I have a few questions for this game I'm making.
So first off, the game's protagonist is Genderfluid, and so there's a minor gameplay feature where they can change their identified gender by being able to freely switch between he/she/they pronouns at will. This has no real effect on the story, and is mostly just used as an excuse to justify the significantly increased amount of romance choices in the optional dating mechanic.
While each game in the series has had multiple gay romance options, they also defy Everyone Is Bi by having same-gender straight characters and opposite-gender gay characters politely turn down the protagonist when asked out. With the new mechanic however, gender technically isn't a problem, allowing them to date almost every character as long as the protagonist is the gender they're attracted to when asking them out.
I think this is a pretty interesting and neat quality of life feature, but I feel like there's some kind of Unfortunate Implications lying within it. So, is this offensive or not, and if so how would I fix it?
Edited by BirdsArentReal on Jan 5th 2022 at 10:14:14 AM
My initial thought would be, is this in our current world/culture or another? If it's another world/culture than maybe tie it up with a bit of ritual/ceremony as the shift occurs and have some sort of clothing/cultural marker which indicates the change? This prevents the 'push a button and switch' option from working everywhere which might be annoying, but seems more effective in producing a change in reaction from the person you're interacting with.
In the current world...yeah there's some issues there. I don't have a great solution.
Well, the setting is Urban Fantasy, so while there are some creative liberties taken with the locations, the individual cultures (for humans at least) are pretty much the same as in real life.
I think I can make it so that the protagonist can only change gender when they interact with their bed, and it causes them to change into a blue, pink or green shirt depending on what they chose. But I don't really know if that would fix much.
Edited by BirdsArentReal on Jan 5th 2022 at 11:34:15 AM
Need feedback on if a character seems progressive or regressive.
The character: Trans woman, The Dragon of the story. Her body is extremely masculine (very tall, bulky, and muscular with a deep voice), but she presents very feminine (dresses like a Femme Fatale, always perfect makeup).
The plan: to never play her as a gag; she's a snarker who takes zero shit from anyone, she explains her relationship to gender in a later story, and eventually she starts a romance with one of the heroes (which he falls into with no angsting over his orientation, he respects her fully as a woman).
The reasoning: Threefold; 1) we have enough slender, non-threatening trans female characters in the mainstream. 2) I want to take the lame, outdated joke image of trans women (a huge dude in a dress, wearing a wig, with visible stubble trying to trick a man into bed), and turn it on its head. Make her confident, sexy, sexual, and physically dangerous. And 3) a touch of Author Avatar, to be honest. As a trans woman with a strong, endomorphic body and a huge fan of Janae Kroc, I definitely want to see more trans women built like The Heavy.
So, step forward or step back?
I'm not LGBT, so I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's pretty progressive. Only real thing I think you should be concerned about is Transgender Fetishization. It's fine for trans characters be sexy, but don't make them be sexy because they're trans. So for example, if her muscles and Heavy-physique are played for sex appeal, treat it like how you would with an Amazonian Beauty, and if you going to go the Purple Prose route try not to call her body "manly". Other than that, I think your character's good.
Edited by BirdsArentReal on Jan 12th 2022 at 9:17:08 AM
I'm not a trans woman so I defer to you to know better than I would, Jada, but I think you're right. Buff trans women do exist in real life, just as much as buff cis women do, and I'm sure many of those trans woman would like to see characters like them who are humanized instead of played for gags.
(Also reminds me how I'm surprised there isn't a trope about how trans women are caricatured to be hypermasculine — I have a draft for such a trope in my sandbox but I've always felt uncomfortable about posting it in TLP because it's such a gross stereotype trope and I don't want people to think I'm endorsing it...)
Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 12th 2022 at 1:04:46 PM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.It definitely helps that you're a trans woman yourself. It's easier to trust that you won't fall into stereotypical nonsense when you have direct experience of what it's like.
Not that the readers need to know that, if you don't feel like telling them. But if you do, they might cut you more slack than they'd cut a cis writer.
But our default advice on this kinda thing remains the same as always: write several trans women, so it's clear that no one trait of one character is intended to represent the entire demographic.
Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.Thank you all for the positive feedback :)
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That's definitely a narrative I want to avoid falling into, while I want her to have sex appeal she's also a very multilayered personality, which I think will help
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I don't see anything wrong with a trope based on that stereotype. It's an unfortunate truth that the "man in a dress" image is what lazy writers fall back on, just like Magical Native American and other outdated tropes. Putting out in the open and showing why it doesn't work would be helpful.
I'm working hard to make sure there's nothing stereotypical about her. The goal is to make a strong trans female character to pave the way for our own Trinitys, Ripleys, etc. It's way past time for one.
This is meant as how the protagonist, characterized as a socially awkward 15/16-year old student describes a student attending the same school as him who is in the same year, but he knows not much about her (She's not a major character, by the way). The scene is meant to be in 2018 and I wonder if it comes off offensive. Please excuse weird wording, English is not my first language, anyways.
"Apparently, everyone calls her Soppho, and that includes her Instagram profile. I don't really know if her name is Sophie or Sophia, but either of them is just as Greek as this legendary poet on her island. Anyways, she's attracted to women, but I am not exactly sure if exclusively or if... her gears rotate in both directions."
Long preface, sorry. But the context is important.
I'm still drafting my "dark pulp" story, which i've been mentioning on Hero Critique Thread, Villain Critique Thread, Random Questions Thread, and "What's A Good Name For This?" Thread. As you can propably guess from it's context, it's inevitably going to get pretty dark.
As the name implies, it's inspired by american WWII-era pulp in concept, superscience, and supernatural elements. It's also some kind of a superhero story, set mainly in wartime Germany and France, and about a german social-democrat whose father was murdered by the nazis and who becomes a pseudo-superhero who operates similiarly to the original Shadow and pursues revenge. It goes from 1940 to 1945, or possibly longer because i haven't decided where or how the protagonist's archenemy dies.
Other main characters, in order of appearance and importance, are: an also German agent of an Abwehr-expy who gets super soldier-powers after stealing and using a nazi Super Serum, but also was exposed by the nazis and had to go on a run, but still receives information, orders, and sometimes aid from her superiors; an upper-class Brit who's a spy in enemy territory, and was also a spy during WWI, where he got turned into a Dracula-style vampire; and an American supersoldier who only comes in after the Normandy landings, and really plays a second fiddle to everybody else because i hate the America Saves the Day trope. They mostly operate separately from each other, (especially the main character who doesn't trust spies, is afraid of the blood-drinking monster, and just actively dislikes americans), but sometimes work together and start actively banding up towards the end of the war.
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Now, the actual question.
The La Résistance woman is aroace, and the main character who's based on The Shadow is gay ace. So they're both asexual and they could talk about it at some point somehow, but i don't really know how to bring it up realistically. Because in that time and place, talking about anything was obviously extremely dangerous.
Ideas?
Edited by Nukeli on Feb 24th 2022 at 10:24:54 PM
~*bleh*~![]()
Ace is asexual and aroace is aromantic asexual.
I assumed that people would get it, because i mentioned asexuality in the next sentence, where i said they're both asexual.
I'm also not sure what they should call it. It should be pretty explicit, because straight people and non-straight allosexual (non-ace) people are pretty good at denialnote . An english-speaker, propably even in the forties, propably would be able to come up with that literal word "asexual" on their own by figuring that prefix "a-" means "not X" because it appears as such in a few other words, at least in "asocial"note , but they're germans and obviously speaking german there.
I did have one scene idea where the protagonist is in a bar or something in the evening, and a random woman tries to seduce him. First he goes "what the shit??" and then realizes what she's trying, and feels kind of offended that she thinks anybody would fall for such a poor (in his opinion at least) performance and thinks that she's an obvious spy.
Edited by Nukeli on Feb 24th 2022 at 11:01:23 AM
~*bleh*~I've got a character, Carla Izuchukwu, a 26-year-old Nigerian-Swedish-Japanese-American who's attracted to feminine women, so a Lipstick Lesbian, although Ambiguously Bi since her interest in men isn't mentioned much if at all.
The setting's not quite a Crapsack World but not Crapsaccharine World, it's toned down to be family-friendly.
My problem is how to write her realistically; can't draw on my own experience as I have none of dating women as a lesbian (despite being bigender, and I would technically be a Lipstick Lesbian, if I was female, I'm AMAB, and slow to get into feminine gender expression despite being bigender, but that's not for here).
My work is a mixture of Queer Media, toned-down Conspiracy Thriller, and Alternate History (set in 2014, with some flashbacks to 5 and 10 years ago).
She's a villain, but not the Big Bad, here, I'm trying to focus on this part of her characterization.
Carla isn't defined by her sexuality, and her default outfit is either a sports bra, or sports bra-style crop top, or Fiorucci angels white crop top and leggings with trainers, but that's not for fanservice purposes; it's just who she is.
More on her at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13503408720A04680100&page=61#comment-1509
My problem is how to make her sexuality relevant as she's intended to be a character the audience will want to sympathise with and like, as although she's a villain, she's far from evil, and more misguided than malicious, a Harmless Villain who does make a Heel–Face Turn.
This is in a White-and-Grey Morality setting; the story's intended to be family-friendly.
Edited by Merseyuser1 on Feb 28th 2022 at 11:33:03 AM
Well, the most obvious way to make her sexuality relevant is to have her be in a relationship. If that doesn't seem to be right for your story, then have her express attraction to another character. If you want to tie it in with making her more sympathetic, have her ability to love be one of her redeeming features (Kunzite and Zoisite from Sailor Moon, for example).
I agree with all that you said there and, may I add you could have her attraction for another character be the catalyst of her Heel–Face Turn? Maybe the object of her affections is one of the heroes. Or maybe is someone on her side, but she realizes that the path they're following won't bring them happiness and tries to convince her to switch sides together. You don't have to have it be a full blown relationship. Just show that your character is attracted to this other woman. The reaction of her interest, whether negative or positive, could be a good chance to develop the characters. How does she react to a yes or a no? If her crush is a hero and rejects her, does she still turn to good because she made her realize the error of her ways anyway? Or because she still loves her and wants to protect her? If she receives a yes but her new love interest doesn't want to turn good, does it make her doubt herself? You have a sea of opportunities!
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Now, something I've been working on has one of the POV characters be a trans girl who has known she's a trans girl since she was seven to ten. She lives in a fantasy world where conceptions of gender and sexuality aren't the same as in our reality, so have her think or say "I'm trans" wouldn't make any sense and I don't want to show her looking vaguely masculine because, again, this is a fantasy world where magic runs rampant and the idea that they wouldn't have some type of transformation magic for trans folk would be kind of weird. So I planned this.
Warda (her name) is having a conversation with her best friend and ex girlfriend, Bruma. Fondly, she remembers the time she told Bruma she felt uncomfortable when she saw herself naked. So, on her next birthday, Bruma gave her a potion that could change her body, one Warda's parents wouldn't have been able to buy, since it's quite expensive.
My question is, do you find anything problematic with this idea? I did this to confirm that Warda is trans without coming across as ham fisted while also showing that even in a world where gender-affirming methods are available and better than in our own world, they still aren't within reach of everyone who needs them. Thoughts?
Keep in mind that trans issues aren't my area of expertise: I think some people might interpret "so have her think or say "I'm trans" wouldn't make any sense " as intentionally downplaying the trans aspect. I believe there are transgender tropers who can comment on this point.
It probably depends also on how exactly gender and sexuality work in your setting.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Bring in a third ignorant party to unintentionally bring the topic up and let the other two get surprised over each other's orientation once brought up to the surface, while the third party is sleeping off the booze on the sofa in the meantime, most likely not to recall the whole conversation the next day in the hangover or ever.
x3: Obviously context matters, but as a trans woman, I don't see anything wrong with that scenario.
Naturally I'm only one trans woman, but it's very similar to Anevia from the Pathfinder "Wrath of the Righteous" module (and its CRPG adaptation), and she was written with the input of trans writers, and I haven't seen any other trans people have a problem with her portrayal. One thing that might be worth noting is that her trans status isn't something she just tells anyone (I forget how the module handled it, but in the game, it's an extremely high level persuasion check late in the game for her to actually talk about being AMABnote ; likely because Mass Effect: Andromeda made the mistake of having a trans woman NPC out herself in the first conversation you can have while the game was in development). But if your character's just talking to someone who already knows, that's not an issue.
As for the issue Septimus brought up: Not explicitly saying a character's trans can be an issue, but that's less about language and characters not turning to the camera and saying "I am a trans woman; I was assigned male at birth; I have a penis and do not wish to change that, but trans women who want GCS are valid!", and more about plausible deniability for people who don't want characters to be trans (or LGBTQ+ in general). For example, Celeste strongly hinted Madaline was a trans girl in the B-side tapes DLC (something that wasn't planned in the base game, but was subconsciously done by Maddy Thorson as they were themselves coming out), but only via a few hints (looking more androgynous in a baby photo, having a trans pride flag, medication next to her bed), which lead to trans people trying to celebrate her as such effectively being gaslit by "fans" who insisted they were reading too much into it.
There's only so much you can do to prevent this (it's a very Doylist issue), but it's not something that applies to "this setting doesn't have the word transgender" per se (a character saying she's happier after being AMAB and physically transformed is pretty unambiguous either way).
Edited by Bisected8 on Mar 12th 2022 at 2:18:55 PM
TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer![]()
Two other major characters are native english-speakers (an American who's from Kleindeutschland or something of the like, and a British spy vampire whose brother is/was a baron). And i did note this;
It could combine with your idea, in that either of those characters could come up with the word "asexual". However i'm not sure how to write the lead-up to the conversation/situation in a way that doesn't feel convoluted. And that it'd make sense that two people in Nazi Germany who don't know about each other's queerness would talk about their queerness aloud, even alone.note
~*bleh*~I'm making an H-game visual novel with some LGBT characters. I would like to make sure I am portraying them properly and that they feel real.
Your questions, thoughts, and feedback would be greatly appreciated in helping me improve my characters.
Are you allowed to post a direct link to an H-game here?
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Hmm just prioritising other things as opposed to being Aro right? (Incidentally prioritising other things is my go to excuse whenever asked about my love life to most people, since I'm not out to many people in meat space
). But yeah unless they are really involved in activism or have a supportive gay community it would just seem like a throw away detail rather than representation.