I'm not denying there isn't a problem, there is. I think though that we have made some progress, and progress will keep being made. I will endeavor to try and direct and guide as much as I can towards respect and understanding of women, realization of the oversexualization of women and the harm that it can cause, and how we need to really be welcoming of women in our community (and not in the creeper please date me way that is all to common among mtg and other ccg's). My focus was more on the fact that the comment allowed for people to come to their own misinterpretation of the meaning. When doing ama's and other events every word matters and they should be paid attention to, not tossed around needlessly without care. Generally I feel FFG has been good about being careful in their wording, but mistakes can happen as we see in this situation. Though this mistake has brought to light the need for the community to unite in the way we do when we play. We are samurai when we play this game, gender doesn't matter at that moment, perhaps we should remember that these characters to, are samurai.

Actually, one of reasons (the primary one, honestly) why I'm legit uninterested in Game of Thrones is it's oversexualization, and also one of reasons why I hate my country's fantasy/"young adult" writing scene. We are still living in the shadow of the Witcher, so everyone here tries to imitate it and its "dark, edgy, titty" writing. It's just so frustratingly depressing.

I think that the inclusion of a same sex romance would be good for the game, so I would say the idea of a pillow fight between the two characters is exactly the opposite of sexism, but would be about being inclusive. And I think in general the condemnation of displaying openly female sexuality is in my opinion a much bigger problem than that this might make some guys horny.

Anyway, sexism is when all people of a gender are seen the same, and I think as long as the setting contains very different approaches on how to approach a gender role it is not sexist, since diversity in itself is achieved through having actual diverse approaches.

You are mixing the things here. Nobody is saying that same sex romance would be bad. We are commenting on the "joke question" and "joke response". Which, I can bet my left hand on it, weren't about inclusive same sex romance story. Nobody is condemning female sexuality here (that's why I was talking about how ironic is the fate of femme fatale).

Somebody rephrased the question above, but here is more blunt rephrasing:
"Wow, two female characters, first thing I'm going to ask about them is when we will get softcore porn about them"
"Hehe I feel you dude".

I mean, would you consider male targeted lesbian porn as something fighting against sexism? Again, note that the context and framing here is very important - the emphasis wasn't on the same sex love story.

Basically, on the day 1, before anything was known about them, when people were given an opportunity to know them better, one of the few questions that got picked to be answered (which means that A LOT of people who will read just "a compilation of answered questions" will get to see it, and talk about it) was "can you make softcore porn with them plz".
I can totally see why, say, Story Lead wasn't very thrilled that these characters now will exist for next few weeks or months not as a "politically savy and mysterious Scorpion" and "young Crane in face of impossible odds", but as a fetishized lesbian meme.

Imagine that you are hosting a PR conference about your new book or whatever, and you mention your characters. Then, people start asking questions on a social media, and you and your assistants do a quick scan of the FLOOD of questions picking something to answer - live, on stage.

What you will pick to answer is important, because *picking a question sends as much as a message as the answer you give*. It means that you find the topic important and want it to be remembered. You use it to guide the imagination of your audience, to excite it and tease it. You pick your questions carefully.

Then, one of your assistants starts giggling like a teenager, reads a question about **** and ass aloud, and then, still giggling, responds to it publicly and live before you get to react. You freeze, because you just know that people will associate this with YOU for the months to come, and your character just became **** and ass in the minds of your audience.

That's basically what happened.

34 minutes ago, WHW said:

Imagine that you are hosting a PR conference about your new book or whatever, and you mention your characters. Then, people start asking questions on a social media, and you and your assistants do a quick scan of the FLOOD of questions picking something to answer - live, on stage.

What you will pick to answer is important, because *picking a question sends as much as a message as the answer you give*. It means that you find the topic important and want it to be remembered. You use it to guide the imagination of your audience, to excite it and tease it. You pick your questions carefully.

Then, one of your assistants starts giggling like a teenager, reads a question about **** and ass aloud, and then, still giggling, responds to it publicly and live before you get to react. You freeze, because you just know that people will associate this with YOU for the months to come, and your character just became **** and ass in the minds of your audience.

That's basically what happened.

Sure, I get all that, what I still don't get is why everybody is so eager to frame everybody else here as sexist about this. That people have erotic fantasies is not bad, so why do you all behave like prudes?

Other angles are that this thread is a first post OR someone set up a second account so they could post. Plus the title is a deliberate attempt to hide the contents, what's l5r banned cards got to do with it? A suspicious person would think it was an attempt to get a bigger audience.

if someone was seriously offended then they complain to ffg directly and not attempt to generate uproar. Ffg recognised it was inappropriate and took it down. As far as I can tell they should do the same to this thread.

1 hour ago, WHW said:

Basically, on the day 1, before anything was known about them, when people were given an opportunity to know them better, one of the few questions that got picked to be answered (which means that A LOT of people who will read just "a compilation of answered questions" will get to see it, and talk about it) was "can you make softcore porn with them plz".
I can totally see why, say, Story Lead wasn't very thrilled that these characters now will exist for next few weeks or months not as a "politically savy and mysterious Scorpion" and "young Crane in face of impossible odds", but as a fetishized lesbian meme.

I disagree with this here. From what I've read in other posts, in the original L5R, Hoturi (the non genderbent Hotaru) and Kachiko seemed to be in a relationship. It's not that far fetched that the person who asked the question meant something along the lines of "will we see this relationship still exist", instead of "can we get softcore porn".

11 minutes ago, Rinder5 said:

I disagree with this here. From what I've read in other posts, in the original L5R, Hoturi (the non genderbent Hotaru) and Kachiko seemed to be in a relationship. It's not that far fetched that the person who asked the question meant something along the lines of "will we see this relationship still exist", instead of "can we get softcore porn".

Indeed, there are so many things wrong with this entire discussion.

Immediately jumping on the worst interpretation on something someone said online.

6 hours ago, Rinder5 said:

I disagree with this here. From what I've read in other posts, in the original L5R, Hoturi (the non genderbent Hotaru) and Kachiko seemed to be in a relationship. It's not that far fetched that the person who asked the question meant something along the lines of "will we see this relationship still exist", instead of "can we get softcore porn".

Well, if that is in fact what the questioner intended, maybe that's the question he should have asked. Just saying...

I don't think there is as much of a sense of outrage here as some seem to believe. In all honestly I think its healthy to scrutinize this sort of situation because it represents engagement with the material and a decided disinterest in seeing L5R continue as anything other than a fun and potentially even empowering game for men and women. And given AEG did not have the best track record for that, it makes these sorts of minor slips worrisome to at least a few (and probably more).

I mean I think we can all remember Chuda Ruri and the whole "taint makes women hot" fiasco. If you were a woman and you got the taint you were automatically hot (save for very rare exceptions). Meanwhile men became grotesque horrors (again save for very rare exceptions). The problem with this whole "pillow fight" thing isn't the idea itself, its the representation. Why would this not be asked for if Hoturi were still Hoturi? Because that's not "hot." Two women in some male-inspired slumber party fantasy, well, that's "hot." It smacks of Steve Argyles Hedonism Emporium all over again.

Indeed!

I don't doubt that FFG's hearts are in the right place, I think that's clear from their clarification. However, they should've handled it better and it's absolutely a good thing to give them appropriate feedback.
It makes the game better for everyone, in the end.

Hell, that type of crap was why I never got into Force of Will, which looked like an improved MtG. Unfortunately all the art was borderline loli/hentai and I don't need that in a game that I am to take seriously.

I think we're all about on the same page now. That the response was inconceived in the way it was written, but the intent was good (based upon clarification). I think ffg will make a strong effort to be more balanced with the way it depicts women compared to early AEG. Here's to some progress.

9 hours ago, Matrim said:

Other angles are that this thread is a first post OR someone set up a second account so they could post. Plus the title is a deliberate attempt to hide the contents, what's l5r banned cards got to do with it? A suspicious person would think it was an attempt to get a bigger audience.

I would be surprised if this was anything more than a troll account/post. OP has one post and hasn't been back to the site since. If they were really concerned about the topic, they would be interacting in the thread. Well done OP. 5 pages and counting. That's some good trolling.

Whether the original poster was gunning for controversy or not, I still think it's a topic that's worth discussing and think a lot of viewpoints have been articulated well.

What I find the most troubling in this thread is the number of people ramming words into other people's mouths. There are some pretty major assumptions running around and that doesn't help anyone's case.

1 hour ago, DarwinsDog said:

I would be surprised if this was anything more than a troll account/post. OP has one post and hasn't been back to the site since. If they were really concerned about the topic, they would be interacting in the thread. Well done OP. 5 pages and counting. That's some good trolling.

If I were to make an account, post on a topic I were concerned about, and immediately became dogpiled with multiple shrill calls of "troll" and "ban this" and "delete this thread", I would sure as fire not come back again either.

But, of course, divine as you will.

2 hours ago, Yoritomo Kazuto said:

I think we're all about on the same page now. That the response was inconceived in the way it was written, but the intent was good (based upon clarification). I think ffg will make a strong effort to be more balanced with the way it depicts women compared to early AEG. Here's to some progress.

I think the intent was wrong. There was a winky face in the original post. They removed that when they edited. This implies that the intent wasn't quite what they clarified. People noticed this when they edited and complained. They then followed up by the deleting the whole post and pretending it didn't happen. If it was a simple misunderstanding, they wouldn't be covering it up like this.

The comment is one thing, but the cover-up makes itmuch worse.

They likely deleted it to keep the conference on topic and keep it from devolving into honestly what this topic is at Points. Don't get me wrong some people have been very eloquent and diplomatic, others more abrasive and vicious, on both sides mind you.

1 hour ago, PlaguedOne said:

What I find the most troubling in this thread is the number of people ramming words into other people's mouths. There are some pretty major assumptions running around and that doesn't help anyone's case.

This.

Everyone is always ready to assume the worst, to assume that whoever is on the other side of the screen is a disgusting human being. No one is remotely willing to give people the benefit of the doubt - not just here, but in general everywhere.

That is the true tragedy - that in the haste to be the first to denounce something, or to be seen as virtuous, folks are so ready to trash everyone else without pausing a single minute to think, "hey, maybe the guy just made a mistake and didn't mean anything much". Such is the haste that, not content with raising the matter in the original reddit AMA, even after an apology has been made, the matter was raised in the l5r facebook group (until locked because it was devolving in pointless insulting back and forth) and now a ghost account is created here for... what? More of the same?

The guy made a mistake. He apologized. "To err is human". Unless you're all aliens or robots, some people should remember that.

Now please can we go back to L5R and discussing the new game?

The world has literally gone insane. Someone can't make a joke about a card without people acting like puritan extremists out to burn heretics and sinners at the stake. Give me a break. It's Salem all over again.

24 minutes ago, Bayushi Karyudo said:

Everyone is always ready to assume the worst, to assume that whoever is on the other side of the screen is a disgusting human being. No one is remotely willing to give people the benefit of the doubt - not just here, but in general everywhere.

That is the true tragedy - that in the haste to be the first to denounce something, or to be seen as virtuous, folks are so ready to trash everyone else without pausing a single minute to think, "hey, maybe the guy just made a mistake and didn't mean anything much". Such is the haste that, not content with raising the matter in the original reddit AMA, even after an apology has been made, the matter was raised in the l5r facebook group (until locked because it was devolving in pointless insulting back and forth) and now a ghost account is created here for... what? More of the same?

Everyone? Always? The people who are raising the issue have been incredibly patient and civil even as they were characterized as shrill, irrational and angry (See: lumia2's embarrassing post, just above this one). And you waltz in here and add to these characterizations while lamenting that the people who have mostly steered clear of them are too quick to characterize their opponents.

Specks in your brother's eye and all that.

5 minutes ago, Buttlord said:

Everyone? Always? The people who are raising the issue have been incredibly patient and civil even as they were characterized as shrill, irrational and angry (See: lumia2's embarrassing post, just above this one). And you waltz in here and add to these characterizations while lamenting that the people who have mostly steered clear of them are too quick to characterize their opponents.

Specks in your brother's eye and all that.

I'd say the embarrassment coming from trying to force good people to crawl to a public square for public humiliation and shaming. I've worked 5+ years in China, and some great friends there told me about so-called Struggle Sessions during the Cultural Revolution. (Pi Do Hui.)

It seems some people are on a neo-puritan crusade these days to bring that same bad idea over here.

No thank you.

No, the embarrassment definitely lies in comparing feminist criticism to the Salem witch trials.

1 minute ago, Buttlord said:

No, the embarrassment definitely lies in comparing feminist criticism to the Salem witch trials.

Pi Do Hui. Will you cut off my hair next? Please, let the public shaming begin.