No Tears for piltoggs: Nazis Get BANNED

[Darkstorm]

I thought Major Natalya is in the CSE now

Canadian Star Legion/Canadian Star Empire   same thing

[stubby]

Of course staying away from a full on Piltogg faction that murders Jews is totally sensible.
But we never had that anyway.

Are you sure? I think the Space Nazis and the TTSJs were at war, years ago.

For me this is mostly about quietly retiring some of the more deliberately provocative art pieces. Like maybe hey lynching jokes aren't actually that funny

[Kommander Ken]

So no Redbubble totebags or coffee mugs of that piece?

damn.

[Captain-Camper]

I'd buy a redbubble tote bag of that

[Tzan]

Of course staying away from a full on Piltogg faction that murders Jews is totally sensible.
But we never had that anyway.

Are you sure? I think the Space Nazis and the TTSJs were at war, years ago.

For me this is mostly about quietly retiring some of the more deliberately provocative art pieces. Like maybe hey lynching jokes aren't actually that funny

If two player owned factions were having fun fighting thats ok.
You need darkness to show light. When an evil faction rises others will come to oppose them.
If a Piltogg faction unilaterally puts Jews in ovens, and writes stories about that, thats not cool.

Piltogg dudes provide and easy conflict point, like how easy it is to make fun of the way Trump talks.

Pro peach factions rose up to fight the anti peach factions.

Can people try to be more creative in making dark forces?
Sure they could, but thats hard for some people, so they reach for the low hanging OTC.

[TheCraigfulOne]

the low hanging OTC.

I've found a new nickname for my penis now.

[Kommander Ken]

the low hanging OTC.

I've found a new nickname for my penis now.

I hereby announce TheCraigfulOne winner of this thread.

[Craigallot]

I mean, the peaches are supposed to be white people.

So portrayals of genocide against them are ok! It's not racist because they're white!

Seriously though, as someone else said, having wars between Yellows and Peaches based solely on their skin colour is based more on AFOL rage against peach minifigs and just a nice plot device. In Star Wars the First Order, who are very much Nazi-inspired, are shown blowing up several planets all at once because of these planets' political allegiance. This is done to show they are the bad guys. Doesn't mean anyone's glorifying the act. Same thing happens in Brikwars.

Equating people to Nazis and calling them hypocrites for having factions that kill peaches for being peaches is just silly. The whole idea that a faction represents the owner's ideas is silly, especially considering most people have several factions that are polar opposites. Also, the way it's always been portrayed is that the Peaches want to kill the Yellows for being Yellows just as bad. It's not a case of one racist group bullying their innocent, helpless victims.

The artwork stubby posted is hilarious. That it's showing peaches being hanged doesn't mean it glorifies it, it's just showing the senseless violent nature of minifigs in Brikwars. If you're gonna worry about whether it's 'ok', then you might as well delete all of Brikwars. Racism isn't ok. Neither is violence, or war, whether racist inspired or not. Does that mean it can never be depicted? I don't think so. Since it's LEGO, it's hardly graphical or shocking.

Some idiots could misinterpret stuff. So what? That's what makes them idiots. If we let our behaviour be controlled by how we think idiots (who will be idiots anyway) will respond to it, then who really has the power?

[Zahru II]

Oh come the flip on Brag, she later admits it was moreso grognardism. Putting out fire with the gasoline can again.

[RedRover]

Brag, that whole argument is basically saying that if people don’t agree with your interpretation they are idiots. You’re just going off the assumption that your view is the correct one when they same thing could be easily said about your view. Personally, to chalk up mass genoicide based on “race” as just seamless violence blatantly turns a blind eye to human history.

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the whole intent vs impact thing. Essentially it’s the disconnect between what the intent of an action is verses it’s actual impact. Just because Your intent was one thing doesn’t negate whatever the actual impact is... I know that most people’s intent is fun Brikwars stuff, but the impact in today’s climate feeds into the very real racism and extreme ideals and we HAVE seen that in this community.

Edit: Also, there are so many other forms of senseless violence that are not race related. Even on the forum right now, the rings of Hell and Ken’s hallow’s eve are great examples. The First order blowing up a planet is even more so political / military power oriented. If someone needs to cling to having racially motivated genocide in Brikwars it does spark the question if there is something more behind it.

[Falk]

We should hate the IM because they're magic, not because they're peaches, am I right?  

[RedRover]

We should hate the IM because they're magic, not because they're peaches, am I right?  

Exactly

[stubby]

Equating people to Nazis and calling them hypocrites for having factions that kill peaches for being peaches is just silly. The whole idea that a faction represents the owner's ideas is silly, especially considering most people have several factions that are polar opposites. Also, the way it's always been portrayed is that the Peaches want to kill the Yellows for being Yellows just as bad. It's not a case of one racist group bullying their innocent, helpless victims.

Kind of it is. Yellows are genocidal maniacs with all the power. Peaches pose no actual threat to them. Peaches, on the other hand, are pretty consistently the innocent helpless victims who will be wiped out if they do nothing. Peaches fight yellows because they have no other option, while yellows genocide peaches and everyone else just for fun.

The artwork stubby posted is hilarious. That it's showing peaches being hanged doesn't mean it glorifies it, it's just showing the senseless violent nature of minifigs in Brikwars.

Ehh. I don't know, maybe it's different in Belgium, but lynching references touch a pretty strong and still very active nerve over here in the U.S. I'm old enough to remember lynchings as a common threat, although by my teenage years it was about sexual identity more often than race; and even now while they're not as much of a present literal threat they're still (in the U.S.) a powerful symbol of the white nationalist hate that definitely is a present literal threat. That's a lot of people's traumatic current experience to trivialize as a throwaway joke. Same reason we've got to be careful about snuggle jokes etc.

I feel like there's nothing that's off-limits for humor, if you're willing to put in the time and effort and able to put in the necessary skill to treat it with the care and nuance it deserves -- but even if you can, there's no way you can guarantee that everyone else who picks up that ball and runs with it won't fuck it up instantly, so I'd rather avoid actively inviting that disaster.

If you're gonna worry about whether it's 'ok', then you might as well delete all of Brikwars. Racism isn't ok. Neither is violence, or war, whether racist inspired or not. Does that mean it can never be depicted? I don't think so. Since it's LEGO, it's hardly graphical or shocking.

It's a choice though, right? I can depict a hundred million different things that aren't okay. Some of them are active sources of trauma for the people reading, some of them will be taken as encouragement to go out into the world and traumatize others, some of them will poke fun at people who deserve it, some of them will help kick people who are already down. It's not a neutral choice. Different targets have different effects, and I just think we should be mindful about that when we're deciding where we put our focus and efforts.

[ninja_bait]

I find it quite amazing and enjoyable that whenever stubby posts, you can read his post and then at the end Natalya asks, "wtf is going on in this thread?" and, yeah, that's a good question.  No matter what thread you're in.

[Craigallot]

@Zahru: What the hell is Grognardism. If you're referring to how she said she didn't like Peaches as an AFOL (which is different from being racist, it's just a preference in how your toys are depicted), I've already addressed that.

@RedRover: Yeah, if someone sees my Inquistadores and thinks they're a good excuse or motivation for him to go and be a religious nationalist zealot and enslave people in his real life, that guy is an idiot in my book. You cannot argue his view on my creation is the correct one, when I know exactly what I've intended with it, and made this clear enough. I do happen to think that racism, sexism, fabulous hate and all that other shit that ruins the world is stupid and that the racists, sexists etc. are stupid, so sue me I guess.

It's not like, say, Dragon Age: Inquisition where the Inquisition are actually the good guys. Which again, doesn't mean it says the historical inquisition was right and shouldn't be interpreted that way, but I'm not even doing that.

Describing Yellows and Peaches fighting each other as 'mass genocide' is also a mass oversimplification.

If we see real racists we'll just ban them, as we have done. If you think stuff on this forum will make people racist or empower them to do their racist stuff (whatever it entails), I think you vastly overestimate the impact of that, vs. the responsibility of the racist to grow a fucking brain.

I've already explained why I don't mind it in previous posts. I'm not going to endlessly repeat myself.

@stubby: That's not how I've depicted it, or Warhead, maybe specifically because we don't like that interpretation? In ZZD, Peaches wiped out an entire Yellow system by creating and unleashing the Peach Virus, I used the same Peach Virus in my storyline as well, where Peaches are cunning, resourceful, even working together with Yellows for political reasons. Still, the Inquistadores resent taking orders from a peach. I think it makes for a more interesting story.

@stubby: well snuggle jokes were never funny to me, as the joke always seemed to be on the victim, with the ones I've known of, anyway. In this case, though, I see it as the joke being on the Yellows perpetuating their ignorance. The Peaches all look pretty sophisticated, not sure if it's on purpose, while the Yellows look simplistic, oblivious to their own violence, and dumb. So I've always looked at it as 'haha, dumb Yellows' rather than 'fuck yeah, dead peaches!' The only thing I would say here that might not be so good about it is that the Peaches look more like civilians, rather than actual combatants. I think it's pointless and boring, and a little bit in bad taste, to show Peach civilians just being slaughtered en masse, in predetermined scenarios where the outcome is always the Peaches dying, but I don't have any issue with Yellows and Peaches fighting.

I'm not sure what you mean by your last paragraph. That we should be mindful of every little thing we do, because it 'might' have a negative effect somewhere? Where that is concerned, I think, it's impossible to predict everything anyway, and the responsibility always lies with the stupid people doing bad things. We get in touch with stuff that could influence us in a bad way on a daily basis, if you're a good person with strong morals, it won't affect you.

That doesn't mean I think we don't have any sort of responsibility. I run my own Discord and just today told two separate people not to use the word 'sexy love gentlemen', or spout the phrase 'DEUS VULT'. This to me, are two examples of obviously harmful stuff that we should oppose. But censoring something because it MIGHT have a bad effect on SOMEONE, that goes too far.

As for choice, I think if we're gonna say 'oh, Yellow on Peach violence is promoting real-life racism!' then we also need to say all the warring going on is promoting imperialism, and get rid of that, because it's something that's at least just as harmful to the real world, and a lot more common in Brikwars as well. Anything else is just hypocrisy. Someone who survived a bombing run, might get traumatized watching a depiction of a bombing run in Brikwars, someone who lost his legs, might be traumatized by watching a minifig get blown in two by an explosion. So please, let's not dismember our minifigs anymore and just have them fall over or better yet, show the explosion but not the result of it, you know, PG-13 style. Also, stop using red bricks for blood. Someone might have witnessed a murder or been stabbed and not like seeing that.

I also have a personal request: for reasons I can't put my finger on, I always take pity on people who have something bad happen to them while they're eating, or about to eat, or just done eating, and feel really bad for them (no trollario, this is actually true). Maybe this has something to do with my upbringing, how I was taught not to waste food, or whatever, but tbh I don't know. So don't depict minifigs getting shot while holding an ice cream cone or something, please.

Yellows fighting Peaches 'cos they're peaches though? Psh. Even with the interpretation you described, I don't think it's bad if the Yellows are the obvious villains. Many mainstream fictional stories / games etc. have racists or even literal nazis as the villains (Wolfenstein, Inglorious Basterds, Hellsing: Ultimate to name a few) and often contain parts of them committing despicable acts, which doesn't glorify them, but says 'look, these guys are the villains.' Then, people get off on 'watching the evil nazis get slaughtered' or in case of video games, do it themselves. These games / movies cannot be likened to Piltogg propaganda, and if anyone interprets them as such then it's very likely their mind is already made up and they simply are racist to begin with.

I don't remember who said it, but I believe it was John Cleese, and he said that the best jokes are usually the ones that make people slightly uncomfortable. In Battle of the Goatse Bunker, we had a team, 'The Black Stereotypes', or something. A stupid person might think you put them there to actually make fun of black people, when it's actually the exaggeration of the stereotype itself, and the fact it exists that's been making fun of. Stupid people won't get that. You cannot account for stupidity. Stupidity will always find a way. Anything that adapts itself to the lowest common denominator, will not be intellectually stimulating at all and just end up being plain boring. And racists will still be racist.

I just remembered though, that LEGO is sexist by design, with inequal representation of male vs. female minifigs, stereotyped gender roles etc., which is difficult to overcome even if you try to buy more female minifig heads / torsos (the design of which may be sexist in itself). So maybe I should just stop posting pictures of LEGO altogether instead of supporting this company. After all, showing my approval of this clearly discriminatory toy might spread the idea to some people, that they shouldn't care about the clear issues LEGO has concerning equal representation. Shit, I haven't even included any LGBTQ characters in my stories, or people of all different ethnicities. Yeah, I don't think I can continue this in good faith.