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A response to utter childishness, can itself be childish

 daedalus wrote:

Apple fox wrote:

World and story is why I play games, but does this ad to the world meaningfully or if I see it will it add to my world in anyway ? I too want games to look at the world and it's conflicts, but if this game doesn't and simply leaves it as a joke it seems it's doing exactly the other side of what you want.

Truncation because it's 3:00 AM here and I should really be doing other things. I might revisit why things like being able to naturally have children or not might be relevant to some people as well as why leading someone on might be considered leading someone on later on.

To the quoted point, because, as was put more succinctly than I could hope to: Why censor fiction?

I shudder to think of all the subtle little nuances I might have lost from works over the years if we'd caved in and censored a work of art simply because it made someone uncomfortable somewhere. That's kind of what art is supposed to do. Even if it's not a direct and fundamental point of the story, to lose any amount of flavor is repugnant. I sometimes wonder how many books I would have left to enjoy if they would not have been printed because they made someone uncomfortable somewhere. Movies too, for that matter.




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LordofHats wrote:
Assuming they act like 8 year olds

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Related: The person who started all these tweets to begin with has posted "Kill all Men" and "Put men in concentration camps" sort of tweets...Oh the irony of SJW's.

Eyebrow raised.

Naturally being able to raise a family is important and relevant, but how soon should it be told ? Before any relationship. What about at a bar ? When they first meet ? Should they wear a ring informing people of there status.
And to put it very politely should men be required to tell any girl they meat if they want a relationship or just sex that night ? Before sex you have to say if you want want children as you don't want to be in a long term or permanent relationship yet?

A lot of things are not said soon enough in relationships since there is no context to tell, to say it is leading people on is a rather steep fall. I have known of three times here where transgender have been picked up and attack specifically for that. They where open on Facebook or a dating website and where targeted for it, now preferring to meeting any potential partner under more neutral terms.

Society wants them hidden away and unwelcome until it offends some person at which point they must be honest, and make sure the world knows before they can be offended.
Isn't that ironic that people come to defence of a joke that has little more than targeting a group of people with little power or defence, a joke that reinforces (unless other context is found) discrimination against these people.

It seems the people taking offence are the people who like the joke to me.

 Bromsy wrote:
So reading back through I guess I never asked the question I was thinking - can anyone explain to me why this is a big enough deal to care about and what is so terribly bad that there are campaigns to boycott an otherwise brilliant game for not refusing to host a backer's rather infantile but fairly harmless joke.

Yeah, I think I can. Basically, I think all it takes is trying to imagine how you would feel about it if you stumbled upon this as a transgender. You are already facing a lot of hostility from society in general. How and when to tell people you are a transgender is a big deal for you when trying to find a partner. And you stumble upon this “joke”. It perpetuates this vision of transgenders as “traps”, that are trying to trick people. A vision that is much, much more frequent than actual positive portrayal of transgenders. It portrays having sex with you as something incredibly shameful. And, on top of that, it presents the people you are flirting with, not you, as the real victim. It does not matter how many discrimination you can suffer day to day, how much you can be afraid of bigoted people becoming physically violent against you, the victim is the straight cis guy. The story is told from the point of view of the straight cis guy, as it always is.
So the “joke” is basically insulting you as someone who tries to entrap people, presents having sex with you as an extremely shameful act, and completely ignores your point of view to focus only on the point of view of the cis guy, that is already extremely prevalent. Even if someone was trying to make you feel bad on purpose, I do not know how they could do better than that!
Now, if it was in an horrible game full of horrible stuff that you really did not like, you certainly would just that “That horrible game is horrible”. But if it is in a game that you otherwise really enjoy, likely you would try to make them change it. So that other trans do not have to stumble upon it, and so it stops perpetuating those harmful notions about trans.

Did I explain good?

 daedalus wrote:
Why? Is there an imperative NOT to offend people/

The devs have a right to insult and demean people, and to make some of their players feel bad, for no particular reason. Indeed, they do. However, is it a good idea to use that right? I do not think so.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
But....it was also promised to a backer they would put it in.

I am pretty sure there were limitations to what you could put. But yeah, in all fairness, the backer should be allowed to provide a new text, sure.

Apple fox wrote:
I could also find no reference to a website called ED.

Do not go there. Really. It is just going to ruin your day. Not worth it.


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 daedalus wrote:
I shudder to think of all the subtle little nuances I might have lost from works over the years if we'd caved in and censored a work of art simply because it made someone uncomfortable somewhere. That's kind of what art is supposed to do. Even if it's not a direct and fundamental point of the story, to lose any amount of flavor is repugnant. I sometimes wonder how many books I would have left to enjoy if they would not have been printed because they made someone uncomfortable somewhere. Movies too, for that matter.

Okay, first, are we really talking about a 4 liners that was introduced by a backer and is completely unrelated to the rest of the game's story, here, while also having little merit on itself, here?
Second, can you not tell the difference between a story that makes you uncomfortable by challenging your expectations, pushing your moral boundaries, and generally putting you into an unfamiliar, likely thought-provoking situations, and a story that push you back into already mainstream harmful stereotypes about you?
One is certainly better than the other. Stopping at “Does it make something somewhere uncomfortable” and therefore conflating those two is either incredibly shortsighted or willfully ignorant.

Nah man I'm pretty sure it's just a cigar joke. It doesn't "perpetuate" anything.

You know when you think about it the joke could also refer to a very feminine looking gay man and maybe the guy was drunk. Not saying that's the case but it could happen i suppose. They weren't really extremely descriptive. It just so happens transgendered was the possible answer everybody thought was the right one.

Personally i think it's more joking about the unfortunate circumstance of just not knowing.

As a humorous person i don't mind being offensive to any group as long as it's in jest. Some people just need to calm the f**k down. Stop being offended for a group of people you don't belong to or only represent one of a bunch of. You are not the diplomat of every gay/transgender/black person just because you are one of them. In the end you're getting offended for a group because you were offended and that in itself is more your opinions than a group's and you shouldn't treat it as any more than that.

Sounds like rubbish to me.
If you have to go to this much trouble to be offended, then it's probably not offensive in the first place and you have an over-inflated sense of your own moral certitude.
When I read a couple of the tweets it wasn't clear exactly what they found offensive either, just that it's transphobic.
If you also have to rely on a word that exists only in a tiny subsect of a minority community to describe your outrage, you have firmly disappeared up your own arse.

Grow a thick fething skin.

Sick of this bullgak, politically correct society. Grow up. You will get offended by things, that's life, especially if you let gak like an inconsequential limerick from a game you'll likely never play offend you.

People can say whatever they want in a free society. Trans/gay/ethnic/whatever people have no right to silence others. I've had multiple real life encounters where people have been hostile about my nationality. Guess what? That's their right and their problem, I'm over it.

How dares he?! Making a joke?! MADNESS.

No, really, it's the internet, of course someone would be mad. I chuckled as I read that, it's a funny rhyme, that's it, a joke, but for the sjw, oh no, it's from satan itself, it is!

Frak sake, I have no idea if everyone was like this before the internet was so widely available as it is nowadays, but I don't remember so many "sensitive people" back then.

 r_squared wrote:
Sounds like rubbish to me.
If you have to go to this much trouble to be offended, then it's probably not offensive in the first place and you have an over-inflated sense of your own moral certitude.
When I read a couple of the tweets it wasn't clear exactly what they found offensive either, just that it's transphobic.
If you also have to rely on a word that exists only in a tiny subsect of a minority community to describe your outrage, you have firmly disappeared up your own arse.

It's not exactly hard to understand why this "joke" could cause issue, simply washing away with calling it a joke doesn't make it better.
It's small for the issues that transgender have to deal with, and a joke that I expect every single one has seen multiple times.

What offence would it's removal cause ? What great loss would it cause for the devs to remove it.

But hey anyone that actually has to deal with issues like this is just taking it too far ! Maybe the devs could show some compassion and say, hey maybe the joke was a bit to far instead.

IMO the joke is a little inappropriate, but it is so minor. There are much bigger battles to fight. It seems to have so few people actually angry about it though.

 Alex C wrote:
Grow a thick fething skin.

Sick of this bullgak, politically correct society. Grow up. You will get offended by things, that's life, especially if you let gak like an inconsequential limerick from a game you'll likely never play offend you.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
How dares he?! Making a joke?! MADNESS.

You are right people. feth empathy. feth being nice. Let us all start trying as hard as we can to make people feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, rejected and scorn. That at least is a fight worth fighting for.

 Steve steveson wrote:
IMO the joke is a little inappropriate, but it is so minor. There are much bigger battles to fight. It seems to have so few people actually angry about it though.

It is a very minor thing, but it's not much effort to post here
I actually consider it quite inappropriate, considering that a lot of transgender do commit suicide and worse.
If there wasn't an issue with the way society often treats transgender people this joke wouldn't even register, not worth protecting it either.

Apple fox wrote:
If there wasn't an issue with the way society often treats transgender people this joke wouldn't even register, not worth protecting it either.

It cause distress in others. For that reason alone, it is obviously worth protecting! Doubly so because said others are in a position of weakness, and are as a group completely unable to harm anyone. You know, the very important freedom to hurt others for giggles!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
If there wasn't an issue with the way society often treats transgender people this joke wouldn't even register, not worth protecting it either.

It cause distress in others. For that reason alone, it is obviously worth protecting! Doubly so because said others are in a position of weakness, and are as a group completely unable to harm anyone. You know, the very important freedom to hurt others for giggles!

Distress, harming people, yeah this sounds like someone who has never seen someone with PTSD, it's a single solitary line in the game and if this is what causes serious amounts of pain that's something that requires an actual therapy visit!

Apple fox wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
It's the bloody internet, how have people not developed a sense of humour? I suggest they get re-educated at the marvelous site that is ED, they'll burn themselves out on ineffectual hate so much that they might give up on their deluded ideas of "social justice".

Yes it would be great to not get subjected to such awful jokes again and again !
I could also find no reference to a website called ED. So yea...

I do believe he means Encyclopedia Dramatica.

Big drama over tiny issue noone in their right mind would care about.

Never seen that before.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
it's a single solitary line in the game

Yeah, and I wrote about why it was very unpleasant for any transgender people to stumble upon it, a few messages above. What is your great motivation for wanting this line to be in the game, though, if it is not to make someone feel bad, again?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
If there wasn't an issue with the way society often treats transgender people this joke wouldn't even register, not worth protecting it either.

It cause distress in others. For that reason alone, it is obviously worth protecting! Doubly so because said others are in a position of weakness, and are as a group completely unable to harm anyone. You know, the very important freedom to hurt others for giggles!

Distress, harming people, yeah this sounds like someone who has never seen someone with PTSD, it's a single solitary line in the game and if this is what causes serious amounts of pain that's something that requires an actual therapy visit!

I have, and how to do use that to draw from ?
Both are mental disability that can cause disruption in life, both internally and externally.
Trying to compare the two shows a lack of understanding of both.

If it's just a line of text In the game, what's the harm in removing it?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
it's a single solitary line in the game

Yeah, and I wrote about why it was very unpleasant for any transgender people to stumble upon it, a few messages above. What is your great motivation for wanting this line to be in the game, though, if it is not to make someone feel bad, again?

First off, stop projecting as it is right now you are thinking all I want to hurt people for some reason, it's basically equating a false argument.

Second: The world is not your hugbox, there will be things that offend you at times and to be to your displeasure, this is not something to get up in arms and get ready to shoot anyone's head off as a result, it's an unpleasant line in a game with very dark theme's to begin with but it's singular and all you are doing is promoting censorship "Because you feel bad". If that honestly was an excuse we'd have to cancel quite a bit if that was the basis for such things.

I have, and how to do use that to draw from ?
Both are mental disability that can cause disruption in life, both internally and externally.
Trying to compare the two shows a lack of understanding of both.

If it's just a line of text In the game, what's the harm in removing it?

Because there's no harm in keeping it either, I dislike heavy handed censorship in such a manner, and also as said if that line alone causes a major disruption in your life you need actual medical therapy as basically going into a coma at the sight of a few words is actually problematic, if all it's causing is a slight period of unpleasantness that you can pass on from, then it's not a major problem!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
it's a single solitary line in the game

Yeah, and I wrote about why it was very unpleasant for any transgender people to stumble upon it, a few messages above. What is your great motivation for wanting this line to be in the game, though, if it is not to make someone feel bad, again?

Really? Because there are several Trans-People that posted on Obsidans Twitter to keep it, and it is not offensive to them... Stop speaking for an entire community.

Getting outraged over stuff like this is hurting the Trans and LBGT community, much more than it is helping them. Seriously, I"m a big proponent of LBGT rights, but the right battles need to be picked. This is not one of them. Wasting time and energy on something like this trivilaizes the much more serious issues that are going on.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Seriously, this is a joke limerick, and not a bad one at that, but it's a joke in a credits scene in a game, not a new bill passed by Indiana where stores can refuse to serve LGBT customers.

Haha, I don't know whether its funny or not, or even if you are aware, but this is a majorly controversial new bill to be implemented in Northern Ireland. Look up the Conscience Clause NI if you haven't heard

I'm not sure how this limerick applies to transgender people.
All it says is that the woman turned out to be a man.
That doesn't mean transgender; it just means that the hero was really drunk at the time.

Have people seriously not heard of these sort of stories? I thought it was a common occurrence in comedy, where someone gets drunk and shags someone he / she shouldn't have.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
[
Okay, first, are we really talking about a 4 liners that was introduced by a backer and is completely unrelated to the rest of the game's story, here, while also having little merit on itself, here?
Second, can you not tell the difference between a story that makes you uncomfortable by challenging your expectations, pushing your moral boundaries, and generally putting you into an unfamiliar, likely thought-provoking situations, and a story that push you back into already mainstream harmful stereotypes about you?
One is certainly better than the other. Stopping at “Does it make something somewhere uncomfortable” and therefore conflating those two is either incredibly shortsighted or willfully ignorant.

In this case, it seems we are. Yes. Yes I can. None of that means that either should have elements removed to satisfy the consciences of people who upset easily. Your argument is that it's so minor nothing is lost from the plot or atmosphere. I'm arguing that atmosphere is a lump sum of everything, and removing anything, no matter how obscure or small would change that.

I want you to explain to me how removing this joke would not be censorship. That's really all I want. If I can be convinced of that, then I can walk away and never look at this thread again.



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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I'm not sure how this limerick applies to transgender people.
All it says is that the woman turned out to be a man.
That doesn't mean transgender; it just means that the hero was really drunk at the time.

Have people seriously not heard of these sort of stories? I thought it was a common occurrence in comedy, where someone gets drunk and shags someone he / she shouldn't have.

Yeah, also this.

 Sasori wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
it's a single solitary line in the game

Yeah, and I wrote about why it was very unpleasant for any transgender people to stumble upon it, a few messages above. What is your great motivation for wanting this line to be in the game, though, if it is not to make someone feel bad, again?

Really? Because there are several Trans-People that posted on Obsidans Twitter to keep it, and it is not offensive to them... Stop speaking for an entire community.

Getting outraged over stuff like this is hurting the Trans and LBGT community, much more than it is helping them. Seriously, I"m a big proponent of LBGT rights, but the right battles need to be picked. This is not one of them. Wasting time and energy on something like this trivilaizes the much more serious issues that are going on.

This isn't really a big battle, and finding some people in this community that are ok with it also doesn't give it the ok. They are also themselves and don't speak for others.
Discussion on dakka or other places won't cause great harm, but it should let others know why something like this can even if this is minor.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Seriously, this is a joke limerick, and not a bad one at that, but it's a joke in a credits scene in a game, not a new bill passed by Indiana where stores can refuse to serve LGBT customers.

Haha, I don't know whether its funny or not, or even if you are aware, but this is a majorly controversial new bill to be implemented in Northern Ireland. Look up the Conscience Clause NI if you haven't heard

If we start showing consideration to marginalised people, where does it end? What if they start expecting people to be considerate and kind all the time?

It's important we express in the strongest possible terms that nobody should ever have to take into consideration how something might make someone else feel, lest a sliver of doubt creep into our hearts.

Title Updated to be less clickbaity.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I'm not sure how this limerick applies to transgender people.
All it says is that the woman turned out to be a man.
That doesn't mean transgender; it just means that the hero was really drunk at the time.

Have people seriously not heard of these sort of stories? I thought it was a common occurrence in comedy, where someone gets drunk and shags someone he / she shouldn't have.

We don't know the context of said person being there, but It's a very common joke against transgender.
Sometimes the best is to let it rest at the bottom of the ocean until the environment is more welcoming to the people it maybe mocking.

The best way to handle this issue is to just ignore it. It's a bunch of people shouting "WOLF!" for the 100000x time tying to get attention and their minutes of fame.

On the upside, those "interesting" people serve as free advertisment for the best game in years.

Apple fox wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I'm not sure how this limerick applies to transgender people.
All it says is that the woman turned out to be a man.
That doesn't mean transgender; it just means that the hero was really drunk at the time.

Have people seriously not heard of these sort of stories? I thought it was a common occurrence in comedy, where someone gets drunk and shags someone he / she shouldn't have.

We don't know the context of said person being there, but It's a very common joke against transgender.
Sometimes the best is to let it rest at the bottom of the ocean until the environment is more welcoming to the people it maybe mocking.

Really? I thought it was more of a joke against drunkards.
Then again, the versions I know did not have transgender folks.