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Stephenls would you be willing to have a PM conversation with me about this topic? I know it’s uncomfortable, but I think something like a more focused one on one conversation is required for us to effectively communicate as to why we are behaving the way we are in this complex situation. I don’t think you are acting in bad faith, unlike LatePIAT, and would like to understand where you are coming from.
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Nov 29, 2019 06:23
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I don't think crimes against fictional people is worth hurting real people over
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Nov 29, 2019 06:24
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Stephenls posted:Also, see this poo poo here? Here's this thing about this, though: You, yourself, in this very post, make a judgment on the moral purity or impurity of the story! You lay out the scenario. There is a fanfiction story about beetle juice and Lydia. Someone new to the fanfiction community (presumably a minor, since a huge number of people get their start writing fanfiction as a minor) writes a story about them being a couple. There is an age difference between the characters, but it's ambiguous. During the time, teen sex comedies were not analyzed as heavily in terms of creepy content as they are now. Therefore: The author should not feel bad for writing it. Okay, great! You looked at the context, the content, etc and decided it's okay. That's great. I'd agree in this scenario. I'd probably agree in the Tamsyn Muir scenario as well (I am coming at this knowing about the HGMO / Bliss Stage stuff, and while I liked Gideon, I have not obsessively poured over a good writer's fanfiction). However, let's examine this applied to this very thread: In a scenario where criticism is allowed and I can make judgments based on context, history, etc, I can say: 1) Tamsyn Muir's story isn't anything to get particularly worried about. It seems to be in the tradition of I Spit On Your Grave, which we could list problems with, but certainly a kid or new author experimenting with that genre of fiction is gonna make some missteps. 2) MythusMage's game straight up glorifies pedophilia. Straight up. It literally has out of character justification why it's good and moral to have sex with a ten year old child. Run this fucker out, right now. 3) Jadokee's post accusing LatpwPIAT's post as defending CP is really loving bad and shouldn't have been made, none of the arguments in this thread are even close to that line and it's incredibly toxic to throw that around casually. In a scenario where criticism "always leads to this" and we need to refrain from it: 1) I cannot actually defend Muir's story on the merits, just on the basis that nothing should be criticized, which looks incredibly suspicious. 2) I am forced for defend MythusMage let me reiterate jesus loving christ his book is literally trying to convince you, the reader, to gently caress a child because criticism is bad regardless of context, therefore his literal pedophile apologia is on the same level as Muir's early literature work. (Note: This was the position of RPGSitefor years and they literally banned people for criticizing him, causing the whole forum to have to tiptoe around the guy). 3) By criticizing Jakodee's bad post, you are contributing to at atmosphere of hostility. In Scenario 1, we are having three tough conversations. In scenario 2, in order to defend a work in general, without looking at it specifically, we are having to let 2/3 (which are bad!) slide. edit: accidently wrote RPGNet instead of RPGSite. Mormon Star Wars fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 06:33
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ZeroCount posted:I don't think crimes against fictional people is worth hurting real people over Eeeeh, by this argument, we shouldn't hurt the feelings of people who draw no-poo poo definitely child porn. Because they're real, and the people in the drawings aren't. But what they do is normalize and feed the demand for that content, which in turn (especially in the context of fandoms where teenage or younger fans mix with older fans pretty much constantly via the internet and conventions) creates a space where those abusive relationships are normalized. Do fics that have, y'know, borderline material contribute to that? It's hard to say. It's worth discussing, at the very least, and not immediately abandoning the question because it's hard - because real people are, in fact, hurt by abusive, age-inappropriate relationships becoming normalized or fetishized. E: To be clear, I would hope that most works featuring this stuff are just adult, heavy, or edgy, and don't intend to normalize it. But, we can make that judgement and we have to make that judgement. I mean, hell, we make this judgment all the time about sexism and racism in works! We judge relationships and stories presented in all sorts of popular or niche writing as normalizing or justifying bad things, and in fact I'd say that's a major part of the F&F thread. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 06:33
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Joe Slowboat posted:(Also, the fact that people can be overzealous about questions they have intense moral investment in doesn’t mean that they’re wrong to be invested in it. Jakodee, I’m broadly on your side, but chill - people here are defending an abstract ‘more harm will be done’ argument not works they personally think would be purged if CP were eliminated.) I don’t think LatwPIAT is defending any abstract arguments though. Their behavior only make sense to me if they are trying to suppress criticism of CP in general, not because they are afraid of some archive purge, that’s a ridiculous reason for them to post what they have, but because they are uncomfortable with too much criticism of pedophilia defense for personal reasons. In my experience people try to suppress criticism of bad behavior when it makes them feel lovely about themselves. People they have paradoxical relationships online defend the bad behavior and they don’t want to acknowledge how snotty that is (Lindsey Ellis). They “shipped” characters when they were younger that they now realize would be hosed up to write about (The Beatlejuice fanfic) or a multitude of other reasons to feel that criticism of pedophilia defense is an attack on yourself. People in this situtaion often find themselves looking for reasons to be contrarians about aggressive critics or use barely thought out arguments to try to maleness the talk that makes them uncomfortable go away. I mean or they could actually be a rapist as other have insisted that I’ve claimed. It’s not likely but hey, anybody could be on something awful. The point is that the hand-wringing protestations about not being TOO pointed in looking for pedophilia apologia has the same affect regardless of the intent of the poster. It doesn’t matter whether they “meant” to throw up bullshit to make the scary talk about shining people for writing CP or not. It has the same effect, the same way that “accidentally” making racist argument is still racist even if you don’t realize it. Edit: Look to some degree I’m concerned that no one else here has had their bullshit alarm triggered by LatwPIAT’s behavior as hard as mine has, but it seems so crystal clear to me that they are struggling to find a reason to stop talking about or discredit talking about the aggressive pursuit of calling out abuse defense online, that I don’t know whether I’m somehow missing something or if most of the rest of the thread is missing it. I kinda know and think of posters like Joe Slowboat as reasonable people, but I also know these forums cultivate an atmosphere of assumption of good faith that goes well beyond what is reasonable given it’s actual community. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 29, 2019 06:37
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Stephenls posted:
I would say this hits on an element of truth, while also being one of the biggest problems. There are legitimate, non-horrifying reasons why a person might find a character labeled as underage attractive (vice versa can be true as well: cannon age doesn't matter if someone is drawn to look 12). Maybe it was age appropriate at the time and while you may have grown up, they didn't. Rebecca Sugar infamously drew porn of Ed, Edd and Eddie characters...because that show came out when she was 12 and she was still a minor when she drew it, probably using those familiar characters to work through the mess that is puberty. The problem isn't teenagers writing dirty stories about their cartoon crushes during highschool...it's that it isn't a something that should be put online for public consumption, regardless of the author's situation. A 15-year old taking a naked selfie to work out body image issues or even to give to their 15-year-old significant other is understandable and while it might be uncomfortable to talk about I don't think most people think it needs to be prosecuted. But there also shouldn't be a big website where they can go and post those images to share with the rest of the internet, regardless of how many warning labels exist. The other problem is that the label of "Dark" erotica is a big loving tent and a lot of issues comes from trying to treat anything transgressive as equal. There's a world of difference between "lets not ban someone who is turned on by Darth Vader having rough sex with Jar-Jar Binks" and "child porn is okay, because it's also dark." You can argue where exactly the line should be drawn, and there's certainly discussion to be had over the ethics of rape fantasy or someone who wants Venom to crush their head between his symbiotic buttocks....but that shouldn't prevent anyone from saying "let's not have porn that features kids". Can't we at least agree "no child porn?" Is that really so controversial?
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Nov 29, 2019 06:41
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Mormon Star Wars posted:In a scenario where criticism is allowed and I can make judgments based on context, history, etc, I can say: I think that's a very important point to make. Teenagers (or really anyone) writing about teenagers having sexual relationships with other teenagers isn't really problematic as a base concept and comes down to execution. That's why stuff like MonsterHearts isn't inherently creepy, so long as the people at the table don't make it creepy. Stuff like MythusMage's work where grown-rear end adults are having sexual relationships with children and that is depicted as good, normal, and the goal of the game are bad and should be criticized. So are things like the worst excesses of Exalted or Beast, or 'We eat blood and all our friends are dead'.
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Nov 29, 2019 06:42
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jakodee posted:I don’t think LatwPIAT is defending any abstract arguments though. Their behavior only make sense to me if they are trying to suppress criticism of CP in general, not because they are afraid of some archive purge, that’s a ridiculous reason for them to post what they have, but because they are uncomfortable with too much criticism of pedophilia defense for personal reasons. Dude people have posted the reason that a lot of people are emotionally invested in this issue and it's not because they want to defend child porn, I am 100% sure that if you looked at LatwPIAT's post history you will find them having Good Opinions about this in other contexts (Pretty sure they are a F&F poster!). The problem is that, yeah, for lgbt / queer people this sort of discussion does have a history that a lot of people lack context for, i.e. arguments that other people would make have been used to explicitly to try to wipe out queer content or attack the community in a bunch of ways, so it straight up makes sense that people who have had standards like that used as a weapon against them would be gunshy about it. "Morality" has absolutely been used as an excuse to screw them over, so I can't blame anyone for being suspicious of it. However, The answer to this is not to cede that there is no morality and turn the geek social fallacies up to 11, it's to refine it and bring it into line.
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Nov 29, 2019 06:44
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oriongates posted:The problem isn't teenagers writing dirty stories about their cartoon crushes during highschool...it's that it isn't a something that should be put online for public consumption, regardless of the author's situation. A 15-year old taking a naked selfie to work out body image issues or even to give to their 15-year-old significant other is understandable and while it might be uncomfortable to talk about I don't think most people think it needs to be prosecuted. Just wanted to quote this, because it gets at an important point: Not everything can be safely, or should be, shared online to everyone via a giant content distribution system. In fact I'd even say that the 'coping with your own abuse by writing therapeutic works that sexualize that situation' works should probably not be in a public archive. Not because the author is awful, or awful for wanting to share them, but because we can make the decision 'this work is valuable to you, but shouldn't be super available for general consumption. Go in peace.' Just like we shouldn't be running con games of RPGs that deal with intensely traumatic subject matter without a lot of careful coordination. Just having open signups, even with a general content warning, isn't precisely safe for (say) a work about child abuse. E: Again, a good point of comparison is using your local gaming group for impromptu therapy. It's a bad idea and will hurt you and others, but you're not necessarily a bad person for trying it. You just need to be carefully prevented from doing so, for everyone's sake, unless your local gaming group explicitly is prepared to do that (and to do the necessary support work for it). A dedicated community for that kind of coping will have to watch out for bad actors trying to sneak in to get off on other people's trauma... but at least they have to sneak in, you know? Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 06:47
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am i supposed to be familiar with this mythusmage person
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Nov 29, 2019 06:49
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Joe Slowboat posted:Eeeeh, by this argument, we shouldn't hurt the feelings of people who draw no-poo poo definitely child porn. Because they're real, and the people in the drawings aren't. Right and stuff like outright child porn is bad because, even if done to fictional people, it's a behaviour/attitude that can bleed into real life. Even if this hypothetical artist never actually touches a kid in their life they're still a pedophile and people should be at least generally aware of that and avoid situations where they and kids interact. This is one extreme of a really long spectrum though. Obviously outright child porn is bad. But how far up do we take this? Is someone with no siblings who once wrote a sibling-incest fanfic or something morally bad, even if there's no chance of them actually doing it? In that case I'd criticise the work but I wouldn't go hound the actual real person behind it about it. edit: I don't know this Bliss Stage guy but he seems to suck a lot. I'm not defending him specifically.
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Nov 29, 2019 06:50
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jakodee posted:I don’t think LatwPIAT is defending any abstract arguments though. Their behavior only make sense to me if they are trying to suppress criticism of CP in general, not because they are afraid of some archive purge, that’s a ridiculous reason for them to post what they have, but because they are uncomfortable with too much criticism of pedophilia defense for personal reasons. I mean, it kind of sounded to me like they originally mainly trying to defend Ann Leckie's blog post, specifically, which was apparently (despite a lack of context in the post itself) itself intended as a) a defense of a specific work and b) an indictment of the propensity of people on the internet to go from 0 to 100 with callouts for potentially problematic behaviour and generally ignore all nuance. Which (again, apparently?) actually happend to Tamsyn Muir, so it seems like Leckie at least was being pretty genuine with such. and reading over their posts it honestly doesn't seem to me like they're trying to argue that criticism, overall, is inherently bad, just that it can under some circumstances lead to abuse and so like anything we should be careful about it and apply it with nuance? but not, like, make it entirely verboten or anything? (which is, like, kind of a similar position to what I imagine Leckie would have on the matter if asked about it directly?) i mean maybe that's a charitable reading of their posting and whatever they can speak for themselves, I just kind of think you're repeatedly putting words in their mouth and strawmanning their position.
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Nov 29, 2019 06:56
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Mormon Star Wars posted:Dude people have posted the reason that a lot of people are emotionally invested in this issue and it's not because they want to defend child porn, I am 100% sure that if you looked at LatwPIAT's post history you will find them having Good Opinions about this in other contexts (Pretty sure they are a F&F poster!). I absolutely don’t blame anyone for being cautious about veiled arguments designed to take down minority gender identities. I’m aware of the reason. I think LatwPIAT’s posts are (honestly very obviously) reactionary attempts to stop people from thinking about how much actual work and effort they need to put into being on guard for the defense of child abuse in fiction. As I’ve already stated, I don’t know why LatePIAT is trying to do this, and people do this sort of thing unconsciously all the time, but it doesn’t actually matter. The behavior is, regardless of intent, defending CP; not as in defending it as a good thing, but defending it as in making it easier to exist unchallenged.
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Nov 29, 2019 06:56
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Zereth posted:am i supposed to be familiar with this mythusmage person You don't remember MythusMage? MythusMage was a former RPGnet / RPGsite poster who was an open and avowed pedophile. They wrote a fantasy setting that went into disturbing detail about how having sex with 10 year olds creates a healthier society, including different versions of how loving children could solve specific societal problems. Because RPGsite defined themselves as against RPGnet's "censorious" nature, they made a point of keeping MythusMage around for years to prove that they wouldn't censor people's opinions. At one point, JArcane, who was one of the only non-weird RPGSite posters, started to criticize the fact that MythusMage was allowed to post his kid loving poo poo all over the site. MythusMage responded by advising JArcane that they might calm down if they had sex with their daughter. JArcane's response got him banned from RPGSite, while MythusMage was not infracted at all. This proved to be, uh, controversial and later JArcane was allowed back. Any system that would result in JArcane getting got for criticizing someone like MythusMage is extremely flawed. ZeroCount posted:Right and stuff like outright child porn is bad because, even if done to fictional people, it's a behaviour/attitude that can bleed into real life. Even if this hypothetical artist never actually touches a kid in their life they're still a pedophile and people should be at least generally aware of that and avoid situations where they and kids interact. This is one extreme of a really long spectrum though. Obviously outright child porn is bad. But how far up do we take this? Is someone with no siblings who once wrote a sibling-incest fanfic or something morally bad, even if there's no chance of them actually doing it? Seems like a good thing to do would be to encourage a culture where you can criticize specific things and not try to abolish criticism because sometimes it goes too far, then!
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Nov 29, 2019 06:56
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ZeroCount posted:Right and stuff like outright child porn is bad because, even if done to fictional people, it's a behaviour/attitude that can bleed into real life. Even if this hypothetical artist never actually touches a kid in their life they're still a pedophile and people should be at least generally aware of that and avoid situations where they and kids interact. This is one extreme of a really long spectrum though. Obviously outright child porn is bad. But how far up do we take this? Is someone with no siblings who once wrote a sibling-incest fanfic or something morally bad, even if there's no chance of them actually doing it? But my point is, we are prepared to levy social penalties against people who have done things to deserve them, and that can include producing fiction or art that crosses a line. Now we're just determining where the line can be set, and what the appropriate response is to different kinds of line-crossing. I don't think hounding people who have transgressed in minor ways is productive - but there are people who absolutely should be hounded out of communities, or made to either acknowledge what they've done wrong or get out. Now, are people quick to jump to that conclusion? No doubt, that's pretty universal online. "We should approach this more cautiously" is a drat sight different from "We must axiomatically refuse to make this judgment." And 'anti' is used to describe both the former and 'Inquisitorial puritanism' etc. So it's a bad term, in my book, because of that conflation.
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Nov 29, 2019 06:59
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Mormon Star Wars posted:You don't remember MythusMage? 
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Nov 29, 2019 07:05
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Mormon Star Wars posted:I guess the solution was to not criticize him for that, since criticism is bad, instead of actually pointing out that he was full of poo poo. My position isn't that all criticism is bad, it's (in the context of a discussion of anti-shipping in the context of a blog post by Ann Leckie in the context of a spurious accusations of pedophilia against Tamsyn Muir...) that there are some ways of delivering a criticism that are very vulnerable to abuse, so we should be very careful about using them. And what I've not stated explicitly because I assumed it was obvious is that we should instead use other ways to deliver criticism that are more productive and less likely to abused. I haven't provided concrete examples of exactly how either, which is because it's very difficult to find a good alternate solution - but I still think the criticism of anti-shipping and things like it is legitimate and deserves to be considered because of how it harms people. Like with whoever MythusMage is (I wasn't around to see that stuff) I don't think the solution is leaving him alone. On a webforum I think the correct solution is to have the moderation staff delete his stuff and permanent ban him for breaking the content rules, and possibly report him to some authorities if he broke any laws. And in isolation I wouldn't even think there's something wrong about going onto Twitter and saying "hey if you get this guy in your online communities watch out, he writes some really nasty stuff blah blah details". As a consequence, a lot of people are probably going to react very badly to MythusMage if they ever run into him. And if that's all people are doing that's honestly fine. (I think I might have come off as arguing we shouldn't ever do this if there was a chance is could be mistaken for over-zealous labelling or abuse and thinking about it that's probably too extreme.) The problems arise when we're lax in our standards for who we unleash this response on, in a way that allows it to be used in bad faith, to abuse. One that happens we need to reform the process both to save people from being unfairly targeted and to ensure people don't lose confidence in the process. We can't keep using it without changes just because it catches one real MythusMage for every 99 women and minorities it harasses off the Internet. Anti-shipping, to bring this around, is in that position: it might occasionally reveal and drive away some genuinely harmful and toxic stuff, but with a 99% false error rate, why do we bother? Surely there has to be a better way?
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Nov 29, 2019 07:06
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Joe Slowboat posted:"We should approach this more cautiously" is a drat sight different from "We must axiomatically refuse to make this judgment." And 'anti' is used to describe both the former and 'Inquisitorial puritanism' etc. So it's a bad term, in my book, because of that conflation. this is valid and probably a pretty good reason to avoid the term because it's flawed. on the other hand, lots of people are (going by, say, a quick survey of this thread's last 50 posts) only familiar with one of these two meanings and/or think that one of these meanings is extremely prevalent and the other is used only in error, by a small segment of (likely new) people who don't understand the correct usage. obviously this is leading to great confusion, but it seems pretty reasonable to imagine that a person who uses said term is not, therefore, intentionally trying to conflate the two meanings, just using the nomenclature that they're familiar with/believe is correct? especially if they're explicitly speaking in a certain context? like, sure it's a flawed term but it can be made contextually clear the behaviour one is intending to speak about, at which point it's imprecise communication but hardly a hanging offense. like obviously there's a limit to the amount of slack one can give people and "oh, I didn't think that meant that" is something that the intellectually dishonest can abuse, but are we really at that point in this thread? (well i guess jakodee thinks so?)
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Nov 29, 2019 07:06
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Hey folks. This thread got a little heated so it got put on ice for a while, but we're back! Be chill, etc.
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Nov 29, 2019 14:20
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jakodee posted:People are currently recommending Lamentations of the Flame Princess products in the OSR thread, despite the author being a stalker and a Nazi. I like OSR games but the community is filled with terrible people and a culture encouraging people to ignore them. The discussion in the OSR thread is very specifically trying to distinguish between the handful of good LotFP products that aren't juvenile shock fests and the rest of the system, while pushing people away from LotFP and into other good work in the OSR like the Hydra Cooperative. People are trying to do the good work and move on, and you should respect that.
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Nov 29, 2019 14:35
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There is a long, long history of artists and writers in fan communities closing ranks and misrepresenting criticism as a response to outsiders raising concerns about how children and teens are sexually framed in fanfiction, fanart, etc. When these incidents flare up, the actual substance of the criticism is quickly subsumed by vauge strawmen. Critics and anti-CSA advocates are painted as harassment brigades and insinuations of queerphobia abound. When the actual subject matter manages to actually break through the layers of innuendo, diversion, and minimizing, the same refrains of "let artists be messy" and "we do this to cope" ring out until the fervor dies down. This is not to say that every artist on twitter is a predator. Accusing people of being child predators without hard evidence is cruel and provocative, and almost always incorrect on merit. But a few artists have some really hosed up paraphillias that they broadcast through their work, and doing so is in my opinion negligent. Creating and distributing media that frames children sexually is, at the very least, negligent; this content is demonstrably used by actual predators to groom prospective victims, and perpetuates worldwide fetishization of neotony, a pan-cultural cancer that does devastating damage to millions of children every year. Those few artists have credulous or equally negligent friends who enable and protect them, and they close ranks with other artists and writers who prioritize masturbation material over the impact of the proverbial superfund sites they are leaving in their wake. "Hot Guys Making Out" is the sort of cultural product that should be buried deep in the ground for ten thousand years, surrounded by hostile architecture and ominous messages. "No esteemed deed is commemorated here." We are long overdue for a reckoning about how the human race worldwide exploits children. Epstein is just the tip of the iceberg; there is a rot at the core of things. It manifests in celebrity countdown clocks and anime porn and indie rpgs and Riverdale. It is suffocating.
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Nov 29, 2019 14:57
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Hot Guys Making Out and Bliss Stage are terrible. If you leave it at that without grappling with the way the Forge influenced designers to center transgressive sexuality, you’re letting a couple of cis people slide while condemning a trans designer. Start with this, then find a copy of Ron Edwards’ Sex and Sorcery and think about how the gender essentialism of that book might gently caress up trans designers. Especially since Ron deliberately positioned himself as a wise guru. Don’t let P H Lee slide. Do think about the context.
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Nov 29, 2019 16:24
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Thanlis posted:Hot Guys Making Out and Bliss Stage are terrible. If you leave it at that without grappling with the way the Forge influenced designers to center transgressive sexuality, you’re letting a couple of cis people slide while condemning a trans designer. Start with this, then find a copy of Ron Edwards’ Sex and Sorcery and think about how the gender essentialism of that book might gently caress up trans designers. Especially since Ron deliberately positioned himself as a wise guru. Don’t let P H Lee slide. Do think about the context. On the other hand, the thing has been shuttered for some 7 years, yet Bliss Stage and HGMO are still available for purchase. At what point does the continued availability of that stuff start ceasing to be the Forge's fault for influencing P H Lee and starts being P H Lee's fault for not either shitcanning or comprehensively revising those games in the light of experience/criticism?
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Nov 29, 2019 18:18
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I mean, do you have to revise things you did seven years ago? It's not really the standard for novels or other long-form works of art that you're expected to revise them as your views change, and it's very rare for a novel to be depublished by the author, either. It's also kind of a lot of work for something that's not going to make any money.
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Nov 29, 2019 18:26
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, do you have to revise things you did seven years ago? It's not really the standard for novels or other long-form works of art that you're expected to revise them as your views change, and it's very rare for a novel to be depublished by the author, either. I mean, I can think of a few cases of revisions, like the changes to the title of And Then There Were None. Also, a lot of issues that people have with HGMO could made with changes to the marketing copy, not even the text of the game itself, which seems like it would be a far simpler task. As for the role that the Forge had in the development of works that push for transgressive sexuality, I have no idea! So much of the Forge is presented as a sort of black box to those who weren't active in it at the time, and it seems like very few people are willing to speak to its underbelly in any detail, besides calling Ron Edwards a pompous rear end. In contrast, HGMO was put on itch this month, which has brought it to the foreground of conversation in ways that it historical antecedents have not.
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Nov 29, 2019 18:35
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, do you have to revise things you did seven years ago? It's not really the standard for novels or other long-form works of art that you're expected to revise them as your views change, and it's very rare for a novel to be depublished by the author, either. Back when we didn't have books they were just never reprinted and it wasn't such a big issue since stopped being available that way. But even then there were books that the authors refused to sign or similar things because it was a way of disavowing them. There are also several books that arent going to be turned into ebooks until theire authors are long dead since they no longer stand for them. Basically if you are in control of selling your own works, still selling them means you still stand for their contents.
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Nov 29, 2019 18:37
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, do you have to revise things you did seven years ago? It's not really the standard for novels or other long-form works of art that you're expected to revise them as your views change, and it's very rare for a novel to be depublished by the author, either. Like, if there's something that people are trying to bring up as proof you're a kiddie toucher or kt-adjacent, imho yeah, it might be something to go back and take a more critical look at.
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Nov 29, 2019 18:49
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Warthur posted:I mean, I guess? It's worth noting that the last post on the Forge was in 2012, which means that if my Googling is accurate Bliss Stage came out in its latter days and HGMO about a year after it was done and fine, fair enough, its influence was still very much felt in the indie RPG world at the time. A minor note: the Internet says that Bliss Stage came out in 2011, but it actually came out in 2007. Either way, P H Lee should own their own crap, without question. Again: not making excuses for P H Lee. Putting HGMO on itch is a decision they made this month, as Meinberg says. It's not about excuses for HGMO, it's about taking the time to ask what else is left over from those days. When we argue about sex moves in Apocalypse World, that's a Forge legacy. When we think about the implications of the Turn Someone On move in Monsterhearts, that's the Forge. When Ron Edwards says that stories where males take female roles are inevitably tragic, that's the Forge. Some of the legacy is good, and some is hugely problematic. If we don't talk about HGMO in the context of the Forge, though, it becomes a story about that hosed up perv queer creator who just happened to write sick games. I don't think anybody here intends to play into the stereotype of pervy queers, but we risk doing so regardless.
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Nov 29, 2019 18:52
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So, I have next to zero knowledge about the Forge. What was it? A website where people made tabletop games that talked about sexuality?
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Nov 29, 2019 19:09
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thetoughestbean posted:So, I have next to zero knowledge about the Forge. What was it? A website where people made tabletop games that talked about sexuality? It was a website and forum devoted to discussions around the concept of tabletop design more broadly. A lot of indie darlings emerged from that space and they did bring with them some rather radical new ideas for how to create games, even if they also made a lot of drek along the way. It was really one of the first spaces that really dug into the concepts behind tabletop design in a way that was more than balancing numbers. It was also (largely) a bunch of white dudes who wanted to push social boundaries with their work as well.
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Nov 29, 2019 19:14
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, do you have to revise things you did seven years ago? It's not really the standard for novels or other long-form works of art that you're expected to revise them as your views change, and it's very rare for a novel to be depublished by the author, either. I feel like if you are continuing to sell a work you've self-published, that implies a continued endorsement - that you continue to think that the work in question is fit for the purpose for which it is designed and you are broadly satisfied with its contents, absent any statement from you to the contrary. Obviously, if it's not self-published then it's a different matter altogether - then it's not 100% your call. But even then, I can find several instances on my bookshelves of reprints of an author's early works, put out by professional publishers rather than the author themselves, where the writer's said "Hahaha, wow, what was I thinking back then?" or words to that effect; writing a quick explanatory piece setting out where a work came from and to what extent you still stand by it isn't a lot of work, unless the truth of the matter is sufficiently unpalatable to the public that you're embarrassed to say "Yes, I am still 100% behind adults loving young teenagers" (or whatever). And if you do self-publish, you are and remain responsible for what you choose to continue to put out into the world, just as you are responsible for putting it out into the world in the first place. If the tap could be turned off without any great effort on your part but you choose to keep it going because you get beer money out of it, it's your fault if the carpet gets soggy.
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Nov 29, 2019 19:49
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thetoughestbean posted:So, I have next to zero knowledge about the Forge. What was it? A website where people made tabletop games that talked about sexuality? 99% of what people talk about the Forge comes down to a) GNS theory and b) Ron Edwards being an utter rear end about brain damage and claiming that running Vampire for people under 25 caused the same sort of trauma and lasting damage as child abuse. I did an article here trying to explain it, but that is very much from a "bemused observer's" perspective rather than someone who got really deep into the thickets there. If there's stuff to unpack about the Forge's attitude to sexuality that's certainly work considering in the light of the works that came from it, but I suspect that it will largely only relate to the works of people who were directly involved in discussion there during that time period. I'd say that GNS and Ron Edwards are the only two things that most people still vividly remember about the Forge, mostly because people preached GNS theory with the zeal of the converted like it was raw data direct from heaven (you can't spell gnosis without GNS!) and because Ron was a spectacular arsehole who offended most of the gaming community.
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Nov 29, 2019 19:54
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The I Will Not Abandon You/No One Gets Hurt social contract models were forge, and seem highly relevant here.
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Nov 29, 2019 20:22
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Okay, I went ahead and read the book just so I could get a handle on where it's coming from and... I don't feel like it's really worth all the fuss? It's basically just a fairly short yaoi simulator. It's not really about a particularly healthy relationship but there's nothing here that's not in like ten thousand BL manga. The ad copy is definitely misleading but it mostly just makes the book look more interesting than it really is.
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Nov 29, 2019 20:55
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Rand Brittain posted:there's nothing here that's not in like ten thousand BL manga. This is not the defense you seem to think it is
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Nov 29, 2019 22:08
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It also isn’t the condemnation you seem to think it is. Like, BL storylines have a lot of tropes that I don’t like, but my disinterest (or even revulsion) does not equate to an objective moral evaluation. Something can merely be mediocre and hamfisted without being actually the most abusive thing ever.
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Nov 29, 2019 22:12
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I may regret saying this, but I get the feeling if HGMO was written by an OSR buff, RPGSite regular, or some other variety of right-wing chud I don't think we'd be having as much hand-wringing over this and would be a lot more universally condemnatory.
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Nov 29, 2019 22:32
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The Forge gave us PARANOIA XP (the best version of PARANOIA), and it especially gave us Extreme PARANOIA, which opened my eyes to what light, narrative-first gaming could be like. I STILL want to run the department store salesmen game someday, which is basically PARANOIA Retail Magic.
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Nov 29, 2019 22:32
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Libertad! posted:I may regret saying this, but I get the feeling if HGMO was written by an OSR buff, RPGSite regular, or some other variety of right-wing chud I don't think we'd be having as much hand-wringing over this and would be a lot more universally condemnatory. HGMO made by a Pundit-like would be an entirely different game and would have entirely different faults and failings. I don’t think that’s a counterfactual that tells us much of anything. For my part, I’m mildly disconcerted by the fact that Polaris (the hauntingly beautiful game of doomed knights) was written by the same person who wrote Bliss Stage and HGMO.
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Nov 29, 2019 22:36
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inklesspen posted:HGMO made by a Pundit-like would be an entirely different game and would have entirely different faults and failings. I don’t think that’s a counterfactual that tells us much of anything. Maybe, but as I said in an earlier post, the "older gay man manipulating a younger boy* for sex purposes" is something we've seen a lot in traditional homophobic media tropes. The message bears much of the same similarities as the kind espoused by evangelical pastors even if the game was written by someone politically opposite. *who had to be adopted from an orphanage, mind you, implying he's a minor (edit: pre-author clarification) but rather explicit in that he's an adopted son in the relationship Libertad! fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 22:42
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