Diversity Representation in MU*ing

[HorrorHound]

@Groth said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Ganymede said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

In this helpful video, start at around minute 8 and keep listening.

This is why I support nailing down certain discussions on this board regarding diversity.

It strikes me when listening to that video how most of the described 'playbook' applies equally to radicals of all stripes. It's distressingly common to see people argue you should cut ties with all friends and family who do not 100% agree with your current political convictions.

This is because of our co-op instincts in the beast brain...you ever wonder one reason those gathered together chant, or scream the same thing? It is a reaction. When you do as those around you do, and include yourself into the group, your brain rewards you with dopamine and oxytocin.

Echo chamber phenomenon are many, and interesting. One needs constant self-reflection to ensure their actions are their actions, and not the brain telling them to do as the group does.

[Ganymede]

@Groth said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

It strikes me when listening to that video how most of the described 'playbook' applies equally to radicals of all stripes. It's distressingly common to see people argue you should cut ties with all friends and family who do not 100% agree with your current political convictions.

Absolutely. I do not deny that this is applicable to all kinds of radicalization.

[mietze]

@Groth honestly I find myself doing that more and more because I am fucking exhausted after years of trying to maintain relationships with people who want to see people like my kid rounded up and expelled from the country or worse, who are so very quick to scream and tantrum over anything different than what they want to deal with while proclaiming other people snowflakes, ect.

I am exhausted. I am tired of people whining but of course I wasnt talking about your family when they post articles and quotes saying that people like my family/kid are scum of the earth and a danger to society.

It is a very stressful time right now and I think many people have just hit their limit.

At this point in my life, I have to cut down on the external stressors one way or the other, and eliminating people from my active life who gleefully wish harm upon people like me/my family is a simple way.

It doesn't mean that I don't love them.

It doesn't mean I wish THEM harm.

But I am exhausted after years of trying to get them to concede my and my kid's humanity, and they do not want to. Pretty sure none of those people miss me walking away from them, or even notice, since they get more jollies from the people who encourage their way of thinking.

And if it is someone I do not know or have a significant relationship I have to pick and choose what I expend my energy on just to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I dont really care if people agree or not at this point, but I do not have an obligation to engage with people who are not being mindful of me.

[Groth]

@mietze
I don't think I would call expecting your immediate family to be treated with respect and dignity a radical position.

[mietze]

You say that. But for many people it is a stretch. Some people in my life seem to believe that my kid having basic human rights or the ability to express their gender is antithetical to their religion and is destroying our country. They make an exception for my kid in their heart perhaps but they are very vocal about wanting laws to exclude "people like that."

I just can't take it anymore.

But its not always about big things like that. There are others in my life that I have backed away from (and again, have they noticed, I doubt it, because they're not thinking of me or anything I might have said over the years, right now it's more important to them to exclude or deny my experience rather than acknowledge it, I think probably because that is how THEY are dealing with their own uncertainty or anger.) We agree on 98+ percent of things but I can no longer have the stress of them screaming that what I do/have done is "useless" or "doesn't matter" or is just "helping the corrupt evil people who are all the same no matter what." They simply are not interested in my perspective or the smaller/local stuff that is having a large impact in my community, because expressing their rage and disdain for the whole national group is more important. They really do not care how that might feel to me. They have their priorities.

It doesnt mean that I care for them less, but when someone calls you evil and just as bad as the othe evil people but oh no I wasnt talking about you personally, but why can't you pure like me, at this time in my life similarly I just cannot. It hurts, its endlessly frustrating, it makes me want to lash out right back in a similar way, which doesn't solve anything and I dont get off on it like they sure seem to. I think there are people like that in every advocacy group or viewpoint.

But I am so fucking tired and am doing the best I can to survive my own sadness and despair that I really sometimes can't take on yet another person who needs to sharpen their claws on me. Even though we agree on most things, sometimes the things that we do not, while minor and especially in impersonal conversations are so...rigid, I guess, that it really is not worth talking about because i am tired of them talking down to me, even when i am sure it is not intentional.

I am tired. So I just back off/mute/hide notifications until I can't, and then I distance. I no longer engage.

I think a lot of people are very tired, especially when we are dealing with pandemic disruptions on top of all of that.

I think it is great if you never have to distance yourself from anyone you disagree with. For swaths of my life off and on I have been able to do the same, and I still have some pretty wild diversity in my friends and the people I love. I do think there is a large number of people though that are just /done/ and tired right now though. I'm not really expecting anyone to understand it who doesnt feel it, but I think it's a thing.

[GreenFlashlight]

I came in to ask a question, but first, mietze is one hundred percent correct. It is not radical or taking politics too far or whatever to cut ties with people who want you to have fewer rights than them. I hope no one in this discussion was even suggesting that and that we're just responding to abusive people in our own lives who like to gaslight us by saying their hate doesn't apply to us because we're one of the good ones, but either way, it needs to be reinforced that this is not a 'both sides' thing.

Now.

I'm not gonna grouse about this, I promise. I just need to set this up so the question will make sense. A friend just told me about a pretty cringey exchange she witnessed, two female characters in an OOC lounge announcing to the gathered masses that their characters are fuckbuddies while perfomatively snuggling one another; the usual. But this time it occurred to me, I can't think of a time I've ever seen people who present as hetero doing that. Have any of you ever seen the players of hetero characters do the kind of aggressive "hey everyone watch me sit in my lover's lap while he strokes me" thing you see so many 'lesbians' do?

[Auspice]

@GreenFlashlight said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Have any of you ever seen the players of hetero characters do the kind of aggressive "hey everyone watch me sit in my lover's lap while he strokes me" thing you see so many 'lesbians' do?

Yes.
I have absolutely seen this before. Personally I've seen it more between hetero couples on games than gay couples.

[mietze]

@GreenFlashlight yeah, I see it far far more with hetero couples, tbh,on every game I've played. I mean I've seen it with others too, but not nearly as often.

[mietze]

Now that I think about it you see it a lot on channels too. I do not see that as much anymore regardless, but that may be because I just tend to more channels a lot.

[Ominous]

I can't say I have ever seen that in an OOC room or a channel. I have seen flirty banter and joking but not romantic emotes like lap sitting. I must not be on the right channels.

[Ganymede]

@Auspice said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Yes.
I have absolutely seen this before. Personally I've seen it more between hetero couples on games than gay couples.

Disturbingly, while I've seen it more often with hetero couples, if the couple is homosexual they will more likely be female.

It pisses the hell out of me.

[Pacha]

@GreenFlashlight

When I see this I generally see it more with people that are in a 'harem' type situation (can be same or different gender but I have to admit it DOES seem more common with 'gay women'). ETA: Also these are often people that (while I do not know for sure) if I had to put money on it, I would say they are straight men playing gay women because it is kind of typical of the way that lesbian relationships are often fetishised by straight men.

I use harem specifically because it usually (reads to me) like there tends to be one central character who is being chased/competed over by multiple other characters and so they are performatively affectionate to the person who is the 'hub', but it is in this weirdly gross, passive-aggressive, competitive sort of way. ETA: Specifically on channels/in OOC rooms.

As an afterthought, as a gay guy, I tend to avoid PDA in any public scene if I am with an IC partner, which is a habit from real life because...safety. I have no real expectation I would ever get a comment in a MU, but all it would take is one comment and I think that MU would be ruined for me, so I would rather not risk it.

[SparklesTheClown]

@GreenFlashlight I definitely see players of hetero characters do it. Ultimately I find that the "uwu snuggles u" type stuff is highly common among anime fans and furries in particular, and teenagers period, or I guess just straight up emotionally immature people. But, that said, even though it makes my face invert in on itself, as long as they aren't having 30 minute makeout/snuggle sessions in the lounge, I'll just let people do their own thing.

[Ominous]

@HelloProject

Ominous glomps you.

[SparklesTheClown]

@Ominous said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@HelloProject

Ominous glomps you.

This evil must be destroyed.

[Ominous]

Alright, time for serious post.

I wonder if a roster game would be better at increasing representation in MU*s. If your server is an all-human cast and divided the characters equally between different races, would you see more non-white characters played, or would people choose not to play?

[insomniac7809]

@Ominous That would be fairly interesting.

There is already some stuff you can see on a roster game. "Women over 30," for instance, tend to get picked up roughly every never.

[Pacha]

@Ominous

On the subject of roster games I know there have been problems in Arx, for example, of people taking non-white characters off the roster and just rewriting them as white. Though I believe staff there have cracked down on this a lot.

I don't recall ever seeing a specifically non-cishet roster character on Arx. There are plenty of characters that specifically mention heterosexual stuff "He was always flirting with ladies" or so forth, but I can't remember ever seeing a roster character specifically written as LGBT.

[Roz]

@Pacha said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Ominous

On the subject of roster games I know there have been problems in Arx, for example, of people taking non-white characters off the roster and just rewriting them as white. Though I believe staff there have cracked down on this a lot.

I don't recall ever seeing a specifically non-cishet roster character on Arx. There are plenty of characters that specifically mention heterosexual stuff "He was always flirting with ladies" or so forth, but I can't remember ever seeing a roster character specifically written as LGBT.

There are definitely LGBT rosters @saosmash has written. Jasher is explicitly gay, although I know that generally when she writes non-straight rosters she leaves it more "they definitely have same-sex attraction but whether that means gay or bi or pan is up to player interpretation." Lysander is like that, and I know there have been a couple others that now I can't remember off the top of my head. I also wrote Holden as a roster to have a deceased husband, and I leave where on the sexuality spectrum he falls to his players.

EDIT: Oh I also remember Filshiar is written to indicate leaning ace/aro.

[Ominous]

Another possible solution is incentivizing with xp. "We have these particular types of characters underrepresented right now. Make one and get a 50 xp bonus." However, I feel this would just get abused by people creating a stereotypical caricature just to reap the xp bonus. Whereas, a roster character has been created by staff, so should be more of a character than a bad joke.