What prompted you to send the gods away?

their graphs:

"What's your gender identity?: Cis woman (48.2%), nonbinary (31.5%), trans man (10%), cis man (2.3%), trans woman (1.9%)"

"What's your sexuality?: Bi/pan (48.9%), ace-spec (39.5%), aro-spec (19.1%), lesbian (14.6%), straight (9.1%), gay (6.9%)" + 4.9% total other write-in responses

So the largest demographics of Dragon Age fandom on tumblr (represented only by this census, but no other conflicting sources afaik?) are women who are not straight; so you would think, from this, and from other various fandom polls/censuses/surveys, that tumblr tags and ao3 would be heavy on women player characters/self inserts, but a fairly equal spread of love interests + general characters who are focused on. And yet

And yet

A lot of times, when the subject of women characters being underrepresented or ignored in fanworks comes up, there's a response of "What, so you just want everyone to write/draw/enjoy the characters you like instead of what they like?" but come on! by all metrics available, these are all characters everyone should be want to interact with. They're all great characters from the same media franchise, who should appeal to self-professed majority bi women fandoms romantically, sexually, and platonically.

Really, I don't doubt that the people responding to these surveys are being honest. Rather than dishonesty, I think this apparent mismatch of personal identities versus action/attention in fandom just indicates, once again, that a lot of people have a lot of internal biases and misogyny.

This also isn't getting into the issue of race and fandom.

Which similarly, fandom is so generally accepted as being a cozy liberal safe nice space, this should be shocking; but it really isn't. The Dragon Age Tournament census didn't have a race demographic, only location (USA and Europe being the huge majorities at 61% and 31% respectively) but fandom is a very white (esp. American, British, northern European white) space. We know this data-wise from other similar fandom polls/surveys, and anecdotally from using our eyes and brains. This feels different from the misogyny issues, which is predominantly women continuing to propel fandom misogyny via character treatment, because this is really white people making fandom spaces unfriendly or downright antagonistic to fans of color while also ignoring Black and non-white characters.

The young woman's micro-blog loads on your screen.

PERCEPTION [Trivial: Success] - This *is* an attractive one.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - It's been too long. Your flesh craves hers.

SUGGESTION [Trivial: Success] - Slide into her DMs right now.

YOU - They're closed.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Has that ever been a problem for us?

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - Get in her ask-box instead.

YOU - What would I even say?

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - This one's a *Communard*.

RHETORIC [Godly: Failure]

- "You're hot as hell."

- "Can I DM you?"

did you know that out of 150 popular video games released between 1985 and 2022, only 6% of them feature sole female protagonists?

did you know that prior to mass effect 3, female shepard was never used in any promotional material for the series?

(and there's no hard data available on this, but i very distinctly recall a lot of gamerbro outrage when me3 had an optional reversible cover so you could pick between male and fem shep on your personal game)

did you know that only 18% of players chose femshep in any shape or form (default or customized) during the original release?

(anecdotally, i know a few people who didn't even realize you could play a female at all in me1 bc of how the cc is setup)

did you know with the release of the legendary edition in 2021 the percentage of femshep players didn't even double (despite jennifer hale's seemingly enormous popularity amongst the broader playerbase over the past decade) and is reported at 32%?

did you know that dragon age inquisition has the same breakdown between male and female inquisitors (68% to 32% respectively)?

did you know during the playtests for assassin's creed odyssey, it was a 50/50 split between kassandra and alexios, and ubisoft suits actually thought when the game was released, kassandra would be more popular? and yet once again, about 70% of players chose the male protag

did you know evie and aya were both supposed to have a much larger roles in assassin's creed syndicate and origins but were forced into a smaller role bc the ubisoft marketing team didn't think the games would sell well with a female lead?

cdpr hasn't released data on male vs female v, probably because the game handles gender a little differently than just two strict options like many other rpgs, but it was revealed that panam was the most popular romance, sitting at about 68%, which means at least 68% of players chose the male v body. I'm sure some players did not make that choice as a cis male v, but i would also guess that those who didn't are a small minority of this demographic, and if you factor in kerry romancers, this split is probably very similar to other games in the genre

now i realize that a lot of the male v players who are in more transformative fandom spaces (like tumblr) are not the str8 gamer dudebros of reddit angry about pores on a female character's face and whatnot. i realize that a lot of you are also on the outskirts of the perceived norm and also feel under-represented by mainstream male protags and that's incredibly frustrating and alienating and i genuinely feel for you

but female protagonists and female gamers who want to play as female protagonists and who have a few niche spaces to celebrate female protags are not the reason for your lack of representation

and frankly you don't sound a whole lot different from the angry incel gamer boys when you say shit like "fem v gets too much attention"

Ship Tournament, Round 2 — Match 12 / 15

Jaheira/Nine-Fingers

"These two so obviously have some history. I'm not saying it's romantic or sexual history, but it's history, and that invites thought. There's some tension between them, that could be interesting in a romance."

"Jaheira calls her 'Astele'. Nine-Fingers left an offering for her."

vs. Nocturne/Shadowheart

"Nocturne is so important to Shadowheart that she was the only thing she remembered from the Cloister. They were two sad, lonely girls who couldn't see a way past their situation, who were able to find some light and joy with each other."