Kulturkampf

[Nintex]

They also confirmed both protagonists are at least bisexual. 

Romantically, they [the two main characters] will also attract and be attracted to different types of people. Through the pair, players will get to experience a multitude of relationships.

And this internal memo is doing the rounds:



Not insert your gay agenda in high profile entertainment product challenge, impossible. 

Anyway not all hope is lost, Davies worked on Odyssey and Far Cry 6. The first one had a good story.

[Eric Cartman]

Don't they have to bang though, because the framing conceit for the Ass Crud franchise is 'reliving genetic memory' or some shit and the only way you could relive both peoples lives would be if you had both their genes?

[HaughtyFrank]

Don't they have to bang though, because the framing conceit for the Ass Crud franchise is 'reliving genetic memory' or some shit and the only way you could relive both peoples lives would be if you had both their genes?

They dropped the idea that the person reliving the memories need to be directly related but afaik they still need the genes of a relative living today. Which is extra funny because since AC Odyssey they allow you to roleplay as gay but I guess every AC protagonist decides to get into a straight relationship before it's lights out.

[Nintex]

Don't they have to bang though, because the framing conceit for the Ass Crud franchise is 'reliving genetic memory' or some shit and the only way you could relive both peoples lives would be if you had both their genes?

They dropped the idea that the person reliving the memories need to be directly related but afaik they still need the genes of a relative living today. Which is extra funny because since AC Odyssey they allow you to roleplay as gay but I guess every AC protagonist decides to get into a straight relationship before it's lights out.

In AC Odyssey it actually made sense with the setting being Greece and everything. With some characters the overt gayness was just silly (probably not their intention though).
They handled Kassandra (who should've been the only protagonist in that game anyway) really well as she had to navigate around these perverts, probably the best AC lead since Ezio.

I've not seen anything (even in the made up Samurai narrative) about Yasuke that he is gay.
It's kind of funny to see this train wreck approaching and they're just plugging their ears yelling diversity. 
I sure hope for Ubisoft those people that skipped out on Forspoken actually show up this time. 

Maybe cat ladies are desperate to see a fictional gay black Samurai fuck Japanese Samurai in 4K HDR? I dunno.

[RetiredSkunk]

Who the fuck is playing this shit anyhow?

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

Yasuke.. gay? Yup, this game is made for white people.

[Uncle]

https://freebeacon.com/campus/a-failed-medical-school-how-racial-preferences-supposedly-outlawed-in-california-have-persisted-at-ucla/

'A Failed Medical School': How Racial Preferences, Supposedly Outlawed in California, Have Persisted at UCLA

Up to half of UCLA medical students now fail basic tests of medical competence. Whistleblowers say affirmative action, illegal in California since 1996, is to blame.

article is fucking insane

So when it came time for the admissions committee to consider one such student in November 2021—a black applicant with grades and test scores far below the UCLA average—some members of the committee felt that this particular candidate, based on the available evidence, was not the best fit for the top-tier medical school, according to two people present for the committee's meeting.

Their reservations were not well-received.

When an admissions officer voiced concern about the candidate, the two people said, the dean of admissions, Jennifer Lucero, exploded in anger.

"Did you not know African-American women are dying at a higher rate than everybody else?" Lucero asked the admissions officer, these people said. The candidate's scores shouldn't matter, she continued,  because "we need people like this in the medical school."

Even before the Supreme Court's landmark affirmative action ban last year, public schools in California were barred by state law from considering race in admissions. The outburst from Lucero, who discussed race explicitly despite that ban, unsettled some admissions officers, one of whom reached out to other committee members in the wake of the incident. "We are not consistent in the way we apply the metrics to these applicants," the official wrote in an email obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. "This is troubling."

"I wondered," the official added, "if this applicant had been [a] white male, or [an] Asian female for that matter, [whether] we would have had that much discussion."

Since Lucero took over medical school admissions in June 2020, several of her colleagues have asked the same question. In interviews with the Free Beacon and complaints to UCLA officials, including investigators in the university's Discrimination Prevention Office, faculty members with firsthand knowledge of the admissions process say it has prioritized diversity over merit, resulting in progressively less qualified classes that are now struggling to succeed.

Within three years of Lucero's hiring in 2020, UCLA dropped from 6th to 18th place in U.S. News & World Report's rankings for medical research. And in some of the cohorts she admitted, more than 50 percent of students failed standardized tests on emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics.

Those tests, known as shelf exams, which are typically taken at the end of each clinical rotation, measure basic medical knowledge and play a pivotal role in residency applications. Though only 5 percent of students fail each test nationally, the rates are much higher at UCLA, having increased tenfold in some subjects since 2020, according to internal data obtained by the Free Beacon.

One professor said that a student in the operating room could not identify a major artery when asked, then berated the professor for putting her on the spot. Another said that students at the end of their clinical rotations don't know basic lab tests and, in some cases, are unable to present patients.

"I don't know how some of these students are going to be junior doctors," the professor said. "Faculty are seeing a shocking decline in knowledge of medical students."

And for those who've seen the competency crisis up close, double standards in admissions are a big part of the problem. "All the normal criteria for getting into medical school only apply to people of certain races," an admissions officer said. "For other people, those criteria are completely disregarded."

Led by Lucero, who also serves as the vice chair for equity, diversity, and inclusion of UCLA's anesthesiology department, the admissions committee routinely gives black and Latino applicants a pass for subpar metrics, four people who served on it said, while whites and Asians need near perfect scores to even be considered.

The bar for underrepresented minorities is "as low as you could possibly imagine," one committee member told the Free Beacon. "It completely disregards grades and achievements."

Lucero hasn't been kind to dissenters. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, six people who've worked with her described a pattern of racially charged incidents that has dispirited officials and pushed some of them to resign from the committee.

She has lashed out at officials who question the qualifications of minority candidates, five sources said, suggesting naysayers are "privileged," implying that they are racist, and subjecting them to diversity training sessions.

After a Native American applicant was rejected in 2021, for example, Lucero chewed out the committee and made members sit through a two-hour lecture on Native history delivered by her own sister, according to three people familiar with the incident. No applications were reviewed that day, an official present for the lecture said.

Lucero has even advocated moving candidates up or down the residency rank list based on race. At a meeting in February 2022, according to two people present, Lucero demanded that a highly qualified white male be knocked down several spots because, as she put it, "we have too many of his kind" already. She also told doctors who voiced concern that they had no right to an opinion because they were "not BIPOC," sources said, and insisted that a Hispanic applicant who had performed poorly on her anesthesiology rotation in medical school should be bumped up. Neither candidate was ultimately moved.

[Nintex]

Good on Lucero for making these bigots sit down and listen.

They should learn that the teachings of Great Bear about herbs and ShaniqaFreePalestine on TikTok are just as valid as medical "science".

[benji]

"Did you not know African-American women are dying at a higher rate than everybody else?" Lucero asked the admissions officer, these people said. The candidate's scores shouldn't matter, she continued,  because "we need people like this in the medical school."

How did nobody ask her how worse doctors are supposed to help Black women die less often?

[benji]

[benji]

Founder David Brock
Founded at Washington, D.C., U.S.
Type 501©(3) nonprofit

Media Matters For America
Washington, DC
Tax-exempt since May 2004
EIN: 47-0928008

Revenue
$16.6M (2022)

Expenses
$18.8M (2022)

Total Assets
$22.1M (2022)

Total Liabilities
$13.8M (2022)

For comparison, their conservative counterpart (better known for their website Newsbusters):

Media Research Center Inc
Herndon, VA
Tax-exempt since Oct. 1988
EIN: 54-1429009

Revenue
$12.6M (2022)

Expenses
$16.5M (2022)

Total Assets
$13.7M (2022)

Total Liabilities
$6.22M (2022)

[killamajig]

https://nypost.com/2024/05/23/us-news/police-stop-robot-from-delivering-food-to-ucla-anti-israel-encampment/

Cops easily thwarted an attempt by anti-Israel protesters at the University of California-Los Angeles to smuggle food into their tent camp via a robot courier on Thursday.

UCLA Protesters set up barricades and erected a new encampment on Thursday, prompting dozens of police officers to arrive on campus.

A food delivery robot could be seen coming to a halt when some mildly amused officers stopped it in front of an area it had blocked off to stop the encampment from growing, according to a video from ABC7’s Josh Haskell.

Not long after, more protesters swarmed campus to try to get in and deliver supplies to those in the encampment.

Many were able to force their way past police and security, according to the outlet.

Other headline: Robot gets detained by tyrant cops without probable cause.

Robot just trying to its job and gets hasseled by the man. SMH.

[Nintex]

What is even going on anymore

[Uncle]

[HaughtyFrank]

George Lucas Rejects ‘Star Wars’ Critics Who Think the First Six Films Are ‘All White Men’: ‘Most of the People Are Aliens!’

https://variety.com/2024/film/festivals/george-lucas-star-wars-critics-all-white-men-cannes-film-festival-1236015478/

[Uncle]

been saying for ages, if you don't want to deal with criticism for not making your content diverse enough, make all the characters aliens, furries, or abstract

then all you have to worry about is lgbt, and if you've already made a furry game you're basically done because that shit's incredibly gay

[Nintex]

Welp here comes Trans Wolverine fellas 

[benji]

What's the appropriate amount of [insert random demographic] representation? Why does nobody ever answer this question?

[Uncle]

What's the appropriate amount of [insert random demographic] representation? Why does nobody ever answer this question?

it's not about a precise number or percentage, it's literally "the beatings will continue until morale improves"

the idea is for there to be so much of it for so long that it's normalized in society and the kind of people who say "quit shoving this down our throats" quietly die off

in the end the idea is for it to be everywhere and no one will care or feel uncomfortable or weird about it, that's the appropriate amount

[benji]

the idea is for there to be so much of it for so long that it's normalized in society

It already is: https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41556-americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population

[Uncle]

overestimating doesn't mean "...and I'm totally fine with it," conservatives overestimate DEI/LGBT in order to say "...and that's a bad thing, look how pervasive it is"

[benji]

But then representation isn't good enough. Why are we focused solely on representation?

[HaughtyFrank]

Welp here comes Trans Wolverine fellas 

The editor didnt see irony in using multiple gay characters from very high profile games as title picture?

At this point I'd be surprised if there's any western AAA game being released that doesn't feature a lgbt character.

[Potato]

Overweight, balding, middle aged white men are the most under-represented group in gaming. 

Change my mind.

[benji]

I clicked through.

According to GLAAD's recent study, more players than ever identify as gay, bisexual, queer, or transgender, and yet, only 2 percent of games on major consoles and PCs include queer characters.

GLAAD claims absurd things:

GLAAD’s finding that 17% of active gamers are LGBTQ, and the growth from 10% of active gamers being LGBTQ from Nielsen’s Games360 study in 2020, proves their tremendous influence on the gaming industry.

...

the percentage of LGBTQ gamers is even higher among younger age groups, with 23 to 28% of gamers under 35 identifying as LGBTQ

...

Counter to stereotypes, LGBTQ gamers make up 19% of heavy/core gamers (defined as playing 10+ hours per week on PCs or consoles).

What's the stereotype?

Kenney, who started her career as a journalist, has written for some of the industry's most popular video games. From Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Batman: The Enemy Within to The Walking Dead: The Final Season and the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine. Kenney has helped construct some of gaming's most diverse characters, like Clementine and Violet from Telltale's The Walking Dead, but freely admits that more needs to be done in game development to make LGBTQ people feel like they are an important part of video game structure now and also its future.

Wonderful, a journalist.

In a moment of reflection, Kenney credits the late great Danielle Bunten Berry, a trans woman and pioneer game developer who created one of the first successful multiplayer games on the Atari platform, M.U.L.E., Kenney says that Berry's influence on the game industry was a powerful presence as she often "spoke about video games as a means to create connection" due to her unwavering advocacy for online community spirit. "In the decades since, this has proven true in fan communities, conventions, and multiplayer games," says Kenney.

Oh, hey, we should listen to Danielle Bunten Berry?

Don't do it! That's my advice. This is the most awful, most expensive, most painful, most disruptive thing you could ever do. Don't do it unless there is no other alternative. You may think your life is tough but unless it's a choice between suicide and a sex-change it will only get worse. And the costs keep coming. You lose control over most aspects of your life, become a second class citizen and all so you can wear women's clothes and feel cuter than you do now. Don't do it is all I've got to say.

That's advice I wish someone had given me. I had the sex change, I "pass" fine, my career is good but you can't imagine the number of times I've wished I could go back and see if there was another way. Despite following the rules and being as honest as I could with the medical folks at each stage, nobody stopped me and said "Are you honest to God absolutely sure this is the ONLY path for you?!" To the contrary, the voices were all cheerfully supportive of my decision. I was fortunate that the web didn't exist then - there are too damn many cheerleaders ready to reassure themselves of their own decision by parading their "successful" surgeries and encouraging others.

I can speak the transgender party line that I was a female trapped in a male body and I remember feeling this way since I was 4. But, it's never that easy if you look at it sincerely and without preconception. There's little question that a mid-life crisis, a divorce and a cancer scare were involved in at least the timing of my sex-change decision. To be completely honest at this point (3 yrs post-op) is not easy, however, I'm not sure I would do it again. I'm now concerned that much of what I took as a gender dysfunction might have been nothing more than a neurotic sexual obsession. I was a cross-dresser for all of my sexual life and had always fantasized going fem as an ultimate turn-on. Ironically, when I began hormone treatment my libido went away. However, I mistook that relief from sexual obsession for validation of my gender change. Then in the final bit of irony, after surgery my new genitals were non-orgasmic (like 80% of my TG sisters).

So, needless to say, my life as a woman is not an ultimate turn-on. And what did it all cost? Over $30,000 and the loss of most of my relationships to family and friends. And the costs don't end. Every relationship I make now and in the future has to come to terms with the sex-change. And I'm not the only one who suffers. I hate the impact this will have on my kids and their future.

Anyway, I'm making it sound awful and it's not. There are some perks but the important things like being comfortable with myself and having a true love in my life don't seem like they were contingent on the change. Being my "real self" could have included having a penis and including more femininity in whatever forms made sense. I didn't know that until too late and now I have to make the best of the life I've stumbled into. I just wish I would have tried more options before I jumped off the precipice. I miss my easy access to my kids (unlike many TS's I didn't completely lose access to them though), I miss my family and old friends (I know they "shouldn't" have abandoned me but lots of folks aren't as open minded as they "should" be ... I still miss them) and finally, I hate the disconnect with my past (there's just no way to integrate the two unrelated lives). There's any number of ways to express your gender and sexuality and the only one I tried was the big one. I'll never know if I could have found a compromise that might have worked a lot better than the "one size fits all" sex-change. Please, check it out yourself before you do likewise.

But anyway back to games:

"The GLAAD report tells us something key - games are a way for LGBTQ people to socialize. But it also tells us something heartbreaking: that LGBTQ gamers don't feel that developers are thinking of them when they design games."

Thankfully, there hasn't been a shortage of LGBTQ developers over the years. We have seen incredible talents coming from the minds of people like Maddy Thorson, who created the transgender character, Madeline, in the game Celeste, Cathryn Mataga, a transgender programmer and founder of the independent video game company Junglevision, who worked on X-Men: Reign of Apocalypse as well as Spider-Man 2 and also D.E. Chaudron from Larian Studios, a queer and nonbinary video game developer who worked on Baldur’s Gate 3 - to name only a few.

Okay, sure, but were they thinking of me when they designed those games?

"We need to pull every lever we have," Kenney says. "Characters, community support, mechanics, to make it so. It's a subject she's clearly passionate about, and her insights are thought-provoking.

What are the mechanics that speak to LGBT?

Even though the gaming industry is touted as the modern entertainment giant and is worth more than film and music combined, it has a long way to go in terms of queer representation. Only 2% of games feature an openly LGBTQ+ character, in comparison with 28% of films released in 2022, and 11% of primetime TV characters in 2022 and 2023. Surely it makes better sense for gaming studios to want to include the queer community into their games due to 1–5 players identifying as LGBTQ+, since, at the very least, the financial pull is there, so what is the issue here?

Again, poor proofreading but also, don't make financial decisions based on clearly absurd data points.

Although just throwing queer characters into games isn't what the LGBTQ+ want either. Representing these characters in a meaningful and authentic way through deeply woven stories to really feel understood is what will always be needed, and more than anything, allowing LGBTQ+ people to feel truly seen in the process.

wow thx, I'll get right on that obvious thing that's not as vague and useless as the rest of this! 

[Eric Cartman]

I clicked through.

According to GLAAD's recent study, more players than ever identify as gay, bisexual, queer, or transgender, and yet, only 2 percent of games on major consoles and PCs include queer characters.

Treating gaming the same as another medium is fucking stupid, and the people doing it are either equally as stupid or hold zero respect for gaming as its own medium and as such I hold zero respect for their intentions on what it 'should' be.

a) that research is bullshit; itch.io singlehandedly skews the Pc queerer than hollywood would ever dare to be.

b) 'characters' aren't a fucking prerequisite of videogames any more than interactivity is for traditional media.
Tetris isn't improved by having the story of a trans lesbian cubans story about emigrating to america any more than To Kill A Mockingbird is improved with a button mashing quicktime event in order to progress to the next chapter.
You fucking dolts.

[Nintex]

What they don't understand is that the rise in LGBTQ+ players is mostly because there are new types of games that appeal to them.
Like all those weird porn games and graphic novels that flood Steam and itch.io but also more farming sims and what they call 'wholesome' games.
Plus RPGs where you can make your own choices with a character creator like Baldurs Gate and FF14.

Making Lara Croft a lesbian, Yasuke gay or Mr. Freeze trans will not make 'traditional' games more appealing to those people or anyone else.
If Ubisoft wanted to do that they should've added a character creator instead.

[Eric Cartman]

Its not even that deep.

More players today are LGBTQIA+ than ever, because a larger percentage of an exponentially increasing population play games than ever.

[Uncle]

a) that research is bullshit; itch.io singlehandedly skews the Pc queerer than hollywood would ever dare to be.

if they're gonna be   and  about it, if they included itch.io then they'd also include the thousands of shitty game jam games that are basically mechanics showcases and barely have characters, much less queer ones

I actually don't know if itch would be more than 2%

[Eric Cartman]

I mean... there's also thousands of game jam entries that are just like... a character sketch of their pansexual sonic universe OC (do not steal), so I honestly don't know, but I'm pretty sure GLAAD just went to like, gamespots weekly release list or something as their sample data.

Its also stupid because any game where the playable character is a cypher for the human playing it wouldn't be counted, even though whatever the player playing it is is what the 'main character' is.

Either way I wholesale reject the premise 98% of games are SUPER STRAIGHTS ONLY