MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity

Ganymede

I understand your personal take on things. I'm responding to the suggestion that a person cannot write about a particular minority's experiences because one is not part of it, which I think is implicit in the advice you received.

I think it is of the utmost importance to try to communicate that experience, even if we have none of our own personally, in a manner that is as empathetic and accurate as we can muster in a way that appeals to our own identities. I would never suggest writing or portraying any identity one is not personally comfortable with, but to suggest not writing or portraying anything outside of our personal experience is foolish.

Auspice

@Ganymede said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

I'm responding to the suggestion that a person cannot write about a particular minority's experiences because one is not part of it,

You may not feel that someone can't, but a great many people do. I have absolutely seen (on here, even!) complaints about non-<minority> players trying to write said minority's experience.

Ganymede

@Auspice said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

I have absolutely seen (on here, even!) complaints about non-<minority> players trying to write said minority's experience.

But was the complaint, for example, "this non-queer player is portraying a queer PC" or is it "this player is making a caricature of a minority PC"? I think these are two different complaints.

Arkandel

@Ganymede For me it's not so much a complaint as it is an inner voice making me too self-conscious when I play concepts outside of my personal experiences.

For example I've NPCed women before - it never felt right. I've played people of color and again, I was re-examining my own poses too much.

I don't think others would have complained about how I portrayed such characters - none of them were stereotypes or anything like that - but I never quite managed to relax and sink into their skin enough to make the experience fully fun for me.

insomniac7809

@Ganymede said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

@Auspice said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

I have absolutely seen (on here, even!) complaints about non-<minority> players trying to write said minority's experience.

But was the complaint, for example, "this non-queer player is portraying a queer PC" or is it "this player is making a caricature of a minority PC"? I think these are two different complaints.

I think @Tinuviel is more making the point that "non-queer player portraying a queer PC" is well and good, "non-queer player trying to focus their portrayal on the Queer Experience" is likely to be cack-handed and tone-deaf.

Thenomain

@Ganymede said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

I'm responding to the suggestion that a person cannot write about a particular minority's experiences because one is not part of it, which I think is implicit in the advice you received.

That wasn't my take-away. Writing about any person should imply or at least be informed by their history and culture.

That one shouldn't write about an identity I disagree with in general, but believe it's much harder. I can play a gay man, but I don't have the knowledge (either through education or experience) about Being Gay.

So it's probably easier to write about a person than the identity, making the advice good for rule-of-thumb, but yeah, it's probably a lot more nuanced once you scratch the surface.

Grayson

I think for me it's about understanding the mindset.

I'm more likely to play a man than a woman, because I don't really get the whole femininity thing. If I play a woman she either ends up not really getting the whole femininity thing, or she ends up a total stereotype. Stereotypes are fine for the short term, but I can't build a long-term character out of what I don't understand.

I'm more likely to play a character who's not straight. I'm not straight. I understand that different people find different things attractive; I'm not drawn to physical attributes, and faces are the things on the front of heads, so I find it hard to tell people apart and I've no real idea of what constitutes 'pretty'. It's all pretty academic to me, so I'm not overly bothered about it personally. I've also spent most of my life having my sexuality assumed for me, to where I talk about my bloke instead of my partner purely so people don't get absolutely shocked when they meet him. Being gay doesn't define personality or presentation, it's just another part of a character, and I understand it. No problem, off we go.

I'm not likely to play a dark-skinned character in the modern world - particularly in the US - because I don't really get the experience of a dark-skinned person in the US. I'm not from there, I'm aware that it sucks to degrees I simply can't comprehend, but the only thing I have to go on for the people themselves is stereotypes. Again, I can't build a long-term character out of that. A black Briton? Sure, I know plenty of them, I can play that - but their experience is rather different from the American experience, and I don't know where the pitfalls are.

Trans people? I got misgendered a couple of weeks ago, and I'm cis. I was able to laugh it off - even consider it a compliment - but if I wasn't absolutely sure of who and what I am it could have been devastating. This may change in the future, but I'm at not enough information for a long-term character at present.

Basically, I can't build a long-term character out of stereotypes. I know the stereotypes are wrong, but I don't have the experience to tease out the truth to where I can understand it.

This same thing is why I balk at playing American military. British military, no problem, I understand that. I've brushed against it since before I learnt to toddle, to where I've helped other civvies handle forces and ex-forces people. American? Not so much. Part of British Basic Training is extracting the personality, breaking it down and rebuilding it to what the military needs. I've seen what that does to Brits several times over, including the differences between those who've seen combat and those who haven't, from a wide range of backgrounds and eras. Americans? It's a similar process, but the results are different, and I don't know where those differences lie.

Waller

As the kids say, it me.

I played a character one time with the shtick of "law professor woman who wears men's suits 24/7." The Played By was an actress who is known for her forays into men's clothing. In retrospect, this is pretty cringy, so yeah. I'm very sorry about possibly harming LGBTQIA people thinking I was being oh so clever...when I wasn't being clever at all.

Tinuviel

@Waller said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

law professor woman who wears men's suits 24/7.

To be fair that's how I imagine @Ganymede. Not just any suits, but the suits of men she's beaten.

Derp

@Waller said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

I played a character one time with the shtick of "law professor woman who wears men's suits 24/7." The Played By was an actress who is known for her forays into men's clothing. In retrospect, this is pretty cringy, so yeah. I'm very sorry about possibly harming LGBTQIA people thinking I was being oh so clever...when I wasn't being clever at all.

There is nothing wrong with this concept. It's not even that cringey. This is very much something that one would have seen in the LGBT community in, say, the 90's or before, and only really started to go out of vogue with the more mainstream acceptance of the lifestyle. You even saw this on pretty much any show on LOGO (remember LOGO, ya'll?).

I know. I was there. I lived it.

People might say "that's not me and my friends," but it sure as hell is somebody, and so long as you're not trying to make a mockery of the character for wearing those suits, it's perfectly respectable.

All characters (every single one of them) are in some fashion a trope. No character perfectly matches the everyday real life experience because a) that would be fucking boring, and b) it's hard to tell stories in that vein.

There is a certain degree of "unrealisticness" that you have to accept in any sort of fiction endeavor. The intention is the more important part, and whether the character is being played as some sort of cringey gag or is legitimately being played to hilite a certain topic. The line there is sometimes blurry, but I assure you, there is a line.

TNP

@Waller said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

As the kids say, it me.

I played a character one time with the shtick of "law professor woman who wears men's suits 24/7." The Played By was an actress who is known for her forays into men's clothing. In retrospect, this is pretty cringy, so yeah. I'm very sorry about possibly harming LGBTQIA people thinking I was being oh so clever...when I wasn't being clever at all.

I don't find the concept cringy at all. Sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression are all independent of each other. You can have any combination of the above including a straight, cis-female who wears men's suits. It's how the character is portrayed that determines if it's cringe worthy.

Auspice

Also women in men's suits are sexy af and I selfishly want to see more.

Ahem.
I'll go over there now.

Ganymede

@Tinuviel said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

To be fair that's how I imagine @Ganymede. Not just any suits, but the suits of men she's beaten.

Great. So you either think of me as fat or as fashionable as a Trump.

Fack. You.

For the record, I wear either their skins or ride their wives.

Auspice

@Ganymede said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

For the record, I wear either their skins or ride their wives.

why not both

Derp

@Ganymede said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

For the record, I wear either their skins or ride their wives.

So you're actually less Ganymede, more Conan.

Hot.

Tinuviel

@Ganymede said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

So you either think of me as fat or as fashionable as a Trump.

Not usually, just three law textbooks in a pantsuit.

Auspice

@Tinuviel said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

@Ganymede said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

So you either think of me as fat or as fashionable as a Trump.

Not usually, just three law textbooks in a pantsuit.

Arguably, a law textbook weighs more than a toddler.