Posts made by SparklesTheClown

@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.

@Ominous said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

What about cereal juice that's been distilled and stored in a barrel for a while?

Ew are you talking about kombucha?

This thread was never going to be 100% perfectly civil forever. I bet anything that there's people right now fucking stewing who haven't even posted yet, and someone just hasn't said the right trigger of things to make them actually post and pop off with some crazy bullshit.

But I think that stuff like this has served a purpose, because now in this very thread I can go "see that is what shitty behavior is, you can probably stop worrying if you aren't going to do that".

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.

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)

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.

Incidentally, trans women are indeed women.

And also.

I was doing my hair, forgot I was doing my hair, and lost a full hour of progress.

I think he was referencing what I was saying about my presumption of men playing lesbian characters like two weeks ago, which I pretty clearly stated I was wrong about when people called me out on it, so I have no idea why it was presented as some firm stance I currently have when I pretty much entirely abandoned it when confronted with alternative perspectives on my previous opinion.

@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.

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.

@bored said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

I have no issue talking to anyone who wants to have a genuine discussion or who raises genuine concerns. I however have pretty much no real patience for what I can only describe as venting at people with no actual aim or goal and implications that "no, it is in fact everyone else who is wrong and being uncivil".

I didn't call anyone uncvil. It's actually bizarre to me that you've jumped to that conclusion and I thought I was trying to de-escalate with the "if you meant this other thing, OK." If you replied "yes I meant that other thing, you misunderstood me" we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Like, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of us are over 30, and we're in a goddamned writing medium. You can't say "i'm not pissed" while making frothingly pissed off posts lashing out at people and showing literally zero desire to actually engage with what they're saying beyond your ability to vent at them on your own terms.

I'd ask what you think is actually 'frothing' but I think its pretty pointless. People here have seen me froth, though. If this is me rabid with hatred, I am seriously off my fucking game.

Like dude, this isn't Facebook,

Is it twitter? I'm confused.

That's the last thing I have to say on it. If you can't chill and be an adult I'm just gonna block you and be done with it.

Bye.

Okay cool, blocked. Glad we could clear up that this is a permanent behavior thing.

I have no issue talking to anyone who wants to have a genuine discussion or who raises genuine concerns. I however have pretty much no real patience for what I can only describe as venting at people with no actual aim or goal and implications that "no, it is in fact everyone else who is wrong and being uncivil".

Like, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of us are over 30, and we're in a goddamned writing medium. You can't say "i'm not pissed" while making frothingly pissed off posts lashing out at people and showing literally zero desire to actually engage with what they're saying beyond your ability to vent at them on your own terms.

I legit could care less about this "oh, I'm actually being quite civil, the fact that I'm popping off at people is just your opinion. As you can see, by my using this clearly civil tone, it negates the fact that I'm approaching people with literally the least respect possible".

Like dude, this isn't Facebook, you can't say you're being civil while very obviously not even being remotely civil. We're all here, we can all read, you can't handwave shit. You're either being civil or you aren't, and you aren't, you can't speak it into existence. So I have no desire to engage with this childish nonsense. Anyone who has approached me like an adult human being in this thread has gotten the same in return. I'm not entertaining this "oh yeah I'm gonna be a disrespectful asshole and if you don't like it then fuck you" nonsense.

Like if you're gonna be a whole ass then be a whole ass, but at least own it and stop trying to act like you popping off is something I or anyone else needs to sit here and respect as if you're just sitting there calmly and respectfully expressing your point of view, when literally goddamned everyone can see that you aren't.

That's the last thing I have to say on it. If you can't chill and be an adult I'm just gonna block you and be done with it. There's too many people in this hobby who are like fucking 40 and still acting like we're in high school. I used to pop off and be a piece of shit on WORA because I was an immature 25 year old with a bunch of goddamned psychological issues. So when people who are usually freaking twice my age come at me as literally anything less than an adult, I'm not going to sit here and entertain them as if the behavior is normal.

So, as far as @bored goes, either chill and act your age, or don't expect to be addressed anymore. I'm not gonna sit here and be civil with someone who can't do anyone else the same courtesy. And if you're gonna pull that "ohoho ad hominem I win" shit on me, tough titties I could care less. If you come at me with a certain kind of energy and don't have the self-awareness to understand the social consequences of your own actions, I quite honestly don't know what to say to you.

I'm not gonna sit here and teach an adult who is probably twice my age proper social conduct because they felt the need to rush to the aid of some dude making strawman arguments and got mad about it for reasons far beyond my capacity to understand.

Anyway I'm gonna yeet myself out of this discussion for a few hours. I'll be back later when presumably graves have been dug deep enough for me not to care anymore.

@Tinuviel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@HorrorHound said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Man, look at you guys having civil conversations. What happened to this place? Did they legalize weed around the world or something?

You were saying?

Fucking jinx of the century.

@bored I mean if by weasel clause you mean literally what I said. If you refuse to actually read what I said then I can't help you.

And right now the discourse mostly seems to be that you're pissed off and pretty much wholeheartedly ignoring any actual arguments that people are making and just kind of popping off.

Like what am I supposed to do with that?

You're saying all of this in direct response to me pointing out that maybe this other dude should stop making strawman arguments. And Cirno has pretty much always been a psychotic asshole, pretty much every racial argument he's ever made about a game, everyone has immediately pointed out as bullshit if they were on the same game as him.

Like, I really don't get what you want here. What you're saying isn't even making any sense. If I say something and you go "well what you said in this case actually didn't count because ???" or whatever you're doing with that, then i can only presume that anything else I'll say will also be "I'm only going to focus on this very specific part of what you're saying that has already been addressed or is already clear by the literal context of the same post".

You're pretty much taking what I'm saying, putting it in a different context, and pretty much wholeheartedly ignoring the entire discussion happening, and then arguing with that. That and the fact that you're clearly pissed off for what I can only presume is literally no reason, so like, I'm just kind of not going to respond until you chill?

@bored I could have sworn that:

1 I specifically said I was talking about people making bad faith arguments, none of which are among the people you mentioned.

And

2 Pretty sure I made multiple posts literally saying I was wrong for the sexuality stuff when people called me out on it.

Anything else?

edit: And also I made multiple rather massive posts very much advocating for people to follow whatever they're comfortable with. Which has literally zero to do with what BigD is saying or even the central problem with the extremely obvious strawman arguments he keeps making.

EDIT AGAIN: By which I mean, "I'm not comfortable with this" is a very different argument from "I'm not comfortable with this because the world is on fire and the SJWs are out to get me". One of these I'm like "okay", the other I'm going to challenge.

@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.

I missed someone making a strawman argument at me fuck.

Anyone I'm drunk 'cause of some girl shattering my entire soul, so here'a picture of Chris Jericho champaign that he isn't legally allowed to call champaign.

Now as far as diversity goes, like, okay so first of well you gotta chill.

Second, don't RP with strawmen and you'll be good to go.

The Reach and a few WoD games used to do XP incentive things. But ultimately I think that on the topic of basically real world ethnicities and stuff (even if the names are changed), I'm not sure that I would want it to be done that way. Like, if you want to play it you should play it, but it just seems weird to me to have people playing certain races just because there's mechanical incentive.

In addition to that, I'm perfectly fine with the fact that they chose to do a euro-centric theme, because I've seen what happens, even on the professional level, when even well-meaning people try to do a feudal Asian theme or feudal African theme or whatever else in that way, and there's like a million unfortunate implications or just absolutely yikes oversight happening.

Which isn't to say that white people shouldn't do those things or attempt those things, it's more to say that if you're gonna do it you should do it because you want to do it, and I believe the desire to do it should come with some desire to do it correctly. Which, again, I'm not saying no one here or Arx's staff wouldn't have that in mind, I'm more saying that I've encountered, both in hobby and in professional tabletop writing, a grossly high amount of people who enjoy the aesthetics and surface level aspects of cultural things, and just dive headfirst into it.

Like, you don't even have to be like "hurrhurrhurr historical accuracy, rabblerabblerabble!!!". To me, Black Panther's Wakanda is a perfectly great example of a fictional African fantasy society that goes a bit deeper than surface level "who are these mysterious brown people that do cannibalism and worship golden idols and evil gods!!!"

Incidentally, Mwangi in the original version of Pathfinder is absolutely goddamned atrocious and reading it absolutely disgusts the shit out of me. Modern Mwangi in the current Pathfinder is great though, definitely a massive improvement, but original Mwangi is the perfect example of just completely fucking up and diving into some old timey ass racism and othering of an entire fictional society set in fantasy Africa. The entire original setting is literally written from the perspective of colonizers exploring and learning about the "savages" lmao.

@Ominous said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@HelloProject

Ominous glomps you.

This evil must be destroyed.