erin (she/her)

The vast majority of people I know in the queer community around me get tested regularly and don’t use condoms, since pregnancy isn’t a risk.

Isn’t that exactly what the post is doing?

Fig 53: Risk of Rain’s “Huntress” has eyes perfectly positioned to gauge the velocity of arrows she fires.

It does sound more racist, because it is. Why not Yasuke? Just because he’s black? Why any of the other AC protagonists? Why choose a Spartan, a highly unethical culture filled with slavery and abuse? Why choose a Welsh pirate instead of a Caribbean native? These are all pointless questions, because the answer is all the same. That’s the story they wanted to tell. Maybe they wanted to highlight the historical outlier at an important time in history. We could speculate on any number of different reasons, but “DEI” doesn’t make any damn sense, considering they knew how gamers would react beforehand and even went out of their way to make a statement about it.

They wanted to tell this story. If you want a different one, play a different game. There is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing Yasuke as a protagonist. The series has consistently demonstrated that they don’t really mind telling the stories of historical outliers, repeatedly. They shouldn’t have to specifically avoid (because that is what your argument has shifted to) Yasuke for fears of “DEI.” The “anti-woke” are ridiculous.

Eivor was a foreigner (and an invader) for everything outside the beginning of the game, so was Kassandra/Alexios (also invaders), they just had the same skin tone as the place they’re foreign in. There’s a big difference between “native characters with understated culture” and just “not foreign.” Those are totally different arguments, and it seems like you’re trying to make both. Again, why not have an interesting character from history be explored like this. Acting as if past characters are these nebulous “local” individuals when they’re often the direct children or relatives of prominent, real, historical figures, if fictional ones, seems silly. This is totally in line with past stories they’ve told. I really don’t see a valid reason a non-local character is “problematic” in an AC game. We’ve done it a bunch of times. We’ve played a Welsh guy in the Caribbean, a Viking in Britain, and a Spartan in Greece, just to name a few. I’m sure I’m forgetting other valid examples.

This complaint feels manufactured. No one complained about the romance-able historical figures in previous Japanese games, and a quick look at social media and Japanese news shows no outrage. Also, every other game features historically unknown natives? What? We have multiple characters that are children of royalty, at least two that are military warlords, and a Viking raider for fuck’s sake. The only game I can think of that has a native of the region not connected to the powers that be is 3, where you play a Native American. You’re often just playing essentially a secret police for the state of the country you’re in. Why not have a black samurai, a notable historical figure, be the main character. That’s super interesting. It’s not like Japanese culture is being erased. Your outrage feels misplaced and racially motivated, and I doubt we’d be seeing so much manufactured discontent if it was a white samurai (and there were several).

How does this relate to the article, or the situation with the streamer? Sure, dunk on Ubisoft, but maybe not about a black historical figure being black.

Jargon was an example from an analogous situation, that of someone knowledgeable explaining to a beginner. OP didn’t understand you. My contribution explained it to them. You care more about pedantry than effective communication. I don’t know what else to tell you. Seriously, find me anyone doing science communication that uses technical language rather than general. I’d love to provide as many counter examples as you need. My point is that your communication wasn’t as effective as it could be, and rather than accepting a helpful addition to the conversation, you made it defensive. Again, I’m not suggesting you are using jargon. What you are doing, assuming meaning from a beginner’s usage of general speech, is the same as an expert choosing jargon when interfacing with a member of the general public. In good communication, it just doesn’t happen.

If the group chat thinks absolute specificity is more important than effective communication, that is, communication that the other party understands, then they can be wrong too. OP did not understand you. My followup with them confirms this. This is a waste of my time.

You’re being deliberately obtuse, or trolling. Are you seriously trying to suggest that science educators use jargon? Watch a TED talk. Attend an open lecture. Open youtube or your preferred equivalent. You’re so wrong it’s funny. Good communicators reach their audience where they are.

Additionally, it’s pedantry to the extreme to pretend that me saying “I use deepseek,” referring to my self-hosted solution, is incorrect, when it absolutely is deepseek. Yes, you could be more specific, but it absolutely is correct to refer to deepseek in any of its forms as deepseek. Chat-GPT is Chat-GPT, regardless of version. You’ve made up rules you’re expecting others to follow, and the rules themselves are inconsistent with how people speak.

You care so much about being right that you’ll move any number of goalposts and define things any way you like just to be absolutely, technically correct. The idea of saying, “You know what, I didn’t think about that. I could’ve been more nuanced,” must be a nightmare to you.

Right, which is why science educators use all the most specific and correct terms rather than tailoring their speech to their audience. Don’t be such a pedant and realize that the OP clearly didn’t know the difference from the outset. You’re so concerned about being correct that you fully missed being right.

Specificity is less important than effective communication. If you’re sacrificing communication for the sake of being pedantic, what’s the point? There’s a reason experts don’t use jargon when talking to novices, and this is exactly that situation. I really don’t understand why you’re so bent out of shape over a reasonable addition to the conversation, and one that was helpful to the OP.

I think you’re assuming far too much of someone asking beginner questions, and you come off as a bit pretentious for it.

Refer to my other comments above. Self-hosting it removes censorship and bias. It’s only biased as long as it’s on Chinese servers and therefore following Chinese law.

I suppose if that line is a catch-all, sure. Your message didn’t make it clear that self-hosting removes Chinese bias and censorship. This is an important bit of information for OPs question, and what I get out of it is a valid and important addition to the conversation. I genuinely don’t know why you’re defensive. Being incorrect, or I suppose in this case, lacking nuance, isn’t a character flaw. I do it all the time.

This is incorrect. This only applies if not hosted locally. I host it myself it has none of these restrictions. If you’re using it from their app or website it’s hosted in China and must follow Chinese law.

The bottom row is absolutely a strawman. I’m not vegan, for the record, but there absolutely isn’t a biological need for meat in humans. If that were the case, lifelong veganism wouldn’t be possible. Also, no one is wishing starvation on anyone. This meme takes what could have been a good point about letting perfect be the enemy of good and just makes it vegan bashing, of the strawman variety.

Regardless of what the “normie world” thinks, gender is a social construct and people can do whatever they want. That doesn’t make them a troll and doesn’t invalidate them. We can’t just throw people out for being “too different” for fear of what the “normies” think. We all were too different not that long ago. We live for who we are, not for the approval of anyone else.

Don’t speak for trans people. Regardless of whether drag thinks drag’s an actual dragon or if it’s roleplay or just a fun neopronoun, respect people’s identities. I don’t have to get it. If someone says “I’d like to be referred to as fae,” then I’m calling fae exactly what fae wants. I have a friend that uses “love/love” as neopronouns. I don’t get it, and yes it can be confusing, but that isn’t roleplay or hurting anyone’s right to exist. This is exactly the type of infighting that conservatives try to start, and you’re either falling for it or white knighting for people that don’t need it.

Gender is made up and entirely a social construct, and some people choose to make their own rules because the rules don’t actually exist. For some reason that really pisses people off that otherwise think they’re being allies.

That’s definitely not true. Many cultures around the world don’t see breasts sexually at all.

What