It would appear that the people behind the Blood of Dragons MU (which IIRC are the same people who tried to get other Westeros/GameOfThrones MUs shut down citing their "insider" status with GRRM, and the same people who threatened lawsuit because a desc they wrote ended up on MSB?) are making the news at the moment.
According to this NY POST ARTICLE, the two helped put out a book that was like a dictionary of Westeros and are now receiving a press for 'Cultural Cancelation' due to making negative comments about characters depicted as white being cast with nonwhite actors. Fans are apparently begging GRRM to cut ties with them or risk boycott, as it appears their social media history was reviewed to find similar complaint-posts about racial recasting back in 2012.
Delete the Hog Pit. It'll be fun.
I really don't understand He-Man
Oh look, the comments section is just a bunch of racist nonsense. Glad we got that out of the way. sighs
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
@Derp It /is/ the NYPOST after all.
@Wretched said in MUers in the news?:
@Derp It /is/ the NYPOST after all.
MCU Headcannon tangent...
The Daily Bugle is the NYPOST using the NY Times' font & masthead
The Daily Bulletin is the NY Times using the NYPOST's font & masthead
We now return you to your regular thread discussion...
I'm just disappointed that it wasn't in the news about mushing. Because I would have loved to see a journalist try to describe this hobby, lol.
@faraday "<Journalist discovers Shangrila>".
@Ghost Lindaaaaa Antonsson did try to take legal action about being on the 'Tasteless Descs' section of WORA.
I don't think she, or Elio, have actually done anything to shut down other 'A Song of Ice and Fire' MUs, besides say that their having GRRM's explicit permission means that he doesn't want anyone else doing it, and that he cares enough to object.
Lindaaa says racist stuff on twitter and only white characters are allowed on her game. The twitting has been noticed in GRRM fandom and rightly condemned for years.
@il-volpe said in MUers in the news?:
only white characters are allowed on her game.
I am not going to get into the rest because I've already responded on numerous occasions.
But, that claim is false. We have no "only white characters" rule. However, the character database is 99% Westerosi nobles because we wanted to focus on court roleplay. In book canon, that limits the ethnicities available.
Someone with good knowledge of the setting and prior MU* experience could play a Summer Islander, though its not easy to explain what they would be doing at court in King's Landing unless you want to copy Jalabhar Xho's story. We avoided adding any into the family trees because when we created them (prior to 2006), virtually nothing was known about the Summer Isles and we preferred not making stuff up.
@Nymeria said in MUers in the news?:
We have no "only white characters" rule. However, the character database is 99% Westerosi nobles because we wanted to focus on court roleplay. In book canon, that limits the ethnicities available.
That sounds an awful lot like a thin veil over a 'all important characters must be white' rule. Phrased another way, "you can play a non-white character if you want but if you want to be part of this game's action then you need to make a white character." We've already seen depictions of brown and otherwise indigenous-looking characters in the books, so we know they exist.
This is like the person that insisted that Anne Rice's vampires don't have sex despite them being depicted as such in the books. You're looking for a purity that you're largely imagining, using it to justify a bias that adds absolutely nothing to your games other than satisfying your biases, and people are rightly calling you out on it.
@Derp said in MUers in the news?:
@Nymeria said in MUers in the news?:
We have no "only white characters" rule. However, the character database is 99% Westerosi nobles because we wanted to focus on court roleplay. In book canon, that limits the ethnicities available.
That sounds an awful lot like a thin veil over a 'all important characters must be white' rule. Phrased another way, "you can play a non-white character if you want but if you want to be part of this game's action then you need to make a white character." We've already seen depictions of brown and otherwise indigenous-looking characters in the books, so we know they exist.
If you mean depictions on the show, that would be irrelevant. We're very strictly book canon.
Our "discrimination" is against non-nobles. Noble houses in Westeros are of Andal or First Man descent, except in Dorne where you have the influx of Rhoynar blood. GRRM's vision of the Dornish (noted on his blog) was European Mediterranean, but I've always said they could look anything from Spanish to Middle Eastern and that is how our players have described their characters. We even had a part Summer Islander bastard daughter of a Dornish family on the game for a while, whom I played for some plots.
Which just reads, "Ignore the fact that licensed materials depict some of these noblemen as non-white, we're going to ignore that to stick strictly to rules that allow us our very strict idea of racial purity."
You're still not looking great here.
@Derp What licensed material?
Yes, Nymeria, clearly THAT is the important takeaway from the last statement made. Not the blatant racism and discrimination going on, but what license agreement there might be.
Seriously? Are we going to do this dance again? Can you maybe, I dunno. Just fucking stop with the insistence on people having the "proper" skin color in 2022? Because that is SUCH a big "oof."
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
@Derp Whatever.
@Derp you mean me I'm quite sure and I dropped it not because I was wrong but because it was pointless to argue with a moderator. I have Anne Rice's actual direct words on it right here: https://64.media.tumblr.com/0474f971cc7f40f0656d2066244f213b/4c06280ce62663e1-b0/s640x960/b76126eba29bf021d43085ad9843adfbefef98ac.png
It's still pointless to argue with a mod about something but I do wish you wouldn't single me out as 'looking for a purity that doesn't exist' when the author themselves says their universe works this way and you are using it to lump me in with a racist.
@Derp she spoke pretty regularly and at length about it on her facebook if you were involved with 'the people of the page' and regularly answered fan questions about such things.
You didn’t want to argue with a moderator that quoted actual parts of the book wherein vampires were doing exactly what you insisted they don’t do? The point wasn’t to accuse you of also being a racist but that these insistences on the absolute purity of the subject matter at hand usually come from people filling in their preferences and head canon and not the material itself.
And as we can see, some people take it much too far.
Apologies for any confusion. It’s not as bad as racism. Not even a little.
@Derp that part I get and is fair. I just have a strong hate for racism and it rankled and made me defensive all over again.
Which just reads, "Ignore the fact that licensed materials depict some of these noblemen as non-white, we're going to ignore that to stick strictly to rules that allow us our very strict idea of racial purity."
You're still not looking great here.
