Best posts made by reversed

Even within the fantasy post-racism, post-sexism, post-isms-in-general (except maybe nationalism and some classism I guess) Arx world I still find myself having to think critically about questions related to this thread.

Ex.: Katarina, for the folks who don't know, was born in the Dune Kingdom, a strange and mysterious land across an ocean from the setting of Arx. When I applied for her off of the roster, I outright said that I saw the challenge of playing the character as doing so in a way that isn't lazy isn't-she-exotic cod-early-20th-century-Orientalism. There's nothing WRONG with her profile as written on the roster, but it would be very easy to take what's there and just kind of play her as the descendant of any number of capital-E Exotic characters from fiction that don't necessarily speak to any particular truth, whether Lovecraft's Arab mystics, Disney's Jasmine, Dejah Thoris from Barsoom Which Is Totally Not Meant to Represent the Middle East or Darkest Africa Honest You Guys Really, Storm from the X-Men, whatever.

I still end up trying to find ways to set her apart as being Not From Around Here because I think it makes for a good character beat in a game where bloodlines play a significant part in determining who has the power, but I do my best to do so in ways that reflect that kind of post-isms vision of Arx -- she has a strong accent and her cadence and word choices are a little weird, as opposed to something stupid like showing up to a dinner party naked and smiling knowingly while trilling, "ah, but you Compact people, you still cling to these barbaric textiles?"

Ember, too, has her backstory where she's the first woman to directly inherit a barony in her fealty, instead of having to rule by technicality or regency. I can't imagine playing her as anything but intensely proud of that fact and ready to bring it up constantly until people are sick of hearing about it, and that pride determines how I travel other aspects of her character (e.g. not taking the always-ready-for-a-war "Bloody Baroness" and making her a force for conservatism in her fealty; if she was conservative, she wouldn't be baroness).

So, even though Arx has the built-in "guys, people just aren't racist or sexist here, so leave that shit outside," it still presents ways to question that kind of stuff -- just without the playing-with-fire aspects that people might perceive about real-world identities or cultures.

I mean, if I'm just talking out of my ass, please tell me.

@onigiri said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Conversely, I had to hear someone use the n-word in a lounge because 'it factored into an academic debate about Lovecraft.' Some nerds do not get it.

Sometimes you just have to debate about a man's cat.

Speaking only for myself, encouragement and interest.

@Pacha said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@reversed

That's really awesome! She seems like a really great roster character. I hope somebody will pick her up soon and have a lot of fun playing her!

Me too, it'll be like seeing one of my made-up children graduate made-up high school.

@bear_necessities said in What do player-STs need?:

@Pyrephox I think "changing the world" is something I really get stuck on. Like what could I do as a game admin to make you feel like you are changing the world?

I'll give an example from my recent talks with Apos and Herja re: Arx stuff.

I worked with them to come up for ideas for a family of roster characters I plan to submit for the org one of my characters runs (Redreef). In looking at the scattered little pieces that had already been established in the area that we were working from, I hit upon the idea that maybe the family's secret history is this. And Apostate said "oh, that would actually tie very nicely in to that, and maybe that's one of the reasons why some historical figure did some event in lore."

Obviously the above is all terribly vague for a reason, but that kind of "Oh, wow, that would flesh out this existing piece of lore and add a deep connection to an existing thing" made me feel good, because whoever picks up these characters will now have a deep connection to an existing thing (but they'll have to work to find out what it is lol).

Unrelated to whatever this conversation even is, shout-out to the player on Arx who pointed out a part of Nimue's write-up that was one of those "crystal clear in my head, not very clear in writing" things and risked looking shitty as a result. That feedback was appreciated enough for me to shout it out here.

I can only speak for myself, but generally, the more I know, the more excited I get. Any value lost by being "spoiled" on what's really going on IC is regained by the excitement of finding new ways to fit pieces of the game together that weren't available to me without that knowledge. I know some people are the opposite! But I'm very much a the more I know, the more excited I am to put that knowledge to use in fun ways for others type.

Replace "Twitter" with "whatever MU* I happen to be playing at the moment" but otherwise as written: