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Rihgu wrote:
As far as "it's not the hobby, it's the donkey caves in the hobby" goes...

if there's a huge number of donkey caves in the hobby... we as non-donkey caves really have to ask ourselves why we're so welcoming to donkey caves that they congregate to our hobby in large numbers...

In effect, there's not really a difference.

Ohohoh no, I don't think I can go along with that logic. I've played a number of online shooters and the donkey-caveness level is pretty high. But I wouldn't say that's the fault of the game. Hell, the level of donkey-caveness on Twitter is pretty high.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Jammer87 wrote:

Des702 wrote:
As long as they don't sexulize the armour I don't see how this would really hurt marines.

I don’t know why someone couldn’t just buy a female head and slap it on a Space Marines body right now? The lore?

My Necrons are all female except the named ones.

Because there's no fething human female heads in the GW range, maybe.

My bad. I thought the Stormcast female heads would fit on a Space Marine perfect. I'll have to keep looking.

insaniak wrote:Or a woman who feels excluded by the game's major faction not including women.

If you personally don't feel that it sends that message, that's fine for you... but it's not really up to you to decide whether or not other people feel welcome, is it?

So basically you just wanna push wahmen to the forefront just because they're wahmen to make yourself feel better and earn brownie points. Right-o.

No, he wants to include women in the game's most visible faction because that sends a message that the game is inclusive. Wanting the game to be inclusive isn't to make us feel better, it's to make the people who currently feel excluded feel better.

If that makes you feel "excluded" then I'm sorry, that's a you problem. And inclusivity among the players is a more than admirable go - forced "inclusivity" that goes against a setting's established lore is borderline abominable and one of the quickest ways to kill said setting. If people feel that strongly about things looking like they do, they have options.

Gert wrote:Congrats on making the worst argument so far in this thread.
Is it narcissistic to want to be treated equally? Is it narcissistic to not be hounded of social media because you dared to be female/black/asian/middle eastern/lgbt+?
This isn't about people not liking SM, it's about making the PRIMARY PRODUCT of the 40k range more welcoming to non-straight, cis, white-male hobbyists. So far the options for female hobbyists getting armies that represent them are:
- Female-only faction who are religious fanatics and only exist in lore to get around a poorly worded law.
- Space Elves who are the definition of NSFW.
- Space Elves with a model range older than many players.
- T'au who are by design homogenous.
- A tiny selection of minis in otherwise male-dominated factions.
Not a single one of these comes close to the market presence of SM.
If people can empathise with others so well, why is racism/sexism/transphobia/homophobia/bigotry so widespread? Any time a non-white male character does literally anything that isn't dying or getting saved by a white male character in any 40k media, the vocal chuds scream about it across the internet.
That is the image put across of Warhammer players and is the main reason people leave the hobby if they aren't straight, cis, white and male.

1: His argument was perfectly fine. Whether you like the facts he stated or not are irrelevant.
2: Imagine thinking that people can ONLY be represented by things like their genitalia rather than identifying with the faction for their lore and such.
3: The marketability of SM is kind of a vicious cycle far beyond the scope of what's being discussed here, tbh.
4: "why is racism/sexism/transphobia/homophobia/bigotry so widespread?" It isn't.
5: "Any time a non-white male character does literally anything that isn't dying or getting saved by a white male character in any 40k media, the vocal chuds scream about it across the internet." Why are you worried about what "chuds" think? And as for why people have issues with that, it's because this kinda of BS has been forced into almost every other franchise at this point. "X is a super powerful wahmen who's powerful because magic vagina power and if you don't like her it's not because she's a gak character it's because you're an istophobe", a la Rey. It used to be a natural thing where a writer would do things because it felt right at the time or that's just how the character was - nowadays it's turned into a game of trying to score brownie points with political cultists who, for some ungodly reason, people give the time of day to.And, quite frankly, this is a major part of the problem - no one's complaining about the Sororitas being all-female, but having an all-male faction is the problem? It's an absolute fething double standard.
6: "and is the main reason people leave the hobby if they aren't straight, cis, white and male." Citation needed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
As far as "it's not the hobby, it's the donkey caves in the hobby" goes...

if there's a huge number of donkey caves in the hobby... we as non-donkey caves really have to ask ourselves why we're so welcoming to donkey caves that they congregate to our hobby in large numbers...

In effect, there's not really a difference.

Ohohoh no, I don't think I can go along with that logic. I've played a number of online shooters and the donkey-caveness level is pretty high. But I wouldn't say that's the fault of the game. Hell, the level of donkey-caveness on Twitter is pretty high.

See, this I can't stand - the original quote. Trying to shift the blame onto the players who just want the game they invest in to be the game they invested in.

Hoo-boy.

I dunno if you have any idea how you come across, but that's the kind of ugly talk that makes me want to, I don't know, make the Emperor trans and gender swap half the Primarchs out of sheer spite. I had no desire to do this 30 minutes ago.

First, if the choice is between inclusivity and the perceived sanctity of 'the precious setting' that GW sure as hell hasn't kept sacred, the former wins, every time.

Second, how does it actually damage the setting? Like, either 40K has significant gender themes or it doesn't. I don't think it does - it's about stuff sucking, mostly - but if it does, then the Space Marines male-only existence can really only be justified as the Imperium being misogynist and this explicitly being one more dystopian aspect of their rule.

If it doesn't, then surely there's no problem in the existence of female/trans/whatever Marines and the best thing to do is include as many genders as possible in every faction with so much as the concept of a gender?

 Kepora wrote:

If that makes you feel "excluded" then I'm sorry, that's a you problem.

When a company is trying to sell a product, and potential customers feel like that product is deliberately unwelcoming, that's not just a 'you' problem, that's a marketing problem.

...forced "inclusivity" that goes against a setting's established lore is borderline abominable and one of the quickest ways to kill said setting.

Having women exist in a fantasy setting is not 'forced' inclusivity.

Women make up roughly half of the population. Women also enjoy fantasy and sci fi stories, movies and games. Not including them in a way that is equally as interesting to them as the male characters are to the male customers makes for a far more 'forced' setting than including them does.

Imagine thinking that people can ONLY be represented by things like their genitalia rather than identifying with the faction for their lore and such.

Yes, please do. If we all imagine that, then we'll be halfway there.

And no, that doesn't mean that this sort of representation matters to everyone, as has been discussed multiple times so far. But whether or not you personally think it is or is not a problem, it is a thing. Not just because people need the same genitals to relate, but simply because their exclusion makes it harder to relate to the setting.

I've heard the n word a lot less on online shooters (outside the occasional troll) and have seen a lot less blatant misogyny on shooters since they opened up the models and skins for players to females and minorities across different factions (both protagonist and antagonist). In fact I played CS:GO and have witnessed a trend for female gamers to be booted the moment their voices came through the mic. I've also heard terrible, terrible things said to them. Meanwhile, in call of duty, the lobbies are SIGNIFICANTLY less toxic. And they have FEMALE and MINORITY skins for ALL FACTIONS. So the lovely point you brought up, actually reinforces the point that REPRESENTATION MATTERS. Also, as of recent updates and skins in CS:GO, the same trends happened with the introduction of female skins for different factions as well. These changes made those donkey caves less comfortable in that community, when they are forced to be confronted with their own misogyny. Such changes tends to make those sorts very uncomfortable and especially uncomfortable to be such donkeys.

macluvin wrote:

Spoiler:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
As far as "it's not the hobby, it's the donkey caves in the hobby" goes...

if there's a huge number of donkey caves in the hobby... we as non-donkey caves really have to ask ourselves why we're so welcoming to donkey caves that they congregate to our hobby in large numbers...

In effect, there's not really a difference.

Ohohoh no, I don't think I can go along with that logic. I've played a number of online shooters and the donkey-caveness level is pretty high. But I wouldn't say that's the fault of the game. Hell, the level of donkey-caveness on Twitter is pretty high.

I've heard the n word a lot less on online shooters (outside the occasional troll) and have seen a lot less blatant misogyny on shooters since they opened up the models and skins for players to females and minorities across different factions (both protagonist and antagonist). In fact I played CS:GO and have witnessed a trend for female gamers to be booted the moment their voices came through the mic. I've also heard terrible, terrible things said to them. Meanwhile, in call of duty, the lobbies are SIGNIFICANTLY less toxic. And they have FEMALE and MINORITY skins for ALL FACTIONS. So the lovely point you brought up, actually reinforces the point that REPRESENTATION MATTERS. Also, as of recent updates and skins in CS:GO, the same trends happened with the introduction of female skins for different factions as well. These changes made those donkey caves less comfortable in that community, when they are forced to be confronted with their own misogyny. Such changes tends to make those sorts very uncomfortable and especially uncomfortable to be such donkeys.

^ Alright that's interesting if it's true. Plus correlation =/= causality. Can you source some information on that? I'd love to take a look.

1 - "Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's idealised self-image and attributes." Wanting your sex/gender/race represented in media when it is routinely under-represented isn't Narcissism.
2 - True, they can't only be represented by that. But most men don't use a female character to represent themselves so why should a woman be forced to if they want to play SM?
3 - It's not beyond the scope when the discussion is SM.
4 - Cool, nice denial there chief. Why don't you check out some non-white male hobbyists on social media and see how often they get harrased and threatened for daring to do warhammer.
5 - The "Chuds" are the very vocal minority who are the face of this hobby on the Internet which is where people go to find out about said hobby. If a woman were to see 20 posts saying "stop making female models" and 1 saying "make more female models", chances are they are going to find a different hobby.
6 - Again, go and find the people who have been harassed off of their platforms because they dared to be in the hobby as women/trans/non-white.

Insectum7 wrote:From my point of view, the important detail is "feelings of exclusion/harassment IN the hobby"
or
"feelings of exclusion/harassment BECAUSE of the hobby"

Because as we should all know, donkey caves gonna donkey cave, probably regardless of the fandom of choice.

Perhaps those donkey caves were always going to be donkey caves - but when they're using the lore as an excuse to do it, maybe the lore needs to be amended.

It's about stripping back any sense of legitimacy they have to make those comments - I've seen far too many outright toxic behaviours "justified" by said lore, and frankly, if it comes between supporting people in the real world, or some lines of text, I'll choose real people every time.

Am I saying that the hobby itself is inherently exclusionary? Not exactly, no. But do some people use material in the hobby to justify/provide a cover for their exclusionary behaviours? Yes, absolutely.

RegularGuy wrote:#1 Is it "purely because they exist in the hobby", or do people have an issue with someone saying "Hi fellow gaming enthusiast, nice hobby, how bout we remake it in my image?"

Asking to see yourself represented is "remaking it in my image"? Adding women Astartes doesn't stop you having male ones.

In my neighborhood there's no visible problems, and we see people of diverse genders and nationalities enjoying the hobby together as it is.

In which case, you are either lucky, and I'm thankful for you, or you don't see the problems (so I do appreciate you saying "visible").
But not all communities are your community, and I'm very aware that in the wider community as a whole, it is an overwhelmingly white male hobby, and women/transfolk are often sidelined, or left feeling uncomfortable. I don't mean to call *your* community that, but you must understand that people *do* have legitimate grievances, yes?

I'm sure somewhere there are toxic environments, but it's not a problem for all places everywhere

Let's flip this comment around: "I'm sure there are non-toxic environments, but that's not a blessing that all places everywhere have".

If there are communities with issues, should we not look at helping them?

RegularGuy wrote:Or it may be a healthy and diverse community where people respect each other. It may be that there isn't a lurking shadow of oppression hiding under every table or in the heart of every other gamer.

No-one said there was. But you're a fool to keep sweeping the actual testimony of people who *do* have issues under the rug like this.

There's nothing wrong with saying "yes, there are parts of the community with severe issues", because if your community was a good part, we wouldn't be talking about yours.

Half of my dungeons and dragons players are young women, and we've introduced them to the warhammer gaming system. No one has told them they are oppressed, no one has told them to find patriarchy to smash, and as a result we all have a great time together without needing to hunt for or construct oppressors, heretics, or enemies in our community to crusade and signal virtue against.

Again, great job at painting the criticism that many marginalised groups have as something they were brainwashed to have. You're doing an excellent job in painting a picture that you *do* foster a supportive environment /s.

If *your* group is fine, that's fine. But not all groups are. And you sweeping those testimonies under the rug and acting like it's not sincere, that it's all some kind of manufactured outrage is part of the problem.

Good communities and fellowship is meticulously cultivated through healthy social exercise

Like feeling represented and valued?

Kepora wrote:If that makes you feel "excluded" then I'm sorry, that's a you problem.

No, if a setting makes you feel excluded, then it's a failure in marketing.

And inclusivity among the players is a more than admirable

And how can you promote said inclusivity in the playerbase? Oh yeah, by reflecting it in the setting.

forced "inclusivity" that goes against a setting's established lore is borderline abominable

Why?

and one of the quickest ways to kill said setting.

How?

If people feel that strongly about things looking like they do, they have options.

Such as? If I want women Space Marines, how can I have women Space Marines, that will be as legitimate as any other Space Marine Chapter, without having women Space Marines in the lore?

Imagine thinking that people can ONLY be represented by things like their genitalia rather than identifying with the faction for their lore and such.

No-one mentioned genitalia. Presenting as a woman is more than genitalia.

Also, exactly - identifying with their lore. And Space Marines being an all-boys club is part of their lore that many people don't identify with, because it's a stupid hangover from a marketing decision decades ago.

The marketability of SM is kind of a vicious cycle far beyond the scope of what's being discussed here, tbh.

But you can't deny that Space Marines are the most marketable.

"why is racism/sexism/transphobia/homophobia/bigotry so widespread?" It isn't.

I'm glad that you, the ultimate arbiter on these matter, can tell us this! Tell me, when will you cure cancer, seeing as you apparently seem to have single-handedly solved bigotry?

"Any time a non-white male character does literally anything that isn't dying or getting saved by a white male character in any 40k media, the vocal chuds scream about it across the internet." Why are you worried about what "chuds" think?

Because not everyone has the priviledge of being able to ignore comments that devalue who they are as people? I genuinely can't believe that, when presented with a very clear cut case of "a chud is being an ass to someone, and they're upset", you blame the victim for getting upset.

And you wonder why maybe I don't exactly take your word that bigotry doesn't exist.

And as for why people have issues with that, it's because this kinda of BS has been forced into almost every other franchise at this point.

"Forced"? Having women exist is "forcing" now?

"X is a super powerful wahmen who's powerful because magic vagina power and if you don't like her it's not because she's a gak character it's because you're an istophobe", a la Rey.

But no-one's calling for that. People are literally just saying "hey, those men look pretty cool. Can women do that too?" - no one-upmanship, no escalation of power, just asking to be *equal*.

Why have you got an issue with what I describe?

It used to be a natural thing where a writer would do things because it felt right at the time or that's just how the character was - nowadays it's turned into a game of trying to score brownie points with political cultists who, for some ungodly reason, people give the time of day to.

So you also think that removing women Space Marines was a stupid idea, because it was only done to score points with political cultists and to justify not selling frankly dire looking models?

Space Marines aren't all male because of some big "felt right at the time" or stylistic choice. It was a marketing decision from decades ago. I don't know why this is considered the cornerstone of what Space Marines are.

And, quite frankly, this is a major part of the problem - no one's complaining about the Sororitas being all-female, but having an all-male faction is the problem?

If Sororitas were nearly half as influential as Astartes were, it wouldn't be. The problem isn't that there's an all-male faction. It's that the all-male faction is pretty much the only faction that seems to matter.

It's an absolute fething double standard.

You're right - women being excluded from the most dominant faction in the game *is* a double standard.

See, this I can't stand - the original quote. Trying to shift the blame onto the players who just want the game they invest in to be the game they invested in.

The game isn't the game you invested in though. Depending on when you joined, you either had to handle Necron lore changes, Primaris additions, the additions of whole new factions and ways of playing the game, Knights, aircraft, whole statline changes, and if you started early enough, women Space Marines being axed.

Why is "women can't be Space Marines" the part of the game you invested you heavily into? Why would changing that ruin the hobby for you?

insaniak wrote:

...forced "inclusivity" that goes against a setting's established lore is borderline abominable and one of the quickest ways to kill said setting.

Having women exist in a fantasy setting is not 'forced' inclusivity.

Women make up roughly half of the population. Women also enjoy fantasy and sci fi stories, movies and games. Not including them in a way that is equally as interesting to them as the male characters are to the male customers makes for a far more 'forced' setting than including them does.

Absolutely. Having women or minority groups represented isn't political, it's not forced, it's not some kind of agenda - it's just people existing.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
As far as "it's not the hobby, it's the donkey caves in the hobby" goes...

if there's a huge number of donkey caves in the hobby... we as non-donkey caves really have to ask ourselves why we're so welcoming to donkey caves that they congregate to our hobby in large numbers...

In effect, there's not really a difference.

Ohohoh no, I don't think I can go along with that logic. I've played a number of online shooters and the donkey-caveness level is pretty high. But I wouldn't say that's the fault of the game. Hell, the level of donkey-caveness on Twitter is pretty high.

There are a number of online games where the developers recognize that they have cultivated a toxic community and then take steps to reduce the toxicity of their community (Overwatch, League of Legends). That is... very much them acknowledging that it is the fault of "the game". GW's "you will not be missed" statement is an acknowledgement of "hey, a lot of donkey caves play our game. Stop being donkey caves!".

Twitter doesn't do anything about toxicity because it's their business model, basically, and they'd become irrelevant if they cultivated a nicer community.

Now, with online communities with 24/7 moderators etc, it's kind of a different story. Blizzard, Riot, or Twitter (theoretically) could hire people to ban the donkey-caves and slowly clean up the community themselves. The burden really falls on them because the players have 0 power within said community. Compared to tabletop games, where it's a bunch of micro-communities with no global moderators, it falls on the players themselves to moderate. Don't share tables with donkey caves. Don't let donkey caves buy product at your store. Drive them to their online space, or playing in their basements with eachother. That's the only way to clean up non-online communities (and the punk scene can corroborate this. It's something they've been doing since the 80s)

 Jammer87 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Jammer87 wrote:

Des702 wrote:
As long as they don't sexulize the armour I don't see how this would really hurt marines.

I don’t know why someone couldn’t just buy a female head and slap it on a Space Marines body right now? The lore?

My Necrons are all female except the named ones.

Because there's no fething human female heads in the GW range, maybe.

My bad. I thought the Stormcast female heads would fit on a Space Marine perfect. I'll have to keep looking.

Heck, maybe they would. but the problem is, I don't actually play stormcast. I could also stick Sisters heads on there, you know, pick out the few heads in each box that don't have the distinctive sisters of battle karen bangs and that'd also make good female space marines, but functionally it just kind of stinks that I've got:

-Tons of genestealer cultists
-Tons of imperial guard
-Several boxes of chaos cultists
-Three different Necromunda gangs
-A bunch of wacky inquisition stuff

and out of all of those armies, there's not a single one that has a kit containing a spare female head with normal, not crazy hair (which is the main problem with the Eschers, there's just no way to separate that hair from those miniatures to give me reasonable female marines). Meanwhile basically every single one gives me tons of completely compatible, interesting looking dude heads. Orlock gangers are my personal favorites to add to space marines - I love having Deathwatch marines smoking cigars while rocking cool shades and handlebar mustaches.

Reading the replies in this thread I have finally come to understand the title of this thread: "Heresy of the worst kind"

It has nothing to do with the Warhammer universe or game specifically, but with real world people being "Heretics" .

If you enjoy Warhammer as it was created and experienced for decades, YOU are a heretic, because we are told warhammer is deeply and can only be redeemed by games workshop and all players affirming female space marines. If you think it's ok for a story line to exist somewhere in a diverse story universe where there is a faction that is all male, then YOU are the heretic, because warhammer can only be redeemed by games workshop and all players affirming female space marines. If YOU or games workshop will not affirm female space marines, then YOU and games workshop are "heretics of the worst kind", and we all know the fate of heretics.

This is ultimately not just a political thread, but a religious thread, as it posits a tenet of belief and action that all must follow or be deemed and treated as heretics, and it is this sort of thing that is toxic, intolerant, and exclusionary. It really shouldn't have a place here, but perhaps people are too afraid of being branded a heretic by this new cult and it's dogma to call it out.

RegularGuy wrote:If you enjoy Warhammer as it was created and experienced for decades, YOU are a heretic, because we are told warhammer is deeply and can only be redeemed by games workshop and all players affirming female space marines.

Literally no-one is saying that.

What people are saying is that if you value some made up fiction over a real life person feeling excluded because of poorly justifed make believe words, then maybe you just might not be as inclusive as some of you say you are.

Why is the dealbreaker for enjoyment of 40k that women can't be Space Marines? Why is *that* the important catalyst for you?

If you think it's ok for a story line to exist somewhere in a diverse story universe where there is a faction that is all male, then YOU are the heretic, because warhammer can only be redeemed by games workshop and all players affirming female space marines.

It's got nothing to do that there *is* an all male faction. The problem is that the all-male faction is vastly, and I mean VASTLY, more popular, as a result of increased marketability, than every other faction.

If Space Marines were only as popular as Genestealer Cult, this wouldn't matter nearly as much.

If YOU or games workshop will not affirm female space marines, then YOU and games workshop are "heretics of the worst kind", and we all know the fate of heretics.

It honestly sounds like you're trying to start a witch hunt against yourself here. No-one is saying what you're saying, except from you.

This is ultimately not just a political thread, but a religious thread, as it posits a tenet of belief and action that all must follow or be deemed and treated as heretics, and it is this sort of thing that is toxic, intolerant, and exclusionary.

Wanting representation isn't political, and it's certainly not religious.

It really shouldn't have a place here, but perhaps people are too afraid of being branded a heretic by this new cult and it's dogma to call it out.

Again, for anyone else reading - I'd like to point that this is, yet again, another user making some kind of claim to an agenda, or conspiracy, or organised "faction". What is this faction? What is this cult? What are their beliefs? Who are they? What do they want?

Because the only thing people here are asking for is representation in a little toy soldier's game. What's wrong with that?

I think that we can boil it down to the fact that, for anyone who is narrow-minded enough, the fact that multiple people may agree on something that they can't consider relevant is by itself proof enough of some agenda or zealot coordinated action.

It's essentially magical thinking: there is something I don't understand, so there's must be something "else" hidden here (it's a way to avoid to reconcile with the fact that maybe, I'm simply unaware).
That's why we have religion: people prefer to defers to unprovable hypothesis rather than simply admitting they can't know something.

Fact is: history moves in sprints. If Bell and Meucci invented the phone almost at the same time (but the same goes for pens, calcolus or relativity) do you really think it's so strange for multiple people to either ask or agree or advocate for more female models in the flagship miniature line of a game?


And, by the way, if this post offends you somehow because you're against female Space Marine but you don't recognize yourselves in the description above: congratulations! You can now at least start to begin understanding what means being stereotyped.

Lets ease off slinging around insults and dial down the hyperbole please, this thread has gotten along pretty well for a remarkable length of time and it is not going to be closed due to hecklers veto, instead those posters will be removed.
It is possible to have fundamentally different opinions and values and discuss them politely, if this is not possible for you then do not post.

Just to get this to be more lighthearted, here's some rather fun Primarch profile shots that someone drew up

Vulkan with flame hair? I love it!

Who is to the left of Vulcan is that Dorn? Actually I am confused by all of them except for the obvious ones, Morty, Magnus, Vulcan, etc. Can anyone list them?

Legion numbers left to right. Left of Vulkan is Lorgar

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Who is to the left of Vulcan is that Dorn? Actually I am confused by all of them except for the obvious ones, Morty, Magnus, Vulcan, etc. Can anyone list them?

The one left of Vulcan is Lorgar.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Who is to the left of Vulcan is that Dorn? Actually I am confused by all of them except for the obvious ones, Morty, Magnus, Vulcan, etc. Can anyone list them?

Judging by the flame icon on the gorget and the book, I'd guess that's Lorgar.

I believe they're in legion number order starting with Lion'el on the top left, going across by rows, and ending with Alpharius/Omegon at the bottom right.

From left to right;

Lion, Fulgrim, Pert, Khan, Russ, Dorn, Nighthaunter, Sanguinius, Ferrus, Angron, Robute, Morty, Magnus,Horus, Lorgar, Vulkan, Corax, The twins.

There's deamon profiles as well somewhere, i need to find those again.

Shocking no-one, Fulgrim and Sanguinius look the same

 Cybtroll wrote:
..for anyone who is narrow-minded enough...
... magical thinking...
...do you really think it's so strange for multiple people to either ask or agree or advocate for more female models in the flagship miniature line of a game?...
... you're against female Space Marine ... You can now at least start to begin understanding what means being stereotyped.

Appropriate user name is appropriate.
Affirm female space marines or you are narrow minded (heretic), object to deeming failure to affirm space marine as heresy, you are a magical thinker, it is good right and salutary to stereotype and exclude anyone who does not affirm female space marines.

What I read as I go through these comments is that for some, the foregone conclusion is that ALL must affirm female space marines, or they are immoral and backward in some way. The suggestion is that the only path to acceptability is affirmation of female space marines. It is not acceptable to have the opinion that it is not necessary for Marines to be modified, and your character and intellect are assumed and asserted to be deficient if you do not believe it is necessary to affirm female space marines.

"What people are saying is that if you value some made up fiction over a real life person feeling excluded because of poorly justified make believe words, then maybe you just might not be as inclusive as some of you say you are.

Its got nothing to do that there *is* an all male faction. The problem is that the all-male faction is vastly, and I mean VASTLY, more popular, as a result of increased marketability, than every other faction.

If Space Marines were only as popular as Genestealer Cult, this wouldn't matter nearly as much"

Where is the representation for Jews, Muslims and Christians in Space Marines? Since representation of such a poular faction is the most important factor? Do you suggest there are no real people who feel excluded by the Emperor's atheism and the religious intolerance of the Imperium? Should space marines, not also be modified by Games Workshop (Because we're not talking homebrew headcannon and fan fic) to include everyone who desires inclusion as space marines? Can fiction be allowed to exist where some popular or historic aspect is not fully representative of all human possibilities? "No" is the logical end of this line of argument. And that position in of itself is a valid personal opinion.

The issue, and the reason I have commented, is when non affirmation of that view becomes reason to demonize others, which (whether the mods desire to notice or acknowledge or not) is an underlying theme implicit across this thread.

Again, the heretic is the person who doesn't see affirmation of female space marines by GW as necessary.

I don't see it as necessary, and I do not believe it is a moral failing to find it unnecessary. Let the deconstruction explaining my deficiencies for not finding it necessary or immoral commence.

Now I apologize to you ingtaer and do as seems good to you, but I would ask you to consider if the tendencies I point out are not occurring, and if they represent positive discussion, or are more representative if a struggle session where the purpose is to deconstruct and demonize any dissent.

 RegularGuy wrote:
Where is the representation for Jews, Muslims and Christians in Space Marines? Since representation of such a poular faction is the most important factor? Do you suggest there are no real people who feel excluded by the Emperor's atheism and the religious intolerance of the Imperium? Should space marines, not also be modified by Games Workshop (Because we're not talking homebrew headcannon and fan fic) to include everyone who desires inclusion as space marines? Can fiction be allowed to exist where some popular or historic aspect is not fully representative of all human possibilities? "No" is the logical end of this line of argument. And that position in of itself is a valid personal opinion.

The difference between representing women and representing religions is that there's NO real-world religion in 40k.

There's the Imperium, who worship the Emperor, who is fictional.
There's Chaos, who worship the Chaos Gods, who are fictional.
There's some who don't worship anything at all, or only pay lip service, but they're not atheists (unless they're dumb) because the Chaos Gods are very much real-they just don't worship them.
There's the Eldar, who worship their own fictional deities.
So on and so forth.

However, there are men and women in 40k. Yet the flagship franchise only represents men. And the natural place to include women if you really believe the lore around Marines is so sacred that it cannot be touched, the Imperial Guard, has... What? Two special edition models that are women, and the rest are all men?

 RegularGuy wrote:

Where is the representation for ... Christians in Space Marines?

This is the funniest gak someone has posted on this thread in days, my dude. Have an exalt.

Where's the representation for Christians in 40k? GOT EM no christian iconography ANYWHERE in this here game world!!!!!!

There may be absolutely nothing more emblematic of our current cultural moment than someone who I can only presume is at home sitting in a gigantic mountain of Black Templars and Sisters of Battle miniatures with Inquisitor allies asking "where's the CHRISTIAN representation then? what can a CHRISTIAN see to represent them in the 40k universe, what about them HUH???"

Where is the representation for Jews, Muslims and Christians in Space Marines?

Bolded for laughs. But, there is a difference between religion and gender or race that warrants a deeper look at how much representation of each category is appropriate for a given fictional setting.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 RegularGuy wrote:
Where is the representation for Jews, Muslims and Christians in Space Marines? Since representation of such a poular faction is the most important factor? Do you suggest there are no real people who feel excluded by the Emperor's atheism and the religious intolerance of the Imperium? Should space marines, not also be modified by Games Workshop (Because we're not talking homebrew headcannon and fan fic) to include everyone who desires inclusion as space marines? Can fiction be allowed to exist where some popular or historic aspect is not fully representative of all human possibilities? "No" is the logical end of this line of argument. And that position in of itself is a valid personal opinion.

The difference between representing women and representing religions is that there's NO real-world religion in 40k.

Them crosses show up on "crusaders" quite a bit though, and is apperently by design. So arguably there's christianity in the imagery of 40k, even if not explocitly so.

There's potentially a case to be made that only christianity pops up in 40k, excluding other religions. The Emperor and his Primarchs embarking on "The Great Jihad" . . .

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Rihgu wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
As far as "it's not the hobby, it's the donkey caves in the hobby" goes...

if there's a huge number of donkey caves in the hobby... we as non-donkey caves really have to ask ourselves why we're so welcoming to donkey caves that they congregate to our hobby in large numbers...

In effect, there's not really a difference.

Ohohoh no, I don't think I can go along with that logic. I've played a number of online shooters and the donkey-caveness level is pretty high. But I wouldn't say that's the fault of the game. Hell, the level of donkey-caveness on Twitter is pretty high.

There are a number of online games where the developers recognize that they have cultivated a toxic community and then take steps to reduce the toxicity of their community (Overwatch, League of Legends). That is... very much them acknowledging that it is the fault of "the game". GW's "you will not be missed" statement is an acknowledgement of "hey, a lot of donkey caves play our game. Stop being donkey caves!"

That's not "the game" itself though. That's the way the game community is moderated (or not). For something like 40k, that's the perview of the people running the local FLGS community or the mods for the online spaces in which people meet. It has little to do with the existence of an all male faction.

RegularGuy wrote:Affirm female space marines or you are narrow minded (heretic), object to deeming failure to affirm space marine as heresy, you are a magical thinker, it is good right and salutary to stereotype and exclude anyone who does not affirm female space marines.

We're asking pretty simple questions, actually. Y'all just refuse to answer them.

Do you believe that a piece of fictional writing should be given more importance than the testimony and representation of real human beings? And if so, why?

No-one's accusing you of anything, but it's interesting that you won't answer those questions.

What I read as I go through these comments is that for some, the foregone conclusion is that ALL must affirm female space marines, or they are immoral and backward in some way.

Then feel free to answer my above questions - why do real people mean less to you than some words?

It is not acceptable to have the opinion that it is not necessary for Marines to be modified

But for what reasons? Do you have any reasons for why some fiction is more important than a real human being?

It's not that we're declaring people to be "heretics" (you're the only one doing that), but you're not exactly making your reasons with good faith either.
It always seems to come back to either valuing some made up fiction over real people's representation, without any explanation or even self-reflection, or worse, shaming people for wanting representation.

Where is the representation for Jews, Muslims and Christians in Space Marines?

There are *no* real world religions in 40k. Allusions and aesthetic callouts to it, yes, but actual Christians, Jews and Muslims? No.
But women? Women do exist.

Why are you avoiding that point?

Do you suggest there are no real people who feel excluded by the Emperor's atheism and the religious intolerance of the Imperium?

Seeing as no modern religions are portrayed, there's no difference in representation here - every religious group is excluded. It's not like one religious group is being represented explicitly more than others.

But men (or rather, male presenting figures) *are* explicitly displayed in the flagship faction, exclusively so. Women are not. Therein lies the imbalance.

Should space marines, not also be modified by Games Workshop (Because we're not talking homebrew headcannon and fan fic) to include everyone who desires inclusion as space marines?

Why shouldn't it? What other limitations are there, in terms of actual representation of marginalised groups, that should exist?

All genders should be able to be Astartes. All ethnicities. There should literally be nothing from GW outlining any kind of exclusion, beyond "only the best recruits can become a Space Marine", because why on earth does it need to be exclusive in the first place?

Can fiction be allowed to exist where some popular or historic aspect is not fully representative of all human possibilities?

Does it need to? In this case, what part of Space Marines being a boys-only club is necessary?

The issue, and the reason I have commented, is when non affirmation of that view becomes reason to demonize others, which (whether the mods desire to notice or acknowledge or not) is an underlying theme implicit across this thread.

But no-one's demonising you, except for yourself.
If you're happy that your reasoning doesn't come from a bad place, then you have all the time you like to answer my very simple questions (see top of this comment for said questions).

Again, the heretic is the person who doesn't see affirmation of female space marines by GW as necessary.

But you're the only one making these claims - you're fighting an argument against yourself.

I don't see it as necessary

But why? That's the point I'm getting at here - is it because you don't believe representation is important? Why is it that you get to make that decision? Do you not believe that people want representation? Do you believe that lore is more important than representation?

Why?

JNAProductions wrote:However, there are men and women in 40k. Yet the flagship franchise only represents men.

This is the crux of the issue. Men and women both exist, but only one is represented in the flagship faction.

Why do people not see a problem with that clear inequality?



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 Insectum7 wrote:
For something like 40k, that's the perview of the people running the local FLGS community or the mods for the online spaces in which people meet. It has little to do with the existence of an all male faction.

Indirectly, but an all-male faction (and specifically, being the most iconic faction) can provide implicit endorsement of it being a "male" hobby, which can lead people to feel emboldened to exclude women.

Making the flagship faction visibly inclusive sends a message of inclusivity, and denies bigots ammunition and legitimacy from the very core product itself.

Ah ha! I thought i had it somewhere.