I don't have an issue with the art either, but rather the idea that many companies really pushing this diversity angle as a selling point which was sort of hinted at as a positive the in original post.
I mean if I were to take issue with the art it'd only be the title/caption needlessly highlighting the sexuality of the characters in a manner that's sort of clumsy. Something like like "A wizard couple relaxing while...." would've seemed more natural to me.. but that's just being nitpicky I guess.
I'm not particularly interested in representation for the sake of representation myself... I mean you do you and all, just often comes off as forced imo.
That said, I really love the card with the kings there... Shows a great balance between strength and caring intimacy... Really speaks to me.
It's a little more forced when everyone is straight and that's treated as default, and you need to have a rational for including non-straight people other than the fact that they exist.
Representation is never just "for its own sake". It's because you have an audience that includes people from underrepresented groups that deserve to see themselves reflected in media rather than othered. It's something the rest of us take for granted and is incredibly important.
Honestly, without that caption I would just assume that those were two good friends taking a rest from all the hard work they've been doing... I mean, the art itself doesn't necessarily depict gay characters >.> or any gestures that would make the characters gay at a glance to me... They're just gay because a caption states it. But hey, that's just me.
Honestly, without that caption I would just assume that those were two good friends taking a rest from all the hard work they've been doing... I mean, the art itself doesn't necessarily depict gay characters >.> or any gestures that would make the characters gay at a glance to me... They're just gay because a caption states it. But hey, that's just me.
But that's kind of the point. You wouldn't know that they were gay unless there's the caption or the picture showed them lip-locking. A hetero couple wouldn't need something like that, nor would anyone say it was part of an agenda.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Honestly, without that caption I would just assume that those were two good friends taking a rest from all the hard work they've been doing... I mean, the art itself doesn't necessarily depict gay characters >.> or any gestures that would make the characters gay at a glance to me... They're just gay because a caption states it. But hey, that's just me.
I was pretty sure that the people in the image were romantically involved without the caption. You would have to be really, really, good friends to have them fall asleep on your leg.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I'm not particularly interested in representation for the sake of representation myself... I mean you do you and all, just often comes off as forced imo.
That said, I really love the card with the kings there... Shows a great balance between strength and caring intimacy... Really speaks to me.
It's a little more forced when everyone is straight and that's treated as default, and you need to have a rational for including non-straight people other than the fact that they exist.
Representation is never just "for its own sake". It's because you have an audience that includes people from underrepresented groups that deserve to see themselves reflected in media rather than othered. It's something the rest of us take for granted and is incredibly important.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "the default" Perhaps you could elaborate a lil bit. I mean Considering straight people are the vast majority I would expect that to be generally reflected in media... So I don't think having a group of entirely straight people is at all unlikely or forced... Unless of course you have such large numbers that it would be strange not to see a sexual minority.
I don't believe I've expressed that you need a reason beyond gay people existing... I think you may be misunderstanding my opinion if that is what you think I believe.
Perhaps "for the sake of it" is not the best phrasing then. What I mean is that including gay people in your works and then underlining the fact that they are gay as if it's something to be celebrated(the inclusion not the gay people themselves) is to me entirely counterproductive to what we should be aiming towards. I guess my stance is that including a gay couple should not be a big deal.. Because when you make a big deal out of it, you re reinforcing the idea that it's an event.. that's an oddity... Oftentimes companies will also make a big deal of our representation solely for the same of winning social points.
This is often bad for normalization but also bad for the story you are trying to tell because you are no longer focusing on what should actually be the meat of the story.
To take a lesser example.. I'm left handed.. Obviously that's not a huge part of my identity, but it does make me a minority in a very specific sense. Now... For the longset time left handed people were considered strange or evil... Now imagine an artist draws a picture of a wizard writing a spellscroll with his left hand and decides to title it "Left handed wizard prepares a fireball scroll".. Wouldn't that feel incredibly awkward and weird? I certainly wouldn't appreciate that... Just have him use his left hand and be done with it.
I thnk I could go into more detail but I'll just leave it open for conversation here :)
Not trying to turn this into an argument, but I am left handed as well. I have never faced any persecution for it. (Except from my nerdy friends sometimes. But that was hopefully a joke.) LBGTQ+ people have faced persecution and hate even in modern times, and have much less representation. Anyways, sexuality is a much greater part of your identity than hand dominance.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I believe I started off the argument by saying it wasn't a perfect example, but rather to make my point that it's counterproductive to make representation a focus when presenting your art/media.
Fair enough. However, I feel like representation might be the point in this image. Reinforcing that anyone can play D&D. Is it a little bit blunt? Yes. But I still enjoy the artwork, even if the caption is very on the nose.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I'm not particularly interested in representation for the sake of representation myself... I mean you do you and all, just often comes off as forced imo.
That said, I really love the card with the kings there... Shows a great balance between strength and caring intimacy... Really speaks to me.
It's a little more forced when everyone is straight and that's treated as default, and you need to have a rational for including non-straight people other than the fact that they exist.
Representation is never just "for its own sake". It's because you have an audience that includes people from underrepresented groups that deserve to see themselves reflected in media rather than othered. It's something the rest of us take for granted and is incredibly important.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "the default" Perhaps you could elaborate a lil bit. I mean Considering straight people are the vast majority I would expect that to be generally reflected in media... So I don't think having a group of entirely straight people is at all unlikely or forced... Unless of course you have such large numbers that it would be strange not to see a sexual minority.
I don't believe I've expressed that you need a reason beyond gay people existing... I think you may be misunderstanding my opinion if that is what you think I believe.
Perhaps "for the sake of it" is not the best phrasing then. What I mean is that including gay people in your works and then underlining the fact that they are gay as if it's something to be celebrated(the inclusion not the gay people themselves) is to me entirely counterproductive to what we should be aiming towards. I guess my stance is that including a gay couple should not be a big deal.. Because when you make a big deal out of it, you re reinforcing the idea that it's an event.. that's an oddity... Oftentimes companies will also make a big deal of our representation solely for the same of winning social points.
This is often bad for normalization but also bad for the story you are trying to tell because you are no longer focusing on what should actually be the meat of the story.
To take a lesser example.. I'm left handed.. Obviously that's not a huge part of my identity, but it does make me a minority in a very specific sense. Now... For the longset time left handed people were considered strange or evil... Now imagine an artist draws a picture of a wizard writing a spellscroll with his left hand and decides to title it "Left handed wizard prepares a fireball scroll".. Wouldn't that feel incredibly awkward and weird? I certainly wouldn't appreciate that... Just have him use his left hand and be done with it.
I thnk I could go into more detail but I'll just leave it open for conversation here :)
People treat staight as a default in that it's often assumed people are straight until proven otherwise to the point of not acknowledging the existence of lgbt+ folks unless made to. Straight people are represented in media at a rate that is still disproportionate to the population majority they hold in society, especially when you take into account the entire history of literature and film that have only relatively recently stopped portraying them as morally deviant and bankrupt, where they were portrayed at all.
Yes, it's still fine to have a group of all straight people. Straight people are not "canceled." It's just that you can also have gay people and that is not inherently political, it merely reflects the reality that real life gay people inhabit, where they too exist.
And as for the criticisms of "why should a character's sexuality define them", i would say that criticism does not apply here. The wizard boyfriends in this art aren't characters. They don't have names or backstories other than what you want to give them, but largely they are setting pieces that show that hey, D&D is a world where people like you exist, and you're welcome here. If you are gay and not used to seeing that kind of casual representation in media, then I'm sure that's worth a lot to you, and to me doesn't feel forced, it feels emphasized, because the purpose of it is to emphasize inclucivity.
As far as what you say about taking a more muted approach towards representation in order to more normalize it, you definitely have an argument, for which I suppose my counter-argument is that in the media landscape ofv today and the last 10 years, any amount of LGBTQ+ representation has been so wrapped up in sifting through layers of subtext (why people rely so hard on shipping characters together to see themselves represented), that I'm willing to bet there's just as much of an audience crying out for more unambiguous representation, and to not have to do all the work themselves for once.
Your other criticism of companies often using representation just to score woke points and not follow though is super valid though. I can't really counter that except to say I hope that's not all WotC is doing.
" People treat staight as a default in that it's often assumed people are straight until proven otherwise to the point of not acknowledging the existence of lgbt+ folks unless made to. Straight people are represented in media at a rate that is still disproportionate to the population majority they hold in society, especially when you take into account the entire history of literature and film that have only relatively recently stopped portraying them as morally deviant and bankrupt, where they were portrayed at all. "
I don't know how to work the multiquote so I hope this is an okay way of doing it.
I think it's fair to assume most people I meet are straight, simply because they are... Most of the time I don't actually care about which sexuality anyone is.. As it's rarely relevant to the interaction. I don't know how the current representation measures up vs the population to be honest.. So I don't really have an opinion on that. As for historical.. I mean sure, probably not a lot of gay characters in a 50's show.
Yes, it's still fine to have a group of all straight people. Straight people are not "canceled." It's just that you can also have gay people and that is not inherently political, it merely reflects the reality that real life gay people inhabit, where they too exist.
And I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying that by making a big deal out of a character being gay reminds me of the silly gay characters from 90's tv shows who'd have some stupid "hee'eeey *snaps fingers*" catchphrase everytime they walked in the door to highlight they are infact gay... I exactly agree with you that you can have a gay characters without it being political, but by underlining their inclusion you're making it a message(political or otherwise) instead of it simply being normal. You are reinforcing the idea that gay characters are an "other" which needs to be highlighted.
And as for the criticisms of "why should a character's sexuality define them", i would say that criticism does not apply here. The wizard boyfriends in this art aren't characters. They don't have names or backstories other than what you want to give them, but largely they are setting pieces that show that hey, D&D is a world where people like you exist, and you're welcome here. If you are gay and not used to seeing that kind of casual representation in media, then I'm sure that's worth a lot to you, and to me doesn't feel forced, it feels emphasized, because the purpose of it is to emphasize inclucivity.
I'm just saying that simply having a gay couple on a piece of art and regarding them as you would any other couple is far more productive. I'm not a fan of clumsy messaging, not even towards goals I agree with.. And I find the title of that particular piece of art a lil clumsy.. I don't think this particular case is a big deal, and the art itself it not what spawned this discussion. Aslong as you are "making it a thing" it is not casual representation in my eyes.
I would much rather have a picture of soldiers returning home from war with two husbands embracing just being part of the scene instead of it being the point of the scene.. It shows exactly that they're just people in a human situation.. Instead of making it about their sexual preferences.
You raise a number of valid points that we could go back and forth on, but I'm just as comfortable letting it stand there since we covered the major points of the issue.
The one new tidbit I'll bring here to the discussion is in regard to the comment you made towards the end about "clumsy messaging" in referring to them explicitly as "wizard boyfriends."
I've actually noticed referring to gay couples as 'boyfriends' or 'husbands' just in common everyday speech becoming more prominent, especially when describing fictional characters. For example I don't know if you saw the Good Omens TV adaptation (which was great, if you haven't), but after that came out and a lot of the internet began shipping Crowley and Aziraphel, I started seeing the ship referred to as "Ineffable Husbands" as it's unofficial official nicknames. So having seen wording like that in the real world, it doesn't strike me there as heavy- handed language, rather it's using slang not usually found in D&D.
There's a reason for that, according to Jeremy Crawford, who in a video about lore for the character of Tasha that I saw on YouTube said that they wanted to have Tasha use modern, contemporary earth language as if to imply that in her multiverse-spanning travels she had actually visited earth. She is a Greyhawk character, and apparently (again, according to Crawford) that would not be the first time contemporary earth gets referenced there.
Link below if you're interested, some fun stuff there
I'm good with letting it rest aswell, I think we've covered what we needed to. ^^
By the way... Am I the only one having trouble with the edit function? I tend to make a LOT of typos so I edit quite often... But the editor takes like several minutes to load sometimes.. and other times I need to refresh and try again for it to work.
Honestly, without that caption I would just assume that those were two good friends taking a rest from all the hard work they've been doing... I mean, the art itself doesn't necessarily depict gay characters >.> or any gestures that would make the characters gay at a glance to me... They're just gay because a caption states it. But hey, that's just me.
I was pretty sure that the people in the image were romantically involved without the caption. You would have to be really, really, good friends to have them fall asleep on your leg.
Hmm, where I live, that would just be two friends (or cousins, or brothers) hanging out together. Western cultural values are not universal.
Honestly, without that caption I would just assume that those were two good friends taking a rest from all the hard work they've been doing... I mean, the art itself doesn't necessarily depict gay characters >.> or any gestures that would make the characters gay at a glance to me... They're just gay because a caption states it. But hey, that's just me.
I was pretty sure that the people in the image were romantically involved without the caption. You would have to be really, really, good friends to have them fall asleep on your leg.
Hmm, where I live, that would just be two friends (or cousins, or brothers) hanging out together. Western cultural values are not universal.
And that's why the caption is necessary. Since there isn't a bigger story attached to the picture that lets them show rather than tell, WotC has to be blatant about it if they want it to count as representation.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
- Litany Against Fear, Frank Herbert
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I don't have an issue with the art either, but rather the idea that many companies really pushing this diversity angle as a selling point which was sort of hinted at as a positive the in original post.
I mean if I were to take issue with the art it'd only be the title/caption needlessly highlighting the sexuality of the characters in a manner that's sort of clumsy. Something like like "A wizard couple relaxing while...." would've seemed more natural to me.. but that's just being nitpicky I guess.
Oh and no offense taken, it's all good :)
It's a little more forced when everyone is straight and that's treated as default, and you need to have a rational for including non-straight people other than the fact that they exist.
Representation is never just "for its own sake". It's because you have an audience that includes people from underrepresented groups that deserve to see themselves reflected in media rather than othered. It's something the rest of us take for granted and is incredibly important.
Honestly, without that caption I would just assume that those were two good friends taking a rest from all the hard work they've been doing... I mean, the art itself doesn't necessarily depict gay characters >.> or any gestures that would make the characters gay at a glance to me... They're just gay because a caption states it. But hey, that's just me.
But that's kind of the point. You wouldn't know that they were gay unless there's the caption or the picture showed them lip-locking. A hetero couple wouldn't need something like that, nor would anyone say it was part of an agenda.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I was pretty sure that the people in the image were romantically involved without the caption. You would have to be really, really, good friends to have them fall asleep on your leg.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Agreed with the caption.
If it read "Wizardly couple..." or even simply "Wizards relax while..." it would deliver the same message but felt IMO less forced.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "the default" Perhaps you could elaborate a lil bit. I mean Considering straight people are the vast majority I would expect that to be generally reflected in media... So I don't think having a group of entirely straight people is at all unlikely or forced... Unless of course you have such large numbers that it would be strange not to see a sexual minority.
I don't believe I've expressed that you need a reason beyond gay people existing... I think you may be misunderstanding my opinion if that is what you think I believe.
Perhaps "for the sake of it" is not the best phrasing then. What I mean is that including gay people in your works and then underlining the fact that they are gay as if it's something to be celebrated(the inclusion not the gay people themselves) is to me entirely counterproductive to what we should be aiming towards. I guess my stance is that including a gay couple should not be a big deal.. Because when you make a big deal out of it, you re reinforcing the idea that it's an event.. that's an oddity... Oftentimes companies will also make a big deal of our representation solely for the same of winning social points.
This is often bad for normalization but also bad for the story you are trying to tell because you are no longer focusing on what should actually be the meat of the story.
To take a lesser example.. I'm left handed.. Obviously that's not a huge part of my identity, but it does make me a minority in a very specific sense. Now... For the longset time left handed people were considered strange or evil... Now imagine an artist draws a picture of a wizard writing a spellscroll with his left hand and decides to title it "Left handed wizard prepares a fireball scroll".. Wouldn't that feel incredibly awkward and weird? I certainly wouldn't appreciate that... Just have him use his left hand and be done with it.
I thnk I could go into more detail but I'll just leave it open for conversation here :)
Not trying to turn this into an argument, but I am left handed as well. I have never faced any persecution for it. (Except from my nerdy friends sometimes. But that was hopefully a joke.) LBGTQ+ people have faced persecution and hate even in modern times, and have much less representation. Anyways, sexuality is a much greater part of your identity than hand dominance.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I believe I started off the argument by saying it wasn't a perfect example, but rather to make my point that it's counterproductive to make representation a focus when presenting your art/media.
Fair enough. However, I feel like representation might be the point in this image. Reinforcing that anyone can play D&D. Is it a little bit blunt? Yes. But I still enjoy the artwork, even if the caption is very on the nose.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
People treat staight as a default in that it's often assumed people are straight until proven otherwise to the point of not acknowledging the existence of lgbt+ folks unless made to. Straight people are represented in media at a rate that is still disproportionate to the population majority they hold in society, especially when you take into account the entire history of literature and film that have only relatively recently stopped portraying them as morally deviant and bankrupt, where they were portrayed at all.
Yes, it's still fine to have a group of all straight people. Straight people are not "canceled." It's just that you can also have gay people and that is not inherently political, it merely reflects the reality that real life gay people inhabit, where they too exist.
And as for the criticisms of "why should a character's sexuality define them", i would say that criticism does not apply here. The wizard boyfriends in this art aren't characters. They don't have names or backstories other than what you want to give them, but largely they are setting pieces that show that hey, D&D is a world where people like you exist, and you're welcome here. If you are gay and not used to seeing that kind of casual representation in media, then I'm sure that's worth a lot to you, and to me doesn't feel forced, it feels emphasized, because the purpose of it is to emphasize inclucivity.
As far as what you say about taking a more muted approach towards representation in order to more normalize it, you definitely have an argument, for which I suppose my counter-argument is that in the media landscape ofv today and the last 10 years, any amount of LGBTQ+ representation has been so wrapped up in sifting through layers of subtext (why people rely so hard on shipping characters together to see themselves represented), that I'm willing to bet there's just as much of an audience crying out for more unambiguous representation, and to not have to do all the work themselves for once.
Your other criticism of companies often using representation just to score woke points and not follow though is super valid though. I can't really counter that except to say I hope that's not all WotC is doing.
" People treat staight as a default in that it's often assumed people are straight until proven otherwise to the point of not acknowledging the existence of lgbt+ folks unless made to. Straight people are represented in media at a rate that is still disproportionate to the population majority they hold in society, especially when you take into account the entire history of literature and film that have only relatively recently stopped portraying them as morally deviant and bankrupt, where they were portrayed at all. "
I don't know how to work the multiquote so I hope this is an okay way of doing it.
I think it's fair to assume most people I meet are straight, simply because they are... Most of the time I don't actually care about which sexuality anyone is.. As it's rarely relevant to the interaction. I don't know how the current representation measures up vs the population to be honest.. So I don't really have an opinion on that. As for historical.. I mean sure, probably not a lot of gay characters in a 50's show.
Yes, it's still fine to have a group of all straight people. Straight people are not "canceled." It's just that you can also have gay people and that is not inherently political, it merely reflects the reality that real life gay people inhabit, where they too exist.
And I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying that by making a big deal out of a character being gay reminds me of the silly gay characters from 90's tv shows who'd have some stupid "hee'eeey *snaps fingers*" catchphrase everytime they walked in the door to highlight they are infact gay... I exactly agree with you that you can have a gay characters without it being political, but by underlining their inclusion you're making it a message(political or otherwise) instead of it simply being normal. You are reinforcing the idea that gay characters are an "other" which needs to be highlighted.
And as for the criticisms of "why should a character's sexuality define them", i would say that criticism does not apply here. The wizard boyfriends in this art aren't characters. They don't have names or backstories other than what you want to give them, but largely they are setting pieces that show that hey, D&D is a world where people like you exist, and you're welcome here. If you are gay and not used to seeing that kind of casual representation in media, then I'm sure that's worth a lot to you, and to me doesn't feel forced, it feels emphasized, because the purpose of it is to emphasize inclucivity.
I'm just saying that simply having a gay couple on a piece of art and regarding them as you would any other couple is far more productive. I'm not a fan of clumsy messaging, not even towards goals I agree with.. And I find the title of that particular piece of art a lil clumsy.. I don't think this particular case is a big deal, and the art itself it not what spawned this discussion. Aslong as you are "making it a thing" it is not casual representation in my eyes.
I would much rather have a picture of soldiers returning home from war with two husbands embracing just being part of the scene instead of it being the point of the scene.. It shows exactly that they're just people in a human situation.. Instead of making it about their sexual preferences.
You raise a number of valid points that we could go back and forth on, but I'm just as comfortable letting it stand there since we covered the major points of the issue.
The one new tidbit I'll bring here to the discussion is in regard to the comment you made towards the end about "clumsy messaging" in referring to them explicitly as "wizard boyfriends."
I've actually noticed referring to gay couples as 'boyfriends' or 'husbands' just in common everyday speech becoming more prominent, especially when describing fictional characters. For example I don't know if you saw the Good Omens TV adaptation (which was great, if you haven't), but after that came out and a lot of the internet began shipping Crowley and Aziraphel, I started seeing the ship referred to as "Ineffable Husbands" as it's unofficial official nicknames. So having seen wording like that in the real world, it doesn't strike me there as heavy- handed language, rather it's using slang not usually found in D&D.
There's a reason for that, according to Jeremy Crawford, who in a video about lore for the character of Tasha that I saw on YouTube said that they wanted to have Tasha use modern, contemporary earth language as if to imply that in her multiverse-spanning travels she had actually visited earth. She is a Greyhawk character, and apparently (again, according to Crawford) that would not be the first time contemporary earth gets referenced there.
Link below if you're interested, some fun stuff there
https://youtu.be/cjzFkd0e_nI
No I don't know that TV show I'm afraid.
I'm good with letting it rest aswell, I think we've covered what we needed to. ^^
By the way... Am I the only one having trouble with the edit function? I tend to make a LOT of typos so I edit quite often... But the editor takes like several minutes to load sometimes.. and other times I need to refresh and try again for it to work.
Yeah I kept having to reload it too, thought it was just my internet. Weird.
Hmm, where I live, that would just be two friends (or cousins, or brothers) hanging out together. Western cultural values are not universal.
And that's why the caption is necessary. Since there isn't a bigger story attached to the picture that lets them show rather than tell, WotC has to be blatant about it if they want it to count as representation.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
great artwork
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
- Litany Against Fear, Frank Herbert