Homophobia and Hate within Roleplay

[VIROS 1699]

1 hour ago, DISCOLIQUID said:

I’ll keep it simple, homophobia RP is honestly the best RP on LotC and we should not let just any old joe be a homophobe.

 

Only the cut and above players who have the 200 IQ necessary to completely rip homophobia on brand right out of IRL Catholicism, but also go out of their way to write pages on pages of homophobic content that’s virtually indistinguishable from IRL hate speech should be allowed to RP the god-sent immersion fulfilling necessity that is the decade long rich history of anti-gay LotC RP.

 

We should bring Villain Applications back and make those who want to better our server with their high quality twink-bashing rhetoric apply publicly for their genius level role-playing talent. This is because we simply don’t want just anyone to stumble into our server and think anyone can post entire manifestos of anti-xxxxxxxx content. 

 

No, truly the homophobic RPers are the last bastion of immersive content creators on this God-forsaken furry lib-left cesspool of identity obsessed narcissists who can’t seem to understand that this isn’t the real world so that’s why I have to treat them the way I think the real world does to them, just like I should in a fake world about fake lives. Otherwise, what might we think, that I was a f*cking bleeding heart moron unwilling to literally mimic the top-tier roleplay strategy of acting like a n*zi? Gosh, couldn’t be me!

 

Please gents, don’t ever stop bashing those gays (but in a fake way that reminds me of the real way but it’s fake because we say it’s fake)!

 

And remember, if you’ve ever ever ever taken RolePlay too seriously that someone beating you to death in the game for being gay somehow reminds you of real hate crimes against gay people, then you should probably just log off. You clearly don’t have the stomach for the dedicated & grueling work that is immersing each and every one of LotC’s players in a political climate virtually indistinguishable from a mid-tier reddit board. 

 

Godspeed fellow haters! Let’s see those VA’s return so we can do the right work of homophobia roleplay today with the polish and sheen such a smart form of make-believe deserves!

 

 

 

It’s really not that deep. I’ve had people be homophobic to me in real life, I’ve seen people be homophobic in roleplay, and I’ve seen people be homophobic in roleplay in a way that is obviously motivated by real life homophobia. I have had people be homophobic to me OOCly on Discord, and I’ve seen IC forum posts that were clearly just veilled OOC homophobia. I reported the people in both cases, and action was taken.

 

Prejudice is a real thing, and there are plenty of good stories where it is depicted. LoTC has both tolerant and intolerant countries in which to roleplay. If you want to play a closeted person struggling with their sexuality in an intolerant country, you live in Oren or Haense or Haelun’or, depending on what you prefer. If you want to play a person who is gay in a country where it is legal but still unpopular, you go to to Norland. If you want to play a person who is gay in a place where that’s perfectly legal and acceptable, you go to Sutica. If none of those are satisfactory, you band with like-minded people and create a new settlement, just like with any other story preference. 

 

From what I can see, Oren at least is enjoying the roleplay of incremental social progression: women and racial minorities are acquiring new rights and becoming more important in their society, and it is fun to see the development. I am gay and I’m enjoying the roleplay surrounding MissToni’s attempts to integrate homosexuality into Canonism; I counselled her OOCly on scriptural ways to support it, and the clergy have spoken both ICly and OOCly about if such reforms are advisable, and how they are religiously possible. None of that roleplay would have been possible if IC prejudice was against the rules in all cases. Honestly, as a real life atheist, I think it would be difficult to roleplay any kind of conservative society or religion if roleplay was never allowed to resemble OOC bigotry.

 

I think the difference between larping Nazism and roleplaying prejudice is pretty obvious, and I also think it’s inconsiderate to imply that anyone who wants their story to involve prejudice is actually just trying to express their secret bigotry. There are people on this server who roleplay suicide, and there are people on this server who have had real-life suicide attempts. There are people who roleplay sexism and some of those people are women who have experienced sexism in real life. All subjects can be triggering to people in certain contexts. You have to draw the line somewhere, obviously: I don’t think we need to be roleplaying death camps. And no one is obliged to participate in roleplay that they don’t want to. As above, there are options for settlements with all kinds of different cultures surrounding gender, race, and sexual orientation, and you can always go into OOC and say “I’m not comfortable with this, I’d like to void it and just SS out.” But just outright banning any roleplay that resembles real-life intolerance is bad practice and bad writing IMO.

 

 

[FlemishSupremacy 2291]

I do believe Jentos has a point here. A lot of players do project their own homophobia onto their characters. 
This does not mean there can’t be any homophobia in rp. I would consider it perfectly valid if Elven nations tried to ban homosexual relations to try and maintain their low birthrates as best as possible. This would make sense.

On the other hand, I have lately seen a lot of responses to the posts discussing Homophobia ICly, that can all be summarized as “die, degenerate homosexual”.  That’s just plain stupid. 

Does your comment add anything to the roleplay of such a post? Then you may want to rethink posting the comment.

[BDanecker 164]

Can we get back to the roots of burning homosexuals at the stake because of the church? That’s a much simpler time tbh.

 

Joking aside I’ve seen many flamboyantly homosexual characters on this server and the fact that they’re not burned on a constant basis gives me the impression people are too scared to RP for fear of people OOC’ly attacking them, with things like “Bro LotC is my safe space” and “lol just don’t rp with gays lmao it’s a big enough server they’re not bothering you.” Which is sad that people can’t RP their characters properly because of someone on the other end feeling personally attacked. 

[Unwillingly 1985]

2 hours ago, DISCOLIQUID said:

someone beating you to death in the game for being gay

who was the player who did this 

[Auriel_ 644]

“It’s been something we’ve done for a long time with little to no actual basis and it’s a simple medieval-inspired standard we’ve chosen to abide by” isn’t so much a typical response as it would be an honest and unapologetic response to a topic such as this.

[Whiplash 397]

1 minute ago, Auriel_ said:

“It’s been something we’ve done for a long time with little to no actual basis and it’s a simple medieval-inspired standard we’ve chosen to abide by” isn’t so much a typical response as it would be an honest and unapologetic response to a topic such as this.

i’m aurielphobic
respond to me and ur a snowflake

[Scuba 162]

all ***** opinions are invalid 

[Chryasor 256]

It’s something that’s been touched upon in a few responses, but I do think some people are taking the separation of RP and OOC a bit too far. 
Now, this is not to say there shouldn’t be a barrier there – i have personally advocated for people to keep them separate for a long while to avoid conflict. But we need to accept that there will always be some level of connection there. Your character will always have some part of you in it, no matter how wildly different they are.

 

And in topics such as this, where its an actual IRL issue, we do need to be rather difficult in how it is handled. I think the recent forum posts have been a pretty good example, an irp discussion with in rp basis and arguments, and little outside conflicts. 
Many of the comments on them have not been, especially some that essentially just go “oh ew disgusting burn foul gay!” without any nuance of RP, thankfully they’re rare.
But we do need to keep it in mind nontheless. It’s a sensitive issue, identity politics (yes the feared two words) in general are, because they’re about someones identity. That’s why I don’t really think we can say “well it’s just RP” because a fair bit of the time, it can be motivated by ooc beliefs, if exaggerated in rp.

 

This is not to say “Ban homophobic RP” no it has a good basis. It’s in human history, for elves it’s because their race might damned well go extinct if there’s too many homosexual people, and it is a topic that can be handled well and discussed in a way that can help people. Because it’s not really them, it’s a character. So there’s a barrier there when discussing these things in RP. 

We just need to be careful with what we say, how we say it, and why we say it. It’s one thing when my twink elf gets questioned for his choices by a canonist, perhaps denounced or threatened. Another when you just screech about killing the gays in rp as a “joke” or harass a homosexual character for it repeatedly.

Another even worse step is when it’s brought to some level oocly, which at least in my relatively limited experience from sitting in groupchats the past four years, that’s not common but not unheard of.

 

In short, to sum up my thoughts : It’s a conflict that’s well-established in multiple playerbases, it’s an interesting topic in RP because of LOTC’s lore, and it should be allowed and separate from OOC. But we need to be careful with it so that it doesn’t spill into OOC, or so that it’s not just parroting OOC homophobic talking points but through the mask of an elf/dwarf/human/orc. It’s not as simple as “Just play your character oh my god keep it separate” because it’s about people’s identity, and an ongoing OOC conflict in the real world about whether or not they’re allowed to be who they were born to be.
But it’s still an RP conflict and as long as it stays an RP conflict in the community, that’s a good thing and should be encouraged, because it can lead to genuinely good RP, as we have seen with the recent forum posts, “public letters to the pontiff”.


 

also entirely unrelated but wtf

On 10/22/2020 at 10:51 PM, ABruhhMoment said:

You can ask if homophobia belongs, but at the same standard does homosexuality belong? The point being, you can’t ask someone to not RP being homophobic without also allowing them to ask not RPing being gay. 

“Yeah man just don’t be gay, they won’t be homophobes” that’s not at all how that works, one is someone’s genuine and legitimate identity, the other is a bad-faith opinion. **** argument, not everything is equally balanced on both sides of the debate

[Vangroth 18]

Keep the hate purely IC and it shouldn’t be an issue. But when it goes past it, that’s a problem. Racism especialy is kind of a big thing to any universe that has so many races. I doubt that most humans born in human society are going to look at cat-people, ten foot tall idiotic ologs and unaging pointy eared tree folk as someone that’s equal to them.

[Maharana 98]

But... It's roleplay. I'm a bisexual in real life but my characters were and are all benighted and bigots.Don't bring irp to ooc. This is nonsense

Edited October 24, 2020 by Cakerawala

[InkGolem3k 58]

You are not your character. Repeat that over and over until it sticks. If your character has homophobic tendencies because of what they were taught in roleplay this does not make you homophobic. There are many people I’ve seen on the server who are part of the LGBT spectrum on lotc who play characters who aren’t tolerant of homosexuality. Just for the love of god be tasteful with your roleplay if you’re doing it. Don’t just run around screaming slurs about gay people. If you can manage that then you’re not creating an environment of hate.

 

 

[Noobli 423]

I think the only real problem is when a character may be homophobic, racist, or what have you but the player refuses that the character has flaws. Norli, my main character, is exceptionally bigoted. He wrote into the very canon of a religion the inferiority of other races, their imperfection in design. He is imperfect, however, and I recognize that. So long as everyone recognizes their characters are flawed, I think it’s fine.

Now the other side of this coin, people complaining about homophobia in RP and asking if it’s justified: People’s character are just that, and remember it. They’re not meant to be perfect, and we are MEANT to instill flaws in our characters not just so they are more interesting but purposely instilling flaws to their design that we easily recognize that they are CHARACTERS, not extensions of our desires solely of a player. If that is impossible for someone to grasp, maybe they should google what Roleplay is.

My most fun characters and the ones where I know I am not falling into the trap of combining OOC and RP are those with the most outlandish flaws, those with the most outlandish moral deficiencies. I implore anyone who may feel that morally flawed characters should be disallowed should try playing someone who is flagrantly bigoted and with no ambitions, only there to cause RP, you’ll realize that surprisingly it’s a very pure form of Roleplay as it’s quite impossible to want to be defensive over them.

[JustMeMorgan 699]

8 hours ago, howard said:

if you’re going to play a homophobic/racist/bigoted character, you should:

1. make it obvious that you’re trying to portray a character that fits into the setting 
2. go out of your way not to target players who are trying to role-play peacefully,
3. take no for an answer from people who do not want to roleplay with your homophobic character

 

8 hours ago, howard said:

people might start to get a little uncomfortable. it’s your community duty not to tell them to “accept conflict roleplay” and “prepare for homophobia” and instead approach with a sense of understanding, accepting that they might be a little uncomfortable with your depictions of people like them being killed, tortured, et cetera. I personally would not write thousand-word screeds about how you should be allowed to be a fantasy homophobe. It’s just bad optics, whatever it is you believe.

 

I do love how some comments from players are talking about how ‘oh if you can’t handle a bit of homophobia rp then this server is not for you’

Homophobia rp ranges between ‘ew a homosex’ to ‘******* kill the gays’ so I think people need to understand that some people of an LGBTQ+ disposition (e.g. transgender individuals) may feel uncomfortable when they play a trans person and are having their hands and feet torn off as well as being branded when hate crimes against transgender people are incredibly high in the real world.

 

LotC is not a safe space, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t allow players to make it their safe space.

If someone doesn’t wish to rp something they are not comfortable with, as long as they’re not the provokers of the situation then typically there should be no reason to just move on with our lives and avoid the situation.

Edited October 24, 2020 by JustMeMorgan

[Chrysorrhoas 1245]

Staff, are we not allowed to have contrarian opinions? I don’t think that’s against the rules, though allow me to be more articulate in the point I was trying to convey in the last two posts you hid. A majority of the posts on this thread are accusing players of an underlying, out-of-character homophobia and bigotry that is being impressed onto their characters. Their argument against homophobia roleplay, primarily, is bigotry. The irony lies however in the fact that these people who decry bigotry and oppressive roleplay in turn want to oppress other players into their line of thought and enforce their own believes and vision of how things should be on them. That is especially concerning to me, if we are going to go with the “all characters are self-inserts” argument that most of the people on this thread bring up. By saying that, you are saying it is inappropriate and should not be allowed for an individual to roleplay out a disdain for homosexuality on those grounds, that they are self-inserting their homophobia. By saying this, you are attacking the individual behind the character and not the character themselves, and therefore attack their convictions. Say a person has certain stances as a result of religious convictions. Then by attacking them for this sentiment, they have themselves become the perpetrators of bigotry in an attack against a group of people who have convictions for reasons as such. Ultimately, the point I’m trying to make is that trying to use out-of-character bigotry as the basis of your argument against in-character homophobia is a joke when you yourself end up attacking other people for their beliefs in the process. Find better ground to stand on; everyone has opinions and stances and they are inevitably going to collide. I’ve always said that the LGBTQ+ environment that prevails in roleplay among elven communities to be bizarre and out-of-place from an meta perspective regarding the setting and lore (such as infertility among the elves), but you don’t see people going onto the forums saying that they’re self-inserting their sexuality into roleplay and it shouldn’t be allowed because its immersion breaking. Just roleplay and stop crying out for a safe space, please and thank you. The beautiful thing about this server is that if one community does not lend itself as compatible to you, your roleplay or your beliefs, there are dozens of nations and settlements to move along to.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Bagley

[BrandNewKitten 2640]

1 hour ago, JailedGamer said:

Homophobia implies a fear of the homosexual. Most “homophobic” players, in fact, associate homosexuals with disgust rather than fear.  I cite my good Arabic friend Robert Goodwill who was brought up religiously to frown upon homosexuality from childhood – to outright ban such views would be an infringement upon his religion. We often times bash heads over our own philosophies but I accept his traditional Islamist beliefs; to him, homosexuality is as offensive as homophobia is to others. Furthermore, I wonder how people would know you’re gay IRP in the first place – is it because you overtly discuss your sexual preference IRP and have a reputation for being an erotic role-player who flirts with the same sex? In truth, does anyone really want to surround themselves with roleplay perversion? In the eyes of LOTC law, prejudice against homosexuals IRP may become a grave crime; but in the eyes of their GOD, zealot RPers will be amongst him.
 

 

^

The kind of people LGBTQ players have to deal with on LoTC.