Best posts made by SparklesTheClown

Lmao I just read that fucking app, what bits I could get through without just fucking wanting to jump off a cliff.

SEETHING, PERVERSE LUSTS!!!

Holy shit, you know, this app is perfect because I've been wanting a more clear example of when it's obvious when a concept is racially fucked. I don't think a single person read that app and went "hmmm I don't know what the problem is here".

This is what I mean by it's kind of obvious and common sense shit. It's a clear example. Is it possible to fuck up in some subtle way that is probably ultimately easily cleared up with a conversation? Sure. But if you have genuine interest in writing a POC that isn't one giant fetish, it's really, really fucking hard to just accidentally write an app so bad it needs to get banned. Unless I guess your entire impression of every non-white race came from watching white comedians do whatever-face.

Just a take here as a literal black guy, or I guess a general story about my experiences, and some recommendations for white or non-black people in general.

When I first started MUing, I played exclusively white characters because when I was younger I had some internal racial issues that I hadn't worked out yet, and my previous experiences irl led me to believe that people simply wouldn't want to play with me because of the race of my character, and I also hid my irl race, which was easy because everyone naturally assumes that you're white on the internet if you don't say otherwise.

That said, I have on quite a lot of occasions across quite a few MUs experience people wanting to RP with my black characters less than others. Could be the culture I was in, could be that the characters coincidentally weren't as good as my others, but it is an experience I have 100% had and noticed, and in games like that I usually just drop the black character and end up getting a white one, mostly just because I don't feel like the frustration on an OOC level. They aren't really feelings I come to RP to have. And just to reassure you, this is not a common experience, just a few places I've been in.

There's also various things I've noticed just off-handedly. Like on Arx how there's literally a rule saying you can't just straight up race swap a character, and it happens there all the time. Pretty much characters get pretty drastically shifted away from their description when it comes to racial stuff. But, that said, Arx is still more diverse than the average MUSH I've played, that's just a minor racial peeve I have with the overall culture of PB selection there.

I have indeed many times played a white character as my first alt on a MUSH because I just felt it would be easier to acclimate myself and get a feel for the game, and I always have a bit of an OOC anxiety that I'll have to deal with some nonsense or people fetishing up my pages (it's definitely happened before). I feel that I need to trust a MU on some level before I can play a black character there, which I know sounds weird, but as I said, I just don't go to a MU to feel the same things I do on an OOC level. If I'm gonna play a black character I just like to know that it's "safe" to do so. That the people around me are gonna be cool.

The word microaggression gets thrown around a lot, but holy shit does playing a black character flip on that switch on an OOC level if you're somewhere people just don't know how to act.

As far as white people playing black characters (I don't wanna speak for any race here, just mine from my own perspective), I think it's totally cool as long as it's not some crazy shit like on Shang where people take that as a bizarre license to say the N word and all kinds of stereotypical shit as loudly as possible (this shit has definitely happened in Shang's square, when I used to play that MU years ago).

When it comes to worrying about being accidentally offensive, I'd say that if you're a generally mindful person it probably won't be that big of a deal. For the most part you can play a black person more or less how you'd play a white character, there's just little differences like the way we have to deal with our hair or how we might approach certain situations on a cultural level. But there are all kind of quick research things if you're ever unsure. Or hell I have literally nothing against answering questions like that, as I really don't generally find sincere questions to be offensive when I know you're really trying to learn something.

I'd say that Doctor Who (well I've only seen up to Capaldi, I'm behind still) is a great example of how to handle black characters. Hell, Martha being black only really comes up a few times in the whole series, as there's just more important and interesting shit than her race going on. And the one time I do remember it coming up was in a historical context that was done really well. Or hell even the way black characters are handled in the MCU, as they show just how diverse people can be within the same race. And if you really want some extra credit, watch Living Single (great for seeing the diversity of both black men and women as just normal ass people), Fresh Prince (posh ass black people), or every season of A Different World except the first season (the first season is Bill Cosby's trash ass season, just skip it entirely). And if you want more modern stuff, Black'ish is great (even though they had Chris Brown on one episode which I'm still wtf about), as it really captures a lot of very minor nuances about black culture. And Jordan Peele's modern work seems to be on point (probably skip Key & Peele for inspiration. It's a show I love but it's a cultural minefield).

I know this is getting a bit lengthy, but just let me name a few probably unlikely and unexpected pieces of media that I just don't think are good to take inspiration from.

Family Matters, while I really genuinely love Family Matters (Urkel), it has some pretty questionable politics when it comes to cops and stuff. It does try to address cops and race and all that, but I just don't think it's a good reference point if you're already going in confused. Plus it's got a lot of that bizarre borderline conservative Christian values thing going on like a lot of shows from back then (Fresh Prince does that to a far lesser extent and actually stops doing that at some point). And The Cosby Show, like, the fact that no one should be watching Bill Cosby to begin with, Cosby's work often had this very judgmental wag your finger at not being a "proper" black person thing to it. It's the same reason I say skip the first season of A Different World, as it stops being his show after that.

Also, never Tyler Perry. Never any Tyler Perry, ever. Also no Wayans' Brothers movies or shows (even though I love them).

You also might be noticing that I didn't really list dramas and stuff. But that's almost entirely because dramas get super bogged down in a way where I just often find the portrayals of black people to just be far too heavy handed. A Different World and Black'Ish do handle some pretty serious issues, but I just can't in good faith recommend a drama outside of Jordan Peele's work. Luke Cage on Netflix might also work pretty well, has a nice balance on characterization.

Man who remembers when I used to write these spammy ass posts on WORA? Hopefully this is helpful rather than nonsense.

Now I'm tempted to play a black characer on Arx, as I've been thinking of an OC. I do play a POC in general on Arx, Theo. So far that's been pretty chill.

@Rinel Also excuse me, I totally tried to bang Rinel.

@TheBigD said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@TheBigD said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

"Okay, dude wants to play X, ban his ass because obviously he's a Y."

Where does this happen?

https://globalnews.ca/news/7120933/family-guy-cleveland-voice-actor-steps-down/

Ask yourself why someone who has voiced a character for 20 years decides to step down, for the reason he stated.

And as I stated upstream, I've witnessed it once already.

Well first of all, I've never been okay with Cleveland's voice actor being white. I've never been okay with any POC's voice actor being white for pretty much the entire time I've even known that was a thing that happens, which I'd say is roughly half my life.

Second, as Sao said, it's entirely different. We're MUing, we're not in an industry with limited slots to fill, we're not broadcasting representation of a race to hundreds of millions of people. If someone makes a bunch of questionable jokes as a black character in a game and I know for fucking sure they're white and feel like they're out of line, I can and will say something. Otherwise I don't give a fuck what they do.

If someone is white playing a black character written by largely white people in a huge network television show:

1. there's a black voice actor not getting work for functionally no reason (so much for "hire the best person for the job, not their race" bullshit I always hear)

2. if they play a character that functionally serves as a vessel for a bunch of shitty race jokes, there's pretty much no accountability and no one listening when anyone says "hey uh that's shitty", given that it took about twenty years for the guy to go "oh right maybe I should not".

3. In this case in particular, it's literally like a fucking minstrel show of white people entertaining themselves and making a bunch of dated jokes entirely unchecked by anyone, purely because it's a cartoon.

Tyler Perry is literally fucking black and I'm not okay with the dumbass shit and backward cultural politics he broadcasts and presents to the world with his black oriented media, so why in the hell would I be okay with white people doing it?

Ultimately a simple understanding of context and why people get mad at things to begin with would go a long way. Pointing at things and going "see, this is a bad thing and supports my straw argument" while simultaneously trying to hold onto a particular narrative about certain issues while people are going "yeah so uh you're literally making a straw argument", really won't get anywhere.

To me it's usually a red flag when people apparently have the perspective of "I don't understand why everything is racist now, we better be careful don't know when the SJWs will pop out and cancel us", when ultimately nothing is suddenly racist now, that shit's always been racist, people have been calling the same shit out for decades. The only difference now is that more people other than white people actually have a voice that gets listened to more and more. The shifting of the status quo is purely because people are being listened to, the only perspectives that have actually change are the white people who have gone "hey maybe we should actually listen to those people who keep yelling at us to stop being shitty about things". Otherwise, POC have been saying the same shit forever, people just didn't care to listen to them.

In my honest to god opinion, I feel like most people who are afraid of getting "cancelled" or have these horror stories of unfairly being mistreated because "I didn't even do anything I was just playing a POC character normally", usually did do something, never bothered to actually figure out what they did wrong, so it just fed into the narrative that there's an SJW witch hunt to come after people for "no reason".

You know, if intent and actions actually lined up even 50% of the time the world would be great, but just because you have the intent to not do something shitty doesn't mean that what you did wasn't shitty. And yeah I won't deny that there are people like Cirno who will do and say some dumb shit regarding race in order to manipulate people, but people like that are in such a fucking minority (lol), that almost every time I've heard someone be like "I don't know why they banned me I was doing just fine", someone shows me some fucked up log of what actually happened and I'm like "yeah that seems about right".

Like, so far I keep hearing all of these anecdotes about how the SJW staff came at the poor innocent people playing a POC, but I haven't seen a single receipt, log of the character being played, MU* name, or hell even a goddamned app to let people take a look at anything. It's just people saying shit in the midst of making what sounds a hell of a lot like a bad faith argument. In general I'm not questioning anyone who seems to be making their argument in good faith, but when people come making straw arguments and acting like there's packs of roving nonbinary bandits coming after them if they even remotely step out of line, I'm going to go "okay so where's the receipts".

Like dude, if this argument is even remotely in good faith, please go read Plato's Five Dialogues or something before approaching a topic with your glass so full that it's running over way too much to retain or listen to anything beyond this straw reality of raving SJW lunatics I keep seeing people coming in here worried about. Like dude just take a break from Twitter then, no one here is a teenager who learned social politics from Tumblr memes and cancelling people with BTS fancams.

Okay I admit I did post idol gifs on WORA but no one is allowed to come at me for that.

Edit: also I'm nauseous because I drank an entire bottle of Chris Jericho's fake champaign.

"Stuff in space is a hard sell"

Maybe on MU Soapbox, where like 90% of the people are WoD players and aren't even anywhere near a reflection of the entire hobby (a true statement that will continue to sting and be debated regardless of its truthiness).

Just make your shit, open it, don't suck, and you'll get players.

Ignore literally everyone else's advice if you don't want to be stuck in a perpetual state of:

"I want to do something cool."

"It's not vampires, it won't work, the hobby is dead."

"Oh, alright, guess I'll make a WoD game."

I'm not trying to shit on people's perspectives and experiences, but in this place the perception of the hobby tends to be extremely narrow and limited in its scope, especially when it comes to people's opinions of attracting players from outside of it or people from parts of it that aren't literally just WoD (you don't have to reply with "But I don't even play WoD/RP at all", it misses the general point).

If you want to do something, do it. Who cares if people on MU Soapbox won't play it, you can still get like 50-100 players without a single person in this area of the hobby wanting to play it.

Just do you to the best of your ability and hope you don't suck, and there's literally no reason you won't succeed.

Being a MU creator is pretty much like being in a meritocracy. It doesn't freaking matter what you do or what you make as long as you do it well. I can't account for one's own perception of quality, but I can say that if you are truly passionate and you truly do make something fun and engaging, you will attract an audience and it don't matter if something is a "hard sell" in one narrow area of the hobby.

And while I'm sure someone is going to have the original idea to challenge my statements with MUDstats numbers, I learned a long time ago that this isn't anywhere near a true reflection of people actually in the hobby and just don't have anywhere they find interesting to play. Which is a part of why you occasionally see a random ass theme get a bunch of players over night (and die just as fast due to staff sucking). Or, when you advertise correctly and take advantage of SEO, how many roleplayers from outside of the hobby can find a game (which is one of the reasons having a wiki that isn't completely shitty is essential these days).

@Coin said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

This all reminds me of a relatively recent thing where someone playing a PoC character, on more than one occasion, metaposed that their character's way of talking was hard to understand and/or "arguably English" (when it very clearly was neither of those things, especially since any of the non-strictly prescriptive grammar used in dialogue was pretty close to AAVE). Like, yikes, ya know?

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Honestly, I think we should all refrain from using slurs - even those that our minority group has reclaimed, or are otherwise acceptable for us to use. Since there's no way of proving we're entitled to use them, it's easier to just not.

@Coin said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

I mean, I agree in theory, and pretty much universally RP in that fashion. But I'm not going to tell someone they can't use a slur that their group has reclaimed, either, not my place.

Even if I did use slurs in general irl, I still wouldn't in an RP. There's a pretty simple reason for that, namely: Not everyone in every demographic 100% agrees on 1. what words are "reclaimed", 2. the concept of reclaiming a word in general. It's one thing in your own personal work of fiction, but in an RP, in my opinion, it doesn't really matter what race you are.

There's a level of respect that we have to show for each other as a community, as unlike irl, we have to make this environment as comfortable for each other as possible, due to this being all of our collective hobby that we really have rather limited spaces to be in to begin with. So, speaking as a black person at least, I think that the most fair thing to do is definitely to avoid slurs altogether. I'm not looking to make another black person uncomfortable just because, say, I was fine with the N word, and they aren't. It's a pretty visceral word, I know black people who can't stand hearing it from anyone, it can be kind of like hearing a nuke randomly drop out of no where.

Like, I personally am all for the reclaiming or devaluing of slurs, even if I don't personally do it, mostly just due to my discomfort with using the word, even if I don't mind that other people do. But I don't think it's unfair or imposing yourself if a MU was like "we want to make this environment as comfortable for everyone as possible, so we prefer to avoid slurs of any kind". Obviously fictional fantasy slurs are one thing, but still, I really don't think it's controversial for a MU to say they want to avoid them to make sure that everyone is comfortable. It's a lesser evil, to me at least, to make sure that all POCs are comfortable rather than bring up the often rather controversial topic of slur reclamation.

Now of course this can get muddy, like on the topic of LGBTQ people. As there are people who identify as "queer", and there are people who see it as permanently a slur and do not want to hear people use it in that way. However, I believe that this is kind of an exception to the rule. You can't really tell someone "you can't identify as that", as that's kind of lowkey fucked up. But there's no black people out here identifying as the N word, I don't believe it's oppressing someone's identify to say that we avoid those slurs so that we can have a safe environment. Contextually, "queer" and the N word are quite different things, even if they can both be controversial.

In the end, I guess the difference is, does this controversial word involve someone's overall expression of identity and thus their comfort and sense of self as a human being or not. I don't believe that this is the case of the N word, or other racial slurs, as they aren't really a crux of our existence, they're more an aspect of some of our cultural interaction and how we might express ourselves with other people. And I don't think I've met a black person who would be like "oh no fuck you" if someone said we avoid slurs to make sure we have a safe environment. At least no one I'd meet in a MU.

This probably counts as a minor peeve, but it's somewhat on topic.

Searching for black and other non-white races of PBs is a pain in the ass.

Like, for example, you can search "man with sword" or any other "man with" things, or search "man wearing suit", and like 99% of the results are white dudes.

Now, yes, I understand that I can type black man or chinese man or whatever else, but that is why this is a racial peeve rather than something where I'm like "I want this fixed right now!". But like, I guess my point is, searching for PBs and such with all these extra racial caveats and sometimes having to very precisely figure out how to get non-white dudes to pop up (sometimes there's a bizarre complication), is annoying, and is a reminder that there's literally a default race irl lmao.

I'm like, damn, I want to experience typing "man in boxers" and it's like a variety of sweaty men instead of 99% white sweaty men.

It's not like I sit there losing sleep over this or just being like "FUCK THE MACHINE" every time I do a PB search, but it's a little thing that pings in my brain and makes me go "there's literally thousands of photos of every race of man and woman in each of these categories, why do I always have to see one very specific race without making a bunch of caveats". And it legitimately does complicate my searches in a way where I just get kind of annoyed that I even have to do this extra step that is sometimes not as simple as typing "black swordsman", which I'm sure people can see would get complicated right away.

Could type African swordsman, but then I start getting very specific African cultural stuff that has nothing to do with what I'm looking for.

And "African-American" as a search term to narrow down searches is functionally useless.

This is just an example, but this happens a LOT. Having to figure out how to search for a specific race in a specific category since the default results are always white dudes is just a pain in the ass. We have the technology to make this significantly easier, algorithms can be trained to make this easier, and hell, algorithms can be trained so that the default result isn't just a wall of white dudes, but that's just not the internet we're on right now.

I'm sure there's plenty of people who will find this post rather silly, but honestly, I've been a black dude for 32 years and after a while these minor peeves and annoyances tend to pile up and just become these little annoying pin pricks.

And I guess the broader point beyond this very specific thing is that sometimes I'm just doing something and then it hits me "yeah this is definitely going to be harder because you're trying to do something normal but the black version of it, lmao eat shit I guess".

And, back to the PBs in general, it stood out to me more because early in my MUing I used to play exclusively white characters (I think I mentioned this before), because as a teenager, due to where I grew up, I thought people would hate me or think I was dumb for being black (and not just dumb because I do dumb things). So when I started playing POCs, particularly black characters, I realized just how much fucking harder it was to find PBs I wanted to use for specific things. And even beyond the search results nonsense, it's not like there's a million shows and movies out there with black people doing wizard shit or swinging swords around, even though that stuff definitely does exist, and there's enough of it for there to be adequate search results in my opinion.

Hot take: Even if this person is black, like, fuck off anyway?

Tyler Perry is black and mostly preaches boomery black Christian agendas and has weird colorism shit where the dark skinned black people in his movies are the asshole wretches and the lightskinned people are either the saviors or victims and such. (Colorism is a deep cut issue within the black community that there's no need to get into in detail, but, it's something Tyler Perry is criticized for).

I also meet white washed black people perpetually, who have the same fucked up racial opinions due to the people they're surrounded by who regularly do this weird subtle gaslighting by making you feel as if they're your friends and you aren't really black, etc. So you start thinking all the black things about you are negative, and you don't "fit in" with black people because you aren't "like them".

Additional Citation: I WAS LITERALLY ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE FOR OVER A DECADE

Or hell, motherfucking Bill Cosby. Before he was a known shitheel for drugging women, for decades he pretty much shamed any black person who didn't fit squarely into his definition of what black people should be. This has been a common Bill Cosby criticism for fucking ever. In A Different World, the first season is a Cosby written season. It's his ideal boomer ass vision of black college. Immediately after that, a young black woman, Debbie Allen, took over the show when the producers were told that this show was inaccurate as fuck, and from season 2 onward the show actually becomes good, and Cosby has nothing to do with it. But my point is, Cosby weaponized his blackness and white Americans could look at him and say "well, if a black guy is saying it, must be true..."

Being black and weaponizing your blackness against other black people is a big fuck off from me. I firmly believe that POCs, LGBTQ people, and whatever else, should express themselves however they want if it isn't hurting anyone else. I don't think anyone should have to be a certain way to be accepted, I don't believe in respectability politics. You want to be a Carlton nerd? Go ahead. You want to hang your pants down and wear a durag? Go right ahead (actually I'm currently wearing one, my hair needs that shit).

Hell I'm not even gonna shame raceplay, everyone works through their shit in their own way, I'm not even entirely against doing it myself if I trust the person, that shit is lowkey hot.

However, if you're gonna go out of your way to very clearly weaponize your blackness against other black people, or do some shit that is clearly meant to provoke random white people in a way that only makes it harder for black people to interact with them or literally exist, then I've gotta draw the line there. Like, by all means, troll and provoke known racists, but doing shit like that person attempted to do on Arx with people I haven't really heard much of anything bad about only turns people who might not know any better against us, and then I end up having to be the one who suffers the consequences for it.

I mean, I'm just throwing it out there, and this applies to quite a few things so I'm not tagging anyone specifically, but a POC is capable of saying something objectively wrong. Like, this happens damned near literally half the time anyone mentions cultural appropriation on the internet, because so many people, POC or otherwise, never bother to actually learn what appropriation even is and conflate it with "I don't like this". When you compile POC being wrong about something and white people having no concept of what the thing is, you mostly just get a bunch of confusion that mostly serves to hurt more than help.

My point is, I can imagine all sorts of people doing something rather ignorant, it happens every day, but not doing something because someone on the internet can be both wrong and angry at the same time isn't really a reason not to. I'm, again, not advocating that anyone do anything outside of their comfort zone, but if anyone in this thread said that a white person playing a black person or whatever is basically blackface, someone please present me with that so I can see the argument. So far I've mostly seen people annoyed at grossly bad portrayals that I feel are more common sense things than anything.

But yeah, just, like, there's really only two possible explanations for situations like these.

1. The person playing the character is doing so on a degree so bad that it's obviously bothering people (I have seen this happen before and on some occasions I have seen it be so extremely bad that I was like "How is it possible that they have no idea how bad this is?")

2. The person accusing the player of not doing something correctly is obviously wrong in some way and has a misunderstanding of what they're even talking about in such a way that it would be obvious to most people observing.

In my personal experience, #1 has frequently been the case on any game I've seen this happen on, and it's usually when people have reached the point of "wow I wish this person would go the fuck away". #2 I've seen happen but to a significantly lesser degree. Though that story I read on the last page with the Maori bow or whatever is pretty wtf, seems like something a white person being very bizarrely cautious would say without thinking. Like, why would a person on modern day Earth somehow be barred from learning a skill due to their racial requirements???

Either way, a lot of the stories I've read here seem like they're severely lacking in context, as I can think of all kinds of reasons that a lot of this shit would happen. But I legitimately don't think that obvious bad faith or misinformed arguments should be allowed to control things or people, and if I saw someone saying some obviously misinformed shit in a MU I would address it. I just plain don't want white people knowingly following a bad faith or misinformed argument just because they're afraid of being disrespectful. I get that it's a tough goddamned rock and a hard place to be in, but to me it does you and also myself a disservice when I then have to turn around and be like "oh yeah that person was obviously full of shit".

I'm not gonna lie, I'd be (and have been) annoyed as shit if a white person tried to "no actually" me about race stuff, but there's polite ways to bring stuff up. Like, "Hey, what you're saying isn't the same as what I read at <source>, can you look at this and tell me if it's accurate or not?". There's just little things like that, if you're really worried about being polite. You just can't let obvious dumb shit influence and hold a MU hostage. And if someone is gonna have a tantrum, fine. I've seen Cirno try to hold people emotionally hostage with race shit before, and all it does is hurt me and any other POC or marginalized person. It just can't be tolerated.

But, on the flip side, every criticism of what someone does isn't a take-down or assassination attempt. Sometimes you did do something wrong, sometimes you did fuck up playing that character, and sometimes you just need to take the L when it gets explained to you and not develop some weird years long bizarre trauma because someone said you're bad at black characters.

My grandmother can somewhat talk now. She's recovering, I got to talk to her on the phone.

Text roleplaying isn't dying at all, it's as popular as ever, it's fucking huge. I've said for years, even back when I was batshit insane, the only reason MUSHing is so small is because people don't know it exists. Anyone I know who roleplays who I've ever told about MUSHing was like "holy shit that's awesome".

Also on the topic of banning races for there being "too much" of them, can we talk about how so many MUSHes have treated Asian culture like a weird trend that they have to ban or restrict? Like yeah, I get that there's people who do unfortunately bad portrayals of shit, but I can't be the only one who has seen MUSHes literally put Asian characters on a restricted list.

Like, considering that the vast majority of characters on most MUSHes are white, why is there never too many white characters? (I shouldn't have to say this, but given how this thread has gone a few times, I want to make clear that I'm not advocating that we restrict any race, I'm being hyperbolic)

Today I realized that the longer I stay in the house, the more mentally unhealthy I become, and then when I go out and see people that I like, it's like I hit the reset button on my mental state.

I feel like I should learn something from this.

I've played like 100+ games, there's no fucking way I can remember or post them all. I'll post common names first, since I've had very distinctive names, chances are I was that person on whatever game you're thinking about. This will be horrifyingly disorganized.

Until recently I went by Magnes on a lot of games, because I was an uncreative hack.

I also used Amadeus a lot.

While I never had a character as such a name, in a certain circle I'm often known as Brick. I only answer to it because people insist on using it.

I've also been Wesley Wilson in a few places.

Places I can somewhat remember playing, but there's significantly more:

Magnes @ A Split Infinity

Arai @ Angelic Layer MUSH

Magnes/Wesley/Alister @ The Reach (Alister was a terrible character, I apologize)

Amadeus(A Lion)/??? @ Windy City

Amadeus/Jay/Nicholas/Eugene/Nim @ City of Hope.

Kon (Staff) @ A Bleach MUSH whose name I forgot (I left when it opened, fuck that noise)

Magnes/Amadeus @ Heroes Dreams Rebirth

Magnes @ A bunch of failed DBZ MUSHes

Magnes/Leonardo/Amadeus @ X-Men Movieverse

Magnes/Amadeus/Mortimer(Aka Warren)/Rasheed/Leroy/Frank @ String Theory

Wesley Wilson @ Scion: Monsters and Moshpits

Magnes @ Some Sailor Moon MU* whose name I can't remember. He could turn into a girl.

Magnes @ Cowboy Bebop MUD

A bunch of random names (Magnes and Apex a lot) @ A bunch of DBZ MUDs.

Magnes @ Lots of random MUDs in general

Someone I can't remember @ Towers of Jadri

Levian @ Shang

Azrael @ Star Crusade

Noh-Varr (The one who didn't quit the internet to become a monk) @ Comux, Universe Unlimited, HeroMUX

Magnes @ Edge of Midnight

Jason Todd/The Professor @ Endless City

Amadeus @ Four Color Comics

Magnes @ Galaxia

Magnes @ A fuckload of comic MU*s, really. Most were terrible so who cares.

K9999, brief newer Kyo Kusanagi, briefly Demitri Maximoff @ Match of the Millennium

Magnes @ Those Pokemon games run by Alynna

Alister @ Ruptured Assumptions

Nim @ Tenebrae (Briefly)

The Professor @ X-Men: Flame of Darkness (The only Time Lord, as far as I know)

Vegeta, Orphen, Jin Saotome, Thor, The Joker, Deadpool, Wesley Wilson, Bridge Carson, Steven Universe, Zero, Sasuke Uchiha, Hiei, Rock Lee, Monk Lee (There's more, but these were the most notable) + Sonic @ Multiverse Crisis MUSH

Elec Man (2007), Homura Atsuki, A bunch of random Robot Masters, Orochi Oshiro, Ben Kavinsky (Currently), Radical Riot (For like five seconds), Joko de Lagos (Currently), Hien (Currently) @ Mega Man MUSH

Samson J. Drake, Jin Saotome, some guy whose name I forgot @ Super Robot Taisen

Sonic @ World Tree

People might know me at varying degrees of maturity, since I entered the hobby at like 17 years old, and was in a bunch of non-MU* places before that since about 14. If you hate me, it's perfectly understandable, I'd hate me too when I was younger.

@TheBigD said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@egg said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Play a POC, it wouldn't kill you.

Yeah, no. This is a situation where no one wins. There are folks who will find this idea to be as insulting as wearing blackface. And others who would call it cultural appropriation.

Me, as a white guy? I'm choosing the safer option every time.

I've gotta say, this is not even on the same planet as cultural appropriation. Like, cultural appropriation is a pretty specific concept, namely the concept of taking an aspect of another culture without any real credit or respect for it, possibly also while in the process renaming it and being like "I literally invented this out of no where and never saw anyone else do it before".

I like to use the Macklemore vs. Eminem example. (Warning: Opinions)

Macklemore is cultural appropriation because he legit built his whole ass career on black culture and art and got accolades while pretty much giving nothing back and being completely unable to show any respect or acknowledgement without making it about himself.

Eminem, at least from my extremely subjective perspective, isn't cultural appropriation, because he's spent years respecting and giving back to the culture and art that he built his career on, he had to work very hard for it and pay all the normal dues for it than any black person would, and didn't take any shortcuts to get there. Now, I could criticize his rapping for a variety of reasons, but that's a whole other topic not really related to race relations.

Either way, anyone saying that playing a POC in an RP is cultural appropriation is completely objectively wrong. Though as the example above proved, someone can be a whole ass and it can definitely turn into something racist lol. To me this is just common sense though. That "everything is offensive and understanding how not to be insulting is hard" stuff people always say is nonsense. I know far more white people who understand basic respect and not being a whole ass than ones who don't, so I really don't think it's that complicated.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying play a POC if you aren't comfortable with it, but not doing it because you think people will find it inherently insulting and offensive and all this other stuff is really only a valid reason if you literally have no idea how not to insult another human being. If the reason is "I don't feel comfortable because I'm concerned about being disrespectful", that's one thing, but the way you worded it has a very inflammatory "the SJWs will absolutely fucking destroy me" vibe. I can't imagine someone complaining to you that "RPing as a black person is basically blackface" outside of like a random 13 year old on Twitter whose entire understanding of social issues is memes.

I finally have a copy of the first tabletop book I ever worked on. Here's a link to pics.

https://twitter.com/DuanSparkles/status/1265102675898699776

@surreality said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@HelloProject This is a good example re: the furor over clothing. Even the article is full of contradictory opinions, but the attacks if you look at the original link are probably not something most people of any description are likely to want to deal with, ever, to put it mildly.

(FWIW, that's almost identical to a dress I bought in Hong Kong, mine just doesn't have the band of black trim; it's why this sticks out in memory.)

As a fashion and costume and fashion history geek, every single thing about this depresses me. I don't expect you to explain or anything, it's 'if you hadn't seen this, this is an example of what I meant'.

Stuff like this is usually pretty easy to explain, since I see it all the time and have had this discussion a lot. To put it simply, Asian-Americans and people who live in Asian countries are living extremely different experiences. You can't expect someone who grew up in China who has only lived in China to have the same experience and opinion as a Chinese-American. Considering that in China you grow up literally in the dominant ethnic group, why would the concept of cultural appropriation or anything like that even be something that you think about?

"Americans got mad, but people in China didn't" is just not a good argument and displays an overwhelming amount of ignorance on the part of journalists. Like, I don't see American journalists looking to see what the opinions of people who live in Lagos are about African-American issues. It just makes literally zero sense to me and has always been my least favorite line of thinking.

Also I didn't actually read the clothing/costume posts 'cause I was still responding to other stuff, but now that I have, like, fashion stuff is extremely contextual. I know 100% for sure that Japanese people in Japan encourage people to learn about Japanese culture and wear/learn about kimonos and stuff. And I know that there's Japanese-Americans who have had their culture disrespected enough times that there's sensitivity and wariness on the topic, because they have very different lived experiences than someone who exclusively grew up in Japan has had.

At the end of the day, all you can do is either 1. decide you don't wanna deal with that and just kind of yeet out of it, or 2. avoid the actual mechanics of what appropriation is and hope for the best.

At the end of the day, on kimonos specifically, the way that people in Japan encourage people to engage with stuff like that would very much entirely avoid the concept of appropriation. Like, if you're literally learning about the culture, doing things in the appropriate way, and respecting what these things mean, it literally doesn't fit the definition of what appropriation is. Appropriation is like, a white person getting a fashionable mini-skirt made out of a kimono and doing a whole "Asian-themed" thing with no regard for anything to do with that culture beyond its iconography and aesthetic.

The kimono debate specifically is one I've seen a lot, as I'm in a lot of Japanese culture things where I hear people discuss this topic quite a bit. It's an extremely thin line with lots of grey areas, opinions, and experiences, and it's one of those things you're not gonna get 100% of people to agree due to the fact that it isn't a strictly black and white issue.

Do I believe that appropriation has a pretty specific definition and set of terms? Yes. However, there is a grey area of, like, people who have seen their culture get appropriated so many times that they aren't quick to trust that someone isn't doing that, and some who believe that they can't trust someone not to be engaging in appropriation at all. To me it's an understandable feeling to have, and I don't judge people for having that feeling. But it's not really a homogeneous feeling or opinion, it's one of those things where it comes down to your own judgement after you've weighed everything that people say and feel and such. You're gonna find people who are all perfectly intelligent and "woke" and everything else whose opinions greatly differ on this.

But if I were to give my personal opinion, I personally follow the terms of avoiding what cultural appropriation generally is. So far I haven't really run into any problems from doing this. At the end of the day, basic respect for what you're engaging with is often all people want, so I go out of my way to show that.

Also that nurse outfit thing is wild, I never thought of that before. I can definitely see why a "sexy nurse" outfit is offensive and belittling from the perspective of a nurse. It really does seem like one of those things that grinds at a culture's perspective. Like my friend was saying on Discord about the way that the Simpsons have painted people's perspective on nuclear power.

I play these games for friends, violence, romance, political intrigue, creative exploration of outrageous concepts and personal flaws, and the sex we made along the way.

@insomniac7809 said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@HelloProject I've mentioned this before on the site, but I know one black online RPG player who only plays white because of the time a white dude saw her PB and paged her about how glad he was that there was another "street" character for his kung-fu crack-smoking gangster lesbian to play with.

The PC was a lawyer.

I think that there have been certain people who have come into this thread for the last few weeks projecting, without any actual intention of contributing to the discussion, asking a genuine question, or learning anything. It's the same kind of stuff I hear and see people do all the time irl and on Facebook and stuff (back before I made Facebook less cancerous by having literally no locals or family members on it). At this point it's just ridiculously transparent when someone wants to vent and when they want to have a genuine discussion, and they get really mad when you don't want to take the poorly constructed bait and proceed to lash out.

I am not the type of person who is going to be pissed at a white person for asking me a dumb question if that question seems genuinely sincere to me. Hell I in fact once was in a racial discussion where i was like, "listen, you can all ask me whatever questions you want and there won't be any judgement about it, because I'd rather you learn than keep it to yourself". And someone sincerely asked me if it's actually true that black people love grape juice, and why is that if it is true.

If someone asked me that question unprompted (meaning, if I didn't open the door for asking me stupid race questions), or if they asked it to me with a certain attitude or obvious tone, I would pop off like "okay, what the fuck". But this person asked me this question sincerely. It was a dumb as shit question, but it was sincere and I could tell they weren't trying to be combative or just fling microaggressions and shit. So I answered it and used it as an opportunity to explain a larger topic that her question was rooted in.

Someone might feel compelled to go "okay but how do you know". But it's like, I've literally gone through most of the years of my life being exposed to white people being aggressive or defensive about racial shit that is entirely unnecessary to even be pissed or angry about, and it's almost always because they don't understand what they're talking about, and have no desire to, and choose to simply double down in being angry about it.

This shit practically follows a script, it always goes down in the same way, I'm always approached with the same kind of energy by this kind of person. It's super obvious to the point that it's like, why would I bother sincerely engaging with someone who doesn't want to be engaged with beyond simply wanting to vent their anger at me and suck every ounce of energy I have just so that they can feel good when I ultimately get pissed off and fed up with them? The intellectually insincere arguments, the concern trolling, whatever you wanna call it.

Some people are better at hiding it than others, but it's still always the same. I think people who don't deal with it often probably don't recognize it as quickly, maybe it's less obvious. But I think people in this thread have been pretty quick to point out when someone is just kind of being an asshole. Nearly every person in this thread who has addressed me in some way has done so respectfully, and asked me sincere questions, and I did so right back.

Like, every time someone comes at this thread with aggression, they always tackle the same basic topics with the same level of aggression or outrage or whatever, and act as if every person who isn't a POC or LGBTQ or whatever would be helpless against the SJW scum. But their arguments are completely invalidated by the fact that the vast majority of the people in this thread are white and aren't acting as if the world is on fire, so why are these few people choosing to come in here doing so as if everyone who isn't acting like a whole ass is the one who is insane?

I hardly think MSB is a community typically focused on social justice and wokeness, so if the majority of white people or straight people or whatever aren't having any problems having a sincere discussion in this thread, I really don't think there's any need for someone to come in here acting like the sky is falling. That's what The Quartering's YouTube comments section is for.

Hot take: Saying and implying extremely awful things is a lot worse than the person on the receiving end of the awful things saying a relatively minor insult in response.

Really the ultimate kink is the friends we made along the way.