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I thought I'd get through ME3 before posting about issues I have with Joker and, of course, EDI. I thought I'd managed to avoid some of the Joker/EDI nastiness by shutting her down hard early on. I was pretty thankful for that, actually.
But I thought wrong.
Last night I triggered the ambient dialogue wherein Joker is basically asking Mordin about ways to have sex with the fetish-bot over the intercom. This happened after I told EDI to leave him alone, and before I was even given the chance to tell Joker to lay off, so the only way to avoid it would have been not to enter the medbay.
I think that maybe it was an attempt to show that the physical side of relationships isn't off the table for Joker; unfortunately it ends up being even more offensive than just leaving it ambiguous.
Implying that a thirty-one year old person with a disability hasn't figured out work-arounds for their own condition yet is insulting on multiple levels. It plays into multiple misconceptions and assumptions: that he's never been (and couldn't be!) sexual up 'till now, wasn't intelligent enough to figure it out for himself, and needs special help from someone else* - someone, I'll add, who isn't even human.
If you live with a disability, you are more aware of your capabilities and limitations than ANYONE else. It's YOUR body; you figure it out because you have to, every damn day. Any half-way decent doctor will offer you private, professional support, and will offer it early -- there are pamphlets, books, and support groups, all of which Joker would have been familiar with before he was 18 -- unless I'm supposed to believe that somehow sex is MORE taboo in 150 years than it is now. Any half-way decent doctor will also defer to the patient on multiple issues, because they know that the patient is more aware of their own limits than they are.
What caps it, though, is that because of how the entire ambient is framed -- who it's with, the fact that it's over intercom, the ending -- it's immediately and painfully apparent that it's supposed to make the player laugh. And I can't fucking forgive that.
*There's a whole other post on the idea of the Special Someone that I'll write in a bit. In the meantime, please be aware that there are a lot of issues here and I'm happy to attempt to explain anything that doesn't make sense -- but I might not do a good job. This whole thing is finding sensitive spots I hadn't even realized were there, and they're all interconnected, so I'm doing a lot of angry processing and my thoughts aren't as coherrent and articulate as they might otherwise be.
Also, though all of the processing is related at least indirectly to Mass Effect, some of the revelations have come through conversations with PwDs or from writing (and reading reactions to) my own fic -- there's kind of a lot going on in my head at the moment.
But I thought wrong.
Last night I triggered the ambient dialogue wherein Joker is basically asking Mordin about ways to have sex with the fetish-bot over the intercom. This happened after I told EDI to leave him alone, and before I was even given the chance to tell Joker to lay off, so the only way to avoid it would have been not to enter the medbay.
I think that maybe it was an attempt to show that the physical side of relationships isn't off the table for Joker; unfortunately it ends up being even more offensive than just leaving it ambiguous.
Implying that a thirty-one year old person with a disability hasn't figured out work-arounds for their own condition yet is insulting on multiple levels. It plays into multiple misconceptions and assumptions: that he's never been (and couldn't be!) sexual up 'till now, wasn't intelligent enough to figure it out for himself, and needs special help from someone else* - someone, I'll add, who isn't even human.
If you live with a disability, you are more aware of your capabilities and limitations than ANYONE else. It's YOUR body; you figure it out because you have to, every damn day. Any half-way decent doctor will offer you private, professional support, and will offer it early -- there are pamphlets, books, and support groups, all of which Joker would have been familiar with before he was 18 -- unless I'm supposed to believe that somehow sex is MORE taboo in 150 years than it is now. Any half-way decent doctor will also defer to the patient on multiple issues, because they know that the patient is more aware of their own limits than they are.
What caps it, though, is that because of how the entire ambient is framed -- who it's with, the fact that it's over intercom, the ending -- it's immediately and painfully apparent that it's supposed to make the player laugh. And I can't fucking forgive that.
*There's a whole other post on the idea of the Special Someone that I'll write in a bit. In the meantime, please be aware that there are a lot of issues here and I'm happy to attempt to explain anything that doesn't make sense -- but I might not do a good job. This whole thing is finding sensitive spots I hadn't even realized were there, and they're all interconnected, so I'm doing a lot of angry processing and my thoughts aren't as coherrent and articulate as they might otherwise be.
Also, though all of the processing is related at least indirectly to Mass Effect, some of the revelations have come through conversations with PwDs or from writing (and reading reactions to) my own fic -- there's kind of a lot going on in my head at the moment.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 09:38 pm (UTC)From:Is it just me or are everyone's boobs bigger in ME3?
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 09:39 pm (UTC)From:And it's not just you, everyone has bigger boobs.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 09:48 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 09:52 pm (UTC)From:And then the slap-in-the-face rejection. I'd have rathered just not bringing it up, so I could have some canonic ambiguity.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 10:36 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 11:07 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 09:44 pm (UTC)From:I missed that dialogue in my first playthrough, and I'm glad I did, because I would have flipped to hear it without warning. I'm going to flip hearing it even with warning, but there might at least be less shouting. Maybe.
I... I can't even wrap my head around the thought process that would lead to someone thinking that's a good idea. Especially because there are ways in which Joker is really well-written - there isn't any doubt that he knows his limitations, he knows what he can and can't do, he deflects the hell out of everything with humor, which takes a level of self-awareness that is completely fucking contradictory to "lol how do I sex". And even if he wasn't - I'm younger than he is. I'm so virginal I attract unicorns, for fuck's sake. And I still have a very good idea of how I could go about having sex without hurting myself, because I know how to do everything else without hurting myself. Much. Most of the time.
...I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I have a lot of feelings all of a sudden. Sorry. ;__;
/hugs, if you want them!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 09:50 pm (UTC)From:And I still have a very good idea of how I could go about having sex without hurting myself, because I know how to do everything else without hurting myself.
EXACTLY.
You figure it out like everything else, and unless you're Ace you've probably given it a hell of a lot of thought by the time you're in your late teens. Hell, I suspect a LOT of what a partner needs to know ('cause, really, they're the ones that need training) comes up in other situations, first -- case in point, when I had my bf read that last chapter of Star he said it made him think of me teaching him something, and I was "What? I've never had to do that -- there's nothing specific to sex." But apparently I had taught him about certain areas of my right leg* Not to Touch Under Any Circumstances, and it's just so normal for me I forgot.
*It doesn't hurt, I've got permanent nerve damage there, and it feels fuckin' creepy.
EDIT: I'm always up for hugs. The only bright light of this whole thing has been the chance to connect with other people affected by it -- I don't think I realized how nice it is to find people who Get It, before.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 10:07 pm (UTC)From:(I think this hit me harder today than it would have otherwise because I've been roleplaying with someone who gets it. I've been writing Joker for hours on end and processing all these feels through him, and it's so wonderful... and then there's the reminder that I'm writing this character better than canon did, and that the source material doesn't entirely get it, and ugh. Dammit.
Why do you do this to me, Bioware. ;_; )
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 10:10 pm (UTC)From:We take off our armor to A) talk about it at all and B) especially, oh so especially, to write about it. You peel off layers you didn't know were there. That opens you up for taking the hits harder, too.
As far as affirmation/understanding, it's painful to see it offered, start to hope, and then have it crash down around you -- maybe especially when you didn't realize you were looking for it until the 'hope' part.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 10:29 pm (UTC)From:(guess who found the video on Youtube with all of Joker's banter in it.)
(This is funny, because I just wrote Joker sweet-talking Vega into helping him create a pillow nest in the med bay. Guess I'd better apologize for that post. He's obviously never seen a pillow in his life and certainly would never think to use them as a buffer between hard things and hurty things. )
(I'll shut up now.)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-12 10:35 pm (UTC)From:Note to writers: Anyone with Joker's condition has been doing PT (and probably occupational therapy, as well) since he was too young to remember it.
Okay, okay, we're probably just ramping each other up at this point, but... argh. It's hard to have so much emotional load with no way to really let it out.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-13 04:40 am (UTC)From:I'm ... um, what's the term? Body-typical? (On the assumption that neuro-typical is the word for me as well, so ..)
Anyway, I'm body-typical and I use pillows for comfort in bed and on the couch and everywhere else pillows could be used. And there are specially shaped pillows designed for use in sex, for people of every type of body.
I don't get it.
Stasia
no subject
Date: 2012-03-13 04:42 am (UTC)From:And I think 'able bodied' is frequently used, though personally I rather like 'body typical' -- since having a disability does not make you disabled in all areas, any more than having a physically 'normal' body makes you magically capable. Iffin that makes sense. I've had quite a bit of booze.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-13 01:48 am (UTC)From:I took EDI with me everywhere. I couldn't bring myself to leave her on the ship alone with Jeff. I just ... couldn't let that happen. That said, she's a very competent squad member. And she didn't mention their relationship outside of the bar/cockpit. (At least not for me.)
(There were a few weird glitches where EDI was in my party and also in the cockpit? So I'd talk to EDI in the shuttle and then I would talk to her over the comm from the cockpit. ...or, in one case, she was in the ground crew for Grissom Academy and ALSO in the cutscene in the cockpit... Which ... makes me think that SHE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE A SQUAD MATE. EVER.)
But. Yeah. I was hoping that conversation had been removed. I saw it in the script and it was just horrid. I thought it was a joke, honestly. Like they were just trolling for reactions. When I didn't trigger it in game, I was relieved. But it's ... there? Still? And they want me to laugh at this? Really?
What the hell, people?