Retronauts - 507: A History of LGBTQ Representation in Video Games

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

For the LBGTQ+ community, video games have always been a way to break barriers, find community, and make friends. Nadia buddies up with her friends Len and Larch to talk about how games have influenced and shaped the LBGTQ+ community over the decades. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

This week on Retronauts, hmm, beefy shirtless guys shooting each other's with big guns in the tropics. Sounds pretty gay. Welcome to Retronauts. I am this week's host, Nadia Oxford. I also double as the co-host to the Axe of the Blood God RPG. Hello, everybody. I'm joined by two very good friends of mine to tackle a very good, albeit very complicated and sticky in many ways. The topic. And that is LBGTQ, queer rep in video games, past, present, future. It's a very rough, bumpy topic full of people failing hard and also trying their best. So we're going to look at this. And we're going to look and say, what's good, what's bad, what's cringe as the wizened children of this era are wont to say. We'll do our very best to talk about it as respectfully and as well informed as possible. We beg your pardons for any slip-ups. Feel free to hit me with things on Twitter at Nadia Oxford. I will take the slings and arrows and I will try to do better if there is a problem.

But first, I want to introduce my guests. I brought with me Len, who has featured on Acts of the Bug God many times. So say hi, Len. Hello, hello. And I also want to say hi to my very good pal, Larch, say hi, Larch. Hello, I is, am I on TV? You're on the part of TV that has the voice, but not the picture, not the devil, not the soul stealing part, just the voice stealing part. So why don't we just kind of start off by breaking the ice.

We can just kind of go around, introduce ourselves, talk a little bit about our, I guess our sexuality, if we feel comfortable, just kind of reveal what you, what you, what you feel. feel comfortable talking about. I'll go ahead and start. I am, I don't know. I said on Twitter that lately the older I get, I feel like my brain is a splatoon game where the inklings are shooting hormones everywhere and just nothing is, nothing is well balanced. Nothing is where it was. Nothing is what it will be. I feel like I'm changing all the time. But I guess the safest thing to say is that I probably bisexual. I still feel comfortable with calling myself a cis woman though, although there is some weird, some weird variance to that that I'll get into eventually. But I, that's pretty much where I stand.

All things subject to change as things are in this life because life has changed, how it differs from the rocks. Larch, why don't you go ahead and share show and tell? Sure. I'm Larch. I am a trans-women, trans-lisbian. I have been transitioning about a year thanks to Final Fantasy 14, of finally convincing me that my, what I thought

was like a growing feminine side is not just a side, I am all feminine side. I will tell that story later if I get a chance some. Other than that kind of my only credentials for being here are a lifelong gamer who's also a trans lady. My day job software, but nothing to do with the

games industry. I guess my biggest credential for this crowd is having some stuff up on overlocked. Which I knew, like, I listened to that by the way. Oh, really? I swear to God, like not all of them, but I knew a couple of your songs. So that's hilarious to me. I've also heard them like scroll by and AGDQ.

That's pretty awesome when they come up. That's awesome. Everybody use the music is pretty great. How about you, um, uh, Len? Yeah, I am Len Hafer. I am, uh, if we start with the personal stuff, I would describe myself as a gender fluid, non-binary trans i use she they pronouns um gender fluid non-binary trans feminine i guess would be that the labels are weird they are aren't they like i find i find like nothing against the younger

generation they have a lot of struggles and i'm proud of the work they're doing but i feel like they're more into the label part than the older uh queer community is i just like i said i have no idea what i am it's like okay if i have to call myself something uh there you go but yeah that's I think when you're younger, maybe, like, it feels more important to have, like, a word as a locust to orbit around. And as you get older, identity can kind of just be vibes. And that's okay. My sexuality, I would need, like, a thesis to explain it.

Like, I'm mostly heterosexual, but also mostly homo-romantic, which is great because it means I can never have someone who's, like, my main SO that's also going to be able to, it's, it's, it's, it's funny. stuff. Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's an interesting stuff. But as far as professional, I have been a freelance deemed journalist, mainly strategy and RPGs for about the last 10 years. I do a podcast called Three Moves Ahead about strategy games.

As Nadia said, I've been on Axe the Blood God, a fair few times talking about RPGs. So, yeah, I kind of designed my whole life and career around games. because I don't know how I would have gotten by in any other industry. I'm in the same boat, so don't worry. We both have equal sins. I should have said when I was introducing myself that I've never been on a podcast before,

blood God or otherwise. So this is going to be fun. Oh, doing great so far. Welcome to the wonderful world of podcast. I've listened to a podcast, so I know enough to like, know this structure, but yeah, this is fun. So, well, since we're all like terminally into games, Why don't we talk about where we started?

Like, I started with the Atari, which I talked about before, actually, the Kleecovision, if you want to get pedantic about it. But I really started getting to games with the NES and the SNS, something I'm sure we're all going to get into in a minute, is the RPGs of the S&ES were kind of life-changing in that they had these incredible stories and characters that I really identified with. And what about you two? Or would you say you kind of echo me or not really? I mean, I think I'm a little. I started a little bit younger, but also my parents were very against having any, like, machine that could not be used to, like, do serious homework. Yes, no S-V-S, no M-E-S. We finally came and bought me a 64.

Oh, good. Yeah, so I didn't miss out on an operating of time, at least. That's good. Yeah, Link, that's, that's... Ooh. Link was an awakening. Let's just say that. Yes, Link's Awakening.

Yes. Yeah. Definitely, definitely. Yeah, actually. But I did get into the S&S RPGs because someone introduced me to the wonderful world of emulators. So, oh, boy. Before I got into, like, even before I got real consoles, I, like, experienced very janky emulated versions of Final Fantasy 4 and Final Fantasy 6. Oh, oh, oh, Final Fantasy 4 is emulation.

We go into the Mist Cave and they didn't have transparency. Yeah, I had to ask my friend what to do it. He was like, you just go through the cave, but I'm like, I can't see anything. I can't see anything. I can't. Thank you. And Final Fantasy 6, I should mention that, like, it struck so much of a chord with me. The opera scene, the suicide scene, that, like, Celis was almost my name.

That was, like, kind of the runner off. Awesome. That would have been a great name. Yeah, but, I mean, Larch is great, too. I like the name Larch. Thank you. What about you, Leanna? Yeah, actually, that's very similar, actually, in some respects to my story, because I also

had those parents that didn't want to buy a machine that was just for video games. And that's why I became primarily a PC gamer. I got my first PC when I was, I think it was like 1995-ish. So I was like, you know, the big stuff

was like at that time was like Doom and Warcraft too. Oh, yeah. But I did play like NES and S&ES and Genesis when I would go over to my friend's houses or my aunt and uncle's house who were a little bit more permissive about it. And then very similar to you larch they did finally break down and we got an n64 in two for christmas in the in 2000 so

it was like literally when i got mine two or three years of begging and they finally got it for us so yeah i was big into ocarina also played emulated ff6 but um like the bioware RPGs were really big informative right oh yeah yeah balder's gate and and and eventually knights the old republic uh and then you know the dragon ages into the mass effects and all yeah for sure uh one thing i'd actually say is that um the older games not really so much in the way of a good rep like we'll talk about a few later but len you coming from a pc background that's that's actually quite a bit different because the pc fan base at the time the gamer base was a little more mature to be honest than than then then us console trash like just making mario jump whatever we up to at the time

uh when did you start to notice that PC games were a little more inclusive of maybe people who weren't strictly syshat. You know, it's, it's interesting that you say that because I feel like a lot of, especially like competitive PC communities initially weren't. I mean, like the hardcore strategy games and like hardcore FPS and stuff, it was really kind of a boys club for a long time. And it sort of started to flip, I'm trying to think. when I would identify it as I think it's just really when a lot of those

hardcore competitive players like a lot of them realize they were girls and I can't remember exactly but that's something that you've seen happen in e-sports and happen you know in like speed running and stuff especially within the last 10 years yeah the trans awakening of the

movie has really fascinated me right right yeah for some reason that's just something that That's interesting, like, that's, it's not just about like games that have trans rep, but also games that have helped us shape our own identities. So do you know, like I follow speed running kind of loosely. Do you know what it is about, is it just the community that's so supportive and people say, hey, maybe, you know, I'm not who I thought I was initially.

Or is it just something about speed running that gets you riled up to realize, hey, I'm someone else. I don't, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that could be a topic of its own episode, really. Yeah, seriously. I'd love to hear someone with like a PhD in sociology. tackle that question because yeah it's yeah there really seems to be a chicken and the egg problem to a certain extent there is something about it being such an accepting community and you know it was like famously like very accepting um i think that they were really kind of leading the charges

putting pronouns everywhere yeah they're always like at the at the front of the charge for that for sure so i think maybe it is just a more it could be community because of course supportive community is everything if you are coming out in any regard like speaking for myself Thankfully, my family was pretty liberal about that kind of thing. They were just like, whatever, sex is weird, we don't care if you're gay or straight or whatever you want to be, will support you. And I'm very lucky about that, but I know it could be even that someone who is trans and they never had a community or support until they found one online with, say, speed running or anything else, but speed running seems to be prominent, as you said. Hi, you're from a Catholic family, so. Oh, dear.

Yeah, that's why I cracked in my 30s. I grew up in what is referred to as the Evangelical Vatican, Colorado's Colorado. Oh, no. Yeah. My parents are cool now, though. They've got it. I'm glad to hear that.

They left for a reason. Yeah. So, like, if I was in a positive theory, like, here's just my random theory is that the PC gaming community has always been about this sort of like free-spirited, like we mod the hell out of everything. We rip out computers apart and like put cool lights in them and we, you know, we mod our games to hell and back. We make entire genres out of whole cloth just by modding games already exist, you know? So maybe it was that sort of, I mean, and speed running also requires this like very out of the box sort of experimental. Right. Right. Thinking that like if

you're the type of person who thinks that way, maybe you're the type of person who's more open to reconsidering aspects of your identity that I really like that would go on examined otherwise. Yeah. But you're saying I don't even need to be on HRT. I could have just gone to the nexus pods. Yeah. You just download as many genders as you want. I have over 800 genders installed on my copy of Witcher 3. Yeah. Watch the load order on that. Yeah. You do No, you do want to be careful. Yeah. You don't want to get a crash to desktop from too much gender.

Too many genders. Blue screen. No, it's up with a frowny face. Too many genders. Yeah. Another thing to bring up about PC games also is, I feel like, from my angle, Bethesda and BioWare were probably amongst the first, like, really commercial games to give you a lot of options for marrying gay, werewolves and whatnot, which I'm probably pro marrying gay

werewolves. Yeah, I think that was really huge. I didn't realize the significance at the time. The fact that my Bethesda play-throughs were always a woman who married another woman. What's that about? I do think that there's a little bit of, I don't think BioWare is as a bit about that, and I will pick on them later. Talk about cringe things. But I also think that there's a little bit of a problem with the attitude that has persisted into games with marriageable

NPCs where they'll just say, oh, we'll just let anybody marry anybody. Yeah. It's like, to a certain extent, that's great. To another extent, like, come on, give us queer something that, like, the traits don't have. Yeah, no, for sure. That is one thing. Like, we'll talk about what needs to be improved upon in the future. And I would much rather have that option than none at all.

But I also understand not everybody's bisexual, like, and ready to get down at any, at any minute of the day. I actually have to give a shout out to Hades, which kind of tackled that. Yes, Hades. Hades did not restrict you to one partner. You could go without whoever you want. I mean, you're a god. Why are you going to restrict?

That's what gods did. They were really great. They were really big on, you know, monogamy. I mean, that's what like Greeks did in general, right? Yeah, yeah. And also Dusa. Like, you could quote unquote romance. Oh my God, I love Dusa.

She was like. She was amazing. Yeah. I had a St. Valley play through where, like, my character, actually, both Starter Valley and um dragon quest builders too my character was modeled after do so good like having like green hair to make her try can i can i just drop an RPG hot take that dragon quest builders too is the best dragon quest yes hello i'm not taking any questions no you don't need to take any questions i am here

every day waking up saying there's my dragon quest builders three because i mean there's a pretty gay game for you like oh what it's gay and fun That's all you can ask out of a game. But who is it in that game? Marloth. Oh, so, so great. So great. I'd be straight for him. He's so Vigita.

He's so adorable. Yeah. Oh, man. No, it's a great game. And you can kind of romance. You don't really romance anyone in that game, but you do, like, form bonds with people. Yeah. Boy, girl, doesn't matter.

Which is great because I love it when Dragon Quest is gay because Sugayama, like, was just the composer of Dragon Quest. was extremely hint by LVGGGU. Yeah, so, ha ha, ha, I married Silvando, deal with it. Who else would I marry? But this actually segues into a point I wanted to mention earlier about how I consider myself a cis female woman, but I never, ever, ever, ever, if I have the option, I never play women in games.

I always take the male character. And that's not to say I have a problem with, like, say, oh, I have to play a lot of Croft, sure, that's no problem at all. But something about, I even made an alt on FF14, who was a female character, and I Fantasiaed her back to a male. I don't know what it is. I just, yeah. I mean, the main point I'm trying to make whenever I talk about something like this is

like human psychology is so effing messed up. There's just no, no binaries. How could there be? The brain is such a mess. So there's something in me, I suppose, that it's like, well, maybe I want to try being a guy. Maybe, you know, temporarily see how it is. And it's not like I I pine for that experience once I turn off the game, but it's just something that I like doing.

I love my male warrior of light. I love writing about everyone he sleeps with because he does. There you go. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I obviously had like the opposite thing happen, which I think is a pretty common trans femme story. Yes.

I just realized I had a lot more fun with every game that let me play as a female character. Yep. If I chose the female character. started in World of Warcraft and it was really funny because I had my pretty girl elf that I only played on my own and none of my friends knew about her and then like my bro paladin that I would play playing with people I actually knew it was like I am very strong my god my beard character basically yeah and a beard yeah so yeah it was it was pretty funny and then obviously yeah when FF 14 came out I mean that I'm sure we'll talk more about it but that's yeah I mean probably did more to crack me than any any other

video game yeah we could actually get into that because by God like Final Fantasy 14 has unraveled so many trans femmes that I know I know so many so so many it's because like just for the I mean we're all FF14 sickos here

unfortunately apologies ahead of time to anyone who hates hearing about blah blah meme free trial heaven's word whatever but the point is this is a game that Gabe Newell said it himself you could be anyone you can be anything meta doesn't know what it's doing meta is

Final Fantasy 14 sex over in Linza Malinsa it's not shopping online but it's not only gender you can kind of play with a bit in Final Fantasy 14 it's also body shape and body type because like going from like a Lala to a row to cat because of course I went to cat

everyone goes to cat not me I'm Ellison but My main is just a midlander. I'm kind of basic like that, but I do have a character of every race now, I think. Oh, nice. That's pretty cool. Do you play them all? I have it all that I never pay attention to.

I really, I only play my main character content-wise. The other ones are mostly for RP purposes. Oh, cool. I basically, I basically put pay Yoshi, you know, $10 a month or whatever for a 3D avatar chat room. I don't really do content. anymore so it really is like it is VR chat isn't it just like yeah yeah fancier avatars yeah yeah i mean i think do do content to get glams so i can yeah that's the real end game yes that and fishing yeah i mean i think like the glams like do hit an important point because like yes i think so

many fantasy MMOs like the glams are like different kinds of fantasy armor or robes or whatever and final Fancy 14, like one of my go-to glams now is like crop shorts and like that like infamous top from the latest moonfire celebration that was on the rain nightclub with the billboard, like the open like with like a bikini and like a drape. Yeah. And like that's like not something you find in every RPG. And I think like that kind of realism and reflection of like what you might see the real world like means a lot of people can like kind of model themselves. Right. Right. Yeah, it's definitely an aspect of why I think Final Fantasy appeals to queer people, because you can have knights in, like, ridiculously huge armor. But then they also have this, like, Trans-Pacific L.A. to Tokyo fast fashion aspect of their visual milieu that is, it's, it just coexists alongside like wizard robes and stuff.

Oh, it's so good. There's nowhere like limbs off. oh god no no there's actually a i can't remember which quest it was it was quite recent but it was to do with guiding a cat boy to the the sands the sands the quicksands which is an infamous rp spot and i think they knew it and they just said hey players let's bring the cat boy to the sex pot Actually, one thing I wrote about Final Fantasy 14, I think it was very recent. When I first started playing, I was surprised at how sexually open it was. Like, it's not, Final Fantasy is a series that tends to be very pretty, very,

doesn't really talk about farts or what have you, but in Final Fantasy 14, I'm like, oh, hey, this guy's telling me not to sleep with this woman because they have chlamydia. That's not something I've seen in an RPG before, nor have I ever seen the term dip the wick until I played this game. So it was always very open about sex in a way that a lot of games aren't. And I think that's important because it also gives people more of an opportunity to express themselves comfortably.

And you guys are talking about glamour just a minute ago. And now, I haven't played many other MMRPs for comparison, but I feel like glamour is such an important part of FF14, like no other RPG out there. And being able to switch your clothes to even like, just like, hey, I'm a big, beefy paladin to, hey, I'm a casual cat boy, meow, meow on a fly for RP purposes and whatnot. Do either of you know if other MMO RPGs have an RP community the way that FF14 does? I mean, I played, in fact, like what got my partner and I together was, elder squirrels online and

that has, like, you could make some, like, sexy glimmers, but you couldn't really make, like, kind of the modern glimmers that you get in Final Hency 14. And I think they did add a fantacian system. I think you could page to change your race. And there were some infamous RP spots, like

the in, I think, Rifton was, you know, infamous for, you know, don't go there unless you want shout, chat, sex. Like, Balmug. Balmong. It was pretty much Balma. Yeah.

Chyre and World Warcraft is the equivalent. Yeah. TSO was interesting for that because there were no servers, right? Like, they had the serverless architecture. So, like, just the infamy was like the location, kind of like quicksands and not, there was no Balman equivalent. Right, right. That's hilarious.

It would be a sex spot. Right? I mean, it actually would be, right? It is, it is the place that was run by like the Dami Mommy lady in Skyrim, wasn't That's true. Oh, right. Yeah, I mean, I was, I've been involved in the world of Warcraft RP scene, basically from day one, like 2004.

And I do play on Moongard, which is like the infamous RP server. And it has gotten so much gayer over the years. Oh, I bet. And it's, they're, they're kind of trying, they're trying to be like more like FF14. They're actually launching a feature like next month that's basically just, you log in every month and you get more cosmetic rewards. But, yeah, I mean, R.P is huge.

I've done text RP, going back to like AOL Instant Messenger days. Now it's mostly on Discord. And that's always been a huge way to express myself. I mean, tabletop RPGs have always been a huge way. Oh, yeah, me too. Yeah. Although I have to say that I was never that comfortable playing a woman in a tabletop RPG. just like the pressure to both get it right and also like when it reveals about me to the table

was just too much. So I would play like, I think the last D&D campaign I had, I was like a dragon born barred with like a huge soft spot. So yeah, see, I, I mostly am in like the DM or game master chair. So I think that that really helps me because it's like, okay, well, there's going to be a lot of female NPCs in the setting and I have like the plausible deniability of like this isn't a self-insert character it's just uh you know this this cool assassin lady that you met that you're going to do a quest for but like my my friend that I have been playing tabletop games with longer than anyone when I came out to him he was like yeah I kind of suspected and it was that Like, it was that exact female assassin NPC that he cited as why.

That's interesting. I don't know. The female characters you come up with are always just like way more well-rounded and interesting and you have more fun playing them. So, yeah. I can relate. Yeah. That's what my partner said about my word when I came out.

She was like, I can like really tell that you've been like really playing with femininity. Like your warrior, like does not just seem like someone sexy to look. at as well you play this game. No, I've seen here. You have like a, you're a row, right, a femurro. She's a femurro. She's a femurro. I'm an Ellison. Right. Right. I met you guys. That was great. Yeah. I need to come back and visit again. You should do. You need to come back and get a, uh, get my partner through, um, Eden. Oh, Gothtown. Talk about gay. You know, let's shift to that for a second. Uh, we have a, uh, a quest in Final Fantasy 18. 18.

What the hell is wrong with me? Final Fantasy 14. I wish we had Final Fantasy 18. I'm thinking in boxes from the future. I'm thinking in boxes today. Yeah. So we have Final Fantasy 14, a quest where Gaia and Rine is it? I can never remember her name.

But Ryan or Rine? I forget how they say it. I think it's Ryan. But the point is they're extremely gay. It's very unsubtle. Like you have these two. Oh my God. They are such lesbians.

They actually use the Final Fantasy 8. ending scene with like Riona and Squall, you know, with the, the, the, uh, flowers kind of blowing. That was exactly emulated for the scene. So it's like, okay, yeah, they're in love. Also, the crystal is rainbow now. Also, Urianche and Thancred are now gay dads. It was pretty funny. They've got to be.

No, they absolutely are. Like in one of the patches, I think, uh, Uriang's or says, no, sorry, Thancret says he's mad that his quote unquote travel partner was taken away because we we borrowed him for some reason. Oh my God, you're right. Yeah. So that is, I forgot that that was like really kind of canonical and not just everyone shipping them.

Yeah. See, that's always the important thing. You said, like, what's canonical and what's just people shipping and making their own decisions like, okay, they are gay? Well, no, they're not. The game hasn't said for sure or not. But it kind of comes down to what I call my preferred version of, of representation, which is do it now and ask forgiveness never.

Yes. Which is, I don't know. of any of you are Power Rangers fans? I watched it when I was a kid. Yeah. I watched up till the end of the Zordon saga. Then I kind of fell off. The New Ranger for the win.

Yes. I've always kind of kept abreast of it because my husband's always been a low-key fan. So I've always just watched it. And this season, Dono Char, is it Dono Fury? Yeah, it's Donna Fury. The Green Ranger is gay. And I don't mean like, oh, they made a very special episode out of it. I mean, just one episode, hey, here's her girlfriend.

Let's talk about some silly relationship thing. Oh, I'm going to kiss you goodbye. The end. There was no like, oh, very special episode. Very, look at this. She's gay. It's just wasn't talked about it. It was like, here's a person who has a gay relationship the same way you other

Rangers have straight relationships. It's just normal. Yeah. Yeah, I really feel like it's super important that, like, the most interesting thing about your gay character cannot be that they are gay. Yeah. Or cannot be that your trans character is trans. You know, otherwise they are.

are just completely tokenizing. No, I've always said, like, my dream for, like, a better world would be that you could tell somebody that you're gay or trans or buy or whatever, and they would just be like, okay, I don't care. Like, that should be... I have to admit, like, when people tell me what gender they are, whatever, I don't care. I don't mean that to be, like, cold. Of course, I care.

Of course, I care to the point. I know your struggles. I understand. I want to support you, but it means it's like, oh, cool, where are we going for supper? That's... Yeah, that was pretty much how all my siblings reactives. when I told them, like, oh, cool. And then we just keep on just trash talking, whatever.

That's right. No matter what gender you are. You can still talk shit. There's no limitations. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But yeah, that's my, I think more shows and whatnot need to do that. Now, you don't see, though, like newspapers and sites and idiots on Twitter being like,

oh, they wokeify Power Rangers. They did this, doesn't that? Because they just did it. They didn't make a big thing out of it. And if it's not like Disney saying, we have a, what was, like a gay cat. I don't know what was going on like with buzzier, but everyone was losing their minds over some minor thing.

I mean, Disney representation is a joke. It's not, it's nothing. It's seriously. Live, what is it? Live slug reaction, the meme. It's just for two seconds you see something and it's gone. It has to be implemented within the narrative, within the characters. They, you can have a gay relationship as easily so you can have a cis relationship.

It just needs to be something that's normalized in, in media, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And there's always the, there's the related issue of queer baiting, which continues not happen, where, you know, they'll, they'll put it there, but they won't say it. And, like, they want us to support it, but also they don't want to make it explicit. With the caveat, I think that, you know, it's important to think about the author when you, like, lay accusations of queer baiting. Of course, yeah. Because when Madeline was revealed as trans, like, I saw a lot of accusations that the, you know,

writer was clearbaiting and like she was working through her shit when she wrote that game yeah no i think madeline's great representation she's very definitely uh like the fact that so many like character that so many trans women on twitter were saying i fucking knew it when she exactly when the reveal happened like she is trans in a way that is identifiable without even being revealed yeah yeah for sure and uh off the topic shout out to celeste for i said this on blog dub i just have to say it still is the fact that that they use Canadian spelling exclusively in that game. It's the only game that's like Canadian spelling.

I'm like, oh, God bless you. I'm not allowed to use Canadian spelling anymore. Everyone wants me right in American or British. So, oh, dear me, dear me. You don't even get the spell check option. No, it drives me up the wall. I know. Oh, Canadian anger.

You know, As for queer baiting, yes, that is, I feel like maybe that thankfully that's becoming less of a thing as we get more accepting into representation, not to say it's never not going to be a thing. I know it's a huge issue because there's still like, media now, media consumption is very globalized and not every country has the standards that other countries have. So someone like might resort to queer baiting if like say they want their characters to be gay in America, but not in China. you know what I mean like it's right it is very frustrating it can be very frustrating but I remember it being a very very very big problem very big topic of discussion with Voltron which I never really watched man people were mad about Voltron did you ever did you either of you watch it I just never really got into it the new one no yeah no I haven't seen any of the new one because yeah

I think some of the boy characters were they were being queer baited I don't I don't really know I didn't I know the fandom was a little bit uh I mean when you mentioned when you mentioned Disney I think the most egregious example recently was Captain Marvel, where it's so clear that like these characters are girlfriends, but you're not going to say it. Oh my God.

You too much of a coward to say they're raising a young girl together, but you're not going to say that they're you can't say it. Yeah, so. No, that's frustrating. Come on. Give us

Guy and Ryan Disney. It's Eden. Before we get off the subject, of Final Fantasy 14, can I, like, tell you both how I actually cracked my egg because, like, I think it's a great story for this podcast. So my partner and I, both playing women, got married. Yes, I remember that. And as both of you know, when you get married, you get the teleportation ring. So you can teleport to your partner, like, once, I think, every half hour.

And whenever she did that, she would say, I'm teleporting to my wife. And I'm like, oh, shit, what just happened? You know, I really feeling what I, what I think I am. And, like, I'd already been kind of, like, on Twitter being like, I'm really jealous of this trans woman living her best life. And, like, that's nothing right. So, like, when that happened, I'm like, oh, shit, this is something. And, like, it only took a couple weeks for me to real, like, decide. I remember that you, you guys had the wedding.

And then, like, very quickly afterwards, remember you coming out. And I was like, something must have triggered at the way. Yeah, to be honest. I mean, it wasn't the wedding, like, per se, like, I remember thinking it was awesome that for like two women didn't marry, but it was after that when it's, and like she started like, sorry,

partner, if this is too much information, but she started like outside of the game calling me her boyfriend wife. And when that happened, I'm like, oh my God. Okay, okay.

And then like a good friend of ours, you know, Nadia, also came out as a trans woman and like her wife started like gushing about how much happier she was. And like just all this stuff just stacked up. But yeah, it was that Final Fantasy 14 ring and wedding

in teleportation and, yeah, just being able to be yourself in a game and watching that leak out, I think is very instrumental. Yeah. Well, my name even, Leanna, was my FF14 character's name before it was my name. Oh, nice. People in the RP community knew me that as that name before the rest of the world. Oh, amazing. By that name. And, you know, when I was still very deep in the closet, I was like, man, I'm really going to have to explain to them someday.

you know, who I am outside of this. And it turned out that I ended up having to explain Leona to the rest of the world. Right. The other way around, because that is who I actually was, which was, yeah.

Yeah, my name was too fantasy to adopt. I thought about it. I thought about adopting Lily as a nod to my white maiming at the time. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't think I could get away. If I did ever come out as transit mail,

I couldn't get away with using my warrior of lightning. I used like a moon cat name. Yeah. So he's Atlatomar Sheel, which is just not going to fly on anybody's pastoral. Yeah. So I'd have to come up with something else. But you've got to teach people the etiquette for like, yeah, you can't leave off the apostrophe. We're not that good.

No, I'm the second son. I am the second son. You can't take away my position. It's the only thing I have because of my mother's name. Please help me. Yeah. Come on, Leanna. Big Phopah, that's like, you know, sun cat.

Et against my moon cat. etiquette. Oh, yeah, I am getting those mixed up. You're right. Where did you get your name, then, Larch? So, it's mostly just the fact that, like, the tree is, like, you know, memories of beautiful places and representative of change.

Right. You know, hidden beauty in, like, something mundane. But also, I got used to using the name. It all has to come down to something geeky, right? I got used to using the name because I think it was in Let's Go Pikachu Yes

That I'm like Well the professors Are always named after trees I'm aspiring to be a professor I'll pick my favorite tree That's great And like I just kept using that In like every Pokemon game since

And like that just kind of became what I was used to And when I started cracking I'm like that this makes sense That's really cool Yeah I usually name my male character as Gowan After the singer I don't know why

I just can't stop Look cool man I like that That is a cool name. I think it started with actually Persona 5 because you start off the game, just getting the crack beat out of you in prison. And you have to sign your name. And I'm like,

I'm a prisoner of criminal mind. So I named myself Gowan sticks because Gowen did the song, Six covered it. And that was that. That's a badass name. I thought so too. Funny enough, I was thinking about it.

But, yeah, FF14 was not actually the game that finally cracked my egg. it was persona five and I remember this very distinctly because it's Makoto's awakening scene I actually like pulled up

you know part of it you know have you decided to tread the path of strife yes you finally found your own justice please never lose sight of it again this memorable day marks your graduation from your false self the first time I played through that like I cried my eyes out and didn't

oh my god the second time I played through it I cried my eyes out and did understand why. Oh, wow. Like, where she stomps and, like, breaks the floor because she's just, like, so mad of that putting up with this lie. The persona five has its problems, as people have talked about in the past, but I find the awakening scene so powerful. Like, I always want, I never skip them, no matter how many times I play the game, just even, especially the first one, just that, you're right. That would be, like, a real powerful, like, cracking moment, especially Makoto's because she, she goes with shit in that game.

Speaking of queer characters, I just kind of wanted to go over some that we have met in our travels as, as video game lovers and haters. Are either of you fans of Earthbound or Mother? I have never played them. I never got into them. It's like such a shame for a retro gamer. Yeah, same here, unfortunately. Because I think the first example I can think of of really seeing a good queer representation in a game, a retro game, was in Earthbound.

There's a character named Jeff. He's the dude of the glasses. And he is kind of summoned by Ness to go and help them because they're stuck in some place, a grave is a long story. And Jeff is in a boarding school called Winter. and the gates are closed. You're not supposed to be out. It's nighttime. And he has a friend named Tony who helps them get out.

And they make it clear. And the creator of Earthbound even said that Tony is gay. He loves Jeff. That's why he helped him. I just thought, oh, that's actually really sweet. And God, you're in a boarding school. Of course, you're gay. Like, it's just, you also have Mother 3,

which is kind of the follow up to Earthbound. Now, that's a very sticky one, because you have characters called them a gypsies and they are oh i don't know how i describe them god's goddesses they are definitely gender neutral and extremely um how do i describe them but flamboyant i suppose like they they flaunt who they're they're kind of how would i i i want to describe those that sound like a total douche but just like they're very um very stereotypical let's just say that, like some of the representations of women in drag. And

I think it was said not too long ago, that's probably the reason why Mother 3 never got a localization because Nintendo was just like, we ain't touching this, no sir, Rebob. Oh, damn it, Nintendo. But from my angle, this is a theory,

sorry, an opinion I've held on to for a long time, the Mijipsies, even though they're represented the way they are, nobody makes fun of them for being who they are they nobody says oh look those weird man look no they are just gods who happen to not have any real concept of gender because why would they so of course if i was a god and i had like an avatar human i'd be like oh cool let's yeah let's dress up and drag why the hell not this is fun so i don't know

just i'm sure other people's opinions vary but i always thought they were definitely more positive representation than negative representation because people respected the hell of them and how they they presented themselves. So that's just my argument. But again, it might not be the most sound-proof argument in there. But neither of you have played Mother 3, right? So, yeah, I mean, I kind of have a pepsey. I was going to talk about this later when we talk about cringe stuff,

but I might bring it up now because I kind of have a pet peeve with representation of gender neutral or non-binary or gender fluid characters where they have an in-world more reason for being non-binary. Like, this seems to be a trope. Like, um, the go-to example for me is the Asari in Mass Effect. Oh, I've heard them come up a lot.

Yeah, because they are like, you know, femme presenting, they are technically, you know, gender neutral. They're the only characters that like both genders of protagonists can romance. So, like, they're bisexual, um, but in a way that is, quote, approved.

Mm-hmm. And, like, just have the courage to make a non-binary character. Like, don't hide it in this lore. And, like, I even mess this up in a Dungeon World game that I played a few years ago. I was a non-binary elf, and they had this whole backstory where they were, like, in a, like, wizard cast who, like, looked at the stars and stuff. You know, they're kind of astrologers. And, like, my whole backstory was, like, when they joined this wizard cast, they, like, had to shed their gender identity. and like they like wanted to do this because it was an opportunity to shed their gender and like don't do that just make them who they are don't like you don't have to couch it in this in-world reason right right no i totally know what you're what you're saying here but i don't think mother three had anything like that is not like they they were just you know gender neutral or whatever they were and happened to be powerful because that's just who they were right but like you're still kind of

dehumanizing them. You're saying like these gender neutral people are also gods. Right. Okay. I see. Yeah. For sure. That's actually an interesting perspective. I've never even thought of that. Yeah. I see what you're saying. It's like, oh, they have to be a magical creature if they're going to be a non-binary character versus just having a human character who is non-binary, which would be a different thing. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Like we were talking about earlier with the Green Ranger, it's just, well, she's a person. She happens to be gay. Her relationships are the same thing as the, you know, the heterosexual. power rangers, you know, oh, no, there's prom drama. Well, same thing with the Green Ranger. She just happens to have gay prom drama, you know. Yeah. Well, there is sort of like an interesting, if you look at Japanese versus Western games,

I think that they have, they both have like their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to sort of portrayals of gender because, you know, in Japan, there's, there's sort of more of a baseline acceptance of like some level. of gender fluidity, if not necessarily like sexuality. You know, if we get to talking about Link at some point, I feel like we should definitely talk

about Link. Yeah. Link is like an honorary non-binary character. He's like a he-them, femme boy or something. Like I... Oh, for sure. Running around in a skirt. Like, yeah, I... Yes. I always liked playing his link because he's, you know, he's kind of masculine, but he's also

really pretty. And that that used to me. So, yeah. I had a bit of an awakening when I was young. The Link's Awakening? I did it again, didn't I? Oh, no. I don't know. Did either of you growing up watch the Deke cartoon for Zelda and Super Mario Brothers?

No. I've seen it. I didn't watch it when I was a kid, but I have seen it. Because there's a Legend of Zelda series where in the first episode, Link is attacked by Moblins when he's in bed. So he's fighting in a very short night shirt. And I'm just like, hmm, you know what? I can deal with this. And, yeah, and like, you know, I would go on to, like, study, you know,

Japanese literature and, like, the tale of Genji and, like, where that kind of idea of the androgynous mask hero comes from, which is interesting in and it is itself. Whereas in the Western world, I feel like it was very much more driven by, you know, as a reaction against how sort of concerns. but we used to be about that stuff, a lot of game studios started being like, okay, we need to be proactive about getting all of these identities,

their own representation in our games, particularly you see this stuff like BioWare. So it's two different approaches, and I think they both have problems, and they both have aspects of them that are very cool and affirming. No, for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Your point, and this kind of goes back to Link, about androgyny. Now, I find that when I was younger, and just speaking as one person myself, like, when you talk about body stereotypes in

cartoons and stuff, and you have these guys who complain, oh, well, you complain about double standards or impossible standards, but men had to live up to he man. And I never, ever, ever thought big musly dudes like he man were ever cool or hot or interesting. No. No. I always

wanted someone to be frank with you like the way Yoshitaka Mano drew men like David Bowie men basically those were the guys I was after e.g. Link and I think I feel like a lot of you know women and like other people were like that as well just not really into the I'm not saying nobody's the mostly dudes of course they are but yeah something about the androgyny of characters in Japanese works really pleased me for lack of a better, less frightful term. Like, my first video game crush that I can recall was probably Vega from Street Fighter

because he was so pretty. And both of you probably remember until up to quite recently, men characters who were androgynous are usually given like some weird-ass masculine features when they came west to kind of make them less pretty. Like even as far as, even as recently as the after years, Final Fantasy 4,

which I love because I'm a sicko. They took Cecil's son, Seador, God help us all. And he had a very pretty face in the Japanese art. They made him more manly in the American art. And it looked really weird. I didn't know that. Look it up sometime. But yeah, for sure.

And also even like, it was really bad going back to say the NES. And I've always been a huge, huge, huge, breath of fire fan. And growing up, I actually got a crush on Ryu because he was another pretty boy with blue hair. He was the dragon boy. How could I not be in love with him? And you look at the box art for the American versions of Breathfire 1 and 2, and they were literally drawn by some comic artists. I don't remember who.

And they're not bad at all. They're very good, but they took this pretty antagonist and made him into Conan the barbarian because, God forbid, he not be screaming when saliva coming out of his mouth for some reason. Yeah, I mean, I didn't know any of that. That's really interesting. And I need to look up some examples now. Yeah, I'm always very interested in, well, I mean, I work in localization, so I'm always interested in localization.

But it was definitely, as you say, Larch, just the more androgynous look was always much more acceptable in Japan for a much longer time than it was in the West. I actually don't know anything about Genji if you want to explain how that kind of became a thing. Oh, yeah, it's like a really super old story, but he's sort of the prototypical androgynous male Japanese folk hero sort of. It's been a long time. I've been out of college for too long. My bones are. Yeah. And he had,

he had sort of like a boyfriend who was a little bit more on the like gruff, musly side. But he's, he's sort of the, sort of the origin point for why you see so many heroes in Japanese media that, that are more kind of like pretty and intravenous.

That's cool. That story kind of set, the precedent. It's a huge part of the literary lexicon, and it set the precedent for, you know, you can be a badass while still being kind of a little bit effeminate or gender. That's really interesting. I like that. Do you, I know, I know you do, uh, I know you do, uh, Larch, but Len, you play, you've played Zeno Blade, right? I have not played Zeno Blade, unfortunately. It is extremely gay.

I've admired it. It's so gay. I love Pira in in Smash Bros. Yes. Oh my God. Yeah. I haven't played Zeno Blade yet, unfortunately. I feel like Xenoblate too. Like, I had such a soft spot for it because like you could just assemble all these different models of

femininity and like. Yeah. You know, even hearing, I forget what her name is, but like the like lady shouting cute and fierce all the time. Oh, I love her. I use her all the time. Yeah, right. It was like cute. Fierce. Always ready to go though. Like she just has really cute. Yeah. Really cute voice.

I'm like, for some reason, I always want you on my party. Zeno Blade Chronicles 2 got a lot of kickback, as I recall. Actually, I know very well because I was part of that kickback. And I'll be salty about it until the day I die. Because Pyra had big tips and God forbid. And this was a time when I'm actually very glad to say, people were becoming more aware of stereotypes than games of, you know, harmful stereotypes and, you know, bad character design. So I understand why Pira came under attack and why Zubling Chronicles too came under attack because the character designs were a little bit out there. But I never agreed with a lot of the, a lot of the criticism because number one, I like Pira. Like, okay, she has big boobs. I don't care. Yeah, but she's a great character. He's really neat. She has shorts. I don't give it damn. My standard, frankly, is I would love anything to give me a woman who looks normalish and is cool in a video game. But if you have to give me,

like a woman who's kind of meek but regularly proportioned versus say a woman who's bayonetta, I'm going to take bayonetta. Yeah. I remember getting so angry about the new tomb writer and everyone was praising it and how, oh, look, Laura Croft is like proportional now. And she was having these death scenes that are just brutal. And I'm like, I can't watch this. This is true of brutalizing her.

That was, that was really awkward. That was not like, I understand what everyone was going for. Like I said, they were trying. appreciate that but it was just like men dudes were telling me pyra is not good female representation you can't quite a feminist if you'd like her look it over here look at lower croft dying it's like you're first of all shut up don't tell me what to like yeah second of all no and what really kind of trying to mansplain representation to a woman please please and it made me especially sad was You know, like Chronicles 2, because, I mean, Large Esno, there's some really interesting queer rep in there.

Yeah. And it all subscribes to the Do It Now, Don't Ask for Forgiveness Formula. And one of them being, two of them actually being Bridget and Morag from Simi Lake Chronicles 2, which is just, you meet them. And they're like, oh, I'm going to kill your ex because you have, you know, you're doing bad things. And they are just already a couple. Like they work together. You can tell they love each other. And it's just like, oh, okay. They just happen to be a couple. They can kick them out. ass like six ways from sunday because they're just that awesome and xenobite chronicles is generally at three in particular is very good about showing people about having people show like physical affection like you see a scene in genobit chronicles too where uh bridget is just kind of leaning against morrig and sleeping against her just a very sweet little gesture oh i forgot that yeah so sweet and even the bad guy is like malas who's a asshole let's not mince words here he's has he's very much in love with Jin, who's the who I love because basically

Tetsuya and Mora took Cecil from Final Fantasy 4 and put a mask on him and said, there, there's your character. But, like, he is clearly in love with Jin, who doesn't love him back because Jin has his own problems, but I just like the idea that, okay, here's a bad guy who, and it's not like a stereotypical

flamboyant, oh, ha, I am very gay and evil. He's just a guy who loves this person he's working with, and it won't work because they're paths diverged too much. And I just thought that was a really neat inclusion. And I think it's so important that as they humanize, like, the handlers and blades, like, of course, as they humanized the blades, like, of course, they, like, start getting dealings. Yeah. You have not finished three, have you?

I have finished three. I don't want to, I don't want to spoil much, but I will say, holy shit, polyamory. Like, this is a big. Yes. This game's pretty big on polyamory. It's so, Polly. And I, like, I interviewed, like, I interviewed Taka a long time ago for Zenoly Chronicles 2.

That was a really good interview. That was during Yom Kippur. I don't know how that happened. So that was fasting and just like asking him these questions over a static-y-ass phone. But I really wish I could go back and interview him and say, look, I'm always impressed with how your games are pretty queer positive. And why is that? Why do you write about polyamory when nobody really touches the subject very much in video games?

Like I said, only like Hades is the only game I think of it lets you do that. Yeah. Yeah, like for all the queer rep we've got, we get in video games. And I think, you know, this echoes a lot of the rep in other media. This echoes, like, a lot of the, you know, even conversation around queer issues. Like, but polyamory just doesn't get it as much as, you know, even gender stuff. Yeah. And certainly not as much as sexuality.

For sure. And speaking of the Chronicle Street, again, I won't spoil much. I'll just say, I saw that picture. You know, the picture? The picture, yes. And I was just like, oh, Chad. Yeah. Chad.

Also, no. Sorry, you have to explain all these games to us. Yeah, sorry. No, no, no. I would say, like, you have got to play 13 Sentinels. It is so, so odd, but so good. It is probably my primary example of a game that is, tells a story as a game and doesn't try to be something else.

And it works out really well for it. And, of course, the artist is just freaking beautiful. I love Vanilla Ware's shit. Holy crap. Like I said, on Twitter, I don't care how many floppy. stupid witch tinnies they draw just keep on drawing those dragons holy crap like one of my favorite games of all time is dungeon dragon shadows over mistara and um i'm gonna butcher his name because i'm i'm tired but george kamatami was on that team and he left to do like dragons crown

and stuff like that oh i can't wait to see what nillowar has next but there is a character and this this kind of segues into another point to want to make about improving representation in games in the future the character there's a character named uh tucasa or O'Kino. I'll just call him O'Kino. He is a non-binary character, or at least, like, he is someone who cross-dresses. He is someone who at the end of the game has a gay relationship where he actually says, I love you to his spouse. Wow. That to me, that was like, oh, my God, a gay man said, I love you to his spouse in the video game. Like, stop the presses. Because I realized, first of all, lesbian relationships, okay, go for it. No problem. We're all about that now. But gay, man, loving man relationships? People are still... I feel like that always lags. It lags a lot. Yeah, it's definitely...

This is another thing where I could, like, pull back from, like, obscure readings from my college history classes about, like, you know, the Western canon is full of, like, kind of, like, tacit, almost like, don't ask, don't tell type approval of women, women relationships. but because of like how feudal succession worked and like, you know, preserving the legitimacy of the bloodline, like, you know, it got to the point where it was like really unacceptable for, you know, yeah, we've, we have like a lot of baggage about men on men relationships, particularly from like the fourth century, fifth century onward, something like that. Yeah, I mean, the Greek, the Greeks were kind of okay with it. I think the Romans were maybe relatively okay with it compared to the people that came after them. But yeah, yeah, how long, like, baggage like that could just persist. Yeah, like, you could, you could be put to death for, you know, sodomy if you were a guy, whereas if it was, if those two women, they were usually, like, just don't do it in public. Yeah, they got, like, yeah. I think, didn't Queen Victoria say that women don't have sex with a woman, like women don't do that?

And that's why she criminalized sodomy, but didn't really do anything about lesbians. That's just something I heard. Yeah, so. And there's a reason trans women are so into, like, the witchy aesthetic. So, I am also a witch and a pagan and a trans film. So I'm very much into all of those things. So, yeah. It all works together well.

Larch, you wrote something here that I think is very interesting. Final Fantasy 7, I think, had some problems with the original game, because, you know, the Honeybee Inn was like, ha ha, gay men, whatever. The new Honeybee In sequence, though, in Final Fantasy 7 remake. Now, you said here, Larch isn't, sorry, Cloud is an egg changed my mind. Yeah, Larch isn't a good egg anymore. I mean, I just wrote that to be snarking your show notes. I think it's funny, but you might be on to something.

But I do think that, like, he's enjoying it. Oh, yeah, in his own way. He also just seems like highly depersonalized through most of that entire game. like the way he's animated like his face is animated in the remake yeah i just i want him to be able to wear a dress and have fun oh he has a very kind of sad look in his eyes in the remake doesn't yeah yeah poor guy i love cloud like i love him so much in the remake too they're just doing a good job with him i think i i can't wait until they get to the moment in the remake but like i now think back to like one of the formative moments in my teenage years is like

crying for, like, little days when he was hide. Yeah. And, like, she was the person that I identified with. And, like, when she died, like, I felt like I died. I got so mad. I remember saying, like, I was so mad about it that I was, like, telling my friends, if Sephiroth was real, I would kill him. I don't care.

I don't even care if I went to jail. I would actually murder him. That's how mad at, like, I was, like, beside myself. Murdering Sephraoth would be a bit of a problem. You have to reach him. He's got a big word. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. But that's interesting, like, that people kind of latched on to ERIS for that reason. I just kind of thought whatever about her. I like her more now. I like, I'll be, I'll be completely honest with you all. One of my favorite ships in the world is Cloud, Tifa, and ERA. Like, how could it not be? Yeah.

Yeah. Come on. That's great. That's how it should be. That should be canon. I think Square wants to make it canon. I think Square every so often makes, you know, subtle little jazz. Like, of course, as, well, as large knows, I'm both of you going to know this.

I'm a huge, huge Final Fantasy 4 fan. And did even if you play World of Final Fantasy, the one where everyone had big heads? I didn't. Yeah. But you know the game I'm talking about, right? Like, it was a weird RPG where you kind of stacked the characters. And it was actually a very interesting example of Square trying something new, but I don't think anybody really played it. People who played it loved it.

But the point is, you meet a whole bunch of Final Fantasy characters. and they're all chibi-fied and cute. And you kind of come across a storyline where it recreates from Final Fantasy 4 the scene where Cecil has to get the desert pearl or whatever for Rosa who has the fever, right? Right. But in World of Final Fantasy, he has to fight Ujimbo to get some flower to cure the desert fever for his quote, dear one. He doesn't say who it is.

and then when you fight your jimbo you win whatever you get your flower and cecil says oh i can finally you know cure my dear one's fever and you find out he's talking about cane he's not talking about rosa oh yeah because uh at one point edgar who's there of course like says like says to him is your friend fair is they're the one you care about is are they fair and cecil's just like what are he talking about but yeah you do find out he's talking about kane and he's talking also about rosa who's taking care of Gain. And I was like the biggest stand for Rosa, Cecil, and Kane. So it's like, you know what, Square? Thank you for that. I appreciate it. That's awesome. I just Googled World of Final Fantasy

and I immediately went, is this a Nomura game? Because this is, this looks like a Nomara ass video game right here. I don't remember if he had anything to do with it. Yeah, it says he's credited for character design. So, yeah. That'll do it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the other interesting thing, that, I mean, this could also overlap with the cringe discussion a little bit is I feel like Final Fantasy, I feel very conflicted about it because it has some very prominent sort of queer coded villains. Yes. Yes. Which is an issue, you know, queer coding your villains is like a thing that straight people have been doing for a long time. For sure. But also like, Sephiroth is a really cool character and Kefka is a really cool character. Like, I kind of

love them a little bit. Would you say Kefka is queer quote that, queer coded? A little bit. I mean, he's like, he's the jester, right? Like, he's the fool arcana. He's, like, the great disruptor. So, like, he has, like, some gender transgressive undertones that may or may not be intentional.

I guess I could see that, like, yeah. The line, like, ahem, there's sand on my boots. Right. Like, he feels very much like how I'm. I started thinking when I started doing things that I like, which did not happen until this year. Yeah. And with Sephiroth, it might just be more that I'm brain poisoned by 20 years of people shipping Cloud and Sephora. People love to do that.

That's a very positive. Yeah. So that's something that's been around for a long time, is these sort of like villains who are like meant to be socially current aggressive. So they end up sort of taking on aspects of like, oh, I'm not following your rules. I'm not believe in your gender or your hierarchy or whatever. No, for sure. I think that's why I wanted to point out from Xenoblade, Malos,

because his whole thing is, yeah, I'm, well, he has his reason of doing all the crap he does, but he's not like, oh, I'm a flamboyant, look at me, gay. I'm gay to rebel against all of you. He's just gay, and he's in love and he goes wrong for him. There you go, yeah. And I think that would fall flat if there works. if it weren't already such a queer game, right? Like, oh, God, it's queer.

Your villain can be queer if, like, everybody else is queer. Yeah. There you go. Only your villain's queer. Then we have a problem. Right. That's a good point. Yeah.

So, just kind of talking a little bit more about what needs to be a dream of murder. So just kind of you want to be in every moment you're in love. So just kind of talking a little bit more about what needs to be kind of worked on that developers want to maybe consider in the future. Large, this is an interesting thing here you wrote.

Don't hide your representation inside content. That's, I think, important. Yeah, so, like, I, the example that I specifically put down there is the Horizon Games. So I'm a huge sucker for both Zerodon and Forbidden West, um, for some reason, I played Zerodon through like 100% it at twice. I bounce off of most big open world games except for Breath of the Wild, again, Link.

Link. And this was before, Zerodon was before I came out, Forbunless was after I cracked them. But yeah, the whole time, I'm like, okay, why do I relate so hard for this game? Anyway, Zerodon does have a couple, I think Zerodon has a non-binary character, and Forbidden West has a trans woman who, like, like doesn't really have the language for what she is, which is another problem, I think that, like, it's not realistic that this culture has no idea what a trans woman is and, like, no way to conceptualize that. But both of these, like, you have to, like, go to a side area and, like, do a side quest in order to meet these characters.

Right. And that has two effects. It means that, like, they're miserable, of course. Okay. And it also means that it never fleshes them out. Like, this is, it's very tokenizing. Like, this is the trans woman that. And she doesn't really have any other reason for being in the game.

Dragon Age Inquisition also had a trans-mast character that I think is only inside content as well. You have to, like, dues one of the characters' loyalties in order to meet him. And, like, the representation is good. Like, one of your dialogue options is just simply, how long have you known? And, like, it doesn't make a big deal. There's just this casually transmasked character. But it's also, like, make this person front and sender. not again like you go too far in the other direction you can like you know have this person like lead the brigade waving like a progress pride flag but like we need these people to be on the main path right it's all about just like that representation kind of getting used to that representation yeah yeah i do definitely want i do definitely want to give horizon a shout out for a tomboy redhead with a strong jaw line representation oh yes that's god that's a vibe that i've

vibe with so oh my god like the like twitter men's rights tears oh they were so mad oh my god when aloy had like some peach buzz yes yeah uh-huh like telling on themselves that they've never seen a woman iRL right exactly yeah you've never touched one for you know at least so that's right that's right i forgot about that they all went nuts because that and i can't remember abbey because i never played last of us too but there was a big controversy with the character who the chunga swore was a man They were, you know, a woman. I think it was Abby.

I don't remember. I never played the games. I don't know, but it was a big, stupid, stupid thing. Like, grow up. Get over it. You know, if a woman looks like they, you know, she could beat them up, they get scared. So, you know, they have to, you know. I've come across that attitude a few times, to be honest with you.

Yeah. I am not a very feminine woman. I never have been. It's just part of my gender. identity is even though I feel fine as a woman, just when I put on makeup or anything like that, I feel like I'm freaking out. It's really weird. Oh, yeah. I'm definitely a trans tomboy is how I would describe myself. So I am very fam. I like, I mean, I think I like the needle moved when I like, like the pendulum swung too much in the other direction. But like it's all pink and stuff. It's all

fun. Like, that's the fun part of being like, you know, just kind of exploring your gender identity. What do I like? What don't I like? You have one crows. You have one. rack at the earth, he may as well have fun with it. Yeah, like, I think once, like, you give yourself permission to ask that question, like, you can keep asking questions. Yeah, I find that when I turned 40, there was a certain silence that came over my life that I just adored. Nobody's bothering me about kids anymore. Everyone assumes not just a barren desert of a woman. It's like, okay, you can think that if you want, I don't. Oh, my God. I don't give a damn. Just don't ask me about kids anymore. And they don't ask you, like, what are you doing with your life?

They don't care. You're 40 years old. You go starve to death for all they care. But it's really great. I love it. I'm not being sarcastic. And it's the same thing with like, oh, you know, I'm getting older. Gender kind of changes a little bit. Like right now I'm going through perimenopause, which is premenopause. It's young because my mom is very young as well. And I can just warn people from this angle because I'm kind of in a bit of a group here. It changes your body and your mind. in many interesting ways, terrible, good ways, bad ways. And I didn't hear anything about that growing up. So it's all new to me and everything's so weird and magical in a weird way. And I'm just floating along, I suppose. Everything's just changing. Everything changes. And I realize that now.

And that's why I'm just like, I don't care what gender you are. It doesn't matter. I don't care if you change it tomorrow again. It's just none of my business. Be you. Be free. Be happy. That's all I want.

Yeah, I mean, hormonal change is definitely, like, screw with you. Like, I mean, I have been on ATRT, what, like nine months now? And, like, yeah, it's, I mean, for me, it was really clarifying, right? Like, all of a sudden, like, kind of like, something kind of got rewired in my brain that, like, in a way that kind of fixed things. But I can definitely see, like, the same experience of what your body was kind of forcing you to go through. Yeah. Like, yeah. You know, kind of, it's, it just changes the way the world looks to you.

Yeah. It's pretty cool, actually. Scary but cool. very cool do uh i guess we should wrap things up here because i like to keep things short and sweet but do any of you have any final thoughts about just like queerness and games

my final thought is yosci p if you're listening for the love of idol and stop gender locking things stop like making costumes that look different on men versus women just let us wear whatever the hell we want yes and hats for viera and rhas for viera gay hats for viera I want to see more queer creators in the industry. We have some great ones already.

But all in the indie scene. Right. They're mostly indie. They're mostly like, you know, for everyone that gets noticed, they're going to be 99 who have to go back to their day job, which is unfortunate reality. But, you know, if you're in a position to do hiring in a bigger studio and you want better queer rep in your games, hire some queer people.

that's that's such a good point and that's so central to getting good queer rep and not just tokenizing queer reps of things you're saying because you're not going to understand the experience and that's okay you're not supposed to so hire some people who do yeah for sure for sure I agree with that

but also trans women need jobs yes also hire me yeah I would be happy to write for your game I'll give you my contact info yeah so absolutely yeah like I have we had a triple A game with a

like openly queer designer, like, I'm sure at some point, but we need so much more of that. Exactly. It's not very loud. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, we have that in the indie space, but like, I don't think we have that in the AAA space. And I think we need that. I think you're right for sure.

And what about you, Lynn? I think that was, that kind of was my, yeah, my final thought was hire more queer people. Yeah. Video games. I think it's good, like, because of course, it's not just good representation. I firmly believe that like people need jobs and things that make them feel wanted and needed and hiring a trans person for a game in any regard is, you know, it's win-win from all sides of the spectrum. So go for it, hire more queer people and just keep working at that representation. And I think you'll be all right.

Ask us for questions. Anytime you have any sort of questions, I'm open, you know. I'm here to help. We're all here to help. But that is it for this week's very colorful episode of retronauts. I apologize for the rambling. I am a little bit tired. But I think we here.

It's that limbo week between, you know, the holidays and New Year's where it's just everybody's time. And I was so wired last night. Time was differently in this in this universe. But thank you so much for listening. You're free to lob comments and criticisms at me. My DMs are open. Thanks especially to my guests who. did a great job with today's discussion.

Len, where can we find you? Do you have anything to promote? Yeah, I am Till Folkvong on Twitter. That's T-I-L-F-O-L-K-V-A-N-G. And also, like I said, I do a strategy podcast called Three Moves Ahead. That's at 3M-A. I do a lot of freelance writing for PC gamer, IGN, some other sites. You can find it all on my Twitter, along with just various deranged ramblings.

I like your rambings on Twitter. I relate to them a lot. Thank you. Thank you. And what about you, Larg? Where can we find you? I am on Twitter for the moment. Let's see if that sticks within the next few months.

But I am on Twitter right now at Orky Bash, O-R-K-Y-B-A-S-H. And again, if you know me from overclock, that is still me. The music never changes. And again, I am Nadia Oxford of the, acts of the blog dot RPG podcast as well as this year Retronauts Rodeo support Retronauts at Patreon.com for it slash Retronauts if you pledge at the $3 level you can receive early access to weekly episodes.

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