by Craigallot » Fri Sep 28, 2018 9:49 am
@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.