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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The nature of being a Space Marine is to be taken from your family, ideally pre-puberty, subjected to trials very likely to kill you, stuffed full of all sorts of fun new organs, the process of which can kill you, your free will stripped away by multiple forms of indoctrination including Space Magic, and then to eventually die, ideally gloriously, in battle.
They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear." The Emperor of Mankind.
The emperor himself refers to them as men.
So, the Imperium of Man is all-male then?
And what about this blurb, which has been repeated in nearly all 40k media:
"To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."
So, men have it awfully, but not women?
Space Marines appeal to masculine traits and ideals
Such as?
Men can like a thing and have something made for them.
But why does men having something "made" for them mean that there shouldn't be women in it? Why is "male" enjoyment tied to the lack of women in it?
Is Halo not made for men because there are women Spartans?
Is Gears of War not for men, because there are women in it?
Is Call of Duty not for men, because there are women in it?
Other female characters and factions are NOT lesser.
No-one is disagreeing with you on that, or is anyone saying they are (except, they DO have lesser marketing presence and aesthetic options presented to them).
But no less than female space marines will appease your demands? Sounds like you view other options as lesser.
Answer the rest of the comment, please.
Why do you view other means of representation as lesser? Answer please.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/12/05 00:11:31
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The nature of being a Space Marine is to be taken from your family, ideally pre-puberty, subjected to trials very likely to kill you, stuffed full of all sorts of fun new organs, the process of which can kill you, your free will stripped away by multiple forms of indoctrination including Space Magic, and then to eventually die, ideally gloriously, in battle.
They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear." The Emperor of Mankind.
The emperor himself refers to them as men.
So, the Imperium of Man is all-male then?
And what about this blurb, which has been repeated in nearly all 40k media:
"To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."
So, men have it awfully, but not women?
Space Marines appeal to masculine traits and ideals
Such as?
Men can like a thing and have something made for them.
But why does men having something "made" for them mean that there shouldn't be women in it? Why is "male" enjoyment tied to the lack of women in it?
Is Halo not made for men because there are women Spartans?
Is Gears of War not for men, because there are women in it?
Is Call of Duty not for men, because there are women in it?
Other female characters and factions are NOT lesser.
No-one is disagreeing with you on that, or is anyone saying they are (except, they DO have lesser marketing presence and aesthetic options presented to them).
But no less than female space marines will appease your demands? Sounds like you view other options as lesser.
Answer the rest of the comment, please.
Why do you view other means of representation as lesser? Answer please.
Oh, now *you're* asking for people to answer the question?
Sure, okay. I'll answer this one (the only way "other factions" are lesser is that Sisters, Guardsmen, Eldar, Orks, Admech, Chaos Space Marines, Votann, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Tau, Agents of the Imperium, and every other faction in the game do not have the same market presence, customisability and media presence that Ultramarines, let alone all Space Marines, do. It's that's simple. In no other way are they lesser, because they are all very cool factions, with interesting lore and aesthetics, and generally high quality models. You seem obsessed with people thinking that these factions are lesser, when no-one believes that.)
Now. Return the favour, and answer every question that you have been trying to avoid answering.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Crimson wrote: People, please, do not quote half of the page to add a one sentence comment.
My apologies - I only wished to demonstrate the absolute absurdity and lack of good faith that Sledgehammer is displaying.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2024/12/05 00:12:12
Sure, okay. I'll answer this one (the only way "other factions" are lesser is that Sisters, Guardsmen, Eldar, Orks, Admech, Chaos Space Marines, Votann, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Tau, Agents of the Imperium, and every other faction in the game do not have the same market presence, customisability and media presence that Ultramarines, let alone all Space Marines, do. It's that's simple. In no other way are they lesser, because they are all very cool factions, with interesting lore and aesthetics, and generally high quality models. You seem obsessed with people thinking that these factions are lesser, when no-one believes that.
Then we agree that we can change that without having female space marines. These issues can be easily fixed in other ways.
Conversation over.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/12/05 00:12:45
Crimson wrote: I know of the aspect warrior lore, but it just doesn't work me visually, when looking at the army. There are some models that are designed to read very explicitly female, which causes the models without those design cues to read as male. And there are way more of the latter in the army, which makes it visually read as predominantly male.
I will leave this one alone as the last thing the thread needs is to skew off into a debate over the transgender nature of eldar aspect warriors and the 'solutions' to there being more male presenting aspects than female presenting.
Sure, okay. I'll answer this one (the only way "other factions" are lesser is that Sisters, Guardsmen, Eldar, Orks, Admech, Chaos Space Marines, Votann, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Tau, Agents of the Imperium, and every other faction in the game do not have the same market presence, customisability and media presence that Ultramarines, let alone all Space Marines, do. It's that's simple. In no other way are they lesser, because they are all very cool factions, with interesting lore and aesthetics, and generally high quality models. You seem obsessed with people thinking that these factions are lesser, when no-one believes that.
Then we agree that we can change that without having female space marines. These issues can be easily fixed in other ways.
Conversation over.
Uh, no? Did you read a thing I've been saying about how that's not an adequate solution?
And I believe you owe everyone in this thread responses to all the questions you've been repeatedly asked. Unless you're admitting to behaving in some truly terrible faith.
Sure, okay. I'll answer this one (the only way "other factions" are lesser is that Sisters, Guardsmen, Eldar, Orks, Admech, Chaos Space Marines, Votann, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Tau, Agents of the Imperium, and every other faction in the game do not have the same market presence, customisability and media presence that Ultramarines, let alone all Space Marines, do. It's that's simple. In no other way are they lesser, because they are all very cool factions, with interesting lore and aesthetics, and generally high quality models. You seem obsessed with people thinking that these factions are lesser, when no-one believes that.
Then we agree that we can change that without having female space marines. These issues can be easily fixed in other ways.
Conversation over.
Uh, no? Did you read a thing I've been saying about how that's not an adequate solution?
And I believe you owe everyone in this thread responses to all the questions you've been repeatedly asked. Unless you're admitting to behaving in some truly terrible faith.
Oh so you think they're lesser?
It's not about representation it's about female space marines or bust.
Talk about bad faith.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/12/05 00:26:21
Sledgehammer wrote:Then we agree that we can change that without having female space marines. These issues can be easily fixed in other ways.
Conversation over.
Uh, no? Did you read a thing I've been saying about how that's not an adequate solution?
And I believe you owe everyone in this thread responses to all the questions you've been repeatedly asked. Unless you're admitting to behaving in some truly terrible faith.
Oh so you think they're lesser?
It's not about representation it's about female space marines or bust.
Talk about bad faith.
Jesus christ, you're hopeless. And everyone can see it.
Good luck having anyone take you seriously.
Oh, and these are the questions you're too afraid to answer: - What defines brotherhood and sisterhood in a way that makes them mutually exclusive, without resorting to describing the genders of those who perform those relationships? - Where do queer people fit in with these definitions? - How do Space Marines and Sisters of Battle respectively perform these relationships in a meaningful way in the 41st millenium? - If Space Marines are to be empathised with, why should men be able to, but not women? - What acts of exclusively "male friendship" do Space Marines perform, which could only be performed by men? - Why is it necessary for everyone's Space Marines, not just yours, to be all-male?
Sledgehammer wrote:
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The nature of being a Space Marine is to be taken from your family, ideally pre-puberty, subjected to trials very likely to kill you, stuffed full of all sorts of fun new organs, the process of which can kill you, your free will stripped away by multiple forms of indoctrination including Space Magic, and then to eventually die, ideally gloriously, in battle.
They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear." The Emperor of Mankind.
The emperor himself refers to them as men.
So, the Imperium of Man is all-male then?
And what about this blurb, which has been repeated in nearly all 40k media:
"To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."
So, men have it awfully, but not women?
Space Marines appeal to masculine traits and ideals
Such as?
Men can like a thing and have something made for them.
But why does men having something "made" for them mean that there shouldn't be women in it? Why is "male" enjoyment tied to the lack of women in it?
Is Halo not made for men because there are women Spartans? Is Gears of War not for men, because there are women in it? Is Call of Duty not for men, because there are women in it?
I invite anyone who still wants to engage with this bad faith actor to repost these questions.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/12/05 00:30:50
Sledgehammer wrote:Then we agree that we can change that without having female space marines. These issues can be easily fixed in other ways.
Conversation over.
Uh, no? Did you read a thing I've been saying about how that's not an adequate solution?
And I believe you owe everyone in this thread responses to all the questions you've been repeatedly asked. Unless you're admitting to behaving in some truly terrible faith.
Oh so you think they're lesser?
It's not about representation it's about female space marines or bust.
Talk about bad faith.
Jesus christ, you're hopeless. And everyone can see it.
Good luck having anyone take you seriously.
Oh, and these are the questions you're too afraid to answer: - What defines brotherhood and sisterhood in a way that makes them mutually exclusive, without resorting to describing the genders of those who perform those relationships? - Where do queer people fit in with these definitions? - How do Space Marines and Sisters of Battle respectively perform these relationships in a meaningful way in the 41st millenium? - If Space Marines are to be empathised with, why should men be able to, but not women? - What acts of exclusively "male friendship" do Space Marines perform, which could only be performed by men? - Why is it necessary for everyone's Space Marines, not just yours, to be all-male?
Sledgehammer wrote:
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The nature of being a Space Marine is to be taken from your family, ideally pre-puberty, subjected to trials very likely to kill you, stuffed full of all sorts of fun new organs, the process of which can kill you, your free will stripped away by multiple forms of indoctrination including Space Magic, and then to eventually die, ideally gloriously, in battle.
They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear." The Emperor of Mankind.
The emperor himself refers to them as men.
So, the Imperium of Man is all-male then?
And what about this blurb, which has been repeated in nearly all 40k media:
"To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."
So, men have it awfully, but not women?
Space Marines appeal to masculine traits and ideals
Such as?
Men can like a thing and have something made for them.
But why does men having something "made" for them mean that there shouldn't be women in it? Why is "male" enjoyment tied to the lack of women in it?
Is Halo not made for men because there are women Spartans? Is Gears of War not for men, because there are women in it? Is Call of Duty not for men, because there are women in it?
Why do you feel the need for female space marines? Why are other options lesser in your eyes? Why can't people like or feel attached to gender exclusive clubs or themes? Why should your opinion trump 30 years of lore? Why do you think that the inclusion of another gender into a previously exclusive social group wouldn't affect the dynamic or perception of it? Why is it ok to only have sisters be a gender specific organization, but not space marines? Please cite your sources that state the inclusion of opposite genders into a previously exclusive group is non disruptive and that men and women do not have different proclivities either socially or biologically derived.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/12/05 00:43:57
Sledgehammer, you’ve been asked the same questions for around a half-dozen pages.
If you want to be taken as a good faith actor in this discussion, it’d be wise to at least attempt to answer them.
Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne!
JNAProductions wrote: Sledgehammer, you’ve been asked the same questions for around a half-dozen pages.
If you want to be taken as a good faith actor in this discussion, it’d be wise to at least attempt to answer them.
A demand without compromise was never good faith to begin with. Smudge themselves said that there are other ways of achieving representation without female space marines. That's pretty much the end of the conversation.
The specific request for female space marines is directly counter to how I view space marines. As a brotherhood. If you cannot grasp the concept of a brotherhood that is not and should not be my problem.
JNAProductions wrote: Sledgehammer, you’ve been asked the same questions for around a half-dozen pages. If you want to be taken as a good faith actor in this discussion, it’d be wise to at least attempt to answer them.
A demand without compromise was never good faith to begin with.
Asking people to elaborate on their questions is hardly a demand, it's an expectation of good faith when someone's having a discussion.
Second, I did answer your comment, as asinine as it was. That was your compromise. You broke the terms of that compromise immediately after.
Smudge themselves said that there are other ways of achieving representation without female space marines.
Where did I say that, and where did I say that it would be satisfactory? Sounds like you're lying now, as well.
The specific request for female space marines is directly counter to how I view space marines.
Which you are then refusing to elaborate on.
As a brotherhood.
And what *is* that? What does that *mean*?
If your argument hinges on this concept, defend it, or cede your point.
If you cannot grasp the concept of a brotherhood that is not and should not be my problem.
If you can't expand on your own argument, then politely, you should not be participating in a discussion about it.
These are the questions which I compromised with you to answer: - What defines brotherhood and sisterhood in a way that makes them mutually exclusive, without resorting to describing the genders of those who perform those relationships? - Where do queer people fit in with these definitions? - How do Space Marines and Sisters of Battle respectively perform these relationships in a meaningful way in the 41st millenium? - If Space Marines are to be empathised with, why should men be able to, but not women? - What acts of exclusively "male friendship" do Space Marines perform, which could only be performed by men? - Why is it necessary for everyone's Space Marines, not just yours, to be all-male?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/12/05 01:10:32
JNAProductions wrote: Sledgehammer, you’ve been asked the same questions for around a half-dozen pages.
If you want to be taken as a good faith actor in this discussion, it’d be wise to at least attempt to answer them.
OR...
...people can just acknowledge that he isn't going to, slap him on 'Ignore', and move on with our lives. The last few pages have mostly been Smudgie and Sledge (I assume, since I put him on 'Ignore') repeating themselves. This conversation doesn't benefit from any more of that.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Politely, if someone says that they don't want to be referred to in a certain way, and you want to be respectful of them, it's customary to apologise and not double down on it.
That is the respectful thing to do, and would be fitting with the rules of the forum here.
What am I supposed to apologise for? It is a common, harmless meme phrase and I even went out of my way to adapt it to the stated pronouns of the user I'm engaging with. If you want to continue this part of the discussion, feel free to PM me.
BorderCountess can continue this if she wishes. I'm just saying, if someone said that a meme I'd used to describe them was not okay, then I would apologise and rescind that statement, if I genuinely cared about respecting them.
That's all I have to add.
I'd honestly never heard "My [sibling] in Christ" used as a derogatory term before. New experience!
To me, it looked like he was assuming a faith - and I was pointing out that it's not a wise assumption to make. But while I appreciate the modification, telling me it was used in a derogatory fashion I think bothers me even more.
But I put him on 'Ignore', too, so water under the bridge.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/12/05 01:38:29
She/Her
"There are no problems that cannot be solved with cannons." - Chief Engineer Boris Krauss of Nuln
Kid_Kyoto wrote:"Don't be a dick" and "This is a family wargame" are good rules of thumb.
Eldar aspect armour is like a pantomime outfit. Dire Avengers can be women, Banshees can be men, the Avatar is formed from the young 'king' explicitly regardless of sex because they play the character of Eldanesh.
It is trans in the non-meme sense of 'I identify as an attack helicopter'. They become the mask.
But I suppose in the spirit of this thread we could demand GW change the lore, it likely originated to justify the limited model range anyway.
It did. If I recall, Gav Thorpe talked about it when interviewed about the Eldar books he wrote. I don’t remember the exact words but he asked for clarification on if the armor was different and not depicted in the artwork (how the background used to be handled) or if it was a case of “if there’s no model it doesn’t exist”, which was the new GW paradigm. But GW has softened to some degree on that—see female Custodes—so I imagine that fluff is outdated but not yet superseded. As miniature games are a visual experience, I’d prefer to see mixed gender Aspect armors to avoid the issue the orks have where the initial impression and surface level information is at odds with the “well, actually” background details.
Eldar aspect armour is like a pantomime outfit. Dire Avengers can be women, Banshees can be men, the Avatar is formed from the young 'king' explicitly regardless of sex because they play the character of Eldanesh.
It is trans in the non-meme sense of 'I identify as an attack helicopter'. They become the mask.
But I suppose in the spirit of this thread we could demand GW change the lore, it likely originated to justify the limited model range anyway.
It did. If I recall, Gav Thorpe talked about it when interviewed about the Eldar books he wrote. I don’t remember the exact words but he asked for clarification on if the armor was different and not depicted in the artwork (how the background used to be handled) or if it was a case of “if there’s no model it doesn’t exist”, which was the new GW paradigm. But GW has softened to some degree on that—see female Custodes—so I imagine that fluff is outdated but not yet superseded. As miniature games are a visual experience, I’d prefer to see mixed gender Aspect armors to avoid the issue the orks have where the initial impression and surface level information is at odds with the “well, actually” background details.
It's a bit harder to do with orks because you've got a couple of lens you're looking through. One is the viewer's assumptions on gender and how it's presented, another is the alien perspective on gender and how it's presented and yet another is that the alien gender presentation is written by humans who are coming from a particular assumption of gender.
So you end up with an alien race that is written as genderless, has no interest or concept of it, but uses design and textual language that ascribes human masculine gender sensibilities to them. So whether you mean it or not, they are coded with a gender to the outside viewer, even if internally they don't have one - a case of technically correct doesn't correlate with practically effective. For better or ill, the viewer is going to be unconvinced by their genderlessness, in the same way men in an office are unlikely to convinced by the genderlessness of being adressed as 'one of the girls' by the women in the office - hey they meant it in a gender neutral way.
Orks are good example of the unconscious male as default perspective most cultures have, where even if not described as male they are assumed male. Something has to be specifically described as female in order for the average person to realise its NOT male.
Crimson wrote: I know of the aspect warrior lore, but it just doesn't work me visually, when looking at the army. There are some models that are designed to read very explicitly female, which causes the models without those design cues to read as male. And there are way more of the latter in the army, which makes it visually read as predominantly male.
Yeah, agree.
It's annoying too since realistically even thin armor can hide gender pretty well, but because of the larger context in models the impression is more explicitly gendered. It'd be cool to have the options but it sure seems like a big ask after it took 25 years to update Warp Spiders. 3d printing ftw, hopefully tastefully.
If Etsy is any indicator, "tastefully" might he a pipe dream... but we can hope... and maybe in this one instance hope won't be the first step on the road to disappointment.
BorderCountess wrote: Just because you're doing something right doesn't necessarily mean you know what you're doing...
Are we going to force artists to change what fantasy they wanted to create, if it is deemed too one sided in representation? Are we going to force people to buy things that don't appeal to them until the sales numbers with non-representative <fantasy> are equal?
Well, again- as I said before, different people are arguing for different levels of inclusion, but I would say that generally, even advocates for greater inclusion are fine allowing stories about groups of male marines to continue to be told. What they tend to be asking for is merely an official line, whether in fluff or as a statement from GW that allows a person to put an FSM model on the table and know that there is now chance their opponent will be a jackass who says "You can't play that model because FSM don't exist."
They are fine with people being able to field entire chapters that include not a single woman; they just want the possibility to include women in their own armies. I don't know how many times anti-FSM have to be told that this can be done in such a way that the only effect at all it has on them is that they might occasionally see FSM in their opponent's armies, and when they do, they can't rely on the "fluff argument" to piss and moan about it.
That's really all most advocates are asking for, although as noted in my previous post, different people on this side of the fence do want different levels of inclusion. So while I BELIEVE most advocates are only asking for the bare minimum, the only person I can actually speak for is myself.
My own headcanon / expectation how FSM fit into the faction would be complete parity in capabilities, no segregation in unit assignment. So any Marine, regardless of unit or position, would be just as likely to be female as being male. Model-wise I'd see every new unit having 1-2 heads without helmets extra that are more feminine than now, but a far shot from being... uh refined? for lack of a better word. So kinda brutish and bulky, similar to the existing male heads.
Which is cool. My approach is different- I'd probably go 25%; I'd likely convert using Stormcast Eternal torsos- they same to have gotten the hang of armoured bodies that are still somewhat feminine without being full on boob plate, which is what I'd prefer. I only play Chamber Militant Marines, so Deathwatch and Grey Knights, and I play Crusade as exclusively as I can get away with, so often, my line troops EARN character status, so whether or not FSM become characters depends on how they grow in the games I play with them.
But again, I think what's important is that players always have the ability to engage as little or as much with FSM as they choose. They only thing we should prevent players who prefer exclusively male marines from doing is whining when their opponents choose to use FSM based on the premise that it's okay because they don't exist in the lore.
So right away, I wouldn't create named FSM from specific Marine subfactions that are so good they're auto include, because for a competitive player, that might actually be approaching what the other side fears- forcing them to acknowledge that there IS an FSM in their favourite subfaction, and that... Heaven forbid, they may feel compelled to field her because they'd be at a competitive disadvantage if they didn't. Again, anti-FSM folks are arguing as if EVERY pro-FSM player wants that.
Some of us might. But here's the thing: anyone on this side of the argument will see any step toward their preferred standard of inclusion as an improvement over the status quo.
PenitentJake wrote: And I think that the examples are somewhat flawed- both Sailor Moon and Tomb Raider are vehicles that were designed specifically to provide female representation in male dominated media. Sailor Moon and Lara Croft ARE the FSM of hero Anime and adventure videogames.
But also: the existence of Lara Croft, and the lore behind her in no way implies that a man could not be a kickass archaeologist. I don't know sailor moon very well, but if this Tuxedo Mask character is a hero, whether minor or not, that's already more inclusive than Marines.
I would assume that Rick Priestley did not have 40yo housewifes in mind as his target audience either, when he created Warhammer in the 80s. So I don't agree on the point about Sailor Moon and Tomb Raider being designed specifically for another audience making it a flawed example.
I think maybe we're getting wires crossed here. What I'm saying is that since both Lara Croft and Tuxedo mask are just human heroes, and there are several examples of both male and female characters who fit these archetypes already. Even if you wanted to argue that not being able to play a male archeologist/ adventurer in the Lara Croft video game, you couldn't- because Lara Croft being the playable character in the Lara Croft videogame doesn't mean that male archeologist/ adventurers don't exist. That's why she can't be connected to the argument about FSM one way or the other.
No matter what Priestly had in mind, Space Marines excluded women, and GW hasn't changed that in any of the ways they could have (through fluff, through Public Announcement or through additions to the model range). They may not have made a Lara Croft game where the main character is a man, but the lore of the game does not suggest that a male archaeologist/ adventurer can't exist. Pitfall Harry and Indiana Jones both exist.
We didn't bother George Lucas to release a version of "Fate of Atlantis" where we could swap the character to play "Diana Jones".
Again, we didn't need to, because nowhere in any Indiana Jones movie did Lucas imply that a female archaeologist adventurer could not exist. And in a fight, Marion Ravenwood would hold her own against Indy. Are you seeing yet how these examples have nothing at all to do with the FSM question?
I don't know enough about either of the Anime examples you cite, but I'm sure that those examples don't have anything to do with the FSM argument either. They only way they could is if the existence of Goku implied that a female Goku-equivalent archetype couldn't exist, or if Sailor Moon lore stated that there couldn't possibly be a male Sailor Moon-equivalent archetype.
We can give women a better representation in 40k without compromising on either side, that's all I'm saying.
Uhhm, you actually can't give women better representation than including them in the only faction that's been in every starter box for the past four decades.
You can try and argue that females in other factions might better exemplify what you perceive as feminine traits... But you see the "Eye of the Beholder" problem with using this interpretation of "better representation," right?
Tuxedo Mask is this guy here. The meme should tell you everything you need to know about him :
Spoiler:
It doesn't actually. What I need to know in order to determine whether or not Sailor Moon has anything at all to do with the FSM question is whether the lore of the franchise says that men can't possibly be whatever Sailor Moon is, or that women can't possibly be whatever Tuxedo mask is. If neither of these conditions are true, Sailor moon has nothing at all to do with the FSM question.
Your picture doesn't tell me whether either of these conditions are true, and therefore does nothing to help me determine whether or not Sailor Moon is relevant to the FSM question.
Gender swapping indiana jones has nothing to do with whether a woman can undergo the space marine transformation process.
The equivalent to that would be asking GW to make Dante a woman when he used to be a man. As the ability for women to be marines or not has no impact on whether dante would wake up suddenly a woman, it's a complete non sequitur.
If Etsy is any indicator, "tastefully" might he a pipe dream... but we can hope... and maybe in this one instance hope won't be the first step on the road to disappointment.
Yeah I was really hoping to see a better array of alternative models for various things by now.
I'd offer my services but I don't have any of the plastics, mine are all old metals. Also I'm guessing part swaps for Avengers, Scorpions etc are harder with the way GW tends to cut it's sprues.
Hellebore wrote:
As much as boobplate is dumb, Gw have said that the exarch head for the banshees is male but he still wears boobplate. Which if correct means that part of wearing the war mask is taking on the aspect in its entirety; so arguably, that means any aspect warrior could be male or female and the aspect's tradition determines whether it has boobplate or not.
This isn't the first time I've seen that claim stated on these forums, but I've not seen the primary source. Do you know where and when that was stated? WD issue #?
It's more than just the boob plate itself. The Banshees have thinner waists and instead of the six packs that the male-coded models get, they get two plates, one of which has a belly button. The belly button thing on Banshees goes all the way back to RT (even in the Jes Goodwin sketches) and has since been brought forward to the updated Guardians. Whereas the female torsos in the old Guardian kit had six pack abs, the new ones get the two plate and belly button design from the Banshees. Partly it's a problem of scale, but if there really were male Banshees I'd think they'd have different proportions than the female ones so as to be more differentiated on the tabletop.
Regardless of the model though, its been part of eldar lore since the beginning that all members of the craftworld join any aspects or paths. The banshees stick out only because they're a feminine aspect for a male war god. Which seems to be ignored quite a lot. The eldar god of war is male, but he has at least one explicitly female aspect. It doesn't change who can join what aspect, but it stands out as a thematic way to show female aspect warriors with a female aspect.
It also shows the somewhat androgynous nature of the eldar in that even their wargod isn't roid fuelled masculinity but encompasses feminine aspects as well.
I don't think that's it at all really. The Banshees stand out because they are almost the only models in the range sculpted to look explicitly female in a faction that is supposed to be fully egalitarian and yet really lacks in female sculpts. The actual current count is 11 models that are explicitly female in the range (Jain Zar, 5 Banshees, 4 Guardians, 1 Autarch (optional).
The Banshee aspect itself may be mostly female, but that doesn't mean the other aspects are overwhelmingly male. GW has shown us what female eldar models are supposed to look like. I'd just like more of them so I can more easily build an army that more closely matches the background in general and the female dominated craftworld Iybraesil in particular.
Crimson wrote:I know of the aspect warrior lore, but it just doesn't work me visually, when looking at the army. There are some models that are designed to read very explicitly female, which causes the models without those design cues to read as male. And there are way more of the latter in the army, which makes it visually read as predominantly male.
Yeah. I'm thinking GW either needs to produce more explicitly female sculpts (or optional bits) across the range. I don't think there's a way redesign the range to make all the models look androgynous.
My point was that there is egalitarianism in the eldar background regardless.
that they decided that boob and ab plate were the ways they depicted female eldar in the model range, doesn't change that. And given that design decision it would have been great to see more of them.
My comments on the howling banshees weren't to excuse the lack of that design style, it was just an interesting observation on the models and background of the eldar. A male wargod with a female aspect of war and the members all appearing female, was it a 'women are drawn to the female aspects of war' trope, an aesthetic trope, laziness, a deliberate choice that when the eldar join the banshees they take on the feminine to do so and thus the armour (which itself could be laziness to avoid sculpting male banshee armour).
The comments on the banshee exarch should be in the news and rumours thread when they were released, I believe the exarch was gendered by GW on Warcom, instagram or somewhere and that was linked in that thread. the search function seems to be erroring out at the moment though so I'm not sure how to find it.
JNAProductions wrote: Sledgehammer, you’ve been asked the same questions for around a half-dozen pages.
If you want to be taken as a good faith actor in this discussion, it’d be wise to at least attempt to answer them.
A demand without compromise was never good faith to begin with. Smudge themselves said that there are other ways of achieving representation without female space marines. That's pretty much the end of the conversation.
The specific request for female space marines is directly counter to how I view space marines. As a brotherhood. If you cannot grasp the concept of a brotherhood that is not and should not be my problem.
Maybe it would be helpful if you had a concrete scene or novel in mind where you'd say it wouldn't work with Female Space Marines. My loyalist lore is limited, basically only the DOW series and the Beast Arises Series and I don’t recall any Space Marine interaction where I'd say "this dialogue wouldn't work if there was a woman around".
Edit: and frankly that's because SM don’t talk about sexuality, they don’t talk about women, they don’t tell father-son-stories about fishing in their youth or whatever roleclichés we might have in mind. They're just soldiers doing 40K soldiery stuff.
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It’s also based on the erroneous opinion that Astartes remain men.
They don’t. They’re post-human. Not human beans.
They do not live a human life in a human civilisation. As suggested earlier, the sheer level of lifelong indoctrination across multiple method raises serious questions about their level of free will.
Something they have in common with the Kin of the Leagues of Votann, where the desire to mine and make is genetically encoded along with the other traits the Votann felt the next generation would need.
They also share the genuinely horrifying trait that the same programming/indoctrination prevents them caring that they have no free will.
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Quite. When my son was displaying an interest in 40K, I don't think when I explained the idea of Space Marines I ever actually said 'they're all men'. I think I said something like they're genetically modified and surgically enhanced super soldiers, and all they do is fight for the Imperium.
Our bodies change throughout, as do our brains. And not just through cultural expectation, but out preferences and attitudes shift as well. And whilst at least some of our previous, well I’ll call them incarnations, remain with us? They’re kinda vestigal. And they do vary from person to person.
An Astartes?
Baby - Toddler - Child - Genetic Killing Machine. And from that final stage? Their minds are not their own. At all. Their desires and that are strictly controlled to ensure peak efficiency as merciless killing machines.
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For Gods sake, GW just release the bloody female marines, we'll get the inevitable grifter backlash and then we can all move on without having to go through this over and over for all time.
A highly oppressive and repressive super fascist regime which, inwardly, doesn’t demonstrate sexism, homophobia, transphobia or racism as we understand it.
It has “better” targets for society’s pettiness. Whilst it by no means justifies the extent of The Imperium’s persecution of its favourite Others? Those Others actually are an existential threat.
After all, it’s not a satanic panic when they are summoning daemons and opening literal portals to hell, or when the savage race is Orks, who absolutely well just kick the snot out of you because to an Ork, that’s just good fun, and so on and so forth.
Would you like to try a new argument?
So you're saying sometimes hyper-militant oppression is justified? You mean fascism is ok if the circumstances call for it? Because that appears to be the inevitable ideological slippery slope Smudge is alluring to.
My argument here is about Smudges apparent suggestion that I'm not worth having a discourse with because I'm largely against banning books, media and other forms of expression. I invite you tp riview the context within which my previous post is in response to.
Depends on the context.
Against rapacious, unrelenting threats such as Orks and Tyranids? You really don’t have a choice. They literally cannot be successfully negotiated with.
Sure you can bribe an Ork, even an entire Warband/Fleet. But it’s still just a matter of time until they realise turning whatever guns and materiel you paid them off with on you would be (to them) really really funny.
Its intolerance of non-Ecclesiarchy religion is likewise not entirely unjustified. Because Gods do exist there, and they’re not to be trusted, trifled with or bargained with.
The extent the Imperium oppresses its own people? Not at all.
But, that’s the perversity of The Imperium. It’s not sexist. It’s not racist. It’s not homophobic. It’s not transphobic. It’s done away with some of modern society’s foibles and pettiness in the worst possible way - by treating everyone equally awfully.
And it’s all for naught. It fights the good fight, simply to….fight the good fight, and to live to fight another day. But between its own gross inefficiencies and just how numerous its foes are? It’s stuck in a constant cycle of war and despair.
I really don't agree with this take MDG. Being intolerant of something is not the same as being fascist, and intolerance can be entirely valid. Intolerance of Tyranids? Very justified. Intolerance of abhumans? Based in bigotry and part of the Imperium's fascism.
The Imperium doesn't need to be fascist to resist Orks and Tyranids, and in fact is almost certainly making things worse by being fascist. The Tau, for example, also resist Orks and Tyranids and are (merely...) expansionist imperialists.
It is why I think the worst change to GW lore is making the blind faith actually beneficial against Chaos, rather than something the Imperium only believes is helpful and is probably counterproductive.
RaptorusRex wrote: Y’know, how come Aspect Warriors can have the monastic elements with both women and men, hmm?
Because they're aliens & thus don't need to adhere to how humans do things.
Humans also have mixed gender monastic groups though.
Sure, here in the real world. In the fictional setting you're taking too seriously though? Maybe, maybe not. Hard to tell when the only real example is always SM related.
So we'll just have to wait for GW to write some more gak to find out (unless I've missed something - I admit that I don't read much BL stuff).
The Schola Progenium is an Ecclesiarchy-run school system for orphaned Imperial children that is explicitly mixed gender. I suppose they are technically abbeys rather than monasteries as the instructors are referred to as drill-abbots, but I don't pretend to understand the difference between different types of cloistered communities...
Hellebore wrote:I find the argument about the Imperium's supposed sexist nature to be very cherry picking.
Because I've seen plenty of people try to tell me that it's ok marines are all male because the rest of the imperium's factions aren't sexist and recruit women, so it's ok because you can have female guardsmen or mechanicum.
So I'd like to know what it actually is - is the imperium an equal opportunity recruiter or not?
Because apart from the legalease prevention of men under arms for the ecclesiarchy and the 'organs don't work because girl' argument for marines, there's no specific sexist recruitment lauded, decried or even mentioned in the imperium's various factions.
And the very fact that the organs are supposed to prevent girls being marines is seemingly the ONLY reason there are no female marines. At no point has any background had any one in the imperium or marine chapters (afaik) voice the opinion that they're glad girls can't be marines, or that they don't understand why the guard recruits women or whatever.
From what I can see, the fact that women can't be marines is completely conflated with 'the imperium is inherently sexist', despite whole order of female only soldiers, equal opportunity guard recruitment and so on.
That is not to say that sexism doesn't exist amongst people or cultures within 40k, but there is a distinct lack of voiced or structural sexism within the imperium, administratum or departmento munitorum.
It isn't even that Marines are keyed to male organs, but male hormones. Something that was available as a simple tablet in reality for decades prior to GW writing that lore.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2024/12/05 10:44:52
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
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To be fair, that’s what I was going for, and am happy to agree.
The Imperium external awfulness isn’t always unjustified for the reasons discussed.
But that doesn’t justify the hellscape it remains for the vast majority of its citizens.
To touch on modern equivalents? In the first and second world wars, the populace of the UK put up with privation and rationing, Because There’s A War On, You Know. But that was only for a limited period, until the danger had passed, and things settled down again. So finite by definition, and folk can tolerate such things with such motivation.
But The Imperium has been at that for millennia now. It’s all it knows. It’s all it does. That it’s organised enough to sustain a galaxy spanning empire is remarkable. That it has zero interest or capacity in getting better organised is the tragedy.
For every “we’ve found an Ork world, best we nip that in the bud now” war of some justification, there’s a Starship Troopers style “well we’ll have to find something to kill” war for the sake of maintaining the war machine.
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