Posts made by L. B. Heuschkel

There's no 'yall. I was not staff, as you are very well aware. I agree 100% with staff's decision to reject sexually overt chars that look like they're designed solely to write porn on a game that is decidedly not sexual in theme. Hold the strawmen, app on games that are sexual in theme -- as you've pointed out yourself, they exist and apps like this are welcome on them.

No matter what one's taste is, not all games are inclusive to all players and play styles. I've visited a number of games where my apps were denied for various reasons that I agreed or did not agree with. That's how it works. You either adjust to the theme if you want it enough -- or you move on to another game that's more in tune with what you want. If you can't convince staff that your app is legit then it's probably not a game you want to play on anyway.

It's a big sea, there are plenty of fish. Over 'n out.

@Caractus If the game was still up I'd ask you to go point at one such character on it. You were not the only person whose overtly sexual app was rejected.

@Caractus I took well to the character concept as it was presented to me -- a rambunctious, lecherous old guy from Djelibeybi. I'm not going to pretend I didn't backpedal with the speed of a thousand cheetahs the more I realised what you were doing.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to play a sex game. But I think you may have to look at what games you are apping to. If their theme is not sexual in nature, then that character is going to come across as -- very off theme at best. Discworld is somewhat Eurocentric,not going to disagree with you there -- but sex themed it is not. Trying to turn this into a matter of 'they hated black people' is a strawman. The issue was not the colour of the character's skin. The issue was the aggressive sexuality that made several other players highly uncomfortable.

See, as I recall being on the game that Jinshei banned a black character from, it's worth noticing that said black character was banned because it managed to hit every porn trope on the register. Every single one. Not one player was in any doubt that this was a character designed to rile people up and make them uncomfortable. Several players complained about it being horribly racist even before it got on grid (if it ever did).

Now, it's entirely possible that this was another black character, and if that is the case, please ignore and move on. Nah, that's the one.

But if it was -- and you genuinely sought to app a black character who would have embarrassed Pornhub's cuck porn section... Then yes, maybe the problem is not only with the games you app on.

@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

There are very few truly racially homogeneous places on Earth, and this isn't like some modern thing. People really have this fascination with medieval Europe being 100% white and anything to the contrary is SJW propaganda. Fuck actual history and art I guess lmao.

Amen, amen, and amen again, said the historian. POCs were definitely a thing in medieval Europe, and the only people claiming otherwise are white supremacists pushing an ideal all-white European age of glory that never existed.

I wonder how much the culture of individual games differs. When I got back into MUs in fall last year I wasn't really paying attention to this a whole lot but since then I've been on a few games and you can really tell the difference sometimes. Some game cultures are all but obsessed to the point it feels like you're playing MU* Tindr. Other games, people just -- don't care? Which is how it should be, because if you're not screwing somebody, then why the fuck should you care who they are screwing?

Reading this thread makes me wonder if anyone still plays these games for other purposes than getting laid.

Obvious disclaimer: Yes, yes, they do. Thread like this sure as hell showcases all the toxic behaviours of the people who don't, though.

@reversed said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

I've definitely heard complaints about how my bisexual character was clearly only around to do lesbian TS stuff because I wasn't receptive to the advances of a male player I had no interest in pursuing anything with.

Of course, I heard about these complaints second hand, because they weren't said to my face. Of course.

Think we've all run into toxic people like that. And if it's not their sexuality it's their character faction, the colour of the shoes, or something else. Some people will find an excuse to be a dick no matter what.

Have had same experience a couple of times, playing a straight white male and getting accused only being after teh gayz because saying no to some female. Toxic people will toxic.

This whole thing confuses the hell out of me. Not the 'it's frustrating to see my gender and orientation being used as fetish fodder' -- I definitely get that. What I don't get is how many people play their sexual whatever first and their character second. Don't want to be perceived as a porn trope? Don't make sexuality the only thing your character advertises in order to invite others to interact with the character.

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@L-B-Heuschkel True, but at the same time we've been saying these things for centuries. And we know, generally, they're not true even if we say them. They're not innocent by any means, but they're very rarely taken seriously by anyone intelligent or important.

Fortunately. Have a few family units to whom they are unfortunately not jokes at all, and let me tell you, travelling in Southern Europe with those people was an experience. No, mum, the Italian waiter is not stealing your bag. Yes, mum, the Maltese airport security guy can in fact tell you to wait behind the line on the floor.

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
I don't know if it's less blatant, but less... offensive? As in the stereotyping has been around for so long that we understand it not to be hurtful a lot more. The Norwegians are rich, the Irish are drunks, the Danes can't speak without sounding like they've got a mouth full of potatoes, the Germans are humourless drones, etc.

Depends a little on what stereotype it is. You tell me I sound like I have a mouth full of potatoes and it's -- just that. Hahah, yes, and the Dutch sound like they're choking on the potatoes. Also, man, don't do English food if you want to live.

Stereotypes such as you can't trust a Finn to not solve an argument with a knife, an Italian will screw your wife and daughter behind your back and a Greek will homosexually assault you, aren't quite so innocent.

@surreality said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

There was a point in time -- not terribly long ago in the historical sense -- when Spanish, Irish, Italians, Greeks, and some others 'weren't white enough'. You'd see despicable stereotypes about these groups spread around widely. You see relics of it today: 'Irish are all violent drunks', 'Italians are all greasy mobbed-up womanizers', etc. despite these people now being ushered under the 'white' umbrella in the US.

This is definitely still a thing in Northern Europe. It doesn't get lobbed under 'racism' since we tend to look at Southern Europeans as white -- but it's certainly a cultural bigotry that still exists. It also inarguably gets stronger the more semitic looking (using the term there for the Mediterranean ethnotype -- Arab, North African, Palestinian, etc). The paler and lighter, the less blatant the stereotyping.

@surreality said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@L-B-Heuschkel No, no... she doesn't get ragged on for it. It's that no one guesses, seeing that picture, that she's Brazilian (unless they already know), because she's pale, blue-eyed, and red-haired.

And when they do find out, do attitudes change?

I ask because I was genuinely surprised to be told by some Americans that being a POC isn't only a matter of appearance but also of country of origin. It makes as much sense to me as racism generally does (i.e. very little). At least some of my international friends experience being treated different if they suddenly are no longer perceived as being 'white'.

@surreality That girl's paler and more blue-eyed than I am, and I have one single known non-Scandinavian ancestor since the year 1700. If she gets ragged on for being Brazilian, then it's not about pigmentation but stereotyping South Americans as if they were all one monolithic ethnotype and culture.

Not saying that whiter skin doesn't get you significant privilege; I'm white, I know it does. Am definitely saying that language or nationality sometimes get applied in the same fashion as skin pigmentation. I don't know if racism is the right word to use there (not a native speaker, after all) but bigotry sure as hell is.

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@L-B-Heuschkel @Goblin From my understanding American racism is mainly about skin tone, whereas European racism is more about which country you're from. Of course skin tone is an element of European racism, as it is everywhere, but it's not really the first thing that comes to mind when you think 'European cultural rivalries'.

I'm tempted to say that cultural rivalries seems to be an issue for both? When a guy who could be my neighbour here in Denmark is considered a POC because he's Spanish, then the issue is that he's Spanish -- not the colour of his skin. I guess that you can say that yes, it's what country you're from, rather than the exact amount of pigmentation.

Cultural rivalries in Europe are definitely a thing. To be blunt; there's a strong undercurrent in northern Europe that southern Europe exists so that we have somewhere with a nice beach to go sit on while we complain that the food is odd and the wait staff has a Spanish/Italian/Maltese/whatever accent.

@Admiral said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@HelloProject Agreed. Whiteness is what Republicans consider acceptable levels of melanin at any given time. Irish and Italians are white now. Hispanics are no longer white.

Having recently branched out into playing a Spanish character (from Bilbao, Spain) I have been surprised at this. As a Scandinavian it never occurred to me to consider a light olive skinned, green-eyed, brown-haired guy to be -- well, not white. American players on the game tell me that by US definitions, he is a POC. To me, he looks like someone I might bump into at the local gas station here in Denmark, back from a two week vacation to the Mediterranean.

It's not just a matter of skin tone. And at least to me, it's very bizarre.

@Tinuviel Except for the Norwegian and Icelandic boys, of course. XD

Anyhow, point here being, Norse pirates were not rastafaris. Nor were they Nazis. Cultural ignorance can be painful to watch, read books.

@GreenFlashlight said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Maybe it's a regional thing, but where I am, that's mostly an attempt to not to say the words "I'm a Nazi."

That's exactly what it is.

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Well, yes. If we're going to get into the superfine details of it, you're not a Viking because you aren't out raiding or trading or rowing across the North Sea in a boat that leaks for the first ten miles, so you just look like a greasy white boy with bad hair.

Not going to argue against that one either. As a historian, it's a pet peeve of mine. The word viking meant pirate until the romanticism of the 19th century attached it to the early medieval period known to pop culture as the viking age.

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

So if you want to look like a Viking, for whatever reason, get that braided ponytail going.

I'd say that's a little dependent on when and where in the so-called Viking era, but yes. Either way, unkempt dreadlocks they were certainly not, and it hurts the eyes and ears when someone tries to push the mascara and dreads look with an undercut and rune tattoos, Vikings style.

@Auspice said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

They didn't steal women. Women just liked a man who knew how to bathe.

I mean, wouldn't you?