One of my big peeves about games is how staff need players to explicitly break some super well-defined rule in order for something to count as harassment or a big problem. Putting people's emotional well-being behind bureaocratic red tape is something I see as a problem
I've been working on some huge official tabletop projects that I'm not allowed to talk about yet for a few companies (NDAs), but multiple of them involve basically structuring a very POC centric setting and writing things in a way that makes them easier for people who aren't POCs to digest. Like, a part of it is teaching people things to be mindful of or to consider, and presenting a POC-centric setting in a way that fully explains the setting to people who didn't grow up in them, and how people who live there think about them rather than how outsiders do.
There's quite a few ways to approach teaching people how to possibly play that kind of character! Explaining the environment that people grew up in is a great way to do that, in my opinion. It's giving people an organic way to get into the mindset of that character. This is why I recommended all of those movies and shows and such. It's just kind of a natural way to possibly digest these things without overwhelming yourself in super serious research.
There's a particular book I worked on that I really want to talk to people about when it comes out, as I think it'll be very useful to anyone thinking about playing an American POC.
@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@HelloProject
It was this A+ winner of a post.https://musoapbox.net/topic/3249/diversity-representation-in-mu-ing/242?_=1591921257071
Which I umm am not basing any of my life decisions on.
Edited why are things hard to link
It's at the bottom of the page.
As it didn't lead me to a specific post, I'll address two posts I see in that link.
This is the dumbest thread I've seen in a while. Let me state a couple relevant points.
You can play whatever ethnicity or gender you desire. There is zero pushback against this. No game currently open today (bar a few old MUDs and MOOs) still have racism and bigotry baked in to any real degree. And the people who are openly racist/bigots actually get tossed out. Unlike real life.
Playing a PoC to learn empathy? Bitch please. The shit that folks who aren't white have to deal with on a daily basis -don't exist on a MU*-! Period. It is a sanitized experience. It's downright offensive to consider playing a PoC as 'walking in their shoes' or 'learning empathy'.
I don't disagree with this at all. Like, yeah I believe that playing a POC with a certain intent, if it's gonna force you to research and educate yourself about certain things, can give you a better perspective, I really don't think that playing a POC in of itself will magically teach you what it's like to be a POC. And I think that's the point of this post. They're not saying playing a POC is bad, just that it isn't an equivalent experience to being a POC.
@Ominous said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@egg said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
Play a POC, it wouldn't kill you.
Yeaaaaaaaah, no.
It feels a bit too much like this:
While it might not kill me, it might offend a person of color, so I'm going to politely say no. I don't judge people who do it at all, but I personally do not trust myself to do the character appropriate justice.
As far as this post, this person literally said they aren't a POC and quite honestly equating playing a POC to blackface is like, what??? Unless you're planning to do some horrific accent and use it as an excuse to drop the N word everywhere, or any number of super obvious things that anyone with common sense wouldn't do, then I don't see the issue. I have literally never met a single other black RPer who has said something like this. And I play in at least two MUSHes currently with multiple black players from a variety of backgrounds, and white people who are playing POCs.
Like, I can't take responsibility for a white person being way off base. I understand the sentiment but this is just straight up not a thing that should be taken seriously.
I think @Pandora brings up something that this thread is definitely capable of discussing.
The fact that the vast majority of lesbian characters in MUSHes are literally the same ultra horny sexpest character. Not that I have room to talk about sexpests, but I feel like I so rarely see lesbian characters who aren't obviously a dude RPing a fetish. If this was black characters they'd all be sitting around eating watermelon and nailing all the white women (I know it seems like I'm throwing stones from a glass house, but I definitely do things in MUSHes other than nail all the white women on most days).
I certainly know men who can play lesbians well, but if I play Devil's Advocate against my own argument for a moment.
I would say that if anything it probably is an ironically poor assumption on my part to say that a woman can't just be bad at RPing in general and thus come off like a guy playing a horny Shang lesbian.
So I do apologize, since gendered assumptions even in a "I'm assuming women can't fuck up in this way" way are still gendered assumptions one way or the other.
Definitely 100% I think it's good not to assume what people are. I guess I just felt like "well of course this person is (x) if they're playing like this". But I guess I just never really challenged that assumption with any alternatives.
For virtually my entire internet existence, if I don't say anything to the contrary, people will 100% assume and I and everyone else on the internet is white. It's a part of what explicitly keeps me from trying to explore certain things as a black character that ironically white people might find problematic if they don't contextually understand what I'm trying to do.
Something like this might be like the movie Attack the Block, where John Boyega and his friends are delinquents from the projects starting trouble and such. But the point of the movie is to subvert that they're ultimately kids who are the product of their environment, and when presented with the opportunity to do good and be more than that, they will.
Obviously it might be a simplistic interpretation on my part, but I think a narrative like that is hard to do in a MUSH in the sense that it requires you to dive somewhat into problematic trope in order to build to the positive aspect, and OOCly it just feels like there's always that hump of, like, this is a white environment where I have to be very careful about going too deep lore black or they'll think I'm being problematic, am secretly a white person, or any other number of things that keep me from fully expressing myself.
Of course it could all be all in my head, but people definitely 100% assume that everyone else is white usually. So these just feel like things I have to take into consideration. And I can't always depend on the idea that people will understand or even believe my intent, which I think is something that every MUSHer has experience with.
On the topic of both sex and diversity, I've had multiple people over the years get disappointed that my black character wasn't a rough thug type and express how unsexy that is lmao.
@Derp said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
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.
I don't ban asian characters, or restrict them (save in like, a rare few fantasy settings where they literally are on another continent and I'm planning a First Contact type situation later).
What I will ban the fuck out of is your anime samurai ninja master dragon lady concept that just so happens to be east asian because that shit usually goes well outside the theme of what I want to run.
Few people seem to be able to differentiate between the two, however. I didn't restrict your asian character, I restricted your weird-ass concept that happens to have asian stereotype culture tags just slapped on it.
#SorryNotSorry
Also, not you you as in @HelloProject, the general, nebulous you that refers to no one in particular.
A shitty concept is a shitty concept, ultimately. Granted, I frequently love to do concepts that are basically person from fantasy African country, either futuristically or feudally, because I like exploring fantasy in a way that I don't normally see explored or get to explore.
Buuuut I can imagine that what you're saying is a bit different from what I sometimes like to do, as I have 100% seen people app Asian characters in modern day New York who have dyed hair and carry a katana around everywhere with them, like pretty much every American pop culture thing that has an Asian. But yeah, I do think it is important to remember that there is a fine line that can be very contextual.
Like, for example, I just started watching Star Trek: TNG from the beginning. I've seen scattered episodes for literally my entire life, but I'm trying to properly watch it chronologically now. But there is one episode that, while I won't necessarily call it problematic, as it definitely tries to be clear that the culture itself is not inherently bad, it's just this one guy that's shitty, it does walk on a very thin line where I'm like "I don't know, it's at least a little shitty".
It felt a bit like a barbarians in space stereotype on a planet that happens to almost entirely be black people, even though the narrative tries to go out of its way to explain that they are of equal civilization level to the Federation. Like, the effort was there, and it was the early 90s so I'm not gonna be like "omg TNG is cancelled for not being perfect", but I don't think I'd necessarily be happy with that guy as a MUSH concept. African space king whose culture seems coded as technologically advanced but socially backwards... yikes.
Meanwhile, compare it to the recent Black Panther movie, and Wakanda. Pretty much the same basic setup except without all the icky yikes feelings and weird cultural implications. It's like, it's fantasy black people that lean into African cultural things, and doesn't make it seem like they're a backwards "other" compared to the white Americans. Lmao in fact the one time their being socially advanced is called into question is by the African-American villain who was abandoned by them, and he made actually good points even though he was pretty fucking deranged in how he went about making those points. Kilmonger was unquestionably a villain, but his existence didn't paint either Wakandans or African-Americans are inherently bad or backwards society, they all kind of had good points for their various perspectives.
But yeah, I'm not trying to debate or anything, mostly just throwing out there that sometimes people are genuinely trying to explore their own cultural shit in a fantastical way. But sometimes they're doing something super shitty, which is sometimes apparent right from the app itself. But sometimes you just gotta let somebody sink or swim if it isn't 100% clear.
Edit: Some may not realize that I am basically a hardcore weeb whose MSB name is literally a Japanese idol company. I just wanted to say that for full disclosure, as I never want people to miss a chance to see any irony.
Hello! Updates.
I'm trying to find a therapist. Everyone ever is under the impression that I'm on the "spectrum", I don't know about all that, but at the very least I'm pretty damned sure I have ADHD and other weird brain shit going on, so I wanna get help managing these things.
I'm trying to do code stuff again, doing the Harvard CS50 course thing. Hopefully I don't just, y'know, stop.
I worked retail for 4 months.
Predictably had a nervous breakdown and quit.
Never again.
I'm in a weird relationship with a GIRL. Like, a real girl. There is a girl who exists and I kiss this girl.
Incidentally, she does what everyone here always wished they could do. I start talking a lot and spamming irl and then she just covers my mouth and goes "Shhhhh, just, give me like five minutes, please, stop talking".
My music is going well, I think, maybe. I still have a long way to go, my music skill isn't where I want it to be yet.
ζ₯ζ¬θͺγ―εεΌ·γγΎγγε€εγ
So yeah I'm still studying Japanese.
Anyway, I just wanted to give you an annual "I'm not dead yet" update.
I'm on Mega Man MUSH if anyone wants to RP with me. Thinking of maybe joining Fallcoast to scratch this vampire itch.
Here's some black people music.
Even if you ignore the dreadlocks aspect, I've seen people go far beyond that and claim all kinds of very obviously African hairstyles and be like "no actually the vikings...".
Like, I find it weird that somehow the vikings invented literally every single African hairstyle in existence, even the ones that make literally no sense for a white person to even have, since most of these styles exist in the very specific way that they do to protect whatever type of African hair is most common in the region where that style is from.
Why in the world would medieval vikings invent insanely time consuming and impractical protective hairstyles (that do more damage to their hair than anything else) for their allegedly long flowing straight hair that takes extra effort to even make this kind of hairstyle stay in place for them???
And given just how many hairstyles I've seen claimed under the banner of "vikings", it's super wild that somehow the vikings invented a whole lot of very specific shit apparently in parallel with every African nation and tribe under the sun, except one has incredibly well-documented and researched explanations for every single individual hairstyle existing, and the other has airbrushed art on the side of a dude's van to document that the vikings did indeed do all of this.
Hi remember how annoying I used to be?
It turns out I have severe ADHD.
I mean I also might be on the spectrum I still have to get tested for that.
I do think that beyond "let's burn this all down", there's at least some discussion to be had on the topic in general. Hell I never would have even questioned my basic assumption up there if we weren't talking about this. I think things like this need to be discussed, and discussion isn't necessarily the same as a witch hunt.
In Discord we were discussing "problematic" representation by a person in the minority doing the representing. Like, how with trans stuff for example, there's kind of this policing of how other trans people can write about themselves in fiction and such. I personally think that you should be able to write about your own understanding of your experience however you want, but I think that there are enough bad actors as far as just dudes who are doing fetishy lesbian stuff that there are people who will side-eye if they don't know you.
Like, I think that's just a natural reaction. If I see someone playing an over the top black thug character, tossing around the N word and binging buckets of KFC and being the biggest caricature, I'm gonna very deeply question if this is even remotely an actual black person, and I think there are people who will be uncomfortable with it.
So yeah, it's a fine and complex line. What if this person is an actual black person, what then?
I don't have a clear cut answer for you (beyond not throwing around the N word, which I said pages ago), but I believe that it's important to realize that these discussions are nuanced and it's important to accept and embrace the concept of nuance. Some discussions are just that, a discussion. They don't always have an easy solution or answer, and discussing them is how you get a better understanding of how to navigate these difficult situations.
@Roz I walked into my roommate's room and told him about a dream I had about a story he told me last night, and he said "that wasn't a dream".
Time to quit Four Loko.
/review
@surreality said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
Yeah, like... don't tell people that story on Shang. You'd get requests.
I had -- note the past tense here -- a long-standing habit of having characters sarcastically spitball some absurd bullshit in an entry pose, like... walking in while finishing an argument on a phone, or grousing to an assistant about how they were at their wits end because they're trying to find/do some patently ridiculous thing.
On Shang, I had to stop doing that.
Because, in the prep for a party/festival thing, I posed in complaining to the person helping me about 'how the character had to insist we were not going to literally spit and roast someone to eat alive at the party' to another coworker.
At which point someone in the public space I entered started to ask if I would please please please please please do this to them and wouldn't leave me alone for two weeks begging me to do it every few hours, despite me telling them NO repeatedly.
...so, uh, yeah. Cautionary tale, y'all.
This is why I no longer play characters who eat people.
Thanks for all the advice. This shit really fucked my head today and I had to tell as many people as I felt comfortable telling.
@GreenFlashlight said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
And someone sincerely asked me if it's actually true that black people love grape juice, and why is that if it is true.
Wait, is that actually a stereotype? God, I've lived a sheltered life.
It's a fairly common one, been around for a long time. What got lost to time is that the stereotype is actually grape "drink", or Kool-Aid. But the actual reason for the stereotype is that these things tend to be incredibly cheap to get, significantly cheaper than getting something like Welch's or some juice that isn't just literally sugar water. And, for this reason, a lot of underprivileged people grow up culturally drinking stuff like that. It's not because genetically they just love that stuff, it's because it was the option if you wanted something other than water.
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.
Is he the one who said the human species would die out because the new She-Ra was teaching women the extremely wrong idea that it's okay to not focus their beings on looking sexy to men?
Yup.
But he doesn't get to enjoy She-Ra, so really it's his own self-imposed hell that he can stay in.
@Ganymede said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
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?
Isn't the real question: why are you engaging with the person who seems insane to you?
Exactly. If you're already fully formed, cup overflowing, and know everything, then what do you want other than to vent? I don't even mind if someone is legitimately like "I don't understand why this is an issue", I in fact think that's happened in this very thread. But if everyone else is 100% wrong and insane then okay why are you here.
My official black person statement re: diversity in comics, is basically this entire Cracked article:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/one-quote-that-explains-why-comics-suck-at-diversity/
Non-white characters are "theme breaking" is always hilarious because it literally outs either people's elementary school understanding of history, or they're playing a theme that very specifically went out of its way to say all the characters are white "for some reason".
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.
I have massive genitals and have never touched a naked human being.
Let's do this.
@Pandora said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@Rinel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
@Pandora said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:
Non-binary, genderqueer, genderflexible, trans, agender people exist, and some have male socialization, and some play lesbians without a lot of regard for female socialization differences, and that's not been great for lesbian representation on games and it's hardly hating or fearing trans people to say so.
See it would have legitimately been better to just lead with this instead of dancing around the point, because then I could have just said "you mean it's not great for cis lesbian representation since trans lesbians exist."
Because, yeah, the experiences of trans lesbians are often really different from the experiences of cis ones.
I didn't dance around any points, I said what I said and you chose the most uncharitable interpretation possible and that's just a day ending in Y on the internet.
@GreenFlashlight That was tackling the pretty uncontentious part of what I'd said, I left 'male socialization' out because I wanted to talk about lesbian representation being diluted by men for years & that being something we've talked about forever, versus the newer mainstream coming to terms with people socialized as male who no longer identify (or never identified) as men.
Spellcheck is telling me 'uncontentious' is not a word and it's stressing me out.
In modern terms, "male socialization" has become a pretty strong TERF dogwhistle. With the way that you responded to Rinel with being dodgy in your responses, on top of the use of that term, it was kind of hard to come to any other conclusion.
Like, if you didn't understand this and it was a genuine misunderstanding, I'm explaining it now so that you understand how people might take that. Unfortunately language and other things tend to shift in a certain way once very shitty people co-opts and weaponizes it against other people. And the way that you wrote things, and how you responded after, it seemed like a pretty contextually sound conclusion that you had some TERFy intent, especially since they tend to be squirrelly about what they're actually trying to say.
See: Literally everything JK Rowling said for like the whole of last month.
Edit: This post is not me calling you a TERF in this moment, I'm only trying to explain how other people saw things (Including me).
