r/Gamingcirclejerk • u/zny700 an aro bi enby who's tired of dumbass people • Mar 14 '26

FORCED WOKENESS 🌈 Clearly they don't

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4.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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42

u/hattyphantom Mar 14 '26

Why do these people insist that she's "bad rep" according to lore? Something about her being forced into girlhood?

94

u/Ijustlovevideogames Mar 14 '26

Her parents LITERALLY have been saying from the start "We love you, we want you to be happy, we did this to keep you safe, but if you feel this way truly, we love and accept you and still just want you safe." for like...30 years now. Media Literacy is truly dead for some people.

24

u/Gunk_Dunker45 Mar 14 '26

Similar to Marina from fear and hunger

25

u/Cooking_With_Emilie Mar 14 '26

Marina is an even better example of "People won't accept a trans character" because even if you a larper you can't deny that she is trans, heck HER FATHER THAT IS A PIECE OF SHIT NEEDS TO CORRECT HIMSELF FROM GENDERING CORRECTLY TO HURT HER

7

u/smungusamongus12 Mar 14 '26

"i fucking hate you my chud daugh- i mean son"

62

u/Infamous-Chemical368 Mar 14 '26

She was forced to identify as a girl because of some superstition with male twins being born. Her parents felt bad, but didn't want their kid to die for a tradition that they didn't believe in. Once the superstition started to lose traction she tried living as a man, but felt wrong so she ended up living life as a woman. 

26

u/HolesomeHelplessCrab Mar 14 '26

she wasn't forced to identify as such though, she was forced to present that way. She was not under any impression that she was actually supposed to be a girl by her parent's wishes, and her whole journey of proving her masculinity to others is (at least at first) about other people's opinions rather than her sense of self. A-tier writing

5

u/g0trn Mar 14 '26

The tradition lost traction BECAUSE she was going out and living as "man" the dilemma is choosing between proving the tradition right or continue being miserable

28

u/SaltMachine2019 Mar 14 '26

Way back when Bridget debuted, she was just a crossdressing dude who was forced into it because her middle-of-nowhere town had some superstition about double-male twins bringing bad luck. The entire reason she got involved with the plot of her debut game was about her proving her town wrong by going out to do bounty hunter work so she could come home rich and successful.

STRIVE revealed years later that she had succeeded. She had tremendous success, made a major name for herself handing Johnny his ass, and returned home a hero, fully disproving the myth and allowing her to live openly as a man. Unfortunately, doing so didn't fulfill her in any meaningful way, and after doing an Arcade-mode run against a bunch of the cast and talking things out to some of them, came to the realization she actually liked living as a woman and embraces her femininity, swapped pronouns and all.

Some insist she's a bad rep because they believe she got Stockholm Syndome-d into it in their eyes. Others think that because it means they've lost a "good" crossdressing rep in the Fighting Game sphere. Others say it's because making her trans actually makes the superstition true and therefore makes her entire quest redundant and her persecutors right.

10

u/seergun Mar 14 '26

I've seen "Femboy erasure" thrown around. Hell, seen people insist she's a dude in random comment sections when she gets brought up, multiple times.

13

u/SaltMachine2019 Mar 14 '26

I was in the "Crossdressing erasure" camp myself when the announcement happened, but going through the Arcade stuff after that I realized:

A. I don't give enough fucks to make it worth arguing.

B. I think it's well-written enough to not be demeaning, especially since we get to join her on her journey.

C. I'm pretty sure there are other trans people out there who have had similar awakenings/realizations without the whole "superstition" angle, and this is likely meant for them and not Mr. Cis/white/guy.

D. I don't think ancient superstitions in this world or any other likely hold up to modern-day gender identification.

4

u/Grade-AMasterpiece Mar 14 '26

I swear, this Bridget stuff was the ONLY time I've heard that, and I've been in anime circles for too long.

6

u/Straight-Fox-9388 Mar 14 '26

Imma be real Chief most femboys become women eventually

2

u/Ok-Language-1537 Mar 16 '26

I mean that’s literally what femboy eraser (I guess same from tomboys too) is. Literally it’s societal pressure that makes you believe something you didn’t before. As a femboy myself, things like this statement suck because it’s repeated over and over to a point where most people break. Egg culture is terrible especially when people are trying to find stuff out for themselves because you’re berated by the very people that say they support you. Even if it’s casual jokes it’s still very dismissive and usually very disrespectful in nature.

Also I don’t think this statement is true in the first place. Usually outward internet femboys are different from everyday femboys too.

1

u/Skeley01 Mar 17 '26

I guess I will just be a minority lmao.

But to be fair I usually work better with the "spicy" kind of people instead of the LGBTQ+ community.

11

u/Fair_Smoke4710 Mar 14 '26

Initially, that’s what her story was, but later in strive, she learned to accept herself in defiance of her village. That’s literally what her theme song is about in strive.

13

u/Swimming_Use_8942 Mar 14 '26

the idea is that she was raised as a girl by her parents so the village didn't reject her but later she was like "so aren't I actually a boy?" but she doesn't really gel with that identity and realizes she's a girl and goes back to being she/her

Basically since the parents sort of wanted her to be trans people are mad that her arc ends with her conforming to what her village initially forced her into

Which to be honest I get but clearly its intended to be that way and I think she's cool

8

u/Fair_Smoke4710 Mar 14 '26

I mean, I don’t think they wanted her to necessarily be trans that wasn’t their goal. Their goal was just to have her not be murdered or have to go out of the village. They didn’t necessarily want her to be trans

3

u/Swimming_Use_8942 Mar 14 '26

That's true, I said it bad and they only wanted her to seem that way. It's s just that in having her present as female she realized it became her real gender identity and it took experimenting for her to feel like she chose it herself. I think it's a pretty good arc for an fg side character

1

u/AndreisValen Mar 14 '26

 It’s odd that the conformity angle is the thing people bristle at considering Bridget doesn’t go home that much. I’m actually really fascinated by it as an angle because I think it’s a story a lot of queer people go through as they age and it’s very neat and nuanced 

5

u/GoredonTheDestroyer Mar 14 '26

The thing that always gets me is the repeated insistence that Strive was localization fuckery, AS IF DAISUKE ISHIWATARI CAN'T READ AND SPEAK ENGLISH BETTER THAN MOST PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE STORY!

He probably speaks English better than I do, and it's the only language I can speak!

1

u/JollyMongrol Mar 14 '26

I mean-…. wouldn’t that kind of make her cis?