirt and the blood, waiting to die.
especially when it's all just repeating the same talking points over and over again. complaints about woke, concerning trolling over SoS, and the same star wars argument over and over again
You know what the most profitable movies James Cameron ever made was before Titanic? T2. You know who was the main hero of that movie? The OG Girlboss herself, Sarah Effing Conner. Linda Hamilton in a suit made of brick shoot house, and veins. She exuded baddassness, and was the clear masculine superhero while you had Arnold "trying to learn feelings".
Then he made Aliens, with basically the same thing, only it was Riply, played by the other OG Girlboss - Sigouney Weaver. Tell me she wan't hardcore enough. Tell me you'd pick a fight with either of those characters in their prime.
Women and girls can be written in serious baddass ways. But they can also be written in thoughtful, intelligent, insightful, and cunning ways. I'd bet money that Sarah Conner loses a fight 9-10 against Rosie Betzelr (Scarlet Johansen) because while they're both Mothers, Rosie isn't a walking talking PTSD billboard on Xanax.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: You know what the most profitable movies James Cameron ever made was before Titanic? T2. You know who was the main hero of that movie? The OG Girlboss herself, Sarah Effing Conner. Linda Hamilton in a suit made of brick shoot house, and veins. She exuded baddassness, and was the clear masculine superhero while you had Arnold "trying to learn feelings".
Then he made Aliens, with basically the same thing, only it was Riply, played by the other OG Girlboss - Sigouney Weaver. Tell me she wan't hardcore enough. Tell me you'd pick a fight with either of those characters in their prime.
Women and girls can be written in serious baddass ways. But they can also be written in thoughtful, intelligent, insightful, and cunning ways. I'd bet money that Sarah Conner loses a fight 9-10 against Rosie Betzelr (Scarlet Johansen) because while they're both Mothers, Rosie isn't a walking talking PTSD billboard on Xanax.
He made Aliens before Terminator 2, but other than that, yes.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Since GW started diversifying their characters, they’ve tripled their income.
Can you quantify what you mean by that? As in diversifying their characters in what way, and when was this diversification starting point that you are (presumably) suggesting kicked off profits tripling.
Me wrote: What’s that? I’ve already explained why things are never that straight forward because the world is full of interacting moving parts? Why yes I have. Hence your claims about Star Wars are….irrelevant, ill informed and likely a conclusion formed you then went looking for evidence to support.
Do keep up.
So you can't quantify it. Understood
I'll take an educated guess and say 6-8 years ago when sisters got a refresh, Stormcast found out gender was a thing in their sculpts and a wave of female limited ed sculpts appeared and female specific components/upgrades for the guard came in etc.
So if we parse that as AoS 2nd ed (June 18) or the sisters release (Nov 19) to today. £221 million revenue in June 2018 to £471 million May 2023. If the goal post was a year earlier then they have indeed tripled and given we're a month off this years figures, it may have done anyway.
You do realise it is possible for Disney to still make a nice profit off the toys while the company making them doesn't due to the profit split because Disney doesn't have any costs to producing the toys?
Also, a company doing layoffs is not actually any evidence of poor performance in all circumstances. Video games are making more money than ever and game companies still regularly lay off their staff because corporations always want more money regardless of how much they are already making.
I'd agree normally, but A, we are talking before christmas, which for a toy company is basically a huge red flag. And B in the case of SW Disney doesn't release merch numbers and rather ties them in with their Parks, which were down with increased prices hence the higher reported income..
Right. And that’s because women and ethnic minorities being cast because………..
You do realise it is possible for Disney to still make a nice profit off the toys while the company making them doesn't due to the profit split because Disney doesn't have any costs to producing the toys?
Also, a company doing layoffs is not actually any evidence of poor performance in all circumstances. Video games are making more money than ever and game companies still regularly lay off their staff because corporations always want more money regardless of how much they are already making.
I'd agree normally, but A, we are talking before christmas, which for a toy company is basically a huge red flag. And B in the case of SW Disney doesn't release merch numbers and rather ties them in with their Parks, which were down with increased prices hence the higher reported income..
Right. And that’s because women and ethnic minorities being cast because………..
Well quality via bad-activist writing is down which leads to brand damage which leads to strain in other areas. Certainly not just because either of the mentioned catergories showed up, if that were the case afterall 40k would've never even gotten off the ground and neither would've star wars nor Alien now would it. It's when you sacrifice the writing for the political message as seen also with a multitude of press releases that went to brow beat people or tell them outright that it wasn't made for you that it becomes a problem,
Hence the difference between ripley and Rey, or Leia (pre disney trilogy) and Rey. Hell even the much initially chagrined Ahsoka and Rey if you want to stick within the Universe.
Right. So we've had 34 pages dedicated to l'affaire adeptus cooties. Can we switch to something much more important like eldar boob plate? Seriously.
I know there who are opposed to the boob plate for a variety of reasons, but in the model range we have, boob plate is how we are explicitly shown that the model represents a female. So with that as a given why don't we have a clearly female Farseer by now? It took 16 years to finally get a boob plate for the Autarch. The Autarch originally appeared in 4th edition in 2006. In 2022 we got the second plastic Autarch kit and there was a boob plate option. Similarly the 2022 release added boob plates to rangers and the new shroud runners. The updated guardian kit doubled the boob plates from 2 to 4 as well. But still no Farseer. The aspects are also lacking. New Dark Reapers and Scorpions are lacking boob plates too. The eldar are presented as an egalitarian faction though to my knowledge it's never specifically stated that way. In the digital space, like the DoW games the eldar leaders are all female (with boob plate) so why are they so hit and miss with this?
Arschbombe wrote: Right. So we've had 34 pages dedicated to l'affaire adeptus cooties. Can we switch to something much more important like eldar boob plate? Seriously.
I know there who are opposed to the boob plate for a variety of reasons, but in the model range we have, boob plate is how we are explicitly shown that the model represents a female. So with that as a given why don't we have a clearly female Farseer by now? It took 16 years to finally get a boob plate for the Autarch. The Autarch originally appeared in 4th edition in 2006. In 2022 we got the second plastic Autarch kit and there was a boob plate option. Similarly the 2022 release added boob plates to rangers and the new shroud runners. The updated guardian kit doubled the boob plates from 2 to 4 as well. But still no Farseer. The aspects are also lacking. New Dark Reapers and Scorpions are lacking boob plates too. The eldar are presented as an egalitarian faction though to my knowledge it's never specifically stated that way. In the digital space, like the DoW games the eldar leaders are all female (with boob plate) so why are they so hit and miss with this?
Aeldari gender is a bit more nuanced and complicated than adding boob plate.
Lore-wise, at least for aspect warriors, the armor is modeled after the Phoenix Warrior that inspired the aspect shrine. So all howling banshees have boob plate because Jain has boob plate. So it mostly implies that we'll only get a mix of boob plate/non boob plate for non aspect warriors (Guardians, Rangers, etc.) or somehow mixed aspects (autarchs).
You're right, though; it is weird that we don't have an expressly female farseer model, given the popularity of the DoW series. They only showed female farseers. Probably a combination of the model being too hard to allow for either gender or GW not wanting to put the resources into it, and since Eldrad is the special character farseer, all farseer models have to more or less be able to be built as him.
I remember liking it when I watched it- the dialogue is certainly delivered better than any SW product that Lucas directed- I wish he had let someone else direct the prequels, because they acting talent in the movies was certainly up to the task, but the dialogue was terribly delivered. When academy award nominees don't make the lines ring true, that's a director issue.
But I want to push back against the assumption that the inclusion of female characters is always connected to political agenda. Certainly, I'd argue that there are cases of that sort of thing, but I think it can be really hard to tell. You almost need documentation of processes to effectively assert that.
Because here's the thing, and I've said this before: male soldiers are such a cliche that in the three thousand years that we've been writing about them, they've become cliche. I'm not a big fan of Space Marines- I find them to be dull, boring, hollowed out, recycled stereotypes. A female space marine's story would be interesting because at least it would be something new and different.
And I honestly wouldn't be surprised of the writers of the trilogy just said- hmm, already six movies about Jedi dudes. Time for something new. No conspiracy, just IP in need of a fresh story. If you've got proof it was a decision made by a committee, I'm prepared to be proven wrong. I've you've got proof that it was done to try and be "woke," I'm prepared to be proven wrong.
If you don't, I'm going with Occam's Razor on this one and saying the writer made Rey female because they thought that would be something interesting that the audience hadn't already seen 6 times.
Hilary Swank was a Karate Kid once because guess what? Karate Kid dudes were starting to get dull. And yeah... Ralph Machio, if you're reading this, PLEASE, PLEASE get Hillary for the final season of Cobra Kai. She loved Mr. Miyagi at least as much as Daniel, and I'm sure that Hillary appreciated Pat Morita as much as the rest of the Karate Kid alumni- let her pay her respects.
(Of course you're not reading this- you're in the dojo right now, training as hard as ever)
Sometimes art needs to create new archetypes. Female warriors are fresh. 2SLGBTQIA soldiers are fresh. Their stories are only starting to be told.
Honestly I think its just because Eldar didn't get much support in general for years. They just kind of kept pulling the last straw in getting an update. Even now they are still waiting for a second wave update to bring their aspect warriors up to standard and into plastics.
I suspect once Eldar are "up to speed" we'll see them get more leader releases and that will mean more chance for a female farseer, which as noted is odd that we don't specifically have since the Dawn of War games made them very popular as a concept.
There is more to a female than Boob plate. For instance, one of the most physically fit women on the planet, say Christen Press, would show zero difference in mens plate or women's (Whatever) plate. Point is. The only way to clearly state something is physically female is to declare it, as with Custodes. I would welcome more such "declarations". Only problem is, I think Eldar are WAAAAAY beyond the simplicity of Gender. But that might be my ignorant Mon kay brain. (I feel like Lord Freiza saying that)
I really do not get all the crying about how Disney ruined Star Wars. Yeah, the sequel trilogy was terrible as there was no coherent story (if you buy a franchise with four billion, perhaps hash out a rudimentary plot for entire trilogy before you start filming,) but Star Wars was already ruined by Lucas with the prequel trilogy. It was painfully bad. The sequels make no sense, but at least watching most scenes is not torture. But debating which is worse is pretty pointless, they both are really bad in somewhat different ways. The original trilogy and Rogue One are the only good SW films.
With 40K lore I don't care about the details. What makes the lore good are the overall aesthetics or themes. Exact shape of marine armour plates, how many extra organs they have, their gender, whether they have grav tanks are just details. They can be changed, either via retcon or a story development and the overall themes of the marines remain.
The biggest thematic shift in 40K was the return of the loyalist primarchs, and it was not a retcon. But it changed the themes of the setting fundamentally, and in my opinion not for the better. And that you could logically extrapolate this development from existing fluff without actual retcon doesn't make it any easier to stomach.
Aeldari gender is a bit more nuanced and complicated than adding boob plate.
I know, but this is about models and GW has clearly shown that eldar female models are marked by boob plate. Even if we all agree that eldar females should not be presented as Russ Meyer bombshells, it's kinda what we're stuck with.
Lore-wise, at least for aspect warriors, the armor is modeled after the Phoenix Warrior that inspired the aspect shrine. So all howling banshees have boob plate because Jain has boob plate. So it mostly implies that we'll only get a mix of boob plate/non boob plate for non aspect warriors (Guardians, Rangers, etc.) or somehow mixed aspects (autarchs).
I can buy that as a fluff explanation, but as we know the models are made first. So that explanation could be a post hoc justification. And then there's the problem of the Banshees. To my eye they've made them to look female beyond just the boob plate so I have a hard time accepting that one or more of the 5 sculpts is supposed to be male.
You're right, though; it is weird that we don't have an expressly female farseer model, given the popularity of the DoW series. They only showed female farseers. Probably a combination of the model being too hard to allow for either gender or GW not wanting to put the resources into it, and since Eldrad is the special character farseer, all farseer models have to more or less be able to be built as him.
The current Farseer kit is multipart plastic and could easily allow for a boob plate option. We used to have a bunch of sculpts for Farseers and now we just have the one, apart from the Eldrad one. I don't understand how Eldrad limits the possibilities for other generic Farseers.
Can we stop with the oddly gross infatuation on "boob plate"? I'd much rather just be validated in my headcannon that my high and tight haircut female astartes is actually capable of being female, than whether or not she can fit in the stupid armor. Given the sheer Transformers level of space erasure that occurs trying to put a 7' 400-500lb man into a suit of "special" armor, it's oddly one sided that a female suddenly can't fit because they're all WANDA WHOPPERS!
Just let physicality go, and lets discuss what would actually happen if suddenly Astartes could suddenly harvest from TWICE the supplicants? Anyone else want to see the damage Tona Criid could do in Mark X Phobos Armor with a Las Fusil? Or Jessi Banda?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can we stop with the oddly gross infatuation on "boob plate"? I'd much rather just be validated in my headcannon that my high and tight haircut female astartes is actually capable of being female, than whether or not she can fit in the stupid armor. Given the sheer Transformers level of space erasure that occurs trying to put a 7' 400-500lb man into a suit of "special" armor, it's oddly one sided that a female suddenly can't fit because they're all WANDA WHOPPERS!
Just let physicality go, and lets discuss what would actually happen if suddenly Astartes could suddenly harvest from TWICE the supplicants? Anyone else want to see the damage Tona Criid could do in Mark X Phobos Armor with a Las Fusil? Or Jessi Banda?
It's relevant because people knee-jerk associate boob plate with women = representation.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can we stop with the oddly gross infatuation on "boob plate"? I'd much rather just be validated in my headcannon that my high and tight haircut female astartes is actually capable of being female, than whether or not she can fit in the stupid armor. Given the sheer Transformers level of space erasure that occurs trying to put a 7' 400-500lb man into a suit of "special" armor, it's oddly one sided that a female suddenly can't fit because they're all WANDA WHOPPERS!
Just let physicality go, and lets discuss what would actually happen if suddenly Astartes could suddenly harvest from TWICE the supplicants? Anyone else want to see the damage Tona Criid could do in Mark X Phobos Armor with a Las Fusil? Or Jessi Banda?
I really hope that eventual female custodes models and hypothetical female marine models will just wear the same armour than the males. On form fitting armour of the eldar there being a difference perhaps makes some sense, but on bulky power armours of the marines and the custodes it would be ludicrous.
I'm using it because it easy to understand short hand for what we're talking about. It's not really an infatuation. My interest comes from my craftworld Iybraesil which is female-led and has a large female population. Currently it's hard to represent that with the models available. GW has made some progress in recent years, but I'd like there to be more.
I'd much rather just be validated in my headcannon that my high and tight haircut female astartes is actually capable of being female, than whether or not she can fit in the stupid armor.
Well, you'll have to wait and see when and if we ever get those models.
As they have decided to give the eldar gendered armours, they should then make sure that there are both genders for every role. Even though the specific look would not be actually associated with specific gender in the fiction, its still how it looks.
And it is a bit of a bother if you haven't done that from the ground up. Like imagine if they decided to finally make female marines, and then decided to make their armour look different. They would need to make a new version of every seven thousand marine units. But if it is just a headswap, it is way easier.
I would greatly prefer if they went the Stormcast Eternals route: armor that is visually distinctly feminine, without having the skin-tight 'boob plate'.
Or, even better, just take a note from Star Wars and do what they did with Captain Phasma.
StudentOfEtherium wrote: boob plate armor just serves to highlight which aspect of women the people making the models care about
My partner is a drag king. This means that once or twice a month they put on a chest binder, dress as a dude and lipsynch like fire.
And I can tell you that after 4-5 hours in a chest binder, my partner is uncomfortable, and sometimes in pain. And here's the thing- the binder and what goes over it ar soft fabric, not stiff, rigid metal plates. Eldar for sure require chest room in their armour if they want to wear it for more than 5-6 hours at a time. That is not fetishized and male gazey- that's the straight dope.
Now yes, you can argue that other types of armour may not require visible accommodations for breasts, but essentially, you have to prove that there is empty space in those types of armour between the chest and the plate that could accommodate the anatomy in question. Typically, armour does tend to be form fitting; if it isn't, concussive impact against the armour merely forces it to collide with the body- while this will still be helpful by dispersing the force concentrated in the diameter of a bullet to the larger surface area of a plate, but the plate will still have the capacity to damage a wearer if it doesn't fit the form.
So we can say sisters are sexualized- certainly metal Repentia were; I'd argue DCA's are too. I'd say even current Repentia are, but given how less so than the previous version, I give them the pass because I can see GW making an effort.
Don't get me wrong- sexualization, like a lot of other qualities or characteristics, is in the eye of the beholder to a degree. On either extreme, we can agree of course- now one is ever going to argue that a playmate of the month isn't sexualized, and no one's going to argue that a woman in a full burka is. But in the middle it gets blurry, and I think the middle is where I put battle sisters.
I don't like it because I like lore that retains internal integrity rather than bending to the exterior climate.
Did you forget the time GW completely changed the Necrons, invalidating every Necron player’s list, some of their units, and any background they cared about for their Necrons, all to make the Necrons less niche and more commercial to a wider market?
GE is *constantly* changing the lore for reasons exterior to the lore. The Tau aren’t a reaction to the exterior climate embracing anime? The Voltann and Genestealers aren’t embracing the exterior trans or nostalgia bait? Come on, man.
I repeat my refrain from earlier: it’s not that you have a problem with retcons, is that you have a uniquely outsized problem with *this* retcon that’s the red flag.
Your accusation is again misplaced. I hated the Necron retcon, and I loathe Primaris, returning Primarchs etc. And I was certainly vocal about it here, if you want to go digging for it. For Centurions and the various flyers I was vocal about those too, though orobably on Warseer before I migrated here.
I don't accept your accusation.
Was your reaction to this retcon “uniquely outsized” as Inout it compared to your reaction to the Necron retcon?
I admit I’m terrible at remembering in these threads who said what, so I apologize for confusing you with another poster. Seeing your name now, Insectum 7, and looking back, you have been one of the most measured posters in the thread, so again, apologies.
I was (in my lack of awareness) replying to those who have weathered all the previous retcons without losing it the way they have for this, and we have seen some of them in this thread and the other one. (Although a lot was deleted and some of them banned, so also maybe ‘we’ have not seen them.)
And I’m not misrepresenting anything. No other retcon has come close to this reaction. This is clearly an issue some men have with expanding the lore of the game…when it includes women.
The volume is because it's part of a larger cultural context that is a click-generating rage machine. There's money to be made in the culture war.
Well yes, that was exactly my point. People are getting upset at this retcon not because of their love of the lore or the amount of damage done to the lore, but because they want to keep Warhammer 40,000 political in their favor.
There's much less money to be made on the introduction of Centurions, and very few politically oriented content creators will care that the C'tan have been retconned into enslaved shards. . . Even if it annoys the crap outta me.
Here we are agreed. Even without any of the other retcons, the Newcron change should be a mouth to warn any player that GW will retcon your favorite faction or lore with no warning if they think there’s a dime to be made tapping a new market.
Those changes also don't come with the baggage of one side calling the other bigots because they can't fathom the dislike might be something else.
For most of them, it isn’t something else, though. People who consistently dislike all retcons were not the same people blowing up FB groups for unrelated tabletop games over the short story with a female Custode even before GW made their community post. I never found out about dozens of retcons from the last three editions until they came up in the discussion about this retcon, because this culture war issue was spread all over the place by people who clearly had a problem with women Custodes that they didn’t have with any of those other retcons. You may not feel comfortable making the obvious assumptions about their motivation, but it doesn’t mean everyone else has to pretend the obvious isn’t obvious.
BobtheInquisitor wrote:I repeat my refrain from earlier: it’s not that you have a problem with retcons, is that you have a uniquely outsized problem with *this* retcon that’s the red flag.
Uh, Insectum has publicly and vocally hated the Necron retcon, among others. I did too.
Yes, and I replied to him. Also notice I am talking about the level vitriol in the reaction, so even someone who hated the Necron retcon would seem hypocritical if the first time they burnt their minis or made an angry youtube video or mailed a handwritten letter to GW was not for the Newcrons but for the lady Custodes.
'Here's some bull gak I assume you believe- gotcha, hypocrite!' isn't an incisive blow so much as it is just, well, tiring. Especially when the guy you're arguing with really isn't part of the reactionary 'anti-woke' crowd and has made his position pretty clear a couple of times in this thread.
Yeah, I got him confused with some of the other posters.
Armor is usually not form fitting outside of the higher end custom armor made for nobles and other rich people. Custom form fitting armor is expensive, and most soldiers could never afford that.
Moreover in the particular case of rigid plate armor (which is the closest thing to Power Armor), it does have empty space inside so a) you can fit padding and b) the armor can deform and disipate energy, otherwise that energy goes right into the user (it has to go somewhere, because conservation of energy). Most historic plate armor has a very curved design that clearly leaves some empty space over the chest and stomach. Yes it also needs to be well secured to the user, but that is done on the waist, not on the chest (which ironically means historical plate armor has a very femenine narrow waist).
Sure particulalry well endowed women may also need a "boob plate", but even then the optimal design would be a single "uniboob" because separate "boobs" would introduce a weakpoint.
There is also the further issue that a military lifestyle doesn't tend to favor big breasts, because the whole thing is fat after all.
Agamemnon2 wrote: Maybe it's the cynic in me, but I don't believe any of us has a gnat's chance in Hell of convincing anyone else in this thread, so we're all just spinning our wheels in the mud and the dirt and the blood, waiting to die.
You might not get anyone to admit they have been won over but over the years I’ve seen these threads get less toxic and more and more people giving reasoned and eloquent arguments in favour of making the hobby a less toxic place. Thats because people like you and mad doc and all the others don’t let people get away with saying gakky things on here.
A few years ago a thread I started about female marines died in hours in a flame of truly horrific comments. Now they last and are more civil but still highlight some individuals with pretty unpleasant views on the world, but dakka has now become a place where more posters are female, we have people able to discuss being trans and over all it’s more a more accepting and pleasant place.
So going round and round in circles either convinces some or at least persuades them to keep their thoughts to them selves. Please keep going.
changes/expansions/ retcons that matched or exceeded this backlash.
Newcrons
Primaris
Cawl
13th Black Crusade
Rogue Trader to 40k Yarrick dying off screen
Primaris might have exceeded it looking back, but Newcrons and Rogue Trader happened before the fandom was anywhere near this size. I’m not sure what you mean by 13th Black Crusade. Was it like the Storm of Chaos campaign conclusion that was later retconned out?
I didn’t even know Yarrick was dead.
None of those except maybe the Primaris had the same impact. I don’t subscribe to any Warhammer or painting videos on YouTube and I am not a member of any 40k group on Facebook, and still I found my feeds flooded with outrage and quite a lot of culture war word salad when the leaked pictures of the short story with the female Custode dropped. People were going nuts who had never said boo about Warhammer before. And then the GW statement came out and things went even more nuts. And the kinds of images and words I saw in all this craziness were not just anti-woke, but often misogynistic and anti-trans. I didn’t see slurs showing up in unrelated Facebook groups when the Primaris marines came out of the Primarch s were brought back, but I see them now.
all saw multiple videos and people talking about it in the same manner, the biggest difference between this one and the others was the others did not have GW trying to gaslight people then block them for calling them out, all they needed to do was say "sure its a change we thought needed doing" nothing else and this would have died by now, when you lie and gaslight someone you make the matter worse, you add fuel to the fire, people then start looking for why they are being gaslit and lied to and that sends them down a rabbit hole, we saw this with primaris, people looking for ANY explanation in the background to justify them suddenly turning up, people fighting non stop about whether classic marines are going the way of the dodo (they are), whether this means we will get female marines due to Cawls introduction, Primaris spider webbed our really badly and is STILL an issue to this day.
So no it is not just because it involved woman, that is a misrepresentaton, it is just because people are passionate about their hobby, the lore and the game.
!
I disagree that GW was gaslighting. They have always said the new fluff overwrites the old fluff, and telling people there have always been female Custodes is telling them the new fluff, not trying to make them think that was always the fluff.
Thanks Tyran- I knew someone would come in and fill the gaps in my knowledge- I have experience with Bogu (Kendo armour), and more limited experience with chainmail, but my knowledge of historical plate is very limited. Kendo and Racquetball are the only sports I enjoy participating in, so I'm not even familiar with the equipment for football or even hockey.
Your point about the expense of form fitting is a good one too.
And I can certainly get behind Manfred on this too- the Stormcast femmes and Phasma are both better examples of practical armour for women than sisters. I think my issue is just that I want some differentiation between male and female members of a given unit beyond heads. Bulky and non-form fitting is fine, just distinct.
I think a part of the reason I feel this way is that I'm not good at telling the difference between male and female faces. I've known so many square jawed women and elfish men with cheekbones that I'm not sure I believe there's such a thing as a male face and a female face. And even if there is, I'm certainly not a good enough painter that the difference is going to shine through once I've done the deed.
Crimson wrote:As they have decided to give the eldar gendered armours,
That's probably a better way of phrasing it.
Manfred von Drakken wrote:I would greatly prefer if they went the Stormcast Eternals route: armor that is visually distinctly feminine, without having the skin-tight 'boob plate'.
The heavier armor doesn't fit the eldar aesthetic which is body suit plus some psycho reactive plastic plates which are form fitting.
Or, even better, just take a note from Star Wars and do what they did with Captain Phasma.
Phasma was such a wasted character. What about Bo Katan? She has feminine armor that isn't form fitting.
PenitentJake wrote: I think a part of the reason I feel this way is that I'm not good at telling the difference between male and female faces. I've known so many square jawed women and elfish men with cheekbones that I'm not sure I believe there's such a thing as a male face and a female face. And even if there is, I'm certainly not a good enough painter that the difference is going to shine through once I've done the deed.
Respectfully: does it matter? Is there a reason you need to be able to instantly tell from six feet away that a model is meant to represent a woman?
Inclusivity is representing historically marginalized groups as equals, not as something 'exotic' that needs to be specially called out. The new Astra Militarum models show how to do it right; under all that armor it's hard to tell the gender or ethnicity of a trooper but that's fine because it doesn't matter. They don't need to call attention to the presence of women and minorities in the Guard. They're an established part of the lore and they're there if you look for them. They simply exist.
Boobplate is a perfect example of why I think this focus on representation is misplaced, or at least incomplete. Representation is only one small part of inclusivity, and it matters a lot how you choose to represent someone. When marginalized groups are depicted as token characters, 'positive stereotypes', or eye candy with exaggerated sexual characteristics, it can be more off-putting than not being represented at all. It's being called out as different, and in a manner that many people find uncomfortable.
I'm not saying sexualization is inherently bad or always inappropriate, just that sexualized character design is not necessary to representation and can be outright counterproductive. Anecdotally I see more women playing as the genderless alien bugs or equal-opportunity murder twinks than the latex fetish nuns, and that doesn't surprise me at all.
One thing to keep in mind is that 40k, at least in the Imperium, is that what we consider practical by today's standard is not something that they necessarily consider practical. We're talking about a culture that burns incense because it makes their machines work better; a culture that builds cathedral ships; a culture that still burns candles for light, not just on planets but even in their space craft.
If they found an STC that printed boob plated flak armor by the millions, they would absolutely chuck it onto the Cadians, Catachans, etc., and tell them they were lucky to have it.
catbarf wrote: Anecdotally I see more women playing as the genderless alien bugs or equal-opportunity murder twinks than the latex fetish nuns, and that doesn't surprise me at all.
Guilty as charged. I have both, and they were in fact my first and second army. Still, it's not everyone's cup of tea to play religious fanatics, torture elves, or space bugs who narratively lose every major engagement. Especially as GW seems to get stingier and stingier with updates and releases unless it's your turn to be the edition's xenos punching bag.
Respectfully: does it matter? Is there a reason you need to be able to instantly tell from six feet away that a model is meant to represent a woman?
Inclusivity is representing historically marginalized groups as equals, not as something 'exotic' that needs to be specially called out. The new Astra Militarum models show how to do it right; under all that armor it's hard to tell the gender or ethnicity of a trooper but that's fine because it doesn't matter. They don't need to call attention to the presence of women and minorities in the Guard. They're an established part of the lore and they're there if you look for them. They simply exist.
Boobplate is a perfect example of why I think this focus on representation is misplaced, or at least incomplete. Representation is only one small part of inclusivity, and it matters a lot how you choose to represent someone. When marginalized groups are depicted as token characters, 'positive stereotypes', or eye candy with exaggerated sexual characteristics, it can be more off-putting than not being represented at all. It's being called out as different, and in a manner that many people find uncomfortable.
I'm not saying sexualization is inherently bad or always inappropriate, just that sexualized character design is not necessary to representation and can be outright counterproductive. Anecdotally I see more women playing as the genderless alien bugs or equal-opportunity murder twinks than the latex fetish nuns, and that doesn't surprise me at all.
i think i'm going to disagree and will try to come up with a well thought out counter augment. currently, lots of media, like games and cartoon are trying to desexualize women like as if attractive women don't exist. for example, people are comparing steller blade to ummm... lets say star wars outlaws main protagonist. warhammer 40000 is one of the few IP where ugly women actually fits the lore because its is a grim future where life is hard, and cheap, and beauty is a luxury not many can can afford during constant war. but beauty has its place in warhammer too. while it makes sense for the guard, don't take that away from the eldar or the sisters. lets not pretend that attractive women only exist to shame people, or do we really live in an age where its shameful to be attractive?
besides, "rule of cool" and "sex sells" is not inherently bad, so lets not pretend it is. never mind, i can just 3D print my models
Does the model's gender affect the dice roll on the tabletop? If not, then what difference does it make what gender the model is?
I personally think Games Workshop should go all out, cut out the half measures, and just make every single model in the game female. Even the vehicles.
Just Tony wrote: Does the model's gender affect the dice roll on the tabletop? If not, then what difference does it make what gender the model is?
I personally think Games Workshop should go all out, cut out the half measures, and just make every single model in the game female. Even the vehicles.
oh hey why stop there, lets use coins instead of models because we don't care what our units look like
i dont know about you, but as an artist, i grow an emotional attachment to my art and how they look is important
If we look at the original Escher models today, it’s clear they’re sculpted for the male gaze. Bare midriffs aplenty, fairly busty.
But, and I accept this might seem tenuous to some? For their era they’re not massively sexualised. They’re not kicking about in leather bras and dental floss thongs. They’re done in action poses, not cheesecake “oooh, I’ve dropped me pencil” poses. And whilst not exactly muscly, the limbs suggest athleticism, not skinny and scrawny.
Their modern day sculpts haven’t changed the overall aesthetic that much. But it does seem the arms in particular have more detailed musculature. Not to a ridiculous degree, we’re not looking at Chyna-a-likes. But more reminiscent again of athletes than pin-ups in terms of what’s been exaggerated due to the scale.
With the hair in particular, they draw on punk aesthetics. And yes, room for improvement as always, but they’re perhaps quite restrained, compared to what contemporaries were putting out.
Same with Sisters of Battle, outside of the original Repentia, who most definitely had fetish overtones, and not subtle ones at that. But the new Repentia have, at the very least, not confused “unarmoured” with “all nude apart from strategic paper”. And the togs they’re wearing are gym clothes.
Now I’m not gonna argue “therefore it am fine”. Nor am I here to tell anyone what they should find acceptable. But in the grand scheme of things? I’d hope most would acknowledge whilst flawed, they’re at least a good deal more restrained than their contemporaries, and so a better place to be working from.
The Witch Elves though lag behind their 40K equivalent of Wyches, who are pretty well clothed these days. Light weight armour, but not bikini light weight. Yes the in-universe explanation is to “tempt the blade” and show their confidence. But…blimey.
PenitentJake wrote: Thanks Tyran- I knew someone would come in and fill the gaps in my knowledge- I have experience with Bogu (Kendo armour), and more limited experience with chainmail, but my knowledge of historical plate is very limited. Kendo and Racquetball are the only sports I enjoy participating in, so I'm not even familiar with the equipment for football or even hockey.
Your point about the expense of form fitting is a good one too.
And I can certainly get behind Manfred on this too- the Stormcast femmes and Phasma are both better examples of practical armour for women than sisters. I think my issue is just that I want some differentiation between male and female members of a given unit beyond heads. Bulky and non-form fitting is fine, just distinct.
I think a part of the reason I feel this way is that I'm not good at telling the difference between male and female faces. I've known so many square jawed women and elfish men with cheekbones that I'm not sure I believe there's such a thing as a male face and a female face. And even if there is, I'm certainly not a good enough painter that the difference is going to shine through once I've done the deed.
Further to what Tyran said, humans need to breathe, which requires that the chest rise and fall (especially when working hard such as in combat). If the armour is a single rigid plate, it needs to be raised off the chest to allow this, or be smaller to avoid overlapping onto areas that do not move with the chest. Using smaller plates either creates more weakpoints, or weighs more for the same coverage due to the overlap of plates to ensure gaps are covered. People still did this with brigandines if they couldn't afford full plate though. Flexible armour like mail avoids this problem.
The space definitely adds defensive benefit though, it really is extra free padding and the impact gets spread over a much broader area than if the metal is against skin. If a strong impact is prevented from penetrating by mail, it still tends to leave a nasty bruise at the impact site. A raised breast plate leaves essentially no injury at all for non-penetrating impacts because the force is dissipated across the shoulders, sides, and waist.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Same with Sisters of Battle, outside of the original Repentia, who most definitely had fetish overtones, and not subtle ones at that.
Somewhere along the line, if Karl Kopinskis work is anything to go by, the repentia were closer to their male arco-flagellant counterparts.
The 52mm Damien 1427 in particular walked right out of that iconic 'great ecclesiarchy' picture while the repentia had to cover up. ModestyBondage rather than body horror, same with the old metal penitent pilots.
If we look at the original Escher models today, it’s clear they’re sculpted for the male gaze. Bare midriffs aplenty, fairly busty.
male and FEMALE gaze because humans like good looking humans as study after study has shown, hell go outside of the western world for a few seconds and you will see that people refuse to watch movies if the leads are ugly and there is nothing wrong with it either as cultures are different, its only the modern Californian mindset that has spread around the world that things beauty is bad which is also fine if those people believe that so long as they do not try to impose those beliefs on others..... which they do.... constantly.
Another draw of the Escher gang is the bright colours and different patterns, then there is their lore, massively misandrist and female supremacist to the point they beleive the Emperor is a woman because its impossible useless men could do anything of value, to use the parlance of "your side" this is deeply problematic and yet I have never seen a single call for Escher to have their lore changed to be more inclusive and tone down the bigotry.
Also male Escher when ?
Also add to that Escher males have near universal clinical retardation with the rare few that do not being highly prized by the matriarchs and used as trophies and paraded around as such, also a tad problematic no?
then we have the slavery, drug use, horrific abuse of people they capture and this is just one gang.
lets look at the Goliaths, clearly made with the female gaze in mind, bulging muscles, midrifs showing, highly masculine and aggressive.... hold on, its like Escher and Goliaths were made in concert to mirror each other aesthetically.... kind of like Sisters and Space marines
If we look at the original Escher models today, it’s clear they’re sculpted for the male gaze. Bare midriffs aplenty, fairly busty.
male and FEMALE gaze
"male gaze" is an established term with half a century of use and scholarship. it has a very specific meaning. "female gaze" does not exist because we do not live in a matriarchal society that would enforce this matriarchy onto the world, but we do live in a patriarchal one, as much as some people loath to hear it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_gaze
I disagree that GW was gaslighting. They have always said the new fluff overwrites the old fluff, and telling people there have always been female Custodes is telling them the new fluff, not trying to make them think that was always the fluff.
GW : "There has always been Kratos/Rogal Dorn tanks in the lore" Community : "I sleep"
GW : "There has always been female custored in the lore" Community : "Real gak"
lets look at the Goliaths, clearly made with the female gaze in mind, bulging muscles, midrifs showing, highly masculine and aggressive....
Err...
I'm pretty sure these fellas were not crafted with an aesthetic attractive to women:
There is a gang with a bit of conversion that highlights what I mean.
hold on, its like Escher and Goliaths were made in concert to mirror each other aesthetically.... kind of like Sisters and Space marines
The primary difference is that Goliaths and Eschers have equal prominence in the marketing of Necromunda. They literally shared the initial boxset of the revamp. This is not the case for marines and sisters.
Like I said before, some female characters being "sexy" or even "sexualised" is not inherently a problem. If you have a lot of different kind of female representation then those are just one colour on the palette. But if that is all or most of the representations, then it is a problem.
Also, I think for balance, there should be similar depictions of men. I want male death cult assassins in high heels, corsets and skull codpieces!
Crimson wrote: Like I said before, some female characters being "sexy" or even "sexualised" is not inherently a problem. If you have a lot of different kind of female representation then those are just one colour on the palette. But if that is all or most of the representations, then it is a problem.
Also, I think for balance, there should be similar depictions of men. I want male death cult assassins in high heels, corsets and skull codpieces!
You joke, but I actually want codpieces. That's something you don't see often in modern fantasy designs, even though it was a really common feature on what inspired said designs.
High heels used to be worn by men too, as it was used by horse riders to keep their boots in the stirrups. So really Rough Riders should have something like that, especially if they are Persian themed as it started with them.
lets look at the Goliaths, clearly made with the female gaze in mind, bulging muscles, midrifs showing, highly masculine and aggressive....
Err...
I'm pretty sure these fellas were not crafted to be attractive to women:
Yeah, I don't think they were designed with Arnie's Conan the Barbarian or Calvin Klein in mind. They are more like a grotesque parody of the macho-male physique, like something from a Rob Liefield comic. Just give them more belts and smaller feet and you're good to go.
You joke, but I actually want codpieces. That's something you don't see often in modern fantasy designs, even though it was a really common feature on what inspired said designs.
I didn't joke, I think the thing I described would fit well in 40K's over-the-top aesthetic.
You joke, but I actually want codpieces. That's something you don't see often in modern fantasy designs, even though it was a really common feature on what inspired said designs.
I didn't joke, I think the thing I described would fit well in 40K's over-the-top aesthetic.
Crimson wrote: Also, I think for balance, there should be similar depictions of men. I want male death cult assassins in high heels, corsets and skull codpieces!
Fond of Blanches' work then?
The male penitent figures in the sisters of battle army are/were nude save for loincloths and masks while the female penitents were clothed. The male assassins all wear the same skin tight catsuit though, you'll need to pick up something like Azrakh if you want a skull codpiece.
Crimson wrote: Also, I think for balance, there should be similar depictions of men. I want male death cult assassins in high heels, corsets and skull codpieces!
There has never been a model in 40k made for the purpose of "Attracting female sexual interest". Anyone who argues otherwise is being at best severely deluded, and at worst, purposefully misogynistic in nature.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: There has never been a model in 40k made for the purpose of "Attracting female sexual interest". Anyone who argues otherwise is being at best severely deluded, and at worst, purposefully misogynistic in nature.
Probably the same people who try to argue that angry, murderous Kratos was fanservice for women, rather than a power fantasy for men.
Tyran wrote: Hey, I'm sure at least some lesbians and bi women can appreciate some of the 40k female models.
Not a lot for straight women though.
granted, i'm asexual, and it's going to come down to taste, but nothing really stands out in my eye
if they ever make a female custodian character model, i expect that to be quite popular, tho. appeal to the butch market (40k is, unfortunately, not much of a settingfor femmes, tho)
StudentOfEtherium wrote: granted, i'm asexual, and it's going to come down to taste, but nothing really stands out in my eye
if they ever make a female custodian character model, i expect that to be quite popular, tho. appeal to the butch market (40k is, unfortunately, not much of a settingfor femmes, tho)
Eye of the beholder I suppose. The new escher are a few tattoos away from hitting every box on one of my friends lists.
Wouldn't female custodes models be the male custodes models with optional bare head swaps? Unlike the stormcast they have no sculpted pecs to set apart the male figures, nor any reason to be smaller or slighter of frame.
shadowsfm wrote:currently, lots of media, like games and cartoon are trying to desexualize women like as if attractive women don't exist. for example, people are comparing steller blade to ummm... lets say star wars outlaws main protagonist. warhammer 40000 is one of the few IP where ugly women actually fits the lore because its is a grim future where life is hard, and cheap, and beauty is a luxury not many can can afford during constant war. but beauty has its place in warhammer too. while it makes sense for the guard, don't take that away from the eldar or the sisters. lets not pretend that attractive women only exist to shame people, or do we really live in an age where its shameful to be attractive?
Formosa wrote:male and FEMALE gaze because humans like good looking humans as study after study has shown
(...)
lets look at the Goliaths, clearly made with the female gaze in mind, bulging muscles, midrifs showing, highly masculine and aggressive.... hold on, its like Escher and Goliaths were made in concert to mirror each other aesthetically.... kind of like Sisters and Space marines
The thing is, Space Marines aren't designed to look good to women. They're designed to look good to (cishet) men. If you ask your average straight woman to design an attractive male figure, they're going to draw something closer to Magic Mike than Marneus Calgar. The roid-rage walking refrigerator look is a masculine power fantasy with stylistic echoes of medieval knights. They're all about looking cool while beating everyone up.
Sisters with their skin-tight wasp-waist corsets, bob cuts, and combat high heels, in comparison, are much more heavily sexualized. Again, that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this idea that Sisters are a mirror to Marines is wrong. They're both designed to appeal to men, one being a masculine power fantasy and the other being a masculine sexual fantasy. This is what 'male gaze' describes, where in theory you have equal representation but in practice both forms of representation cater to men. See also: Batman and Catwoman. See also: The Hawkeye Initiative.
Also, if you think those original pig-faced Goliath sculpts are what women find attractive, I suggest you talk to some actual women. Frankly, you might be surprised at how unimportant being 'highly masculine and aggressive' is. Especially the latter.
Now, if anyone's actually demanding that attractive women be excised entirely, that's a gross overreaction. I've never seen anyone complain about, say, the cover of Cadian Honour, which depicts a conventionally attractive woman who isn't wearing a stripper outfit, dolled up with lipstick, or striking a Black Widow pose. You can just depict attractive characters as characters without also turning them into sex objects as the default.
Crimson wrote: Like I said before, some female characters being "sexy" or even "sexualised" is not inherently a problem. If you have a lot of different kind of female representation then those are just one colour on the palette. But if that is all or most of the representations, then it is a problem.
Also, I think for balance, there should be similar depictions of men. I want male death cult assassins in high heels, corsets and skull codpieces!
Crimson gets it. Sexy does not equal bad. Strong men + sexy women just means another game designed exclusively for straight men. If you want to be inclusive, mix things up.
StudentOfEtherium wrote: granted, i'm asexual, and it's going to come down to taste, but nothing really stands out in my eye
if they ever make a female custodian character model, i expect that to be quite popular, tho. appeal to the butch market (40k is, unfortunately, not much of a settingfor femmes, tho)
Eye of the beholder I suppose. The new escher are a few tattoos away from hitting every box on one of my friends lists.
Wouldn't female custodes models be the male custodes models with optional bare head swaps? Unlike the stormcast they have no sculpted pecs to set apart the male figures, nor any reason to be smaller or slighter of frame.
well, if there's anything in warhammer that comes close to my strike zone, it'd be escher, yeah (or drukhari wyches, assuming they ever get better sculpts)
also, re:female custodians, existing custodian models (bulky armor and all) but as a woman instead would definitely appeal to a lot of lesbians. that's sort of the butch ideal
StudentOfEtherium wrote: granted, i'm asexual, and it's going to come down to taste, but nothing really stands out in my eye
if they ever make a female custodian character model, i expect that to be quite popular, tho. appeal to the butch market (40k is, unfortunately, not much of a settingfor femmes, tho)
Eye of the beholder I suppose. The new escher are a few tattoos away from hitting every box on one of my friends lists.
Wouldn't female custodes models be the male custodes models with optional bare head swaps? Unlike the stormcast they have no sculpted pecs to set apart the male figures, nor any reason to be smaller or slighter of frame.
This is pretty much what I'm going to do, even though I loathe painting bare heads.
I don't recall my Necron lists ever being invalidated. Some rules shifted, pts changed, some things got better/some things got worse.... You know, normal crap edition to edition.
The Necrons were originally playable in 2nd edition, but Games Workshop discontinued the line of miniatures and did not print updated rules when the game went to 3rd edition (and remember, that was an edition change that invalidated all older codexes, so without a rules update, they were straight up unplayable).
That is the same edition switch that finally made Squats, Genestealer Cults, Demon World Armies, Eldar Harlequins and Chaos Cults unplayable.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: There has never been a model in 40k made for the purpose of "Attracting female sexual interest". Anyone who argues otherwise is being at best severely deluded, and at worst, purposefully misogynistic in nature.
Perhaps Sigvald from AoS.
And I don't think he was made to be attractive specifically to women- I think he was designed to be attractive to EVERYONE cuz Slaanesh.
Still not 40k though, so point taken. Maybe when the EC drop we'll get some androgenous sexy dudes.
I don't recall my Necron lists ever being invalidated. Some rules shifted, pts changed, some things got better/some things got worse.... You know, normal crap edition to edition.
The Necrons were originally playable in 2nd edition, but Games Workshop discontinued the line of miniatures and did not print updated rules when the game went to 3rd edition (and remember, that was an edition change that invalidated all older codexes, so without a rules update, they were straight up unplayable).
That is the same edition switch that finally made Squats, Genestealer Cults, Demon World Armies, Eldar Harlequins and Chaos Cults unplayable.
They did add experimental rules for Harlequins and GSCs in Citadel Journal. Chaos cults got one Chapter Approved unit for CSM armies and it could be argued Lost and the Damned captured a lot of the human mortal aspect (I'm discounting the Chaos cultist unit unique to Alpha Legion lists in the 3.5th Chaos codex, as those are more akin to Legion sleeper operatives). Squats were overtly told to "counts as" in Citadel Journal.
hold on, its like Escher and Goliaths were made in concert to mirror each other aesthetically.... kind of like Sisters and Space marines
The primary difference is that Goliaths and Eschers have equal prominence in the marketing of Necromunda. They literally shared the initial boxset of the revamp. This is not the case for marines and sisters.
There's more to be lost in the comparison.
Sisters of Battle can be aesthetically compared to Black Templars, not Space Marines as a whole.
Marines might mean Space Wolves and have an army with crazy hair and tattoos wearing wolf pelts and bringing mutant wolves into battle.
- Marines also means White Scars and have curved swords and Mongolian inspired names
- Marines also means Salamanders and be all about the fire and the dragon pelts.
- Marines means Iron Hands, Bood Angels, Blood Drinkers, Dark Angels, Black Templars, Imperial Fists, Grey Knights, Raven Guard, Space Sharks, Rainbow Warriors, Storm Lords or Legion of the Damned.
The Sisters of Battle really have no answer to this variety (they lack both the aesthetic variety and the variety of characterization in the lore).
- And to some extent, Space Marine also means Iron Warriors, Thousand Sons, World Eaters, Emperor's Children, Black Legion, Alpha Legion, Death Guard, etc. Sisters just plain don't have anything like that going on.
(I do not want to detract from previous statements about why Marines and Goliaths aren't sexualized in the same ways as Sisters and Escher).
The term female gaze is used sometimes. When it's used most extensively it means things like a woman character who is dressed to show her social status to other women. It means a character who is treating the viewer as a source of emotional labor, or showing whether they are available as a source of social capital, or treating the viewer as someone to be possessed.
Old Goliath sculpts are constructed completely in the male gaze.
I think if there were 40k with sex appeal for women it would look like the Omegaverse.
I'm sorry, when did this become a reddit post about kinks involving 40k? First off, you should go on some sort of list of the out right disgusting nature of anything resembling a human in 40k is what gets you going. It's literal fetishized nazis dialed up to 11. The only thing that describes itself as "beautiful" is a cult of deamon worshipers following a god who delights in stuff that would make Quentin Tarentino blush.
I don't recall my Necron lists ever being invalidated. Some rules shifted, pts changed, some things got better/some things got worse.... You know, normal crap edition to edition.
The Necrons were originally playable in 2nd edition, but Games Workshop discontinued the line of miniatures and did not print updated rules when the game went to 3rd edition (and remember, that was an edition change that invalidated all older codexes, so without a rules update, they were straight up unplayable).
That is the same edition switch that finally made Squats, Genestealer Cults, Demon World Armies, Eldar Harlequins and Chaos Cults unplayable.
Huh? Necrons didn't get a list in the 3rd ed rulebook, but they got a White Dwarf Chapter Approved list (230) within six months, plus a further update, and then a list in Chapter Approved 2001.
The 2nd ed models (plus 3rd ed Immortals) were available up to the morning of the release of the 3rd ed Codex. (and via mail order thereafter).
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I'm sorry, when did this become a reddit post about kinks involving 40k? First off, you should go on some sort of list of the out right disgusting nature of anything resembling a human in 40k is what gets you going. It's literal fetishized nazis dialed up to 11. The only thing that describes itself as "beautiful" is a cult of deamon worshipers following a god who delights in stuff that would make Quentin Tarentino blush.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I'm sorry, when did this become a reddit post about kinks involving 40k? First off, you should go on some sort of list of the out right disgusting nature of anything resembling a human in 40k is what gets you going. It's literal fetishized nazis dialed up to 11. The only thing that describes itself as "beautiful" is a cult of deamon worshipers following a god who delights in stuff that would make Quentin Tarentino blush.
I don't like it because I like lore that retains internal integrity rather than bending to the exterior climate.
Did you forget the time GW completely changed the Necrons, invalidating every Necron player’s list, some of their units, and any background they cared about for their Necrons, all to make the Necrons less niche and more commercial to a wider market?
GE is *constantly* changing the lore for reasons exterior to the lore. The Tau aren’t a reaction to the exterior climate embracing anime? The Voltann and Genestealers aren’t embracing the exterior trans or nostalgia bait? Come on, man.
I repeat my refrain from earlier: it’s not that you have a problem with retcons, is that you have a uniquely outsized problem with *this* retcon that’s the red flag.
Your accusation is again misplaced. I hated the Necron retcon, and I loathe Primaris, returning Primarchs etc. And I was certainly vocal about it here, if you want to go digging for it. For Centurions and the various flyers I was vocal about those too, though orobably on Warseer before I migrated here.
I don't accept your accusation.
Was your reaction to this retcon “uniquely outsized” as Inout it compared to your reaction to the Necron retcon?
Nope.
In case you missed another detail I've posted several time now, I've advocated for the inclusion of female Custodes. It's annoying to me that it's a retcon, Imo they should have been there from the start.
I'm primarily here in defense of those who get slathered with the term 'bigot' when they're trying to tell you that they don't like representation/inclusion changes out of lore consistency or thematic reasons, because I believe those are valid opinions to hold.
Just Google “Hugh Jackman Wolverine male and female gaze”, then go images. Not a prank, I swear.
Behold. Men’s mag? Ripped and snarly Wolverine. Women’s mag? Lovely smile, open body posture, comfortable light blue jumper.
That is absolutely not gaze theory, because its about real life people. That is, its true, a popular meme image explaining what some people are more attracted to. Gaze theory describes characters in films, fictional constructs, and its not about what's attractive to men vs women. You made the same mental shortcut as Formosa that gaze must refer to what turns someone on
You also could have at least used the image that you were referring to. It's this <link>. Still nothing to do with gaze
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: The only thing that describes itself as "beautiful" is a cult of deamon worshipers following a god who delights in stuff that would make Quentin Tarentino blush.
If you didn’t fit the criteria, then my comment was aimed at someone else.
While I sympathize with people who dislike any and all retcons, I don’t see how people who get more upset about this minor retcon than they have been for many major retcons can be seen as anything but sensitive to the existence of women.
The people who are just as upset about this retcon as they are for the Primaris gene flawless/gene flaw retcon are not the ones who posted in this thread that the “violent backlash to Weimar Germany was justified”. There have been lots of similar posts deleted from here, so perhaps it’s easy to ignore that those posters exist and did in fact post lots of bigotry in this thread and the Background thread, but they do exist and they did make their bigotry clear. There are posters who post from the same positions but remember to keep the quiet part quiet, and they are not the same as posters who feel fairly miffed by all retcons just because they’re retcons.
I don't recall my Necron lists ever being invalidated. Some rules shifted, pts changed, some things got better/some things got worse.... You know, normal crap edition to edition.
The Necrons were originally playable in 2nd edition, but Games Workshop discontinued the line of miniatures and did not print updated rules when the game went to 3rd edition (and remember, that was an edition change that invalidated all older codexes, so without a rules update, they were straight up unplayable).
And then they got a 3e codex.
None of my existing 2e Necron models were invalidated - unless I chose to replace something with a better looking sculpt (wich I did with my Destroyers) I could field the exact same list....
Lore? Like I said, "eh". Cappy fluff vs different crappy fluff is still crappy fluff.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I'm sorry, when did this become a reddit post about kinks involving 40k? First off, you should go on some sort of list of the out right disgusting nature of anything resembling a human in 40k is what gets you going. It's literal fetishized nazis dialed up to 11. The only thing that describes itself as "beautiful" is a cult of deamon worshipers following a god who delights in stuff that would make Quentin Tarentino blush.
when did anyone bring up kink? is it because i was talking about butches and femmes??
Just Google “Hugh Jackman Wolverine male and female gaze”, then go images. Not a prank, I swear.
Behold. Men’s mag? Ripped and snarly Wolverine. Women’s mag? Lovely smile, open body posture, comfortable light blue jumper.
That is absolutely not gaze theory, because its about real life people. That is, its true, a popular meme image explaining what some people are more attracted to. Gaze theory describes characters in films, fictional constructs, and its not about what's attractive to men vs women. You made the same mental shortcut as Formosa that gaze must refer to what turns someone on
You also could have at least used the image that you were referring to. It's this <link>. Still nothing to do with gaze
male gaze is the most widely misunderstood academic term, right next to "death of the author". male gaze is an aspect of film theory, but it extends beyond that to include culture as a whole. importantly, as i said, it pertains to the patriarchal control that masculinity has over our society. "female gaze" cannot exist in a patriarchy because the institutional power does not support women in the same way it does for men
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I'm sorry, when did this become a reddit post about kinks involving 40k? First off, you should go on some sort of list of the out right disgusting nature of anything resembling a human in 40k is what gets you going. It's literal fetishized nazis dialed up to 11. The only thing that describes itself as "beautiful" is a cult of deamon worshipers following a god who delights in stuff that would make Quentin Tarentino blush.
when did anyone bring up kink? is it because i was talking about butches and femmes??
Just Google “Hugh Jackman Wolverine male and female gaze”, then go images. Not a prank, I swear.
Behold. Men’s mag? Ripped and snarly Wolverine. Women’s mag? Lovely smile, open body posture, comfortable light blue jumper.
That is absolutely not gaze theory, because its about real life people. That is, its true, a popular meme image explaining what some people are more attracted to. Gaze theory describes characters in films, fictional constructs, and its not about what's attractive to men vs women. You made the same mental shortcut as Formosa that gaze must refer to what turns someone on
You also could have at least used the image that you were referring to. It's this <link>. Still nothing to do with gaze
male gaze is the most widely misunderstood academic term, right next to "death of the author". male gaze is an aspect of film theory, but it extends beyond that to include culture as a whole. importantly, as i said, it pertains to the patriarchal control that masculinity has over our society. "female gaze" cannot exist in a patriarchy because the institutional power does not support women in the same way it does for men
Louder for the people in back. How do people both sides this issue? As if there exists a culture in the world where women are somehow treated as equal, but yet at the same time, have to be "explained" to about their physical inferiority? This forum thread is a perfect example.
StudentOfEtherium wrote: male gaze is an aspect of film theory, but it extends beyond that to include culture as a whole. importantly, as i said, it pertains to the patriarchal control that masculinity has over our society. "female gaze" cannot exist in a patriarchy because the institutional power does not support women in the same way it does for men
female gaze absolutely exists in the gender studies literature. it's even discussed in the ISA article you posted.
PenitentJake wrote: I think a part of the reason I feel this way is that I'm not good at telling the difference between male and female faces. I've known so many square jawed women and elfish men with cheekbones that I'm not sure I believe there's such a thing as a male face and a female face. And even if there is, I'm certainly not a good enough painter that the difference is going to shine through once I've done the deed.
Respectfully: does it matter? Is there a reason you need to be able to instantly tell from six feet away that a model is meant to represent a woman?
Inclusivity is representing historically marginalized groups as equals, not as something 'exotic' that needs to be specially called out. The new Astra Militarum models show how to do it right; under all that armor it's hard to tell the gender or ethnicity of a trooper but that's fine because it doesn't matter. They don't need to call attention to the presence of women and minorities in the Guard. They're an established part of the lore and they're there if you look for them. They simply exist.
Boobplate is a perfect example of why I think this focus on representation is misplaced, or at least incomplete. Representation is only one small part of inclusivity, and it matters a lot how you choose to represent someone. When marginalized groups are depicted as token characters, 'positive stereotypes', or eye candy with exaggerated sexual characteristics, it can be more off-putting than not being represented at all. It's being called out as different, and in a manner that many people find uncomfortable.
I'm not saying sexualization is inherently bad or always inappropriate, just that sexualized character design is not necessary to representation and can be outright counterproductive. Anecdotally I see more women playing as the genderless alien bugs or equal-opportunity murder twinks than the latex fetish nuns, and that doesn't surprise me at all.
Sorry it took a while to get back to you CB.
It matters in some units more than others- you've gotta remember, I play 40k almost like Inquisitor 28- I haven't fought with more than 500 points since 2008, and I'm a total Crusader- I'm that weird guy who tries to update models from battle to battle as the narrative evolves. They all have names, and the ones that can be used in KT have gestalt profiles. The challenge I most recently entered over at B&C is going to involve a character who will be represented by 6 different models over the course of her career- she'll grow from progena to novitiate to dominion, to dominion superior, to Palatine to Cannoness. By the time she ends her story, she'll have a skull on her base for every species she's killed in battle.
When you're that focused on narrative, and your forces are that small you invest a lot in the characters you create. For some of my characters, I may even end up generating Dark Heresy characters to help me fill in narrative blanks; I'm not sure I will need to- I think between Crusade and Spec Ops, I should have enough to work with. So yeah, to invest that kind of time in character building, I do want to see some differences on the table to anchor the characters to the model. I'm not a good painter, but I like to think I'm a thoughtful modeler. I try to represent enhancements on models, and I've been known to add purity seals to a model for a job well done.
Anyway, in a 2k standalone battle on a pickup night at the FLGS? Yeah, probably doesn't matter much.
The same 50 Infantry characters progressing in rank, getting caught up in side quests and other narrative events- each with unique profiles, backstories and narrative goals? It seems kinda weird to go to the trouble of augmenting a model's base between games to represent narrative progression when your models aren't distinctive enough to communicate character details as significant as gender.
Let me put it another way: GW makes bionic limb options for some power armoured models, and people like to use them to distinguish between models. Sometimes it's linked to their narrative; sometimes it reflects an equipment choice, and sometimes it's just an aesthetic choice. Now, I can say to that guy, "Why does it matter? Your dude could have a bionic limb inside the armour, you don't have to model it. Heck, it even makes more sense to keep your bionic inside armour."
But would you? I mean, most folks would assert that player's right to field "his dudes."
So with my dudes, you can tell the difference between the male and female models. That doesn't mean sexier, or smaller, or less badass, and it it also doesn't have to be super obvious- subtle is fine.
And taking a step back? A plea for mutual understanding.
I used the Wolverine thing as an example of what I understand male gaze and female gaze to mean, as a layman. As in both can agree a given human being is attractive. But what makes them attractive is by no means the same thing.
I am not, and have never claimed nor pretended to be a graduate of related studies.
I’m a mook. A smelly hooman. An average Joe.
And as such? I accept my knowledge and understanding is inherently flawed and incomplete.
By all means offer me pointers, tips and greater education. No problem there.
But please….do so whilst also addressing what I was getting at. Because if all you do is “I am learned a fing wot you not”? I’m afraid, whether you intended to or not, is come across a a bit of a jerk.
Just as I’m perfectly willing to accept that wasn’t your intent, I expect nothing less than the same in return.
Correct and update. Do not belittle. Remember that even the most learned of persons got that way by being wrong a lot of the time, never kind technically wrong.
male gaze is the most widely misunderstood academic term, right next to "death of the author". male gaze is an aspect of film theory, but it extends beyond that to include culture as a whole. importantly, as i said, it pertains to the patriarchal control that masculinity has over our society. "female gaze" cannot exist in a patriarchy because the institutional power does not support women in the same way it does for men
Certainly true, however if you restrict the context to film theory only, female gaze absolutely exists.
You've got a robot sitting on one side of the desk; on the other side of the desk, you've got a dude standing up on the left side of the desk and woman sitting on the right hand side. In a typical shot/ reverse shot scenario, an opening shot establishes the space and location of the characters. The a close up on the dude as he speaks, and then a reverse to the robot as it responds. If this second shot is from the eye level of a standing figure looking down at the robot on angle that suggests the robot is on the viewer's right hand side, that's male gaze. If the shot is from a seated eye-level, and looking toward the robot as if it is to the left of the viewer, that's female gaze.
Now what's cool is that gaze acts at the subconscious level. So in our example, the dude spoke to the robot, so when the robot replies, you expect he's talking to the dude, right? But if the camera angle is from the female gaze, depending upon how the shot is framed, it will "feel" like the bot is responding to the woman. You won't necessarily notice it... Unless you're looking for it.
So for years and years, studios would ALWAYS have the camera "looking" at the scene through the man's eyes. Now not only is this being done via angles, it's also what the character chooses to look at; a male gaze will tend to capture the bodies of attractive women in the frame- more close ups of men, because it isn't important to have the chest in the frame. But when you look at women, you zoom out far enough to catch the chest... Because the camera is looking through the eyes of a man.
Dialogue between two women in a room with no men? Close ups work in this context, because their is no male in the scene from whose viewpoint to gaze. And women are less likely to be checking each other out... Unless that's a specific plot point (like a meangirl gaze sizing up a loser-girl looking for weakness).
Now, granted, when we move BEYOND the cinematic context, yes... Female gaze does become more problematic as a concept, and I confess that I'm not really qualified to speak in much depth about that, though you can see elements of patriarchal control at work in the examples I cited above... But fortunately, you can also see the effectiveness of using the same camera tricks to undermine the patriarchy that have been used to reinforce it for most of the history of cinema.
And what's starting to break it, and make it more interesting and varied, is the increasing participation of women in the film industry as directors, producers, writers, cinematographers and auteures rather than being restricted to the other side of the camera for years where their archetypal options were generally restricted to childlike innocence, rampant promiscuity, motherhood or crone.
I used the Wolverine thing as an example of what I understand male gaze and female gaze to mean, as a layman. As in both can agree a given human being is attractive. But what makes them attractive is by no means the same thing.
I am not, and have never claimed nor pretended to be a graduate of related studies.
I’m a mook. A smelly hooman. An average Joe.
And as such? I accept my knowledge and understanding is inherently flawed and incomplete.
By all means offer me pointers, tips and greater education. No problem there.
But please….do so whilst also addressing what I was getting at. Because if all you do is “I am learned a fing wot you not”? I’m afraid, whether you intended to or not, is come across a a bit of a jerk.
Just as I’m perfectly willing to accept that wasn’t your intent, I expect nothing less than the same in return.
Correct and update. Do not belittle. Remember that even the most learned of persons got that way by being wrong a lot of the time, never kind technically wrong.
dw, any snidiness on my part was aimed at other people. i haven't taken any issue with you in these threads
I'm curious how the male/female gaze applies to the insane instagram model arena, because I'm pretty sure most of that content is primarily aimed at women. By women, for women, and having horrible effects on teenage girls.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I used the Wolverine thing as an example of what I understand male gaze and female gaze to mean
Different things to different people, divorced from the context of its origins, colour by culture and individual, and used to create understanding, and misunderstanding, and as a cudgel. Like most things.
The wolverine search led to someone comparing the cover of a muscle magazine to a housekeeping magazine as if the two were remotely the same thing. Put Jackman on the cover of a 'male-focused' model train magazine and they'd dress him like Mr Rogers, search for a female muscle magazine and it's going to be huge jackedwoman all the way.
Same thing for fem-custodes - some people see an attempt to create wider diversity, some see lazy marketing, and others see a cudgel by be wielded by or against them.
It's purely my own anecdotal experience but at the 2 FLGS'es I frequent representation is largely irrelevant and it's more about "these models look cool and I like the backstory." We got guys playing Sisters of Battle, gals playing Marines or nids and even tall people playing Squats.
If we were to believe the internet and that representation of the player is a big part of wargaming what are they saying about the people playing germans in flames of war or bolt action?
Anywho, even if GW had done a proper lore explanation and had actually released female custodes models they probably wouldn't be selling like hotcakes because at least in my opinion GW is pretty bad at making female faces when compared to other companies like Reaper Miniatures, Kingdom Death and Corvus Belli. That's why I have helmets on all my SoB's and 3d printed heads for my SoS :/
If we were to believe the internet and that representation of the player is a big part of wargaming what are they saying about the people playing germans in flames of war or bolt action?
Duymon wrote: If we were to believe the internet and that representation of the player is a big part of wargaming what are they saying about the people playing germans in flames of war or bolt action?
I think there's a big difference between Warhammer and historical miniatures games, where the former is much more often a creative exercise akin to making a D&D character. We pick an army and choose models we like the look of and paint them in schemes we like. Some go as far as to name their general and give them a backstory, et cetera. Those extroverted and talented among us might go so far as to cosplay our chosen faction.
Most people playing as the Germans in Flames of War generally don't do to this extent - correct me if I'm off base here. For historical games, especially those covering wars only a few generations in the past - for stuff like Vikings v. Britons the historical distance has lent them a certain comfortable degree of unreality - it would be considered kind of weird for someone to get so into the Germans as to show up to the store dressed as an officer and inventing their own OCs. This is reasonably well-trodden ground for discussion, and the old bit by David Mitchell about how Vikings weren't considered problematic to cheer for in culture anymore might be relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJqEKYbh-LU
I think there's a big difference between Warhammer and historical miniatures games, where the former is much more often a creative exercise akin to making a D&D character. We pick an army and choose models we like the look of and paint them in schemes we like. Some go as far as to name their general and give them a backstory, et cetera. Those extroverted and talented among us might go so far as to cosplay our chosen faction.
I would like to introduce you to Historical Re-enactment.
Where fans of ancient nations don't just create their own characters, dress up as them, but even get together in large groups to play out fights, scenes and events. Heck they even go the extra mile and recreate villages/towns and life in them at events the public attend.
I think WW 1 and 2 are different only in so much as they are so recent that many of us have at least had a parent/grandparent directly involved with it or still feeling the after effects of it. Though as each decade passes these numbers dwindle and the disconnection with the event becomes greater. Eventually WW1 and 2 will likely slip into the same shoes as Vikings.
So nope I don't think historical and fantasy are too much different on that front. People still project themselves into the game and get caught up in the story. The difference is the "lore" for fantasy is made up whilst the lore for reality is based on historical fact. Historical games also have a whole wing of simulating real world encounters where the objective is to see if they can re-create history or change history. Fantasy games don't really have that because there are no real events to play out and creators of fantasy games have never really pushed for that format to be a thing. I suspect its also somewhat linked to game scale - fantasy and sci fi, whilst having 8-20mm (which simulate much larger battles more viably than 28-32mm) they've never, thus far, become mainstream big popular formats like they are with historical games.
But in the end I think its just something fantasy army creators have never really explored
Let's be honest: there's a segment of this hobby that will always accuse GW of lazy 'everything'.
...and others see a cudgel by be wielded by or against them.
The only people who see this as a cudgel are the 'no girls allowed' crowd. The last 35+ pages make that pretty clear. And let's not forget that virtually all of the removed posts were from that camp.
I would like to introduce you to Historical Re-enactment.
That's a good point, and one I omitted because I don't know any reenators myself so I couldn't assay how accurate my cliche impressions of that community were and how much overlap there was between them and wargamers.
I'm absolutely flabbergasted that I'm saying this, but Discourse Minis, one of the chief peddlers of manufactured warhammer drama, has a pretty good take on this manufactured warhammer drama.
Manfred von Drakken wrote: Let's be honest: there's a segment of this hobby that will always accuse GW of lazy 'everything'.
True, but 'we have always been at war with eastasia' is blunt at best.
A lot of people feel disenfranchised about the world in general and telling them that what they know is wrong, no questions asked, just push them towards asshats who are ready to tell them that they are right.
lord_blackfang wrote: I'm absolutely flabbergasted that I'm saying this, but Discourse Minis, one of the chief peddlers of manufactured warhammer drama, has a pretty good take on this manufactured warhammer drama.
Jesus Christ I didn't even look. Then again, it always is on youtube, the whole platform is a reactionary cesspool. Personally when I need to restore my faith in humanity I look for the same topic on Imgur.
How Discourse manages to keep doing what she does with an inbox that's, I imagine, even worse than her comments section, I don't think I'll ever quite understand. I don't think I've ever seen anyone give her positive reaction or feedback on any topic, even the more levelheaded ones.
All that vitriol and excrement, it's like Andry Dufresne in that sewer pipe, except there's monetization at the end of it, I guess.
As I've been thinking about all this I've come to another realization and just want to post about a shift in the demographic locally that's been really bugging me. And that's that my game shop has gone from blue-collar to white-collar.
When I was showing up to hobby night 10 years ago, we had a security guard or two, an ex boxer, a mailman, a bike repair guy, the shop-keeps, a commission painter, a short-order cook, a nurse, and a smattering of computer engineers along with a number of local students.
These days when I show up to hobby night it's more computer engineers, data analists, marketing strategists, hardware prototypers and other higher-education types. It's been a heck of a shift. There's been more women, and that's nice (none of whom I've seen play, just paint), but the occupational shift has been stark. Incidentally the old crew was more racially diverse, and the new crew is predominently white and asian.
I mostly chalk that up to local demographics shifting about, but I have seen one or two of them show up on nights when cheaper games are being played, Battletech iirc, which makes me think that the aggressive churn of 40k might also be part of it.
Yes I have seen a massive shift in class of who plays wargames. Used to be lots of blue collar/lower middle class. That former group very scarce now. Not sure why, perhaps we didn't get our kids into it? Other things have died of too, for example the who railway thing, in numbers if not sales. Maybe this was how wargaming stayed alive?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Of all the posts I could respond to, things I could argue (quick, someone on the internet is wrong!), I have eventually realised... It seems some people had the defining traits in 40k as gender and sex. And not the NSFW kind. Just mundane one. I eventually realised in the 36 years I have been playing with toy soldiers, not once was whether the model was male or female an issue. I am really baffled at all these people for whom it apparently is.
As I've been thinking about all this I've come to another realization and just want to post about a shift in the demographic locally that's been really bugging me. And that's that my game shop has gone from blue-collar to white-collar.
When I was showing up to hobby night 10 years ago, we had a security guard or two, an ex boxer, a mailman, a bike repair guy, the shop-keeps, a commission painter, a short-order cook, a nurse, and a smattering of computer engineers along with a number of local students.
These days when I show up to hobby night it's more computer engineers, data analists, marketing strategists, hardware prototypers and other higher-education types. It's been a heck of a shift. There's been more women, and that's nice (none of whom I've seen play, just paint), but the occupational shift has been stark. Incidentally the old crew was more racially diverse, and the new crew is predominently white and asian.
I mostly chalk that up to local demographics shifting about, but I have seen one or two of them show up on nights when cheaper games are being played, Battletech iirc, which makes me think that the aggressive churn of 40k might also be part of it.
Yes I have seen a massive shift in class of who plays wargames. Used to be lots of blue collar/lower middle class. That former group very scarce now. Not sure why, perhaps we didn't get our kids into it? Other things have died of too, for example the who railway thing, in numbers if not sales. Maybe this was how wargaming stayed alive?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Of all the posts I could respond to, things I could argue (quick, someone on the internet is wrong!), I have eventually realised... It seems some people had the defining traits in 40k as gender and sex. And not the NSFW kind. Just mundane one. I eventually realised in the 36 years I have been playing with toy soldiers, not once was whether the model was male or female an issue. I am really baffled at all these people for whom it apparently is.
Chris, I'm going to make the assumption you're male?
Because if you are, you're represented in 40k, and most all other media to boot. The typical show, movie, whatever-it's designed, if not FOR male audiences, at least with male audiences in mind.
The same is not true for women. It's getting better, that's for sure! But in different steps in different medias. And there's still a way to go.
I think for narrative players, just being able to represent and explore different characters is important. It’s fairly basic desire that I think is fairly normal.
In a setting that’s often held up as one of the best ever, it’s kind surprising how little it gets to explore. Both the bad and the good within the setting.
JNAProductions wrote: Chris, I'm going to make the assumption you're male?
Because if you are, you're represented in 40k, and most all other media to boot. The typical show, movie, whatever-it's designed, if not FOR male audiences, at least with male audiences in mind.
The same is not true for women. It's getting better, that's for sure! But in different steps in different medias. And there's still a way to go.
Oh I get that, I meant more that you could make every single model female and I wouldn't bat an eye, and if that got more people playing great. I guess i don't see them as gendered models, just as playing pieces. I might be different if playing historicals/present day, if the females involved weren't accurate, but even then I would shrug and focus on the rules system.
As I've been thinking about all this I've come to another realization and just want to post about a shift in the demographic locally that's been really bugging me. And that's that my game shop has gone from blue-collar to white-collar.
When I was showing up to hobby night 10 years ago, we had a security guard or two, an ex boxer, a mailman, a bike repair guy, the shop-keeps, a commission painter, a short-order cook, a nurse, and a smattering of computer engineers along with a number of local students.
These days when I show up to hobby night it's more computer engineers, data analists, marketing strategists, hardware prototypers and other higher-education types. It's been a heck of a shift. There's been more women, and that's nice (none of whom I've seen play, just paint), but the occupational shift has been stark. Incidentally the old crew was more racially diverse, and the new crew is predominently white and asian.
I mostly chalk that up to local demographics shifting about, but I have seen one or two of them show up on nights when cheaper games are being played, Battletech iirc, which makes me think that the aggressive churn of 40k might also be part of it.
Yes I have seen a massive shift in class of who plays wargames. Used to be lots of blue collar/lower middle class. That former group very scarce now. Not sure why, perhaps we didn't get our kids into it? Other things have died of too, for example the who railway thing, in numbers if not sales. Maybe this was how wargaming stayed alive?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Of all the posts I could respond to, things I could argue (quick, someone on the internet is wrong!), I have eventually realised... It seems some people had the defining traits in 40k as gender and sex. And not the NSFW kind. Just mundane one. I eventually realised in the 36 years I have been playing with toy soldiers, not once was whether the model was male or female an issue. I am really baffled at all these people for whom it apparently is.
Chris, I'm going to make the assumption you're male?
Because if you are, you're represented in 40k, and most all other media to boot. The typical show, movie, whatever-it's designed, if not FOR male audiences, at least with male audiences in mind.
The same is not true for women. It's getting better, that's for sure! But in different steps in different medias. And there's still a way to go.
Women are represented in 40K too, as well as other media. And I argue that there is a hell of a lot more genderless marketing than there is gendered marketing, so we can lose the whole patriarchy talk.
As I've been thinking about all this I've come to another realization and just want to post about a shift in the demographic locally that's been really bugging me. And that's that my game shop has gone from blue-collar to white-collar.
When I was showing up to hobby night 10 years ago, we had a security guard or two, an ex boxer, a mailman, a bike repair guy, the shop-keeps, a commission painter, a short-order cook, a nurse, and a smattering of computer engineers along with a number of local students.
These days when I show up to hobby night it's more computer engineers, data analists, marketing strategists, hardware prototypers and other higher-education types. It's been a heck of a shift. There's been more women, and that's nice (none of whom I've seen play, just paint), but the occupational shift has been stark. Incidentally the old crew was more racially diverse, and the new crew is predominently white and asian.
I mostly chalk that up to local demographics shifting about, but I have seen one or two of them show up on nights when cheaper games are being played, Battletech iirc, which makes me think that the aggressive churn of 40k might also be part of it.
Yes I have seen a massive shift in class of who plays wargames. Used to be lots of blue collar/lower middle class. That former group very scarce now. Not sure why, perhaps we didn't get our kids into it? Other things have died of too, for example the who railway thing, in numbers if not sales. Maybe this was how wargaming stayed alive?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Of all the posts I could respond to, things I could argue (quick, someone on the internet is wrong!), I have eventually realised... It seems some people had the defining traits in 40k as gender and sex. And not the NSFW kind. Just mundane one. I eventually realised in the 36 years I have been playing with toy soldiers, not once was whether the model was male or female an issue. I am really baffled at all these people for whom it apparently is.
Chris, I'm going to make the assumption you're male?
Because if you are, you're represented in 40k, and most all other media to boot. The typical show, movie, whatever-it's designed, if not FOR male audiences, at least with male audiences in mind.
The same is not true for women. It's getting better, that's for sure! But in different steps in different medias. And there's still a way to go.
Women are represented in 40K too, as well as other media. And I argue that there is a hell of a lot more genderless marketing than there is gendered marketing, so we can lose the whole patriarchy talk.
Seriously asking, are you being sarcastic? You think marketing is more genderless than gendered? Do you mind if I ask what country you put your blinders on in?
As I've been thinking about all this I've come to another realization and just want to post about a shift in the demographic locally that's been really bugging me. And that's that my game shop has gone from blue-collar to white-collar.
When I was showing up to hobby night 10 years ago, we had a security guard or two, an ex boxer, a mailman, a bike repair guy, the shop-keeps, a commission painter, a short-order cook, a nurse, and a smattering of computer engineers along with a number of local students.
These days when I show up to hobby night it's more computer engineers, data analists, marketing strategists, hardware prototypers and other higher-education types. It's been a heck of a shift. There's been more women, and that's nice (none of whom I've seen play, just paint), but the occupational shift has been stark. Incidentally the old crew was more racially diverse, and the new crew is predominently white and asian.
I mostly chalk that up to local demographics shifting about, but I have seen one or two of them show up on nights when cheaper games are being played, Battletech iirc, which makes me think that the aggressive churn of 40k might also be part of it.
Yes I have seen a massive shift in class of who plays wargames. Used to be lots of blue collar/lower middle class. That former group very scarce now. Not sure why, perhaps we didn't get our kids into it? Other things have died of too, for example the who railway thing, in numbers if not sales. Maybe this was how wargaming stayed alive?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Of all the posts I could respond to, things I could argue (quick, someone on the internet is wrong!), I have eventually realised... It seems some people had the defining traits in 40k as gender and sex. And not the NSFW kind. Just mundane one. I eventually realised in the 36 years I have been playing with toy soldiers, not once was whether the model was male or female an issue. I am really baffled at all these people for whom it apparently is.
Chris, I'm going to make the assumption you're male?
Because if you are, you're represented in 40k, and most all other media to boot. The typical show, movie, whatever-it's designed, if not FOR male audiences, at least with male audiences in mind.
The same is not true for women. It's getting better, that's for sure! But in different steps in different medias. And there's still a way to go.
Women are represented in 40K too, as well as other media. And I argue that there is a hell of a lot more genderless marketing than there is gendered marketing, so we can lose the whole patriarchy talk.
i wanna know what things you're seeing advertised with non-binary people. did 40k stop using space marines as the face of the game when i wasn't looking?
Just Tony wrote: Women are represented in 40K too, as well as other media. And I argue that there is a hell of a lot more genderless marketing than there is gendered marketing, so we can lose the whole patriarchy talk.
Until there IS no patriarchy, we NEED to keep talking about it.
As I've been thinking about all this I've come to another realization and just want to post about a shift in the demographic locally that's been really bugging me. And that's that my game shop has gone from blue-collar to white-collar.
When I was showing up to hobby night 10 years ago, we had a security guard or two, an ex boxer, a mailman, a bike repair guy, the shop-keeps, a commission painter, a short-order cook, a nurse, and a smattering of computer engineers along with a number of local students.
These days when I show up to hobby night it's more computer engineers, data analists, marketing strategists, hardware prototypers and other higher-education types. It's been a heck of a shift. There's been more women, and that's nice (none of whom I've seen play, just paint), but the occupational shift has been stark. Incidentally the old crew was more racially diverse, and the new crew is predominently white and asian.
I mostly chalk that up to local demographics shifting about, but I have seen one or two of them show up on nights when cheaper games are being played, Battletech iirc, which makes me think that the aggressive churn of 40k might also be part of it.
Yes I have seen a massive shift in class of who plays wargames. Used to be lots of blue collar/lower middle class. That former group very scarce now. Not sure why, perhaps we didn't get our kids into it? Other things have died of too, for example the who railway thing, in numbers if not sales. Maybe this was how wargaming stayed alive?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Of all the posts I could respond to, things I could argue (quick, someone on the internet is wrong!), I have eventually realised... It seems some people had the defining traits in 40k as gender and sex. And not the NSFW kind. Just mundane one. I eventually realised in the 36 years I have been playing with toy soldiers, not once was whether the model was male or female an issue. I am really baffled at all these people for whom it apparently is.
Chris, I'm going to make the assumption you're male?
Because if you are, you're represented in 40k, and most all other media to boot. The typical show, movie, whatever-it's designed, if not FOR male audiences, at least with male audiences in mind.
The same is not true for women. It's getting better, that's for sure! But in different steps in different medias. And there's still a way to go.
Women are represented in 40K too, as well as other media. And I argue that there is a hell of a lot more genderless marketing than there is gendered marketing, so we can lose the whole patriarchy talk.
Seriously asking, are you being sarcastic? You think marketing is more genderless than gendered? Do you mind if I ask what country you put your blinders on in?
The US, and I never said that there wasn't gendered marketing, but that agendered marketing is the predominance as everyone spends money nowadays. I know this may come as a blinding shock to you, but corporations really don't want to kneecap half their sales by making something cater to one demographic specifically. Unless it's a niche item which has to cater to one demographic specifically.
As I've been thinking about all this I've come to another realization and just want to post about a shift in the demographic locally that's been really bugging me. And that's that my game shop has gone from blue-collar to white-collar.
When I was showing up to hobby night 10 years ago, we had a security guard or two, an ex boxer, a mailman, a bike repair guy, the shop-keeps, a commission painter, a short-order cook, a nurse, and a smattering of computer engineers along with a number of local students.
These days when I show up to hobby night it's more computer engineers, data analists, marketing strategists, hardware prototypers and other higher-education types. It's been a heck of a shift. There's been more women, and that's nice (none of whom I've seen play, just paint), but the occupational shift has been stark. Incidentally the old crew was more racially diverse, and the new crew is predominently white and asian.
I mostly chalk that up to local demographics shifting about, but I have seen one or two of them show up on nights when cheaper games are being played, Battletech iirc, which makes me think that the aggressive churn of 40k might also be part of it.
Yes I have seen a massive shift in class of who plays wargames. Used to be lots of blue collar/lower middle class. That former group very scarce now. Not sure why, perhaps we didn't get our kids into it? Other things have died of too, for example the who railway thing, in numbers if not sales. Maybe this was how wargaming stayed alive?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Of all the posts I could respond to, things I could argue (quick, someone on the internet is wrong!), I have eventually realised... It seems some people had the defining traits in 40k as gender and sex. And not the NSFW kind. Just mundane one. I eventually realised in the 36 years I have been playing with toy soldiers, not once was whether the model was male or female an issue. I am really baffled at all these people for whom it apparently is.
Chris, I'm going to make the assumption you're male?
Because if you are, you're represented in 40k, and most all other media to boot. The typical show, movie, whatever-it's designed, if not FOR male audiences, at least with male audiences in mind.
The same is not true for women. It's getting better, that's for sure! But in different steps in different medias. And there's still a way to go.
Women are represented in 40K too, as well as other media. And I argue that there is a hell of a lot more genderless marketing than there is gendered marketing, so we can lose the whole patriarchy talk.
i wanna know what things you're seeing advertised with non-binary people. did 40k stop using space marines as the face of the game when i wasn't looking?
Face of the game and not being there at all are two entirely different things, so stop arguing in bad faith.
Why we're at it with bs strawman arguments:what exactly does a nonbinary Warhammer model look like?
Just Tony wrote: Women are represented in 40K too, as well as other media. And I argue that there is a hell of a lot more genderless marketing than there is gendered marketing, so we can lose the whole patriarchy talk.
Until there IS no patriarchy, we NEED to keep talking about it.
Absolutely. Tell me how women are subjugated to the point where they can't participate in this hobby or in sales purchases entirely. Go on, I'll wait...
I'm also waiting with baited breath how you can tell me we can fight the patriarchy by painting our little toys. After you tell me how there are no women in seats of power, nor ruling nations, nor running corporations, nor in any sort of position that you claim that they are kept out of.
Just because there aren’t legal barriers doesn’t mean there aren’t barriers.
And a non-binary 40k model could be a Guard soldier. Could be an Eldar, of any stripe. Could be a Chaos model.
The Ad Mech is, generally, far enough removed from concerns that they’d be agender more than non-binary, but you could easily have non-binary Tech Priests or Marshals.
My entire Crimson Fists army is nongendered as far as I'm concerned. And my entire Dark Eldar army is nonbinary. Why? Because there are no physical markers to denote that on the models, and if there was it would be a horrible stereotypical thing as there's not one item that can denote that.
The US, and I never said that there wasn't gendered marketing, but that agendered marketing is the predominance as everyone spends money nowadays. I know this may come as a blinding shock to you, but corporations really don't want to kneecap half their sales by making something cater to one demographic specifically. Unless it's a niche item which has to cater to one demographic specifically.
Agendered marketing may be more common in general- but I don't know if I believe that either. Shampoo washes hair, which both men and women have... Yet Pantene is for women, while Axe, Irish Spring and Old Spice are for men. A Mach 5 razor will shave a woman's legs just as easily as a Venus Razor, but for some reason, both exist.
Companies WANT to make his and her products to sell twice as many. Oh, they'll TELL you Secret Deodorant is PH balanced for women, and I think on some level, we all know that... But brother, when's the last time YOU walked out with a stick of Secret? And if you ever did, would you keep it in your locker at the gym?
Now back to 40k. I'll concede- Nids are legit gender neutral, and they were in this year's starter sets... So granted, you can (for once) find gender neutral models in every starter box, along with a bunch of boys. Not a woman to be found though. In fact, can you name a starter box that's included a female model?
Is there a female faction that's going to get at least four dexes, or is it only the exclusively male faction that gets more than one dex?
And BTW: there actually is no such thing as a purely female faction. Sisters have men in the dex (though they are not "Sororitas" proper, they do have the faction keyword) and SoS are part of Talons whether you choose to field them or not.
But Space Marines, both generic and flavour of the month, have zero female models in their dexes.
Just Tony wrote: I'm also waiting with baited breath how you can tell me we can fight the patriarchy by painting our little toys. After you tell me how there are no women in seats of power, nor ruling nations, nor running corporations, nor in any sort of position that you claim that they are kept out of.
Just because women can be elected, doesn't mean they're elected equitably. Even a cursory Google search tells me that less than 30% of the House of Representatives are women, despite women making up a (very) slight majority of the population.
Just because women are present doesn't mean they're making the rules.
it's disingenuous to claim that marketing and material forces in the real world are not gendered and that 40k is not a game whose primary audience is men. it doesn't matter if your space marines are non-binary, because that's as canon as if i made a space marines army that's only women. the face of 40k is snarling angry men, and individuals' armies or custom forces don't change that
People are blind to the default or 'standard' - it becomes invisible due to its ubiquity.
Only when people start deliberately discussing women or gender diverse people does gender suddenly 'appear'.
But in actual fact, most human societies default to masculine gender in all things.
The result is a bias against women or gender diverse people because they are the ones seen as gendering, when the default is already gendered.
You've just got to see discussions of orks or transformers as not being 'gendered' despite being described with male pronouns and using masculine language, to see how pernicious this is.
You've just got to see discussions of orks or transformers as not being 'gendered' despite being described with male pronouns and using masculine language, to see how pernicious this is.
I think those are bad examples, as both are "combative", existing in the traditionally male dominated realm of warrior/soldier, and in the case of transformers and 40k, aimed at boys.
Not saying the overall point is wrong, just that those examples don't seem good for illustrating 'default'.
I think boats and cars are often referred to as female, no?
There’s also the skewing of being part of the represented majority.
I’m white, cis-het, white collar male. I’m also lucky enough to be fairly tall. Having been born in 1980, for all of my life I’ve not exactly struggled to see positive representation on the big and small screen, and in the other media I regularly consume.
I also have further advantage/privilege. Until I open my mouth and my Scottish accent is heard? Nobody is going to think I’m anything but indigenous to Kent, where I live (South East England). And that extended to my holiday in New York. Unless I spoke to someone, nobody would have any reason to think I wasn’t born and bred New Yorker.
As such, I have good representation in media, and only very, very rarely get hassled for being “other”. The only example in recent years I can immediately recall was a customer going off on one about the Scots during a phone call. Which lead to me hanging up, on account we’re allowed to do that.
Now that’s an advantage and privilege I’ve done nothing to personally earn or deserve. And in an ideal world, it’s something I’d want all humans to enjoy, and if that happens I lose nothing other than a label of being privileged. But the underlying benefit of said privilege would remain.
Representation does matter. Just look at the reactions of some when others start to get some of that representation.
For GW? Putting different skin tones on box and cover art, adding new lore that Custodes can be either sex etc costs….very little. The background for a codex would be written anyway. The models on box art would be painted anyway, same for cover art. And it makes the overall hobby more inviting.
Now, that’s not to say “they put a dark skinned hero prominently on a book cover, therefore lots of young people with dark skin suddenly got involved”. Because that’s not how the anything works or will ever work. But. It is more inviting. When you can see a setting or media treating you as just part of the story? You don’t feel excluded.
Even if those efforts don’t attract new blood from different communities? Looking back at GW’s financials, it clearly and evidentially hasn’t caused a detriment.
Shonky analogy? Few years back when my friends started having kids? I’d still invite new parents out for drinks. I knew the pressures of parenthood would likely prevent them from coming, but I still wanted them to feel welcome. Plus, you never know. That Friday night might be a night where they can in fact come out to play, because the Grandparents are visiting and don’t mind sitting for a few hours.
It’s the open invitation that matters, not whether it’s accepted.
I feel like this is Tuck Buckford, arguing with Erik from Internet Comment Etiquette, arguing with Sargon of Arkhad.(SP?)
It's basically comedy at this point, but it's a clear example of some of the deeper issues in this hobby. The sexism, misogyny, racism, whataboutism. It's all on display here.
I don't recall my Necron lists ever being invalidated. Some rules shifted, pts changed, some things got better/some things got worse.... You know, normal crap edition to edition.
The Necrons were originally playable in 2nd edition, but Games Workshop discontinued the line of miniatures and did not print updated rules when the game went to 3rd edition (and remember, that was an edition change that invalidated all older codexes, so without a rules update, they were straight up unplayable).
That is the same edition switch that finally made Squats, Genestealer Cults, Demon World Armies, Eldar Harlequins and Chaos Cults unplayable.
They did add experimental rules for Harlequins and GSCs in Citadel Journal. Chaos cults got one Chapter Approved unit for CSM armies and it could be argued Lost and the Damned captured a lot of the human mortal aspect (I'm discounting the Chaos cultist unit unique to Alpha Legion lists in the 3.5th Chaos codex, as those are more akin to Legion sleeper operatives). Squats were overtly told to "counts as" in Citadel Journal.
Armies were official and playable and then they were not playable when the new edition was released. Necrons got an official codex long before any of those other ones.
I guess I was leaving out the Legion of the Damned, since they'd had an official list in WD which was erased. I wasn't counting them mostly because they could obviously turn into marines.
- Chaos Cults were their own army in 2nd ed, and I think they spent about 5 years before the Lost and Damned book came out (that book was the bridge between 3rd ed and 4th). They weren't a unit you'd add to a chaos space marine force, since the whole point of the army was that you'd outnumber a mob of orks by a fair margine.
- I admit that I never saw a copy of those Citadel Journals on any store shelve (either at a GW store or another LGS). But I guess having a published unofficial list is something.
- The Demon World army continues to be unplayable in 40k to this very day. (it was not the chaos demon army that was later released, it was more like binging a WFB chaos army to the table).
I'd like to think nobody here is crazy enough to think that simply putting boobs on more of our models is suddenly gonna increase our female/male player base split to fifty percent.
No, it is more about not actively disinviting young women to play. I have a daughter who is the age I was when I started playing, and she's definitely more interested in games with powerful women.
Will it bring everything to 50/50? No, but that's no reason to not be awful to the women who are considering becoming gamers.
I don't recall my Necron lists ever being invalidated. Some rules shifted, pts changed, some things got better/some things got worse.... You know, normal crap edition to edition.
The Necrons were originally playable in 2nd edition, but Games Workshop discontinued the line of miniatures and did not print updated rules when the game went to 3rd edition (and remember, that was an edition change that invalidated all older codexes, so without a rules update, they were straight up unplayable).
That is the same edition switch that finally made Squats, Genestealer Cults, Demon World Armies, Eldar Harlequins and Chaos Cults unplayable.
They did add experimental rules for Harlequins and GSCs in Citadel Journal. Chaos cults got one Chapter Approved unit for CSM armies and it could be argued Lost and the Damned captured a lot of the human mortal aspect (I'm discounting the Chaos cultist unit unique to Alpha Legion lists in the 3.5th Chaos codex, as those are more akin to Legion sleeper operatives). Squats were overtly told to "counts as" in Citadel Journal.
Armies were official and playable and then they were not playable when the new edition was released. Necrons got an official codex long before any of those other ones.
I guess I was leaving out the Legion of the Damned, since they'd had an official list in WD which was erased. I wasn't counting them mostly because they could obviously turn into marines.
- Chaos Cults were their own army in 2nd ed, and I think they spent about 5 years before the Lost and Damned book came out (that book was the bridge between 3rd ed and 4th). They weren't a unit you'd add to a chaos space marine force, since the whole point of the army was that you'd outnumber a mob of orks by a fair margine.
- I admit that I never saw a copy of those Citadel Journals on any store shelve (either at a GW store or another LGS). But I guess having a published unofficial list is something.
- The Demon World army continues to be unplayable in 40k to this very day. (it was not the chaos demon army that was later released, it was more like binging a WFB chaos army to the table).
I'd like to think nobody here is crazy enough to think that simply putting boobs on more of our models is suddenly gonna increase our female/male player base split to fifty percent.
No, it is more about not actively disinviting young women to play. I have a daughter who is the age I was when I started playing, and she's definitely more interested in games with powerful women.
Will it bring everything to 50/50? No, but that's no reason to not be awful to the women who are considering becoming gamers.
I wonder if your daughter would be willing to play.The star wars battlefront games that didn't have female characters as playable characters. I'm betting she would just like every other female gamer who played those games. Not seeing yourself in the game is not a barrier to entry.
Once more, I'm not calling for the eradication of female models and have a rather significant representation of female models in all of my armies that contain them. I'm just not game for reversing a whole bunch of lore in order to pander. I also find it highly suspicious when forced integration isn't a two way street.
Just Tony wrote: I wonder if your daughter would be willing to play.The star wars battlefront games that didn't have female characters as playable characters. I'm betting she would just like every other female gamer who played those games. Not seeing yourself in the game is not a barrier to entry.
For you.
Once more, I'm not calling for the eradication of female models and have a rather significant representation of female models in all of my armies that contain them. I'm just not game for reversing a whole bunch of lore in order to pander. I also find it highly suspicious when forced integration isn't a two way street.
A "whole bunch of lore" in this case is only a few lines of background text across two books from the last five years. And, for the umpteenth time, inclusion isn't pandering just because you don't like it.
Just Tony wrote: I wonder if your daughter would be willing to play.The star wars battlefront games that didn't have female characters as playable characters. I'm betting she would just like every other female gamer who played those games. Not seeing yourself in the game is not a barrier to entry.
For you.
Once more, I'm not calling for the eradication of female models and have a rather significant representation of female models in all of my armies that contain them. I'm just not game for reversing a whole bunch of lore in order to pander. I also find it highly suspicious when forced integration isn't a two way street.
A "whole bunch of lore" in this case is only a few lines of background text across two books from the last five years. And, for the umpteenth time, inclusion isn't pandering just because you don't like it.
Both of my Eldar forces and my 3 Elven armies have female models in them? They did not have to rewrite law to make this happen. This is inclusion. Orcs and Orks are both established as spore based fungoid lifeforms, so they do not have gendered reproduction or secondary genders in any way, shape, or form. Tossing out decades of lore to rewrite their history in order to appeal to another demographic or to capitulate to an increasingly loud section of their fan base expressly for sales purposes would indeed be pandering.
See my earlier post, where the invitation existing is the important thing.
You want your product to have as wide a market appeal as possible. Because you don’t want to risk shutting people out entirely unintentionally.
For GW, that just means having better representation in the art, background and models that were going to be made anyway. It has no additional cost. At all.
If that’s problematic for a sliver of already active hobbyists? That’s entirely a problem for those individuals.
Just Tony wrote: I wonder if your daughter would be willing to play.The star wars battlefront games that didn't have female characters as playable characters. I'm betting she would just like every other female gamer who played those games. Not seeing yourself in the game is not a barrier to entry.
For you.
Once more, I'm not calling for the eradication of female models and have a rather significant representation of female models in all of my armies that contain them. I'm just not game for reversing a whole bunch of lore in order to pander. I also find it highly suspicious when forced integration isn't a two way street.
A "whole bunch of lore" in this case is only a few lines of background text across two books from the last five years. And, for the umpteenth time, inclusion isn't pandering just because you don't like it.
Both of my Eldar forces and my 3 Elven armies have female models in them? They did not have to rewrite law to make this happen. This is inclusion. Orcs and Orks are both established as spore based fungoid lifeforms, so they do not have gendered reproduction or secondary genders in any way, shape, or form. Tossing out decades of lore to rewrite their history in order to appeal to another demographic or to capitulate to an increasingly loud section of their fan base expressly for sales purposes would indeed be pandering.
what "decades of lore" are we talking about. there was the barest bones of lore for the idea that custodes were all men, and nothing ever said they couldn't be women
I want to circle back to a question I posed earlier in this or another thread about the “controversy”.
And it’s simple.
So. What.
Custodes now clarified to draw from male and female recruits.
Yes it’s a change to the background, and a retcon. But it’s not 40k’s first, nor is it likely to be the last.
And what has it actually changed for you? Why do you consider it to be so controversial? Where is the impact?
Dark Eldar? Are a retcon. They didn’t exist in Rogue Trader, and only in the very last Codex of 2nd Edition were Chaos Eldar mentioned.
Custodes and Marines being genetically altered? Was a retcon. One which fundamentally changed their character as armies.
None of those, to the best of my knowledge and recollection caused controversy.
So why is this bothersome to you? Of all the changes and retcons, which have been part and parcel of the background since the first expansion to Rogue Trader, why is this one the sign of some malaise?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I want to circle back to a question I posed earlier in this or another thread about the “controversy”.
And it’s simple.
So. What.
Custodes now clarified to draw from male and female recruits.
Yes it’s a change to the background, and a retcon. But it’s not 40k’s first, nor is it likely to be the last.
And what has it actually changed for you? Why do you consider it to be so controversial? Where is the impact?
Dark Eldar? Are a retcon. They didn’t exist in Rogue Trader, and only in the very last Codex of 2nd Edition were Chaos Eldar mentioned.
Custodes and Marines being genetically altered? Was a retcon. One which fundamentally changed their character as armies.
None of those, to the best of my knowledge and recollection caused controversy.
So why is this bothersome to you? Of all the changes and retcons, which have been part and parcel of the background since the first expansion to Rogue Trader, why is this one the sign of some malaise?
It's bothersome to them because it doesn't fit their idea of how things should go in both 40k and the real world. That's it. Everything is projection, Grotsnik.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I want to circle back to a question I posed earlier in this or another thread about the “controversy”.
And it’s simple.
So. What.
Custodes now clarified to draw from male and female recruits.
Yes it’s a change to the background, and a retcon. But it’s not 40k’s first, nor is it likely to be the last.
And what has it actually changed for you? Why do you consider it to be so controversial? Where is the impact?
Dark Eldar? Are a retcon. They didn’t exist in Rogue Trader, and only in the very last Codex of 2nd Edition were Chaos Eldar mentioned.
Custodes and Marines being genetically altered? Was a retcon. One which fundamentally changed their character as armies.
None of those, to the best of my knowledge and recollection caused controversy.
So why is this bothersome to you? Of all the changes and retcons, which have been part and parcel of the background since the first expansion to Rogue Trader, why is this one the sign of some malaise?
One could argue these retcons are extremely old, so old many people wouldn't know. It's like people pulling TOS klingons as the real thing when fans argue about Discovery klingons looking dumb .
A retcon from recent times that seems far more impactful to me than the Custodes clarification was when we learned the Rift didn't occur 100 years ago but 12...
Orcs and Orks are both established as spore based fungoid lifeforms, so they do not have gendered reproduction or secondary genders in any way, shape, or form. Tossing out decades of lore to rewrite their history in order to appeal to another demographic or to capitulate to an increasingly loud section of their fan base expressly for sales purposes would indeed be pandering.
And yet Orcs and orks are gendered.
Female orc cheerleader (the old one to prevent anyone making cries of recent wokeness or whatever):
Spoiler:
In 40k Orks are "boyz" Gahzkull and the warbosses are "he" in narratives, they are very much male and identified as such by the company and themselves in the fluff.
Slow clap for all involved, managed to derail the thread, break all three rules and go off topic in 2 posts of the last warning. Good show people, that is spectacular work.
From now on rule breaking in this thread will entail long vacations. Managed 38 pages of mostly good stuff so well done to those that are actually following the rules for that, it beats the last thread by over double the page count.
Orcs and Orks are both established as spore based fungoid lifeforms, so they do not have gendered reproduction or secondary genders in any way, shape, or form. Tossing out decades of lore to rewrite their history in order to appeal to another demographic or to capitulate to an increasingly loud section of their fan base expressly for sales purposes would indeed be pandering.
And yet Orcs and orks are gendered.
Female orc cheerleader (the old one to prevent anyone making cries of recent wokeness or whatever):
Spoiler:
In 40k Orks are "boyz" Gahzkull and the warbosses are "he" in narratives, they are very much male and identified as such by the company and themselves in the fluff.
You must be pretty desperate to use that as the basis for Orks being gendered when you're choosing the female orc cheerleader that is for Bloodbowl, which is explicitly a separate universe from the rest of warhammer that has no relation to the rest of Fantasy and definitely not 40k, where many of the models are made tongue in cheek and in reference to the world being based around a football game.
Meanwhile, in the previous Ork/Gender thread there's this from WAAARGH the Orks (pretty far back in lore canon as well so you can't claim it's a recent development) that directly contradicts your claim that Orks are gendered:
p88
"Unlike other races, Orks have no genders. The breeding ability develops in an Ork after he reaches maturity and becomes feral. Roughly half of the wild Orks develop marsupial pouches, in which an Ork whelp is born and nurtured. After a short span of time, the whelp is big enough to leave the pouch. The feral parent feeds the whelp on Squigs and teaches him how to survive in the wilderness. This gives the young Orks their tough, resourceful character."
Or are you going to admit that you want to just cherry pick what you want or don't want for lore and you actually don't care about it after all?
Orks have no gender, yet the writer immediately genders them as male by referring to them as he/him.
Which is exactly the point that Dudeface was making. The writing constantly refers to Orks as male. One line saying they are genderless followed by many, many lines referring to them as the male gender, which is gonna stick in the audiences mind more?
This is like the difference between the text and framing in a movie. For example, in the text of the first Michael Bay Transformers movie, Megan Fox's character is a skilled mechanic who is smarter and more competent than the male protagonist. Yet the framing of her character is that of a sex object, with repeated lingering shots of her body as a desirable and desired sexual object. And you know which of those the audience left the theatre remembering and identifying as her character? The visual framing of eye candy.
Textually, Orks are genderless. Yet the framing of them is always as male.
Orks also tend to show a very masculine personality/attitude. Indeed they embody the "Football hooligan" "macho male" aspects of perosonality/attitude all the time.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Orks have no gender, yet the writer immediately genders them as male by referring to them as he/him.
Which is exactly the point that Dudeface was making. The writing constantly refers to Orks as male. One line saying they are genderless followed by many, many lines referring to them as the male gender, which is gonna stick in the audiences mind more?
This is like the difference between the text and framing in a movie. For example, in the text of the first Transformers movie, Megan Fox's character is a skilled mechanic who is smarter and more competent than the male protagonist. Yet the framing of her character is that of a sex object, with lingering shots of her body. And you know which of those the audience left the theatre remembering and identifying as her character? The visual framing of eye candy.
Yet you guys bend over backwards to try and claim that all previous mentions of Custodes using that same framing of language that refer men and sons is gender neutral as a way to justify the sudden GW's sudden statement of Custodes having women in their ranks this entire time. You can't have it both ways.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Orks have no gender, yet the writer immediately genders them as male by referring to them as he/him.
Which is exactly the point that Dudeface was making. The writing constantly refers to Orks as male. One line saying they are genderless followed by many, many lines referring to them as the male gender, which is gonna stick in the audiences mind more?
This is like the difference between the text and framing in a movie. For example, in the text of the first Transformers movie, Megan Fox's character is a skilled mechanic who is smarter and more competent than the male protagonist. Yet the framing of her character is that of a sex object, with lingering shots of her body. And you know which of those the audience left the theatre remembering and identifying as her character? The visual framing of eye candy.
Yet you guys bend over backwards to try and claim that all previous mentions of Custodes using that same framing of language that refer men and sons is gender neutral as a way to justify the sudden GW's sudden statement of Custodes having women in their ranks this entire time. You can't have it both ways.
Find one example of me doing that in this thread, please.
I've never justified GW's sudden retcon as anything but a retcon like the bajillion other retcons they have previously made with no justification or comment.
Or are you just here doing your best Don Quixote impression?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I want to circle back to a question I posed earlier in this or another thread about the “controversy”.
And it’s simple.
So. What.
Custodes now clarified to draw from male and female recruits.
Yes it’s a change to the background, and a retcon. But it’s not 40k’s first, nor is it likely to be the last.
And what has it actually changed for you? Why do you consider it to be so controversial? Where is the impact?
Dark Eldar? Are a retcon. They didn’t exist in Rogue Trader, and only in the very last Codex of 2nd Edition were Chaos Eldar mentioned.
Custodes and Marines being genetically altered? Was a retcon. One which fundamentally changed their character as armies.
None of those, to the best of my knowledge and recollection caused controversy.
So why is this bothersome to you? Of all the changes and retcons, which have been part and parcel of the background since the first expansion to Rogue Trader, why is this one the sign of some malaise?
It's bothersome to them because it doesn't fit their idea of how things should go in both 40k and the real world. That's it. Everything is projection, Grotsnik.
Respectfully? I don’t need or want what you think their response would be. You may be right, you may be wrong. But responses like this somewhat poison the well of discussion.
It could be another reason. It could be they’ve been caught up in the carefully manufactured culture war and haven’t really stopped to think “wait, am I actually as bothered as I’ve been told to be?”. They could have a reason which whether or not I or the next person agrees, is at least good.
Only those who seems aggrieved that Custodes now recruit male and female candidates can tell us why it’s so controversial to them.
it's a retcon. it's also a cool retcon, and one that i think is good for the game as a whole, but no one is disputing that it's a retcon. people were jumping on "there have always been female custodians", but that was the retcon
more women is always a good thing, because i like and prefer to play with/as women, and hopefully this change and others like it will ensure that there are more women playing warhammer in my area so that i can feel more comfortable attending in-person events. would it be a bad thing for this change that i desire to happen? would it be a bad thing for me to feel more comfortable? can you defend that point without attempting to misdirect it, as has continued to happen every time someone has brought up this issue before?
Orcs and Orks are both established as spore based fungoid lifeforms, so they do not have gendered reproduction or secondary genders in any way, shape, or form. Tossing out decades of lore to rewrite their history in order to appeal to another demographic or to capitulate to an increasingly loud section of their fan base expressly for sales purposes would indeed be pandering.
And yet Orcs and orks are gendered.
Female orc cheerleader (the old one to prevent anyone making cries of recent wokeness or whatever):
Spoiler:
In 40k Orks are "boyz" Gahzkull and the warbosses are "he" in narratives, they are very much male and identified as such by the company and themselves in the fluff.
You must be pretty desperate to use that as the basis for Orks being gendered when you're choosing the female orc cheerleader that is for Bloodbowl, which is explicitly a separate universe from the rest of warhammer that has no relation to the rest of Fantasy and definitely not 40k, where many of the models are made tongue in cheek and in reference to the world being based around a football game.
Meanwhile, in the previous Ork/Gender thread there's this from WAAARGH the Orks (pretty far back in lore canon as well so you can't claim it's a recent development) that directly contradicts your claim that Orks are gendered:
p88
"Unlike other races, Orks have no genders. The breeding ability develops in an Ork after he reaches maturity and becomes feral. Roughly half of the wild Orks develop marsupial pouches, in which an Ork whelp is born and nurtured. After a short span of time, the whelp is big enough to leave the pouch. The feral parent feeds the whelp on Squigs and teaches him how to survive in the wilderness. This gives the young Orks their tough, resourceful character."
Or are you going to admit that you want to just cherry pick what you want or don't want for lore and you actually don't care about it after all?
I don't know, you said they haven't gendered orcs, you didn't caveat in which specific universe they hadn't gendered them in. Or are you cherry picking what you want as well?
I mean they might be genderless but as I clearly stated and you proved for me the fact the genderless baby is a he would imply a gender to the audience, setting and GW.
Is that not a commentary on the limitations of English, rather than Orks, societally, having genders?
Boyz/Boy is an Orkish word. Therefore it by no means carries the same definition as the English definition. It’s like Trunk. To me, that’s something an elephant has. To our American chums, it’s where you put the shopping in your car.
Orks using English masculine pronouns and terms doesn’t mean Orks are a single gender. Or even have a concept of such things.
When you’re an Ork? You’re an Ork. And because everyone knows Orks are the best, that’s seemingly enough definition for their society.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Is that not a commentary on the limitations of English, rather than Orks, societally, having genders?
Boyz/Boy is an Orkish word. Therefore it by no means carries the same definition as the English definition. It’s like Trunk. To me, that’s something an elephant has. To our American chums, it’s where you put the shopping in your car.
Orks using English masculine pronouns and terms doesn’t mean Orks are a single gender. Or even have a concept of such things.
When you’re an Ork? You’re an Ork. And because everyone knows Orks are the best, that’s seemingly enough definition for their society.
It's largely irrelevant whether the orks are aware or not for the context of the conversation. The fact Ghazkul is on his crusade to make the biggest waagh ever, instead of simply "their" is the point.
Trunk is also the name for an elephants appendage in America, they just co-opted it as a synonym for boot. You'll have a hard time persuading someone that "boy" is a synonym for something that is genderless however.
Saying that, iirc they use male pronouns for one another aswell rather than genderless.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Is that not a commentary on the limitations of English, rather than Orks, societally, having genders?
Boyz/Boy is an Orkish word. Therefore it by no means carries the same definition as the English definition. It’s like Trunk. To me, that’s something an elephant has. To our American chums, it’s where you put the shopping in your car.
Orks using English masculine pronouns and terms doesn’t mean Orks are a single gender. Or even have a concept of such things.
When you’re an Ork? You’re an Ork. And because everyone knows Orks are the best, that’s seemingly enough definition for their society.
It's largely irrelevant whether the orks are aware or not for the context of the conversation. The fact Ghazkul is on his crusade to make the biggest waagh ever, instead of simply "their" is the point.
Trunk is also the name for an elephants appendage in America, they just co-opted it as a synonym for boot. You'll have a hard time persuading someone that "boy" is a synonym for something that is genderless however.
Saying that, iirc they use male pronouns for one another aswell rather than genderless.
Well, perhaps more pertinently they use male pronouns when translated into English/Low Gothic. It is humans who have assigned that.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Is that not a commentary on the limitations of English, rather than Orks, societally, having genders?
Boyz/Boy is an Orkish word. Therefore it by no means carries the same definition as the English definition. It’s like Trunk. To me, that’s something an elephant has. To our American chums, it’s where you put the shopping in your car.
Orks using English masculine pronouns and terms doesn’t mean Orks are a single gender. Or even have a concept of such things.
When you’re an Ork? You’re an Ork. And because everyone knows Orks are the best, that’s seemingly enough definition for their society.
It's largely irrelevant whether the orks are aware or not for the context of the conversation. The fact Ghazkul is on his crusade to make the biggest waagh ever, instead of simply "their" is the point.
Trunk is also the name for an elephants appendage in America, they just co-opted it as a synonym for boot. You'll have a hard time persuading someone that "boy" is a synonym for something that is genderless however.
Saying that, iirc they use male pronouns for one another aswell rather than genderless.
Well, perhaps more pertinently they use male pronouns when translated into English/Low Gothic. It is humans who have assigned that.
And that would actually be a possibility for interesting worldbuilding. You could have a difference between how different characters refer to Orks based on their familiarity with the actual biology of the Ork species. Those who know they are genderless use they/them, whereas those who don't use he/him, based on associating the outward appearance, vocal inflection etc. of orks with male.
That is actual "show don't tell" worldbuilding. Like how in Fallout: New Vegas there is the different pronunciations of Caesar depending on whether the speaker is more aligned or familiar with the Legion or Vegas/NCR.
Orcs and Orks are both established as spore based fungoid lifeforms, so they do not have gendered reproduction or secondary genders in any way, shape, or form. Tossing out decades of lore to rewrite their history in order to appeal to another demographic or to capitulate to an increasingly loud section of their fan base expressly for sales purposes would indeed be pandering.
And yet Orcs and orks are gendered.
Female orc cheerleader (the old one to prevent anyone making cries of recent wokeness or whatever):
Spoiler:
In 40k Orks are "boyz" Gahzkull and the warbosses are "he" in narratives, they are very much male and identified as such by the company and themselves in the fluff.
You must be pretty desperate to use that as the basis for Orks being gendered when you're choosing the female orc cheerleader that is for Bloodbowl, which is explicitly a separate universe from the rest of warhammer that has no relation to the rest of Fantasy and definitely not 40k, where many of the models are made tongue in cheek and in reference to the world being based around a football game.
Meanwhile, in the previous Ork/Gender thread there's this from WAAARGH the Orks (pretty far back in lore canon as well so you can't claim it's a recent development) that directly contradicts your claim that Orks are gendered:
p88
"Unlike other races, Orks have no genders. The breeding ability develops in an Ork after he reaches maturity and becomes feral. Roughly half of the wild Orks develop marsupial pouches, in which an Ork whelp is born and nurtured. After a short span of time, the whelp is big enough to leave the pouch. The feral parent feeds the whelp on Squigs and teaches him how to survive in the wilderness. This gives the young Orks their tough, resourceful character."
Or are you going to admit that you want to just cherry pick what you want or don't want for lore and you actually don't care about it after all?
The poster they are responding to said orcs and orks, so it is reasonable to assume they were talking about the wider GW view of greenskins and not just 40k. It is off-topic for a 40k thread though.
Anyway, there is a difference between having genders and being gendered/using gendered language. Many languages assign genders to, say, furniture. A chair doesn't have a gender, but it can be referred to in a gendered way.
Grimskul wrote:
A Town Called Malus wrote: Orks have no gender, yet the writer immediately genders them as male by referring to them as he/him.
Which is exactly the point that Dudeface was making. The writing constantly refers to Orks as male. One line saying they are genderless followed by many, many lines referring to them as the male gender, which is gonna stick in the audiences mind more?
This is like the difference between the text and framing in a movie. For example, in the text of the first Transformers movie, Megan Fox's character is a skilled mechanic who is smarter and more competent than the male protagonist. Yet the framing of her character is that of a sex object, with lingering shots of her body. And you know which of those the audience left the theatre remembering and identifying as her character? The visual framing of eye candy.
Yet you guys bend over backwards to try and claim that all previous mentions of Custodes using that same framing of language that refer men and sons is gender neutral as a way to justify the sudden GW's sudden statement of Custodes having women in their ranks this entire time. You can't have it both ways.
These are not mutually exclusive. Male pronouns being the default for a genderless group is the same as being used as the default for a mixed gender group.
Orcs and Orks are both established as spore based fungoid lifeforms, so they do not have gendered reproduction or secondary genders in any way, shape, or form. Tossing out decades of lore to rewrite their history in order to appeal to another demographic or to capitulate to an increasingly loud section of their fan base expressly for sales purposes would indeed be pandering.
And yet Orcs and orks are gendered.
Female orc cheerleader (the old one to prevent anyone making cries of recent wokeness or whatever):
In 40k Orks are "boyz" Gahzkull and the warbosses are "he" in narratives, they are very much male and identified as such by the company and themselves in the fluff.
You must be pretty desperate to use that as the basis for Orks being gendered when you're choosing the female orc cheerleader that is for Bloodbowl, which is explicitly a separate universe from the rest of warhammer that has no relation to the rest of Fantasy and definitely not 40k, where many of the models are made tongue in cheek and in reference to the world being based around a football game.
Meanwhile, in the previous Ork/Gender thread there's this from WAAARGH the Orks (pretty far back in lore canon as well so you can't claim it's a recent development) that directly contradicts your claim that Orks are gendered:
p88
"Unlike other races, Orks have no genders. The breeding ability develops in an Ork after he reaches maturity and becomes feral. Roughly half of the wild Orks develop marsupial pouches, in which an Ork whelp is born and nurtured. After a short span of time, the whelp is big enough to leave the pouch. The feral parent feeds the whelp on Squigs and teaches him how to survive in the wilderness. This gives the young Orks their tough, resourceful character."
Or are you going to admit that you want to just cherry pick what you want or don't want for lore and you actually don't care about it after all?
I don't know, you said they haven't gendered orcs, you didn't caveat in which specific universe they hadn't gendered them in. Or are you cherry picking what you want as well?
I mean they might be genderless but as I clearly stated and you proved for me the fact the genderless baby is a he would imply a gender to the audience, setting and GW.
We don’t actually know if Orks know, or indeed care if they do, that other species have males and females, because it’s just Not A Thing for the Ork species.
If you’re smaller and weedier than them? It’s because you’re not green like a proper Ork. Not because of what is and isn’t in your undies.
And so despite their ostensible use of pronouns, that doesn’t mean they have a gender.
To compare? Steering well, well clear of human biology on purpose? Many vehicles and machines are referred to as “her”. They’re assigned female pronouns. But it doesn’t confer the actual gender on the vehicle or machine as a result.
Dudeface wrote: It's largely irrelevant whether the orks are aware or not for the context of the conversation. The fact Ghazkul is on his crusade to make the biggest waagh ever, instead of simply "their" is the point.
Well, perhaps more pertinently they use male pronouns when translated into English/Low Gothic. It is humans who have assigned that.
It is also humans from an OOC perspective that have also assigned that.
And that's the important thing to recognise - that 40k *is* constructed, not just understanding from an in-universe perspective, where not every character within the setting knows everything about the setting (ie, Imperials using masculine gendered terms to describe Orks), but also that those fictional humans' understanding is created by what we (or, rather GW), out of character real life humans, have assigned.
If GW wanted, they could make a point of highlighting how the human names for things (like Boyz) is different to the Ork's name for them. In fact, in Destiny by Bungie has a great moment of this, where we realise that one of the most violent and savage groups of an alien race, the House of Wolves, in their own language is actually called "Gentle Weavers" (or something like that).
Bungie could have easily not mentioned that, and left our understanding as simply "House of Wolves is the human name for it", but by actually providing the alien name alternative, we get a better look into the idea of socially constructed identities.
Ultimately, this is to say that, by *all metrics that we are aware of*, Orks are functionally still gender coded. While they may be *asexual*, and *agender*, they still have gender coded elements that define them as masculine presenting.
Custodes were masculine presenting, but by virtue of being human, they maintained the possibility of gender fluidity, and their use of gendered pronouns was more easily understood by the assumed "neutrality" of male language. Orks, on the other hand, by being an alien construct without a human base, by so vividly parodying masculine attitudes and behaviours, and literally naming so many of their units "-Boyz" established a stronger gender identity than Custodes ever had.
Or, to put another way:
Orks are more "male coded" than the "all-male" factions like Space Marines (and previously Custodes) are.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: We don’t actually know if Orks know, or indeed care if they do, that other species have males and females, because it’s just Not A Thing for the Ork species.
If you’re smaller and weedier than them? It’s because you’re not green like a proper Ork. Not because of what is and isn’t in your undies.
And so despite their ostensible use of pronouns, that doesn’t mean they have a gender.
Absolutely correct - however, our understanding of them (both in-universe and out of universe) does not make that distinction.
If we had textual examples of Orks using non-masculine pronouns and language in their native language (or a translated version that is legible to Us Real Folks), then we could confidently say that Ork gender is outright agender.
However, they are still ultimately gender *coded*, and because they aren't so easily identifiable as "modified humans", in the same way Custodes and Astartes are, they are more evidently "male" coded.
Interestingly, an argument can be made that Custodes, Orks, and Space Marines are all asexual, and might all lie some way on the agender/transgender/postgender spectrum. However, due to both IC and OC gendered language, this isn't investigated or unpicked as rigourously as it could be.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Orks have no gender, yet the writer immediately genders them as male by referring to them as he/him.
And in the end? Out in the real world?
No one cares.
i think this thread has demonstrated that many people care about these topics
what is the "real world", anyway. everyone uses the internet these days. people are more connected than ever. this forum is a niche, but how are opinions on, say, twitter, different from those that people hold in real life
Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: We don’t actually know if Orks know, or indeed care if they do, that other species have males and females, because it’s just Not A Thing for the Ork species.
If you’re smaller and weedier than them? It’s because you’re not green like a proper Ork. Not because of what is and isn’t in your undies.
And so despite their ostensible use of pronouns, that doesn’t mean they have a gender.
Absolutely correct - however, our understanding of them (both in-universe and out of universe) does not make that distinction.
If we had textual examples of Orks using non-masculine pronouns and language in their native language (or a translated version that is legible to Us Real Folks), then we could confidently say that Ork gender is outright agender.
However, they are still ultimately gender *coded*, and because they aren't so easily identifiable as "modified humans", in the same way Custodes and Astartes are, they are more evidently "male" coded.
Interestingly, an argument can be made that Custodes, Orks, and Space Marines are all asexual, and might all lie some way on the agender/transgender/postgender spectrum. However, due to both IC and OC gendered language, this isn't investigated or unpicked as rigourously as it could be.
personally i don't love the interpretation of space marines et al as "asexual" in the sense of the queer identity. there's a lot of baggage here (for example, space marines have all the brainwashing and physical alterations)
granted, 40k isn't much of a sexual setting in the first place, so it's hard to have asexuality, since it's primarily defined by absence. whether or not a given sister of battle is asexual or allosexual won't really come up, compared to gender which can be (but isn't always) more obvious
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
if my tumblr mutuals have any say in the matter, all tech priests are non-binary
insect gender and sex is weird, so i assume it's the same for tyranids
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’ve speculated before whether a Tech-Priest might alter themselves to the opposite gender, in case it brings them some insight to a given mystery.
When we know they can download and store memories externally, removing them from their conscious brain, I guess all bets are off.
Apologies if any of my wording is ham-fisted here. I’m genuinely trying my best and am happy to be corrected. Just please do so via PM
yeah, i can definitely imagine tech priests moving between different presentations and genders for a lot of different reasons. i'm hesitant to use the term genderfluid here, but i can imagine a take on the concept where that would be appropriate
when your body is already easily modified and upgraded, something flimsy like a gender binary would fall by the wayside
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
this is why i made that thread as a separate topic. as an exercise in in-universe xenobiology, it's fun and interesting to talk about, but boyz as we see them are exclusively male (give or take some models older than my parents' marriage)
Can I ask those who know better: would Men of Iron be a good example here for genderless phrasing? Getting past the very first word, it's a literal robot. No gender parts to speak of. No squishy organics. Not even a gendered personality. Again, excusing the very first word, THEY are always referred to as THEY/THEM, or IT. Men of Iron is just a Moniker, like IBM, or Thinkpad. If we retconned Men of Iron to be People of Iron, it would be an exact match for how we are trying to visualize the Ork example. You have zero problem with the lore being genderless in that example. Now apply it to the Orks, or the Custodes, or the Space Marines. They or them. Done. They are a powerful fighting force. Are we done here?
For me, the really fun thing is that 39,000 years into the future, and coming out the other end of mankind’s technological zenith? We can’t assume even human genders are what they are today.
Sure, it’s still the ladies that carry the gestating baby. But then…we’ve stuff like Vat Born, Clone Vats, Vitae-Wombs and all other sorts of technological alternatives in play.
Certainly there’s little to no evidence of the Imperial Guard having a recruitment preference. The gangs of Necromunda don’t seem to be fussed either, outside of Escher who are a genuinely special case due to their gene curse introducing a restriction not experienced by others.
Add in the evidence that during the Golden Age of Mankind, the colony ships had STCs capable of genetic alterations (the extremes being Abhumans and Kin), so the colonists could hit the ground running if the world settled wasn’t close to Earth Normal. And thanks to how The Imperium works (shipping workers and soldiers around as needed), those genetic tweaks are now out and about in the general populace, and we can’t say the modern differences between men and women remain - even without the gender roles being as enforced as they are now or have been traditionally.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
I think the difference is that AdMech are so layered, masked, and obscured that they're kinda removed from a lot of gender signifiers. Tyranids aren't even humanoid looking, so humanoid mrkings of gender is kinda obliterated.
Going through, I'd go through gender appearances as such:
Spoiler:
Sororitas - Fem-coded (with the exception of their male priests and followers)
Custodes - Generally gender neutral armour (because of the sheer size), but with masc-coded heads. Hopefully to change in time to also feature fem-coded heads. SoS are fem-coded.
Mechanicus - Agender. No strong features of gender either way.
Titanicus - Big robots. No gender.
Agents - A variety of genders.
Astra Militarum - A variety of genders.
Grey Knights - Large armour means that anyone could be in it - but male pronouns and all male heads. Could simply be a default coding, but at present, explicitly all male.
Imperial Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Astartes - Like Grey Knights, large armour tends to remove ideas of "gender", but aforementioned male pronouns and heads. Again - could be changed with headswaps and language, but at present, explicitly male.
Daemons - Tzeentch Daemons and Nurgle daemons lack a lot of gendered identity. Khorne and Slaanesh daemons are typically androgyne (Khorne leaning masc, Slaanesh leaning fem, but ultimately not hyper-coded)
Chaos Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Chaos Marines - Like Grey Knights and Astartes. Large armour obscures "gender", but currently only use male pronouns and faces. Could be changed with headswaps and gender neutral language. Currently only explicitly male, but people seem to embrace the idea that there is some gender deviancy.
Eldar - A variety of genders.
Dark Eldar - A variety of genders.
Genestealer Cult - A variety of genders, or outright alien aesthetics.
Votann - Large armour, coupled with mixed gender representation beneath the armour.
Orks - Masculine coded, due to being generally under armoured, and still largely humanoid in overall physique. Textually agender, but masculine in appearance and language (ironically the opposite of Space Marine flavours!)
Necrons - Robotic. No discernible signs of gender.
T'au - Obscuring armour, coupled with mixed "gender" representation (we see sexual dimorphism, even if shown in a different way to our understanding - humanoid aliens, but not overly "gendered" by human terms).
Tyranids - Not even humanoid. No gender.
Did I miss anything? Either way, I have noticed that point of interest - that Orks are the most "masculine" army in appearance and behaviour, but are textually agender. Space Marines, which are often championed as the "masculine" army, are predominantly masculine in name only - in appearance, they aren't overly male unless you remove the helmet.
Is this a new observation?
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StudentOfEtherium wrote:personally i don't love the interpretation of space marines et al as "asexual" in the sense of the queer identity. there's a lot of baggage here (for example, space marines have all the brainwashing and physical alterations)
granted, 40k isn't much of a sexual setting in the first place, so it's hard to have asexuality, since it's primarily defined by absence. whether or not a given sister of battle is asexual or allosexual won't really come up, compared to gender which can be (but isn't always) more obvious
Nah, I get you!
I use asexual in a way that is distinct from our current understanding of real people who are asexual/aromantic - but ultimately simply in that Space Marines are not sexually available or concerned post-humans. A guardsmen's asexuality is different to a Space Marines' asexuality, for example.
If you have an alternative classification, I'd be interested to hear it!
Necrons do identify by gender, as we have explicitly female identifying Phaerons in the mix. But they’re also that odd thing, where it’s only really the upper echelons that have any sense of self identity at all.
The Necron Warrior and Immortal, by far the majority of the species, have no self identity as we understand it.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Necrons do identify by gender, as we have explicitly female identifying Phaerons in the mix. But they’re also that odd thing, where it’s only really the upper echelons that have any sense of self identity at all.
The Necron Warrior and Immortal, by far the majority of the species, have no self identity as we understand it.
Pardon, I mean as in they are not visually gender-coded, but *do* have gender in the form of language. We only know they have a gender from textual data, not from visual or aesthetic data.
For Marines and Custodes of all stripes? I think post-human is the best descriptive. They’re not natural, to the point that by no metric are they even Human anymore. As such, gender roles probably don’t rely apply further.
Just as an Ork is an Ork, first and foremost? A Marine and a Custode are…a Marine and a Custode. Not human. As such, concepts of male and female may simply not apply to them as it does in our society.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
I think the difference is that AdMech are so layered, masked, and obscured that they're kinda removed from a lot of gender signifiers. Tyranids aren't even humanoid looking, so humanoid mrkings of gender is kinda obliterated.
Going through, I'd go through gender appearances as such:
Spoiler:
Sororitas - Fem-coded (with the exception of their male priests and followers)
Custodes - Generally gender neutral armour (because of the sheer size), but with masc-coded heads. Hopefully to change in time to also feature fem-coded heads. SoS are fem-coded.
Mechanicus - Agender. No strong features of gender either way.
Titanicus - Big robots. No gender.
Agents - A variety of genders.
Astra Militarum - A variety of genders.
Grey Knights - Large armour means that anyone could be in it - but male pronouns and all male heads. Could simply be a default coding, but at present, explicitly all male.
Imperial Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Astartes - Like Grey Knights, large armour tends to remove ideas of "gender", but aforementioned male pronouns and heads. Again - could be changed with headswaps and language, but at present, explicitly male.
Daemons - Tzeentch Daemons and Nurgle daemons lack a lot of gendered identity. Khorne and Slaanesh daemons are typically androgyne (Khorne leaning masc, Slaanesh leaning fem, but ultimately not hyper-coded)
Chaos Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Chaos Marines - Like Grey Knights and Astartes. Large armour obscures "gender", but currently only use male pronouns and faces. Could be changed with headswaps and gender neutral language. Currently only explicitly male, but people seem to embrace the idea that there is some gender deviancy.
Eldar - A variety of genders.
Dark Eldar - A variety of genders.
Genestealer Cult - A variety of genders, or outright alien aesthetics.
Votann - Large armour, coupled with mixed gender representation beneath the armour.
Orks - Masculine coded, due to being generally under armoured, and still largely humanoid in overall physique. Textually agender, but masculine in appearance and language (ironically the opposite of Space Marine flavours!)
Necrons - Robotic. No discernible signs of gender.
T'au - Obscuring armour, coupled with mixed "gender" representation (we see sexual dimorphism, even if shown in a different way to our understanding - humanoid aliens, but not overly "gendered" by human terms).
Tyranids - Not even humanoid. No gender.
Did I miss anything? Either way, I have noticed that point of interest - that Orks are the most "masculine" army in appearance and behaviour, but are textually agender. Space Marines, which are often championed as the "masculine" army, are predominantly masculine in name only - in appearance, they aren't overly male unless you remove the helmet.
Is this a new observation?
my two notes:
Slaanesh tends to lean towards explicit androgyny, which is why a lot of models will include aspects of men and women (a lot of them only have one breast, for example). this was called attention to in the old realms of chaos books (although, hilariously, without google around to correct them, the writers used "bisexual" to describe this). as a whole, Slaanesh's aesthetic is more intersex than anything else... but when it comes to the way that people perceive gender, androgyny is adjacent to femininity. the margin in the middle is thin, and in the absence of traditional male signifiers, people will assume femininity. this is why, for example, bishounen anime characters will be perceived of as "girly" even when they don't have any explicit feminine aspects
and regarding GSC, the army definitely has models for men and women, but they definitely lean further towards grizzled snarling men like a lot of other male-focused factions. in particular, neophytes are exclusively male, while all the female models are characters
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Necrons do identify by gender, as we have explicitly female identifying Phaerons in the mix. But they’re also that odd thing, where it’s only really the upper echelons that have any sense of self identity at all.
The Necron Warrior and Immortal, by far the majority of the species, have no self identity as we understand it.
Pardon, I mean as in they are not visually gender-coded, but *do* have gender in the form of language. We only know they have a gender from textual data, not from visual or aesthetic data.
Oh, gotcha. It’s hard to say, because they went with the hyperstylised Skellington look. Now, an anthropologist can look at a human Skellington alone, and make inferences about its possible sex outside of any other contextual clues, like burial goods, clothing etc. Stuff including but I believe not limited to the teeth, jaw and pelvis.
For the Necrons? I don’t think we can rule out they do have gender presentation in their adopted bodies. But to the outside observer, we’ve no idea, because we don’t have knowledge of what a Necrontyr actually looked like, and whether they even had sexual dimorphism in their natural bodies. Come to think of it? We don’t even know if they were cold blooded, warm blooded etc. For all we know, if their biology even had real world analogies of any kind? They could’ve been scaled, cold blooded marsupials, where akin to some (all?) species of Sea Horse, it was the male that had the pouch, and so nurtured the young.
Aaaaaaand now my Brian is running off down that alleyway giggling maniacally.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Necrons do identify by gender, as we have explicitly female identifying Phaerons in the mix. But they’re also that odd thing, where it’s only really the upper echelons that have any sense of self identity at all.
The Necron Warrior and Immortal, by far the majority of the species, have no self identity as we understand it.
Pardon, I mean as in they are not visually gender-coded, but *do* have gender in the form of language. We only know they have a gender from textual data, not from visual or aesthetic data.
Oh, gotcha. It’s hard to say, because they went with the hyperstylised Skellington look. Now, an anthropologist can look at a human Skellington alone, and make inferences about its possible sex outside of any other contextual clues, like burial goods, clothing etc. Stuff including but I believe not limited to the teeth, jaw and pelvis.
For the Necrons? I don’t think we can rule out they do have gender presentation in their adopted bodies. But to the outside observer, we’ve no idea, because we don’t have knowledge of what a Necrontyr actually looked like, and whether they even had sexual dimorphism in their natural bodies. Come to think of it? We don’t even know if they were cold blooded, warm blooded etc. For all we know, if their biology even had real world analogies of any kind? They could’ve been scaled, cold blooded marsupials, where akin to some (all?) species of Sea Horse, it was the male that had the pouch, and so nurtured the young.
Aaaaaaand now my Brian is running off down that alleyway giggling maniacally.
There are some references to their pre-necrontyr forms in the twice dead king series I think it was, but its going back a bit to recall. They were largely human looking iirc.
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
Do you feel that Orks are not male-coded and male-presenting from our perspective?
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
this is a lore perspective, and if you want to talk about that, i have a handy threat all about that subject! it's really interesting stuff and not what we're talking about in this thread
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
Do you feel that Orks are not male-coded and male-presenting from our perspective?
Indeed they are. Maybe I misunderstood your point. I thought you were saying we don’t have their in-universe views or language so we wouldn't know if they actually described themselves as Boyz and he or if that's just the Imperial view. But from all/most the in-universe talking of Orks we can only conclude they really speak cockney and are all male-coded. I know there's also the debate about low-gothic and nobody's actually speaking english in 40K and so on but if we go down that road we don’t know anything
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
this is a lore perspective, and if you want to talk about that, i have a handy threat all about that subject! it's really interesting stuff and not what we're talking about in this thread
You are absolutely right and I wondered myself why the tangent came up here again. Sorry!
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
Do you feel that Orks are not male-coded and male-presenting from our perspective?
Orks are presented as equivalent to males in humans despite Orks being asexual and reproducing by fighting but ultimately what does it even matter if it is? GW's take on fantasy genre orcs is inspired and modeled after football hooligans getting drunk and getting into mindless brawls. Not exactly sure how many women took part in the football hooliganism that GW originally was referencing when I am going to go out on a limb and assume the overwhelming majority of those people where male.
Vankraken wrote: Not exactly sure how many women took part in the football hooliganism that GW originally was referencing when I am going to go out on a limb and assume the overwhelming majority of those people where male.
Tsk tsk. Football hooliganism not very inclusive and diverse.
Has anyone here suggested GW should change Orks from being male-coded? I haven't seen that. Only recognising that it is part of the majority of male-coded factions that leads to the big imbalance in representation.
People talk about introducing female Marines because they are the face of 40k. Orks are not.
Also worth clarifying again that male-coded doesn’t mean “therefore male”.
For instance, Droids in Star Wars can have male, female or neutral personality programming. But having that programming doesn’t an actual gender create. All Droids are sexless and genderless. But the can be male or female presenting, as per their owner and designer’s preference.
The same is true of Orks. That other species in the galaxy code them as males doesn’t make Orks gendered internally. Internally? Orks is Orks.
Haighus wrote:Has anyone here suggested GW should change Orks from being male-coded? I haven't seen that. Only recognising that it is part of the majority of male-coded factions that leads to the big imbalance in representation.
People talk about introducing female Marines because they are the face of 40k. Orks are not.
Absolutely. I don't think anyone's suggesting to change the Ork aesthetic, but simply recognising the aesthetic as it has been presented.
And that, ironically, if people want an "all male presenting faction", technically, Orks fit that brief.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Also worth clarifying again that male-coded doesn’t mean “therefore male”.
Also true! Ultimately, when there are people calling for a "male faction" in 40k (which some people have called for - citing Space Marines as their 'male space'), are they making that distinction? Do Orks fulfil that "male-ness" by being aesthetically male, if not biologically?
The same is true of Orks. That other species in the galaxy code them as males doesn’t make Orks gendered internally. Internally? Orks is Orks.
We do also need to consider the OC design that has gone into them, however. Orks *may* be just Orks IC, in their own culture. Orks may be perceived as having a gender IC, from other cultures. But also, it was an OC culture and OC design choice to present Orks as they are presented as. And, ultimately, that is a masculine presenting design.
That's not to say it's a problem - mostly because Orks don't dominate the aesthetic marketing of 40k.
Haighus wrote: Has anyone here suggested GW should change Orks from being male-coded? I haven't seen that. Only recognising that it is part of the majority of male-coded factions that leads to the big imbalance in representation.
People talk about introducing female Marines because they are the face of 40k. Orks are not.
I wouldn't call for a change to Orks, but it's a weird situation where they arguably have a perfectly genderless race whose biology doesn't matter, their thought process doesn't factor into anything sexual and they could be a great non-binary or even asexual space away from the issues with a lot of races. But they're always dudes. I get people keep saying "an ork is an ork and has no concept of internal gender" which, ok, that could be true. But they're innately using that masculine language even in absence of a human narrator in some cases.
That said I'm not really on board with "just consider marines due to marketing", either the boot fits for everyone or it doesn't. For proper female marines I'd basically expect to see the exact same models with the odd face with softer features, no overtly sexualised changes to the plate as theoretically there shouldn't be a need even in-setting. Even so I appreciate the internal narrative to the setting that the imperium maybe don't know they can use female aspirants, or they honestly believe that it won't work for XYZ reasons because the Imperium is intentionally backwards.
After an interesting talk with my other half she honestly said the inhabitants of the game stores are more of a problem than any of the mini ranges, she can find some stuff she finds intriguing or pretty but she wouldn't feel comfortable in a store. Maybe we should start addressing those problems and perceptions first?
Haighus wrote: Has anyone here suggested GW should change Orks from being male-coded? I haven't seen that. Only recognising that it is part of the majority of male-coded factions that leads to the big imbalance in representation.
People talk about introducing female Marines because they are the face of 40k. Orks are not.
I wouldn't call for a change to Orks, but it's a weird situation where they arguably have a perfectly genderless race whose biology doesn't matter, their thought process doesn't factor into anything sexual and they could be a great non-binary or even asexual space away from the issues with a lot of races. But they're always dudes. I get people keep saying "an ork is an ork and has no concept of internal gender" which, ok, that could be true. But they're innately using that masculine language even in absence of a human narrator in some cases.
That said I'm not really on board with "just consider marines due to marketing", either the boot fits for everyone or it doesn't. For proper female marines I'd basically expect to see the exact same models with the odd face with softer features, no overtly sexualised changes to the plate as theoretically there shouldn't be a need even in-setting. Even so I appreciate the internal narrative to the setting that the imperium maybe don't know they can use female aspirants, or they honestly believe that it won't work for XYZ reasons because the Imperium is intentionally backwards.
After an interesting talk with my other half she honestly said the inhabitants of the game stores are more of a problem than any of the mini ranges, she can find some stuff she finds intriguing or pretty but she wouldn't feel comfortable in a store. Maybe we should start addressing those problems and perceptions first?
It’s a bit of both as an issue, a lot of the men making these discussions hard are the same men who make me uncomfortable at stores and to express myself.
Space marines are interesting from where they can be used narrative wise, but they also have to exist with the inherent culture that effectively makes everything a man until said otherwise. Which also means GW tends to soften marines a lot, since they cool and such. Rather than monsters crafted by a society that is horrific.
I even wonder if sisters of silence haven’t seen much is that they kinda fall into the same design space as sisters of battle for expansion. Making them unique requires some thought from all places in the line, where it often feels like the different parts of 40K design are too separate.
Right now they effectively a force that exists to stuff over like 3 army’s, possibly toxic to any meta for balance.
Part of the issue with Orks is that we don’t really know what Orks mean in their own language.
In the Codex it’s anglicised at best, Low Gothic at worst. And we can’t assume that, being an entirely separate species with its own innate kultur, that Boy has the same definition as English or Low Gothic.
So far as I can tell? Boy is arguably a rank of social standing (them not really having a standing military in the common sense). After all, you’ve Snots, Grots, Boyz, Nobz, Warboss and Oddboyz.
Consider. Daffgatz has just snuck in, beaten Bogjaw over the head and nicked all his teef. You go to rally the Ladz of your Mob, because Daffgatz now needs a kicking in return (and you know he’s now got a bunch of loose teef on him) You can then described Daffgatz as either a Boy, or a Nob. And from that they gain some inkling of how much of a fight it’s gonna be, and any possible pushback from said fight.
Can I particularly prove this hypothesis? Probably not, as I don’t recall any of the Orky background books really going into that, other than confirming stratas of social standing.
But in a fundamentally genderless society? It’s a definite possibility.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Part of the issue with Orks is that we don’t really know what Orks mean in their own language.
In the Codex it’s anglicised at best, Low Gothic at worst. And we can’t assume that, being an entirely separate species with its own innate kultur, that Boy has the same definition as English or Low Gothic.
So far as I can tell? Boy is arguably a rank of social standing (them not really having a standing military in the common sense). After all, you’ve Snots, Grots, Boyz, Nobz, Warboss and Oddboyz.
Consider. Daffgatz has just snuck in, beaten Bogjaw over the head and nicked all his teef. You go to rally the Ladz of your Mob, because Daffgatz now needs a kicking in return (and you know he’s now got a bunch of loose teef on him) You can then described Daffgatz as either a Boy, or a Nob. And from that they gain some inkling of how much of a fight it’s gonna be, and any possible pushback from said fight.
Can I particularly prove this hypothesis? Probably not, as I don’t recall any of the Orky background books really going into that, other than confirming stratas of social standing.
But in a fundamentally genderless society? It’s a definite possibility.
That's a good in-universe bit of talking.
Out-of-universe, though, Boy is masculine. Moreso than son, which can at least be sometimes used as meaning just children in general. And Orks, in general, are presented in a masculine fashion.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: In and out of universe, that’s externally applied. And it still doesn’t mean Orks have genders, or any concept of such.
Imagine you're new to the setting, you have big muscular, masculine formed alien who are in units of "boyz" and referred to as a "he" individually. You would 100% presume they're another male centric force.
Instead of beating around the bush, let's take the position of Orks being modeled after male imagery and stereotypes. A mix of Tolkien/generic fantasy orcs mixed with football hooligan stereotypes, and using troll logic for their technology. In-universe it's a mono sex species that reproduces via spores and are non sexual beings who live to fight, loot, and win. Orks sees themselves as an Ork and gender is a foreign concept to them.
If this was a matter of fact (I personally think this fairly well sums it up) then what is the issue at hand or what should be done differently?
Vankraken wrote: Instead of beating around the bush, let's take the position of Orks being modeled after male imagery and stereotypes. A mix of Tolkien/generic fantasy orcs mixed with football hooligan stereotypes, and using troll logic for their technology. In-universe it's a mono sex species that reproduces via spores and are non sexual beings who live to fight, loot, and win. Orks sees themselves as an Ork and gender is a foreign concept to them.
If this was a matter of fact (I personally think this fairly well sums it up) then what is the issue at hand or what should be done differently?
The same as with marines, it's another string on the bow of the setting being overly masculine and male centric. There are fluff reasons, valid or otherwise for both of their respective representations and level of inclusiveness.
The point is the entry point to the hobby, to read up to them being a genderless mushroom you need to get past the initial impression of a collection of green muscle guys. They portray as yet another male muscle bunch.
Again: I have no problem with it as is, but just offering how no matter where you look in 40k there are problems of this ilk. I personally think tau do it best, where there is very little physical definition to the tau themselves, nor the kroot, but both genders are represented openly in the fluff.
Haighus wrote: Has anyone here suggested GW should change Orks from being male-coded? I haven't seen that. Only recognising that it is part of the majority of male-coded factions that leads to the big imbalance in representation.
People talk about introducing female Marines because they are the face of 40k. Orks are not.
I wouldn't call for a change to Orks, but it's a weird situation where they arguably have a perfectly genderless race whose biology doesn't matter, their thought process doesn't factor into anything sexual and they could be a great non-binary or even asexual space away from the issues with a lot of races. But they're always dudes. I get people keep saying "an ork is an ork and has no concept of internal gender" which, ok, that could be true. But they're innately using that masculine language even in absence of a human narrator in some cases.
That said I'm not really on board with "just consider marines due to marketing", either the boot fits for everyone or it doesn't. For proper female marines I'd basically expect to see the exact same models with the odd face with softer features, no overtly sexualised changes to the plate as theoretically there shouldn't be a need even in-setting. Even so I appreciate the internal narrative to the setting that the imperium maybe don't know they can use female aspirants, or they honestly believe that it won't work for XYZ reasons because the Imperium is intentionally backwards.
After an interesting talk with my other half she honestly said the inhabitants of the game stores are more of a problem than any of the mini ranges, she can find some stuff she finds intriguing or pretty but she wouldn't feel comfortable in a store. Maybe we should start addressing those problems and perceptions first?
The two things are related. By catering to the more exclusive male-dominated version of the game, you promote the view that Warhammer is “for” the people who make gaming spaces uncomfortable. By making more inclusive minis, you either drive away some of those uncomfortable types or you make them more comfortable with the existence of women in Warhammer, at least in terms of minis and art at first. Catering to the angry all-dudes types reinforces all the worst aspects of gaming culture that make public gaming spaces so unwelcoming.
Vankraken wrote: Instead of beating around the bush, let's take the position of Orks being modeled after male imagery and stereotypes. A mix of Tolkien/generic fantasy orcs mixed with football hooligan stereotypes, and using troll logic for their technology. In-universe it's a mono sex species that reproduces via spores and are non sexual beings who live to fight, loot, and win. Orks sees themselves as an Ork and gender is a foreign concept to them.
If this was a matter of fact (I personally think this fairly well sums it up) then what is the issue at hand or what should be done differently?
I think the concept of Ork Gurlz is an interesting one, mostly because its really hard to get right. Most traditional attempts at differentiation of fantasy orcs end up being more problematic than helpful. Either they end up falling into stereotypical nurturing and support roles or they end up designed as Green Sonja with maybe some lower fangs at their most monstrous feature. I think the right way to do it is honestly just to make a design that's one of da boyz in nature. It's just something really hard to land based on the attempts I see looking for ideas.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Is that not a commentary on the limitations of English, rather than Orks, societally, having genders?
Boyz/Boy is an Orkish word. Therefore it by no means carries the same definition as the English definition. It’s like Trunk. To me, that’s something an elephant has. To our American chums, it’s where you put the shopping in your car.
Orks using English masculine pronouns and terms doesn’t mean Orks are a single gender. Or even have a concept of such things.
When you’re an Ork? You’re an Ork. And because everyone knows Orks are the best, that’s seemingly enough definition for their society.
It's largely irrelevant whether the orks are aware or not for the context of the conversation. The fact Ghazkul is on his crusade to make the biggest waagh ever, instead of simply "their" is the point.
Trunk is also the name for an elephants appendage in America, they just co-opted it as a synonym for boot. You'll have a hard time persuading someone that "boy" is a synonym for something that is genderless however.
Saying that, iirc they use male pronouns for one another aswell rather than genderless.
Well, perhaps more pertinently they use male pronouns when translated into English/Low Gothic. It is humans who have assigned that.
This is what is called the thermian argument. You are using poorly sketched out headcannon of purely in setting justifications to try and make a point about meta issues.
No one gives a flying feth if the orks IN THE SETTING have no concept of gender. We humans living in the real and not made up world can look at orks and see that they are deliberately gendered to us. They were made by humans with an identifiable male gender.
And it is EASY to tell because you can set them next to an ACTUALLY non gendered army, the tyranids, and notice the differences immediately
A Town Called Malus wrote: Orks have no gender, yet the writer immediately genders them as male by referring to them as he/him.
And in the end? Out in the real world?
No one cares.
I mean people seem real interested in defining orks as totally agender so they can pretend they are totally not another masculine faction in the setting
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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can I ask those who know better: would Men of Iron be a good example here for genderless phrasing? Getting past the very first word, it's a literal robot. No gender parts to speak of. No squishy organics. Not even a gendered personality. Again, excusing the very first word, THEY are always referred to as THEY/THEM, or IT. Men of Iron is just a Moniker, like IBM, or Thinkpad. If we retconned Men of Iron to be People of Iron, it would be an exact match for how we are trying to visualize the Ork example. You have zero problem with the lore being genderless in that example. Now apply it to the Orks, or the Custodes, or the Space Marines. They or them. Done. They are a powerful fighting force. Are we done here?
UR-025 isn't particularly gendered visually, but he is referred to by male pronouns consistently. Probly because male is the assumed default for anything.
But he's also the only Men of Iron I know of in the setting, so it's impossible to really say much about them as a whole based on the one example we got.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
I think the difference is that AdMech are so layered, masked, and obscured that they're kinda removed from a lot of gender signifiers. Tyranids aren't even humanoid looking, so humanoid mrkings of gender is kinda obliterated.
Going through, I'd go through gender appearances as such:
Spoiler:
Sororitas - Fem-coded (with the exception of their male priests and followers)
Custodes - Generally gender neutral armour (because of the sheer size), but with masc-coded heads. Hopefully to change in time to also feature fem-coded heads. SoS are fem-coded.
Mechanicus - Agender. No strong features of gender either way.
Titanicus - Big robots. No gender.
Agents - A variety of genders.
Astra Militarum - A variety of genders.
Grey Knights - Large armour means that anyone could be in it - but male pronouns and all male heads. Could simply be a default coding, but at present, explicitly all male.
Imperial Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Astartes - Like Grey Knights, large armour tends to remove ideas of "gender", but aforementioned male pronouns and heads. Again - could be changed with headswaps and language, but at present, explicitly male.
Daemons - Tzeentch Daemons and Nurgle daemons lack a lot of gendered identity. Khorne and Slaanesh daemons are typically androgyne (Khorne leaning masc, Slaanesh leaning fem, but ultimately not hyper-coded)
Chaos Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Chaos Marines - Like Grey Knights and Astartes. Large armour obscures "gender", but currently only use male pronouns and faces. Could be changed with headswaps and gender neutral language. Currently only explicitly male, but people seem to embrace the idea that there is some gender deviancy.
Eldar - A variety of genders.
Dark Eldar - A variety of genders.
Genestealer Cult - A variety of genders, or outright alien aesthetics.
Votann - Large armour, coupled with mixed gender representation beneath the armour.
Orks - Masculine coded, due to being generally under armoured, and still largely humanoid in overall physique. Textually agender, but masculine in appearance and language (ironically the opposite of Space Marine flavours!)
Necrons - Robotic. No discernible signs of gender.
T'au - Obscuring armour, coupled with mixed "gender" representation (we see sexual dimorphism, even if shown in a different way to our understanding - humanoid aliens, but not overly "gendered" by human terms).
Tyranids - Not even humanoid. No gender.
Did I miss anything? Either way, I have noticed that point of interest - that Orks are the most "masculine" army in appearance and behaviour, but are textually agender. Space Marines, which are often championed as the "masculine" army, are predominantly masculine in name only - in appearance, they aren't overly male unless you remove the helmet.
Is this a new observation?
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StudentOfEtherium wrote:personally i don't love the interpretation of space marines et al as "asexual" in the sense of the queer identity. there's a lot of baggage here (for example, space marines have all the brainwashing and physical alterations)
granted, 40k isn't much of a sexual setting in the first place, so it's hard to have asexuality, since it's primarily defined by absence. whether or not a given sister of battle is asexual or allosexual won't really come up, compared to gender which can be (but isn't always) more obvious
Nah, I get you!
I use asexual in a way that is distinct from our current understanding of real people who are asexual/aromantic - but ultimately simply in that Space Marines are not sexually available or concerned post-humans. A guardsmen's asexuality is different to a Space Marines' asexuality, for example.
If you have an alternative classification, I'd be interested to hear it!
Big armor that would erase secondary sexual characteristics will default to male presenting because male is the default assumption of the human form.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
I think the difference is that AdMech are so layered, masked, and obscured that they're kinda removed from a lot of gender signifiers. Tyranids aren't even humanoid looking, so humanoid mrkings of gender is kinda obliterated.
Going through, I'd go through gender appearances as such:
Spoiler:
Sororitas - Fem-coded (with the exception of their male priests and followers)
Custodes - Generally gender neutral armour (because of the sheer size), but with masc-coded heads. Hopefully to change in time to also feature fem-coded heads. SoS are fem-coded.
Mechanicus - Agender. No strong features of gender either way.
Titanicus - Big robots. No gender.
Agents - A variety of genders.
Astra Militarum - A variety of genders.
Grey Knights - Large armour means that anyone could be in it - but male pronouns and all male heads. Could simply be a default coding, but at present, explicitly all male.
Imperial Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Astartes - Like Grey Knights, large armour tends to remove ideas of "gender", but aforementioned male pronouns and heads. Again - could be changed with headswaps and language, but at present, explicitly male.
Daemons - Tzeentch Daemons and Nurgle daemons lack a lot of gendered identity. Khorne and Slaanesh daemons are typically androgyne (Khorne leaning masc, Slaanesh leaning fem, but ultimately not hyper-coded)
Chaos Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Chaos Marines - Like Grey Knights and Astartes. Large armour obscures "gender", but currently only use male pronouns and faces. Could be changed with headswaps and gender neutral language. Currently only explicitly male, but people seem to embrace the idea that there is some gender deviancy.
Eldar - A variety of genders.
Dark Eldar - A variety of genders.
Genestealer Cult - A variety of genders, or outright alien aesthetics.
Votann - Large armour, coupled with mixed gender representation beneath the armour.
Orks - Masculine coded, due to being generally under armoured, and still largely humanoid in overall physique. Textually agender, but masculine in appearance and language (ironically the opposite of Space Marine flavours!)
Necrons - Robotic. No discernible signs of gender.
T'au - Obscuring armour, coupled with mixed "gender" representation (we see sexual dimorphism, even if shown in a different way to our understanding - humanoid aliens, but not overly "gendered" by human terms).
Tyranids - Not even humanoid. No gender.
Did I miss anything? Either way, I have noticed that point of interest - that Orks are the most "masculine" army in appearance and behaviour, but are textually agender. Space Marines, which are often championed as the "masculine" army, are predominantly masculine in name only - in appearance, they aren't overly male unless you remove the helmet.
Is this a new observation?
my two notes:
Slaanesh tends to lean towards explicit androgyny, which is why a lot of models will include aspects of men and women (a lot of them only have one breast, for example). this was called attention to in the old realms of chaos books (although, hilariously, without google around to correct them, the writers used "bisexual" to describe this). as a whole, Slaanesh's aesthetic is more intersex than anything else... but when it comes to the way that people perceive gender, androgyny is adjacent to femininity. the margin in the middle is thin, and in the absence of traditional male signifiers, people will assume femininity. this is why, for example, bishounen anime characters will be perceived of as "girly" even when they don't have any explicit feminine aspects
and regarding GSC, the army definitely has models for men and women, but they definitely lean further towards grizzled snarling men like a lot of other male-focused factions. in particular, neophytes are exclusively male, while all the female models are characters
Slaanesh is the fear the queer god. Us LGBT folk reclaim that sort of stuff, but let's make no mistake, a core of the identity of slaanesh is how scary non cis, non hetero people are to many cis het folks. How scary we are to society over all.
JNAProductions wrote: From an out of universe perspective, Orks are stereotypically male.
From an in universe perspective, I'd imagine the closest things Orks have to gender in their own society is the various types of Boys. A MekBoy is different from a WeirdBoy in ways that matter to the Orks.
And, as a reminder, Orks are NOT stupid. They're simple. If an Ork force found itself on a planet with strong gender norms among the local populace, especially in regards to who fights, they'd learn that. They wouldn't ADOPT that to themselves, but they'd certainly learn that "Oomie men are the stabby ones, and oomie women man the artillery" or whatever the planet does.
It's fun to discuss what in-universe Ork society might have for gender equivalents, or what they think of other species' gender ideas.
But from our perspective-that is, someone who doesn't exist inside the 40k universe-they are presented as male.
The problem as I see it is that we have the novel Brutal Kunnin'. In there we have a female techpriest that is hardly female and referred to as she. We have a skitari using his/her own pronouns (at least in the german translation, not sure if it's just "they" in english and they didn't know how to translate that) and is supposed to be postgender I guess. We also have an Iron Warrior who is a "he" and we have all the Orks and Grots that always refer to themselves as he with the only notable exception of a Squig that becomes a "she" after it got the name of "princess" because it ate a "princeps" and the Orks didn't understand what that's supposed to mean.
So, the Orks might have a concept of gender OR at least they copy the designations from humans. It's one aspect I don’t like about the book, it's basically just the Ork codex in novel form . I prefer the way they handled Ork language in The beast arises where it's always: "The Ork shouted something in their crude language the Space Marines couldn't understand."
Most warhammer authors don't really have a concept of gender outside the binary. It's not really common to think that way.
And the few times they've tried the same people shouting bout fem stodes here raise a mighty clamor about how dare GW use nonstandard pronouns for a tech priest.
Vankraken wrote: Instead of beating around the bush, let's take the position of Orks being modeled after male imagery and stereotypes. A mix of Tolkien/generic fantasy orcs mixed with football hooligan stereotypes, and using troll logic for their technology. In-universe it's a mono sex species that reproduces via spores and are non sexual beings who live to fight, loot, and win. Orks sees themselves as an Ork and gender is a foreign concept to them.
If this was a matter of fact (I personally think this fairly well sums it up) then what is the issue at hand or what should be done differently?
I think the concept of Ork Gurlz is an interesting one, mostly because its really hard to get right. Most traditional attempts at differentiation of fantasy orcs end up being more problematic than helpful. Either they end up falling into stereotypical nurturing and support roles or they end up designed as Green Sonja with maybe some lower fangs at their most monstrous feature. I think the right way to do it is honestly just to make a design that's one of da boyz in nature. It's just something really hard to land based on the attempts I see looking for ideas.
Orks being male coded is fine. I mean they're kind of classist as a portrayal honestly, but whatever.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Same with Ad-Mech, though as discussed elsewhere they’re perhaps better described as post-gender, just another sacrifice of their humanity on the altar of the Omnissiah.
Tyranids however? Hormogaunts may very well be female, as they’re confirmed to be egg layers. Though given the weirdness of that race of gribblies, I can’t rule out the eggs as described aren’t generated by the Hormagaunts, but implanted and that.
I think the difference is that AdMech are so layered, masked, and obscured that they're kinda removed from a lot of gender signifiers. Tyranids aren't even humanoid looking, so humanoid mrkings of gender is kinda obliterated.
Going through, I'd go through gender appearances as such:
Spoiler:
Sororitas - Fem-coded (with the exception of their male priests and followers)
Custodes - Generally gender neutral armour (because of the sheer size), but with masc-coded heads. Hopefully to change in time to also feature fem-coded heads. SoS are fem-coded.
Mechanicus - Agender. No strong features of gender either way.
Titanicus - Big robots. No gender.
Agents - A variety of genders.
Astra Militarum - A variety of genders.
Grey Knights - Large armour means that anyone could be in it - but male pronouns and all male heads. Could simply be a default coding, but at present, explicitly all male.
Imperial Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Astartes - Like Grey Knights, large armour tends to remove ideas of "gender", but aforementioned male pronouns and heads. Again - could be changed with headswaps and language, but at present, explicitly male.
Daemons - Tzeentch Daemons and Nurgle daemons lack a lot of gendered identity. Khorne and Slaanesh daemons are typically androgyne (Khorne leaning masc, Slaanesh leaning fem, but ultimately not hyper-coded)
Chaos Knights - Big robots. No gender.
Chaos Marines - Like Grey Knights and Astartes. Large armour obscures "gender", but currently only use male pronouns and faces. Could be changed with headswaps and gender neutral language. Currently only explicitly male, but people seem to embrace the idea that there is some gender deviancy.
Eldar - A variety of genders.
Dark Eldar - A variety of genders.
Genestealer Cult - A variety of genders, or outright alien aesthetics.
Votann - Large armour, coupled with mixed gender representation beneath the armour.
Orks - Masculine coded, due to being generally under armoured, and still largely humanoid in overall physique. Textually agender, but masculine in appearance and language (ironically the opposite of Space Marine flavours!)
Necrons - Robotic. No discernible signs of gender.
T'au - Obscuring armour, coupled with mixed "gender" representation (we see sexual dimorphism, even if shown in a different way to our understanding - humanoid aliens, but not overly "gendered" by human terms).
Tyranids - Not even humanoid. No gender.
Did I miss anything? Either way, I have noticed that point of interest - that Orks are the most "masculine" army in appearance and behaviour, but are textually agender. Space Marines, which are often championed as the "masculine" army, are predominantly masculine in name only - in appearance, they aren't overly male unless you remove the helmet.
Is this a new observation?
my two notes:
Slaanesh tends to lean towards explicit androgyny, which is why a lot of models will include aspects of men and women (a lot of them only have one breast, for example). this was called attention to in the old realms of chaos books (although, hilariously, without google around to correct them, the writers used "bisexual" to describe this). as a whole, Slaanesh's aesthetic is more intersex than anything else... but when it comes to the way that people perceive gender, androgyny is adjacent to femininity. the margin in the middle is thin, and in the absence of traditional male signifiers, people will assume femininity. this is why, for example, bishounen anime characters will be perceived of as "girly" even when they don't have any explicit feminine aspects
and regarding GSC, the army definitely has models for men and women, but they definitely lean further towards grizzled snarling men like a lot of other male-focused factions. in particular, neophytes are exclusively male, while all the female models are characters
Slaanesh is the fear the queer god. Us LGBT folk reclaim that sort of stuff, but let's make no mistake, a core of the identity of slaanesh is how scary non cis, non hetero people are to many cis het folks. How scary we are to society over all.
yeah the original idea was definitely queerphobic but i still think it's noteworthy as an army playing into intersex and queer bodies and ideas. we can and we should reclaim this sort of thing, because simply put, it's cool. gw should do a heavily queer-coded slaanesh kill team or warcry warband
This entire conversation is so self defeating it feels so hopeless...
Orkz only appear to have a gender because we give them a gender and because gender is a fluid concept we are applying a label only for convenience of conversation. Since so many people want to get lost in the weeds lets really get into it, Orkz themselves would have no concept of gender because they are all the same gender. In their society they would have their own customs and beliefs, like looking sideways at Weirdboyz or thinking that Meks are cowardly, but the only reason male and female come into the conversation is because we the players assign them that way. Orkz are so irrelevant to the conversation of gender because they are genderless and the unending desire to ascribe either gender to them is just projection. If you want to argue that they are "male coded" then you have to admit that this entire discussion is arbitrary based on personal views.
We can talk about authors intent and how different authors present things but I really wish people could drop Orkz from the conversation because it makes as much sense as ascribing gender to Tyranids. The only difference is one faction is relatively humanoid, thus more relatable to humanity, and the other is alien enough that we can't really place labels on them at first glance.
Maybe because I play both races, along with others like Chaos Daemons and Necrons, that I just don't care about the gender or relating to my models so maybe I am just such an outsider in this conversation but it feels like a bunch of people talking past one another to snipe straw men.
We all have a line in the sand in what we will accept as a retcon. My best example is AoS vs WHFB; that was such a heel turn away from grim dark fantasy to high fantasy/borderline scifi that it was like a gut punch to me when it happened. AoS has its own charm but trying to tie it in anyway to WHFB was a huge mistake on their part and is my biggest issue with it to date. Female Custodes is no where near that level of retcon and for me it doesn't cross the line or what I accept as a retcon. I think we could all have a healthier understanding that some people like certain aspects or somethings without trying to build it into some sort of sinister immoral hatred, e.g. I like the dystopian setting and think that Space Marines being all male adds to the bleak setting, I would prefer that they keep that piece of 40k because slowly they have been taking away from that feeling of dread.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: This entire conversation is so self defeating it feels so hopeless...
Orkz only appear to have a gender because we give them a gender and because gender is a fluid concept we are applying a label only for convenience of conversation. Since so many people want to get lost in the weeds lets really get into it, Orkz themselves would have no concept of gender because they are all the same gender. In their society they would have their own customs and beliefs, like looking sideways at Weirdboyz or thinking that Meks are cowardly, but the only reason male and female come into the conversation is because we the players assign them that way. Orkz are so irrelevant to the conversation of gender because they are genderless and the unending desire to ascribe either gender to them is just projection. If you want to argue that they are "male coded" then you have to admit that this entire discussion is arbitrary based on personal views.
We can talk about authors intent and how different authors present things but I really wish people could drop Orkz from the conversation because it makes as much sense as ascribing gender to Tyranids. The only difference is one faction is relatively humanoid, thus more relatable to humanity, and the other is alien enough that we can't really place labels on them at first glance.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here, Shade. The point people are making is that orks being coded as male further adds to the number of "all-male" armies in the franchise. Which as others have pointed out, could potentially make the franchise less approachable for those who *do* want to identify with their army of choice. Additionally, pointing out that people aren't generally all that passionate about adding gurlz to orks because they aren't the flagship faction helps illustrate the nuance that marines being monosex is, for many people, only problematic because they're the prominent face of the franchise.
So orks are very relevant to the discussion as they both help illustrate how many factions are "all-male" and because they offer some perspective on *why* some of us are okay with the idea of femarines/femstodes.
Also, saying this sincerely and not as an attack, are you familiar with the concept of "coding?" From your post, it seems like you might not be.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: Orkz are so irrelevant to the conversation of gender because they are genderless and the unending desire to ascribe either gender to them is just projection. If you want to argue that they are "male coded" then you have to admit that this entire discussion is arbitrary based on personal views.
And yet they're named to be boyz.
Boy:
noun
1. a male child or adolescent.
A product description:
This multipart plastic kit builds Boss Snikrot, an infamous Kommando leader and Ork assassin. He’s armed with a pair of combat blades known as Mork's Teeth,
Novel blurb:
When Ufthak and his orks attack the forge world of Hephaesto, the last thing they want is to share the spoils with the notorious Kaptin Badrukk. But with armies to defeat and loot to seize, Ufthak's boyz might just need Badrukk's help – though that doesn't mean they can trust him…
Again, the orks might not have or understand gender, infact I think there's a book where they even scoff at the idea of gender themselves, but they're clearly marketed as introduced as male coded.
This kind of coding disconnect is not unique to 40K, either.
Consider Transformers, and specifically the transformers themselves. In universe the transformers are not male or female yet the default coding of them is, in the majority of cases, male. Optimus Prime has no sex, yet he is unequivocally male due to the coding of his character.
Arcee wasn't in the first Michael Bay Transformers film because it was felt by those making it that a "female" robot would need to be explained, yet "male" robots apparently did not need any explanation when they are just as inexplicable as a "female" presenting transforming robot. Then Arcee appeared in like 2 scenes in the sequel and one of them was her being killed off unceremoniously.
The Transformers comics have actually engaged with this and explored what outward gender identification/representation means in a society of machines, yet that does not carry through into the mass-market adaptations such as the movies.
Can we not use Transformers as an example? That movie was so "male gaze" that it was basically a Bazzers film. If that's what people need to understand the point, we need to do better in our education system.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can we not use Transformers as an example? That movie was so "male gaze" that it was basically a Bazzers film. If that's what people need to understand the point, we need to do better in our education system.
But that is precisely why it is so useful as an example. You learn about and identify the concepts in there, where they are so obvious, so then you can spot them in others where they are a bit more hidden.
The original author stated that he was disappointed the first slaanesh models were not as erotically charged as he had hoped, so i'm not sure his intent was 'queer fear', though at the same time there was a lot of leaning on paradise lost, temptation, and mutation.
Arbiter_Shade wrote: If you want to argue that they are "male coded" then you have to admit that this entire discussion is arbitrary based on personal views.
My personal view is that a reasonable adult will look at the fictional aliens with big bulging muscles, inverted-triangle body shapes, universally male pronouns, male naming schemes (eg Boyz) and total embodiment of masculine tropes (football hooliganism, hot rodding, guns) and perceive them as male.
That isn't arbitrary, it's a straightforward inference based on normal social cues. If someone looks at Orks and doesn't see them as male, they're either appealing to the fluff and totally missing the point (the 'she's actually a thousand year old witch' defense) or a shapeshifter in disguise.
It's relevant to the thread because Orks illustrate the difference between background and presentation- in the fluff they might be just as non-binary as Tyranids, but in terms of how they appear and appeal to players, they aren't. Someone who is put off by roided-out beefcake male power fantasy factions probably isn't going to pick Orks instead.
stratigo wrote:No one gives a flying feth if the orks IN THE SETTING have no concept of gender. We humans living in the real and not made up world can look at orks and see that they are deliberately gendered to us. They were made by humans with an identifiable male gender.
And it is EASY to tell because you can set them next to an ACTUALLY non gendered army, the tyranids, and notice the differences immediately
Absolutely.
Tyranids are truly genderless, because of how alien they are in appearance and behaviour. They are animalistic, not just brutish humanoids.
Big armor that would erase secondary sexual characteristics will default to male presenting because male is the default assumption of the human form.
Unfortunately, you're correct.
However, it's not as egregious as something like Orks.
Arbiter_Shade wrote:This entire conversation is so self defeating it feels so hopeless...
Orkz only appear to have a gender because we give them a gender
Not to quote the rest, but you pretty much answer yourself at the start here.
We, the OOC humans playing and observing the game, recognise that Orks have a gendered appearance. That doesn't mean that Orks *can't* be agender or genderless, but aesthetically, they *do* possess the semiotic connotations of gender.
As a non-binary person, I recognise and acknowledge that my appearance is gendered, but that doesn't change my gender. The different here is that I am a real person, and Orks are not real persons. They are a fictional construct, and we must consider that their appearance is designed, not lived.
We can talk about authors intent and how different authors present things but I really wish people could drop Orkz from the conversation because it makes as much sense as ascribing gender to Tyranids. The only difference is one faction is relatively humanoid, thus more relatable to humanity, and the other is alien enough that we can't really place labels on them at first glance.
I think you hit exactly *why* this is relevant - Orks, despite being an alien race, *are* closer to a "human" understanding (or, at least, an approximation of understanding) - obviously, they're fictional fungus monsters who believe Red Uns go Fasta, and that Might Makes Right, and everything else that makes up Ork Kultur, but that is more understandable and legible to us (externally) than Tyranids. They look closer to us. Their semiotic codes are more legible for us, external observers, to recognise and compare our own to.
Orks are precisely relevant *because* we can so easily still ascribe identities and labels to them. And, as much as in setting they might be genderless, in GW's descriptions, they nearly always have masculine pronouns.
Funnily enough Tyranids are female coded for the most part despite being Dino-insects from another galaxy - Norn Queen, Heirodule, Termagant, Harridan...
Gnarlly wrote: Just stirring the pot here (first image circa 1988 mini, the others are ~2016; all GW "orc" minis):
Spoiler:
They're GW Orc minis, but not 40k. They're similar, but they're not exactly the same. Especially with how... detached Blood Bowl can be from other GW identities.
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