LGBT characters?

[dannydb]

so something was thinking on the other day. one of the great thing about malifaux is the diversity in characters. i've been playing been playing GW games predominantly for most of my gaming life span having only recently started malifaux. i mean in GW games 90% of the characters are caucasian males, malifaux does seem a lot more balanced (i mean a few weeks ago we had 6 people playing malifaux, the only caucasian male master was the dreamer, with lady J, zorader, linch, mei feng and ironsides making up the other 5 masters- in fact we joked i was the most discriminative (vs dwarfism) person as I didn't take mouse 

 

however one thing that doesn't seem to be talked about much is characters sexuality, is this mentioned at all? (I've only read the 2nd ed "rulebooks" none of the other fluff). are there any known LGBT characters out there, either known or hinted at, or am I assuming that reproduction even works the same way on malifaux and all the characters are in fact asexual 

[Gnomezilla]

*shrug* In my meta Karina is regularly given the status of 'girlfriend' not companion of Tara, it's not just Lucius but all Neverborn who are assumed not to play by the same relationship rules as the average human, and Guild knows but stops talking and changes the subject.

[Bengt]

There is nothing explicit, but Colette and Cassandra give me a couple vibe in some stories.

[Vorschlag]

Sexuality and gender identity in the early 20th century did not adhere to modern popular opinion.

Adding such details to the game has little potential benefit and would only gum up mechanics on lure, seduction etc.

I would hope no one really needs to know who is sleeping with who in Malifaux (it's not days of our lives) and would assume that such matters are probably kept private due to the culture, privacy and repression of the period the game is set in.

So for intents and purposes the characters can have whatever social, sexuality,  racial, religious attributes a player wants to attribute to them.

Since in most cases these are not discussed in the fluff.

Also Jacob Lynch is usually depicted as a Caucasian male I believe (even if he is in debt to the thunders and sold his soul to the devil) but players can paint and convert him to be whatever they want.

An example of this is a local player making his Marcus into a Maori chieftain and all the beasts Maori myths and legends.

Another was a player on Facebook who did an African take on Lady Justice.

[Myyrä]

I believe the only clear reference to who's boinking who in the entire Malifaux lore is Marcus calling Myranda his mate. Much like religion, it has apparently been left intentionally vague.

[Dogmantra]

8 minutes ago, Vorschlag said:

Adding such details to the game has little potential benefit and would only gum up mechanics on lure, seduction etc.

Guild Ball does it in a really cute and elegant way imo. There's a "Charmed [Characteristic]" ability that gives a model +1 Defense against the named characteristic. Usually Charmed [Male] on female characters, but Flint who is a man also has Charmed [Male]. Of course that's with a system built from the ground up to include that stuff, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch. Ulix can still be lured, and by all rights he should be tied to a mast instead.

 

 

[Adran]

1 hour ago, Myyrä said:

I believe the only clear reference to who's boinking who in the entire Malifaux lore is Marcus calling Myranda his mate. Much like religion, it has apparently been left intentionally vague.

I would add Kirai and The governor generals son (until his death). But otherwise the story has not looked at character sexuality, and I personally don't think that it needs to. 

[Bengt]

Rusty Alice certainly have opinions about Leveticus' relationship to the Hollow Waifs.

[Pyrflamme]

1 hour ago, Vorschlag said:

Sexuality and gender identity in the early 20th century did not adhere to modern popular opinion.

I would hope no one really needs to know who is sleeping with who in Malifaux (it's not days of our lives) and would assume that such matters are probably kept private due to the culture, privacy and repression of the period the game is set in.

You'd be surprised. There's plenty of examples of LGBT repression throughout history, but even way back when, sexuality and gender expression could get pretty far away from monogamous heterosexual cisgender etc etc and nobody gave a toss until someone in authority, or someone that wanted to be in authority, needed a convenient cudgel. Hell, my brother once took a college course that touched on Victorian pornography, which runs pretty hard against the modern popular perception of them as staid bastards. Apparently Victorian pornographers weren't as creative as our modern pornographers and most of their attempts to up the ante were "put more people in the photos". In Malifaux, when you have literal zombies, demons, and drunken gremlins at the gates (many saying the latter is the worst), people are probably more practical and willing to disregard personal preferences if you're good enough at what you do.

Really, both sexuality and gender identification/expression has both strong genetic and developmental components to it which didn't just pop up in the 21st century, which is why it's been a noted and recorded thing since we first figured out how to write down stuff for later. It would actually be weirder to go "no, nothing like that happens in the world of Malifaux", because then you imply a major, consistent divergence in genetics and human development since...at least the rise of our last common ancestor with the other apes? Maybe further back considering the bonobos. 

As such, I don't think it's out of place for it to appear, and it can be as easy as  just sliding in someone's significant other in a story. Overwatch has a little thing where Tracer in the course of a comic, ended up crashing on the couch next to her girlfriend, and it would have been a quick capstone to the overall story except for the brigade outraged about homosexuality / outraged that Tracer would never be their waifu / outraged about both. If they wanted to indicate a pre-existing or new character was gay or a lesbian, all it takes is a sentence about coming home and giving their spouse a peck on the cheek.

1 hour ago, Vorschlag said:

Adding such details to the game has little potential benefit and would only gum up mechanics on lure, seduction etc.

Eh, Lure/Seduction works on all kinds of weird shit. It's definitely a magic mojo thing which doesn't follow the conventional rules for attraction. Sometimes it feels that way with ex: Performers, but I read it more as "I really want to get closer to this person/creature for some reason I can't put my finger on."

 

9 minutes ago, Adran said:

 But otherwise the story has not looked at character sexuality, and I personally don't think that it needs to. 

I don't read it as "looking at character sexuality". I look at it as "representing sexuality". If people see someone in a setting that shares something with them, it makes it feel more inclusive, often for very little effort invested. A Hispanic actor in Rogue One meant a lot to one Latina's dad: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/diego-luna-star-wars-rogue-one-accent_us_586c8435e4b0de3a08fa2643?section=us_latino-voices

I have no idea about what Malifaux's racial representation means to people (Ironsides, the Ten Thunders, the growing Indian presence in Arcanists), but I've seen women on A Wyrd Place expressing their appreciation for the female Masters.

 

 

 

 

[Astrella]

English Ivan and Mei Feng; McCabe had a girlfriend. I think it's very disingenuous to say (straight) sexuality doesn't feature in the lore when we have the Honeypot, quite a few storylines featuring / centering on sex workers, Kirai and Francis had a post-sex in bed scene, etc... there's plenty of examples.

And yes, cultural attitudes surrouding LGBT+ people where different / how people labelled themselves was different, but that's true for straight people too. A bit of LGBT+ inclusion only makes people feel included / represented, same with how there actually being a decent amount of female masters has always been something I've brought up as a positive of Malifaux when talking about it to other people. Representation doesn't affect people negatively if you're not part of the group, but does help minorities be included, and I'd argue makes the lore and setting feel deeper and more expansive.

[Bengt]

In "The Hollow Marsh Gala", Chronicles #3, Leveticus gets super jealous when Rusty Alice dances with Ramos, and flips out when she kisses him.

[Squirrelich]

It's not much, but from Colette's Crossroads story that recently aired in Breachside Broadcast:

"That had been the first trick she had learned. Before the cards. Before the doves, the clockwork and the dancing. Before she’d even learned that a well-placed whisper or the touch of a finger at just  he right time could make a man, and more than a few women, lose all composure. No, her first trick had been this: turning the truth into something else."

[DocSchlock]

E.B. (the perspective writer) in Through the Breach is gay. Comes up in her writings about the Honeypot.

[Da Git]

In the Chronicles tale: "There's Something about Molly", she pines over a male office finance clerk.

So confirmed straight

• Kirai & Francis
• Marcus & Mirander
• Molly
• Leve & Alice (not confirmed, but strongly hinted
• English Ivan & Mei Fang
• McCabe (deceased fiancee)

Some potential non-cis characters IMO

• Seamus - asexual - sure, he targets hookers, but there's been no sexual acts, even with Molly.  I'd say he gets off on the kill and prettying them up as ornaments, not sex in the traditional sense.
• McMourning - asexual - way too dedicaated in his art
• Sonnia/Hopkins - gay - they have a very professional respect, but that's as far as it goes, so maybe one or the other could swing the other way maybe?
• Colette (possibly bi)/Cassie (I'd say fairly strongly hinted as Lesbian, she's taken absolutely no interest in men, only exploiting their attraction to her)
• Tara/Karina
• Absolutely anyone else really...

If they were going to make a character gay, then probably the best place to do it would be in background stories for a non-named character or make a new character gay, to do so to an existing character would just make all kinds of people upset... Look what happened when JK Rawlings announced Dumbledor was gay.  People have already made their conceptions about the characters and are too protective.

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

6 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

Ulix can still be lured, and by all rights he should be tied to a mast instead.

[Nathan Caroland]

Oh, it's hinted at here and there, you just have to look to find it. Like religion, that's one of those that I don't feel needs to be used to whack folks upside the head with. 

For me, personally I'm a very opinionated, even bombastic individual at times, but most people don't see that of me, or my thoughts/direction that I take on things until you've come to know me for some time or catch me in the right moment. I'm very much of the opinion, personally, that there are things that just don't need to be pushed into people's faces and while you can have an opinion (for, against, or completely ambivalent), for me, personally, I'm not one of those to push a direction or agenda. 

For me, writing, and the characters that are presented therein, are better off if they can make a connection with the reader on some level, or capture their attention so that they can start to fill in the blanks themselves. I've always liked to have options, and for me at least, nothing sucks more than to have every line, attribute and minute decision about a person/character decided and outlined for all to see. Leave a bit of mystery, give yourself some leeway, have a bit of fun. Besides, it allows us so many other options as a company to decide what we're doing with XYZ down the road, instead of painting ourselves into a hard-edged corner. 

 

[Boomstick]

5 minutes ago, Nathan Caroland said:

Oh, it's hinted at here and there, you just have to look to find it. Like religion, that's one of those that I don't feel needs to be used to whack folks upside the head with. 

Leave a bit of mystery, give yourself some leeway, have a bit of fun. 
 

Here here! Plenty to be said for subtlety and the questions that go indirectly answered!

[Gnomezilla]

I wasn't gonna...honest...I can learn...not subtlety, but I can learn...

9 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

Ulix can still be lured, and by all rights he should be tied to a mast instead.

Some of us get great works of Western literature. Some of us get Dracula: Dead and Loving It. *dispatches a sanctioned spellcaster to stop Hoffman goggling helplessly at a rotten belle. again.*

10 hours ago, Vorschlag said:

I would hope no one really needs to know who is sleeping with who in Malifaux (it's not days of our lives)...

Also Jacob Lynch is usually depicted as a Caucasian male I believe (even if he is in debt to the thunders and sold his soul to the devil) but players can paint and convert him to be whatever they want.

An example of this is a local player making his Marcus into a Maori chieftain and all the beasts Maori myths and legends.

Another was a player on Facebook who did an African take on Lady Justice.

I have a lovely serving of popcorn from the "Nellie is really Lucius in disguise?" thread (Guild forum) that disagrees with you. People are willing to speculate on anything.

...So that's why I stumbled over the original post but not hard enough to notice. In my list of iconic paint jobs, good enough to override the official paint schemes, is the Lynch who was painted with black skin and a very sharp suit, by a player who was black and had a love of sharp suits.

[Kyris]

9 hours ago, Astrella said:

English Ivan and Mei Feng; McCabe had a girlfriend. I think it's very disingenuous to say (straight) sexuality doesn't feature in the lore when we have the Honeypot, quite a few storylines featuring / centering on sex workers,

none of those are explicitly straight as you imply...We have no idea what sorts of people frequent the honeypot. Lynch is trying to spread Brilliance to as many people as he possible can so it's in his best interest to be as...ahem...inclusive, as possible. same with the sex workers. to me knowledge we're never shown or have it stated that any of them have one specific gender/sexuality of clientele. It seems to me that you're under some assumption that only straight people go to sex workers.

[Dogmantra]

45 minutes ago, Kyris said:

none of those are explicitly straight as you imply...We have no idea what sorts of people frequent the honeypot. Lynch is trying to spread Brilliance to as many people as he possible can so it's in his best interest to be as...ahem...inclusive, as possible. same with the sex workers. to me knowledge we're never shown or have it stated that any of them have one specific gender/sexuality of clientele. It seems to me that you're under some assumption that only straight people go to sex workers.

You're correct that e.g. McCabe having a girlfriend doesn't guarantee they're straight, but you're also kind of missing the point. Astrella was pointing out that there already is sexuality in the universe, it is often just overlooked because it is frequently either heteronormative or assumed to be. The point is that male/female relationships get to be just regular stuff, but when adding LGBT characters it becomes inappropriate to add sexuality to the universe.

That's also missing the fact there is a whole letter in LGBT that isn't about sexuality ofc.

[Kyris]

Just now, Dogmantra said:

You're correct, but also kind of missing the point. Astrella was pointing out that there already is sexuality in the universe, it is often just overlooked because it is frequently either heteronormative or assumed to be.

there is sexuality in the game; I mean, one of the major lore characters is a jack the ripper expy who has an army of zombie prostitutes. But I take exception to this idea that all sexuality depicted is "straight" when we're not shown anything one way or the other in either of the examples given. You can't assume it's only straight people going to the honeypot and then use that as argument that only straight sexuality is part of the games setting. there's absolutely no reason for them to include that little aside.

[TheSpinebuster]

3 hours ago, Kyris said:

there is sexuality in the game; I mean, one of the major lore characters is a jack the ripper expy who has an army of zombie prostitutes. But I take exception to this idea that all sexuality depicted is "straight" when we're not shown anything one way or the other in either of the examples given. You can't assume it's only straight people going to the honeypot and then use that as argument that only straight sexuality is part of the games setting. there's absolutely no reason for them to include that little aside.

You also can't use 'They don't explicitly deny the existence of LGTBQ characters' as evidence that they are represented in the lore.

[Kyris]

4 minutes ago, TheSpinebuster said:

You also can't use 'They don't explicitly deny the existence of LGTBQ characters' as evidence that they are represented in the lore.

I never said they are represented in the lore. I said "sexuality is" but "sexuality orientation", largely, isn't. both LGBT or straight. Yes. there are a few characters who are said to have past lovers, such as Kiari. But those are the exception rather than the rule.

Would I care if they added some LGBT characters? not really. Would I care if they made gender-flipped alternate sculpts of, for example, the dead Doxie or rotten belle, or hell even the nurse models? I would care yes; I'd be in favor of it. More model choices is never a bad thing.

However, sexuality and sexual orientation has never, and in my opinion, should never, be something that is focused on in this game; and yes, that includes "hetero-normative" things as well. Sure; you have characters like Lynch who run a brothel/casino/whatever else it is. But that's more or less mentioned in passing. It's not his main character trait by far. Yes, McMourning's nurses are highly sexualized, and while it can be argued that it is a major focal point of the nurse model, it's not a major focal point of their character from a lore or gameplay perspective. 

I don't think anyone is actively against adding a character that happens to be gay, or lesbian, or trans, or bi, or anything else. But I'm sure many people would be against that becoming a focal point.

[TheSpinebuster]

1 minute ago, Kyris said:

I never said they are represented in the lore. I said "sexuality is" but "sexuality orientation", largely, isn't. both LGBT or straight. Yes. there are a few characters who are said to have past lovers, such as Kiari. But those are the exception rather than the rule.

Would I care if they added some LGBT characters? not really. Would I care if they made gender-flipped alternate sculpts of, for example, the dead Doxie or rotten belle, or hell even the nurse models? I would care yes; I'd be in favor of it. More model choices is never a bad thing.

However, sexuality and sexual orientation has never, and in my opinion, should never, be something that is focused on in this game; and yes, that includes "hetero-normative" things as well. Sure; you have characters like Lynch who run a brothel/casino/whatever else it is. But that's more or less mentioned in passing. It's not his main character trait by far. Yes, McMourning's nurses are highly sexualized, and while it can be argued that it is a major focal point of the nurse model, it's not a major focal point of their character from a lore or gameplay perspective. 

I don't think anyone is actively against adding a character that happens to be gay, or lesbian, or trans, or bi, or anything else. But I'm sure many people would be against that becoming a focal point.

You argued that you can't say the only sexuality represented is straight because they never explicitly say so - to which I respond that you also can't say they represent other sexualities because they never explicitly say so.

Wyrd has done an excellent job of creating a wider variety of representation of women and various cultures in the models in the game. It would be nice to see this kind of representation extend into the lore, and I don't think it needs any sort of 'but don't make it the focus' caveat. There is nothing wrong with a character being gay and it being a focal point of their story, unless you think there is something wrong with being gay (or trans or bi, etc.). The only thing to be careful of is perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

[Kyris]

12 minutes ago, TheSpinebuster said:

There is nothing wrong with a character being gay and it being a focal point of their story, unless you think there is something wrong with being gay (or trans or bi, etc.). 

No. that's bullshit.

I think making a character who's main focal point is their sexuality or sexual orientation; gay or straight, does a disservice to not only Wyrd's writing talent but also the incredible lore and mythology that they've created.

it's not them being gay that's the issue. But writing a character who's main character trait is their sexuality or sexual orientation is just bad writing.

Turning that around and trying to say "You only think that because you hate gay people!" is absolute bullshit.