(1) this post kinda makes it look like u have one notification....

[coderamen]

11 hours ago, OliveTree said:

now that i have your attention, i wanted to spend some time talking about that "is doomguy asexual" meme. its more complicated than it appears imo

 

I made that whole post ab how John Carmack never said the doomguy doesnt know what sex is and it led to a lot of lighthearted discourage about how the doomguy definitely fucks. But in a weird way I felt sad doing this because the doom guy is oddly cherished in certain ace spaces online on account of that meme/misinformation.

 

the reality is that the doom marine is described as watching adult films in the original games' lore, he has a family in doom eternal, and in doom 3, uhm, nvm about doom 3

 

But I think there's something interesting in how easy it is to perceive him as asexual? Like, nuances aside (lots of ace people watch porn and have kids), the things that made him feel like "good ace rep" to a lot of people didnt rly stem from his textual characterization, but almost in spite of it. The characterization that personifies the doom marine most strongly arent rly the snippets in the manual or the intermissions or the in-game artwork.... but the gameplay, i feel like

 

A few years back I wrote this essay about how pac-man is sort of a genderless character, uniquely so in video games because he's strongly characterized but totally abstract at the same time. In that essay I actually commented on the doom marine's characterization very briefly, but i did so as a contrast to Pac-Man:

 

 

Elaborating on Pacman, I wrote:

 

 

But I think if you cast away this fixation on gender, specifically, the Doom Marine has a lot in common with my general analysis of Pac-Man. He's sexless because his form IS his function, and his function (a vehicle for immersion, creativity and carnage) has nothing to do with sex. But this analysis actually applies just as well to....TONS of video game characters, for the same reasons. Like, on a basic level, this analysis applies to really any video game character who: 1) is mostly just a medium for the player to navigate the game through and 2) is in a game which does not really have titillating content

 

You could say just as well that Samus Aran or Gordon Freeman or Sonic or Mario or basically any Soulsborne protagonist or any racer in a racing game or even the Master Chief are asexual icons... and, while I can certainly imagine someone saying that, I never have with the frequency that people observe this about the Doom Marine.

 

I kind of reckon the difference with the Doom Marine might literally just be that theres a meme where "the creator of doom confirms he's asexual ?!". But this feels like a lazy way to explain this to me....after all, the person who made that meme did so for a reason, they were reflecting a cultural notion, not inventing it.

 

I guess looking deeper, maybe the difference is just that the Doom Marine has a kind of it-factor, like, he's characterized enough to be distinct but not enough to where people feel compelled to be curious about his personality. The Doom Slayer, meanwhile, has a VERY distinct personality but its tied EVEN DEEPER into the gameplay and kind of makes the image of him feeling urges other than "to do the primary gameplay loop" seem out of character.

 

the one notification is from me btw (check ur damn messages)

I don't really care to be honest here. To me, Doomguy doesn't exist except as a stand in for me because I don't care enough to draw my own doomguy skin. The computer's arbitrary avatar for my body is something I don't really care about. The doomguy is supposed to be YOU!

[DNSKILL5]

If Pac-Man was genderless there wouldn’t be a Ms. Pac-Man. Furthermore, they clearly had sex if Pac-Man Jr is their offspring. Either you were entirely unaware of this or chose to deliberately ignore their relationship and their son. Shame!

 

Doomguy is meant to be a stand-in for the player so whatever you are is what Doomguy represents when you are in control, but as a stand-alone character, clearly a male. Quake 3 refers to him as a he. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by CAM-7EA

[Mr Masker]

2 hours ago, CAM-7EA said:

If Pac-Man was genderless there wouldn’t be a Ms. Pac-Man. Furthermore, they clearly had sex if Pac-Man Jr is their offspring. Either you were entirely unaware of this or chose to deliberately ignore their relationship and their son. Shame!

OP has awoken the Pac Man Lore Experts, god help them.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Mr Masker

[DNSKILL5]

It doesn’t even take complex wiki essay lore to put two and two together when you look at it this way: first there was Pac-MAN, then Ms. Pac-Man came around, and then came Jr. Pac-Man (who actually first appeared as a baby in Ms. Pac-Man). 

Edited September 26, 2023 by CAM-7EA

[OniriA]

3 hours ago, Amaruψ said:

6 hours ago, OniriA said:

He fucks. 

 

That's all you need to know.

 

I need some clarity here. Does the first sentence ends up with "you"?

 

He fucks whoever he desires. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by OniriA

[Crazy_Deer]

After Impse Doomguy started reflecting and decided that it just really wasn't for him, and found out he was ace

[nolongeramnion]

throwing lore out of the window, if doomguy doesn't know what sex is how many years will it take before he becomes a wizard assuming he remains abstinent?

[OliveTree]

3 hours ago, CAM-7EA said:

If Pac-Man was genderless there wouldn’t be a Ms. Pac-Man

from the pac-man essay:

Quote

the largest signifier of Pac-Man’s gender seems to be the inclusion of “Man” in his name, yet Ms. Pac-Man also has the same word in her name. One might assume she took that name from Pac-Man by marrying him, but in that regard she deliberately goes by the ambiguous honorific Ms. rather than the much more certain Mrs. However, in contrast to Pac-Man, her outward gender expression is much less ambiguous. She goes by the female honorific Ms. and wears lipstick, a red bow and what appear to be eyelash extensions. Pac-Man on the other hand is a featureless orb with a mouth. The limited gendered iconography that exists in this franchise is not applied whatsoever to Pac-Man himself, at least in his initial depictions. His near universal traits and fixations — eating, humor, trickery, etc — are not, in themselves, gendered. In fact, these traits were originally chosen by Pac-Man’s creator explicitly with the intent of appealing to people of all genders.

 

3 hours ago, CAM-7EA said:

Furthermore, they clearly had sex if Pac-Man Jr is their offspring.

maybe my OP was confusing!!! i never asserted that pacman was asexual.

 

3 hours ago, CAM-7EA said:

as a stand-alone character, clearly a male. Quake 3 refers to him as a he. 

yet again there seems to be a mixup. The Doom Marine is most certainly a man. Pac-Man was the one I was arguing was un-gendered, whereas this post explores the idea of asexuality and the doomguy

 

3 hours ago, Mr Masker said:

OP has awoken the Pac Man Lore Experts, god help them.

please >:) as if.

 

7 hours ago, Murdoch said:

It's a game that literally never touches the topic of sex or sexuality,

yet again, this is the premise backing my entire post sir !!!!

Edited September 26, 2023 by OliveTree

[Zulk RS]

23 minutes ago, OliveTree said:

yet again, this is the premise backing my entire post sir !!!!

 

I'm honestly confused now. I've read your OP a couple of times. What exactly are you getting at here?

[OliveTree]

Just now, Zulk RS said:

I'm honestly confused now. I've read your OP a couple of times. What exactly are you getting at here?

that the doom marine lends himself to being seen by people as asexual, because of the fact that sexuality factors into the way players experience his character (ie, by playing him) to basically no extent whatever. So the fact that there is nothing in the Doom games touching on sex or sexuality is quite literally the entire idea

[Obsidian Plague]

31 minutes ago, OliveTree said:

he largest signifier of Pac-Man’s gender seems to be the inclusion of “Man” in his name, yet Ms. Pac-Man also has the same word in her name.

woman

[Zulk RS]

21 minutes ago, OliveTree said:

that the doom marine lends himself to being seen by people as asexual, because of the fact that sexuality factors into the way players experience his character (ie, by playing him) to basically no extent whatever. So the fact that there is nothing in the Doom games touching on sex or sexuality is quite literally the entire idea

 

Okay... firstly I didn't know people even saw the Doom Marine as asexual. And secondly, assuming that people DO see the Doom Marine as asexual, I don't think it's because of how players experience his character (via gameplay).

 

Lastly, while I do think you are right that there is nothing in the Doom games that touch sex and sexuality in any way, it feels like a very nothing observation. I say this (and it's also because this same reason that I don't think people seeing Doomguy as sexual is because of gameplay) because a vast majority of games have nothing to do with sex or sexuality in any way. Unless you want to argue that a vast majority of video game protagonists are seen as asexual by a lot of people (which I don't think is the case), this logic is not consistent. It's not any easier to perceive Doomguy as ace compared to a long list of other video game characters.

 

I am not ace myself so I can't really say if there are any other aspects to Doomguy that might make him feel like "good ace rep"; there might be or there might not be, I just don't know. All I am saying is that gameplay isn't it the main reason for it.

 

 

[OliveTree]

2 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

a vast majority of games have nothing to do with sex or sexuality in any way. Unless you want to argue that a vast majority of video game protagonists are seen as asexual by a lot of people (which I don't think is the case), this logic is not consistent. It's not any easier to perceive Doomguy as ace compared to a long list of other video game characters.

i did touch on this in the op !

16 hours ago, OliveTree said:

But this analysis actually applies just as well to....TONS of video game characters, for the same reasons. Like, on a basic level, this analysis applies to really any video game character who: 1) is mostly just a medium for the player to navigate the game through and 2) is in a game which does not really have titillating content

 

You could say just as well that Samus Aran or Gordon Freeman or Sonic or Mario or basically any Soulsborne protagonist or any racer in a racing game or even the Master Chief are asexual icons... and, while I can certainly imagine someone saying that, I never have with the frequency that people observe this about the Doom Marine. 

 

My conclusion based on that very fair counterargument was

16 hours ago, OliveTree said:

maybe the difference is just that the Doom Marine has a kind of it-factor, like, he's characterized enough to be distinct but not enough to where people feel compelled to be curious about his personality. The Doom Slayer, meanwhile, has a VERY distinct personality but its tied EVEN DEEPER into the gameplay and kind of makes the image of him feeling urges other than "to do the primary gameplay loop" seem out of character.

 

so basically, in comparison to most other video game protagonists, the Doom Marine kind of has the right balance of clearly being a distinct character while also only serving the purpose of facilitating the gameplay. Even someone like Duke Nukem, while being in a very gameplay-first kind of game, still serves this secondary purpose of having characterization. He has dialogue and voice acting and stuff. Doomguy is sort of at the edge of that, he has a face and makes expressions and he's described somewhat in the manual, but he's also explicitly "you". It's just an interesting cocktail.

 

But yes, the fact that this analysis does apply broadly to most game characters is something I conceded in the OP. Still, I think there are aspects of this which manifest very uniquely for the doom marine.

[Zulk RS]

2 minutes ago, OliveTree said:

 

But yes, the fact that this analysis does apply broadly to most game characters is something I conceded in the OP. Still, I think there are aspects of this which manifest very uniquely for the doom marine. 

 

And... what are these aspects that are unique to the Doom Marine that you are talking about exactly?

 

Actually no. Better question. What about this analysis of Doomguy's perceived asexuality was so important, that you felt the need to clickbait Doomworld? Even if you're absolutely right about all of this, I don't think it warranted titling this thread this way. Surely titling it something like "My thoughts/analysis on why Doomguy is an Ace Icon" would have worked?

[OliveTree]

4 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

What about this analysis of Doomguy's perceived asexuality was so important, that you felt the need to clickbait Doomworld?

lol, i dont think my "clickbait" suggested the contents of this post would be ""important""

[D4NUK1]

[Gez]

52 minutes ago, Obsidian Plague said:

woman

If you're going to go this way -- the etymology of "man" is a shortening of "human", so it was originally no gendered. The Old English word for a male human was "were", which you can nowadays only find in "werewolf" (a guy that is also a wolf) and "weregeld" (the fine for murdering a guy, literally it's that guy's cost). The Old English word for a female human was "wif", which nowadays you find in "wife". The word "woman" comes from "wif-man", so etymologically it'd be something like "lady human" nowadays. So the use of "man" for a male human is an example of generalized maleness, where male is assumed to be the default gender which led to "man" ending up being assumed to be a male human, instead of just any old random human.

 

And while we're at it -- the word "female" etymologically was not female but "femella" in Latin. It's been turned into "female" in English by the influence from the word "male". So just like you find "man" in "woman", you find "male" in "female", quite literally.

[OliveTree]

1 minute ago, Gez said:

If you're going to go this way -- the etymology of "man" is a shortening of "human", so it was originally no gendered. The Old English word for a male human was "were", which you can nowadays only find in "werewolf" (a guy that is also a wolf) and "weregeld" (the fine for murdering a guy, literally it's that guy's cost). The Old English word for a female human was "wif", which nowadays you find in "wife". The word "woman" comes from "wif-man", so etymologically it'd be something like "lady human" nowadays. So the use of "man" for a male human is an example of generalized maleness, where male is assumed to be the default gender which led to "man" ending up being assumed to be a male human, instead of just any old random human.

 

And while we're at it -- the word "female" etymologically was not female but "femella" in Latin. It's been turned into "female" in English by the influence from the word "male". So just like you find "man" in "woman", you find "male" in "female", quite literally.

unironically thank you for your etymology-talk which covered literally everything i would have wanted to bring up but didnt bc its off topic and also for putting it better than i would have if i did

[Zulk RS]

1 minute ago, OliveTree said:

lol, i dont think my "clickbait" suggested the contents of this post would be ""important""

 

But then why title this thread something that has absolutely nothing to do with anything you said in your OP?

[Murdoch]

1 hour ago, OliveTree said:

yet again, this is the premise backing my entire post sir !!!!

 

Yes, I know you did. I was quoting riktoi, not you.

[OliveTree]

10 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

But then why title this thread something that has absolutely nothing to do with anything you said in your OP?

man with ur custom title i thought you'd be more supportive of this endeavor =_= /j

 

uhm, i guess in all seriousness, idk sometimes i make shitposts ?

 

the analysis here is real, and i stand by it. And explaining the joke inevitably kills it, but for the record, the joke is sort of a three pronged thing:

1- that it's an absurd topic to analyze in-depth

2- the analysis itself being cogent

3- the fact that the title is only acknowledged in the closing line as a non sequitur

 

but also, the title i think stands alone as a mildly interesting and amusing thing which would only work as the title of a post, but also does not bear any elaboration. Like what am i supposed to say about it.

 

I guess you could argue that I should have just not put in any effort, but while I do enjoy the occasional shitpost, I tend to avoid low effort shitposts, personally :)

[OniriA]

Just so that OP can sleep well tonight.

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by OniriA

[Shakariki Heisenberg]

Since doom is about a game about Doomguy( John Romero) fighting some demons and beating the final boss (John Romero)
you would have to ask Romero and see if he himself is asexual since Doomguy is literally John Romero. 

[Zulk RS]

5 minutes ago, OliveTree said:

I guess you could argue that I should have just not put in any effort, but while I do enjoy the occasional shitpost, I tend to avoid low effort shitposts, personally :)

 

Oh don't get me wrong, my gripe isn't that you put a lot of effort into analyzing what is in the end a very silly topic; my gripe is that the title of the thread has nothing to do with your shitpost. I enjoy shitposts but I don't enjoy misleading titles if that makes sense.

 

As for the content of your shitpost itself, I still don't completely buy what you're selling. Mostly because I think there are plenty of other video game characters that fit the standard of "Characterized but not quite enough to get you digging." Also if the manual states that Doomguy watches porn in the game's lore, doesn't that sort of discredit the idea that he is ace? In real life, a person has many different sides to them and you can ask them things. However with fictional characters are founded on, well, the fiction that they are from. You can certainly extrapolate and interpret things differently in said fiction. Fiction by its very nature is something that is open to interpretation. But if your interpretation goes against something established in the fiction you are analyzing, doesn't that take your analysis from being an actual analysis or interpretation and instead make it fanfiction?

 

Like we know that Sonic is blue. If you say "Sonic is actually Red" that is not an interpretation; that is fanfiction "What if Sonic was Red". We know that Romeo and Juliet die at the end of the play. If you try to argue "Actually they didn't" it's not an interpretation; it's fanfiction.

[OliveTree]

2 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

Like we know that Sonic is blue. If you say "Sonic is actually Red" that is not an interpretation; that is fanfiction "What if Sonic was Red". We know that Romeo and Juliet die at the end of the play. If you try to argue "Actually they didn't" it's not an interpretation; it's fanfiction.

I can get behind this analysis but don't see how it relates to my post. A few logical leaps were made from "people have many sides to them but fictional characters can only show us the sides which they are made to show us by the creators" to "so doomguy probably isnt canonically ace" to finally arrive at "therefore taking him as ace is more akin to fanfiction than to a valid interpretation"

 

Anyway, I'm not "Selling" anything at all. I'm just kind of exploring the interesting weirdness in the way the Doom Marine is characterized. Like, you have to recognize that its interesting how the way the Doom Marine is understood in the general imagination has almost nothing to do with the description the manual gives. So like, the question is, where does the popular perception of him come from? And my conclusion was basically "from the gameplay". I don't see you refuting this.

 

The point is, therefore: maybe the fact that the gameplay serves to characterize him more than anything else....and the fact that the gameplay has nothing to do with sexuality.... are contributing factors in how certain people view him as being asexual. I'm repeating myself a lot in these replies, but i really dont see how my OP was this confusing lol

[spineapple tea]

This has got to be maybe the dumbest thread we've had in a while right?

[OliveTree]

2 minutes ago, spineapple tea said:

This has got to be maybe the dumbest thread we've had in a while right?

i have this effect

[Obsidian]

And awareness is the first step towards finding a solution.