Roleplayers of Color

latina-nerds-unite: jayveesto: Remember Me concept...

Fri, 03 May 2013 22:13:13 -0700

jayveesto:

Remember Me concept art

While Nilin is not a Latin@ herself, I find it very refreshing to see a WOC be the main protagonist in a video game as it brings a lot more visibility and inclusion within the gaming industry and communities that are all white, cismale dominated.

“Remember Me” comes out in June.

Below is the trailer interested in learning more about the game.

http://youtu.be/utQNNlN0dTg

Followers, please reblog with your own opinions. Thanks!

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:55:30 -0700

Followers, please reblog with your own opinions. Thanks!

Hi there. I'm a white mmo player (Guild Wars 2, atm) who wants to make a character of color. I've been burned out on RP for a while, but may return soon. I still make small backstories for my characters, though. The character's in-game race would be Norn, (giant humanoids inspired by old Germanic culture) and will not be roleplayed for a while. I guess my question is if it's okay to make a CoC as a white person if I just like how my character looks? Do I need a reason to play a CoC? Thanks.

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:43:00 -0700

This is just my opinion and I will open it up for the followers to answer as well but this is how I feel:

If you are white and you want to roleplay a character of color, the only reason that you need to play is that you want to play. That’s it. The thing you have to keep in mind is to keep it respectful. I don’t know a lot about that game but as long as you keep it away from harmful and hurtful stereotypes, go for it. So naturally do research, as you would with any character. I think under resources we have links to writing CoCs.

Also, if you ever want to cosplay your char, don’t change your skin tone to do it. That falls under the respect thing. :)

Thanks for the question!

Are you FUCKING kidding?

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 20:42:46 -0800

sonofahurricane:

sojourner-truth-or-dare:

This guy, THIS GUY, is the star of upcoming Assassin’s Creed movie?!

THIS FUCKING GUY?! Michael muhfucking Fassbender?! Is going to play the role of an assassin named Altaïr Ibn-La’ahad?!

And who fucking looks like this in the game?!

He’s SYRIAN for fucks’ sake!

NOPE! Not seeing this garbage. This is the same fucking reason I refused to see Prince of Persia…casting fucking Gyllenhaal as a PRINCE OF PERSIA.

NO!

not just that, but Fassbender is an abusive asshole so even if I was willing to overlook the whitewashing racist bullshit (I’m not), if I see it I’m putting money into the pocket of a known abuser

ombrophilia: Remember Me, coming May 2013 from Capcom and...

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:38:35 -0800

ombrophilia:

Remember Me, coming May 2013 from Capcom and Dontnod Entertainment, is a third-person video game starring Nilin, a mixed-race lady, in dystopian Neo-Paris in 2084. Nilin had her memories wiped by her former employer, but will use her skills as a memory hunter to alter her enemies’ memories and restore her own. Exploration and platforming are major parts of the game, so expect Mirror’s Edge-style parkour without Mirror’s Edge’s major failing: Spontaneous gun battles. Combat in the game is entirely hand-to-hand, with no guns, blood, or killing. Instead, players create combos on the fly in the Combo Lab (which touts over 50,000 different combos according to Capcom) and rely on on-screen displays to see how effective they are against an enemy. If you’re not super psyched for this game yet, let me give you a quote from the co-founder of Dontnod:

CVG: Remember Me’s lead character is a mixed-race female, which stands out against the crowd of white male heroes. There’s a sense that publishers attach risk to anything other than white male leads. At any stage in development, did you feel you needed to change the lead character’s appearance?

Jean-Maxime Moris: No, we wanted Nilin to stand out. I think these sort of issues become self-fulfilling prophesies; people saying that only white males sell so then everyone only does white males. If you start believing these things you get your head inside this cold marketing strategy that you cannot get your head around. It becomes a pretty fucking racist and misogynistic way of thinking about lead characters.

To summarize: Remember Me is a third-party cyberpunk dystopian parkour platformer starring a non-sexualized non-white lady who knows 50,000 ways to knock somebody out. Coming May 2013 to PC, XBox 360, and PS3.

Additional reading: How stupid is this industry to only bet on stereotypes?, CVG, Nov 4 2012

damnlayoffthebleach: fairytaleacademy: Name: Kida...

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 09:30:03 -0800

damnlayoffthebleach:

fairytaleacademy:

Name: Kida Nedakh [TAKEN]

Clique: Adventurers

Age: 18

FC: Hayden Panettire

Bio: Often described as a warrior princess due to Kida’s very skilled hand to hand combat and strength this is a girl you don’t want to mess with, trust me ask her ex-boyfriends. Kida is very curious soul and is interested in anything historic and old especially about Atlantis’s past, some might say she’s borderline obsessed. Which is why she can be often found in the library or unsurprisingly by the pool due to her love of water. It’s unsurprising that she’s sencond in her class at history and an A* student, second to Milo Thatch that is. Kida’s decedents are that of the people from the lost city of Atlantis or so her grandmother has said, since hearing this at a young age Kida has been determined to find out as much as she can about the mystical lost city and why exactly it sunk to the sea all those years ago, that is if it even exists. Quite a lone wolf at school Kida enjoys reading, swimming and discovering new places however she does have quite allot of friends and is very social at times but prefers to be in a tight nit group of the adventurers. It’s obvious Kida has allot of love for her family in particular her father who has practically raised her alone after the mysterious disappearance of her mother when Kida was just a child. Secretly Kida suspects it has something to do with her heritage although never admits it to anyone but herself from fear of sounding crazy. Later on at her time at WWH Kida meets Milo a very curious soul similar to hers but much less adventurous a bit of a nerd but sweet. Kida can’t help but feel something for him but is not afraid to express her curiosity about him, often asking inappropriate questions and not realizing when she’s taken something to far and is being to forward even though Milo doesn’t seem to mind. The two seem to be getting quite close but Kida doesn’t really know if she wants a relationship right now whilst concentrating on school and other activities…however she’s never shut off to the idea of love and longs for a love like her parents had before her mother was taken. A master debater Kida can seem quite forceful, violent, and aggressive at times but anyone will tell you she has a kind heart, and a general respect for all people and creatures not matter what wrong they have done. Lately Kida has been discovering something strange about herself, she seems to have a weird connection to water and it to her, like witchcraft. The whole thing freaks her out a little bit but Kida can’t help but experiment with it however dangerous it might be, often giving her nose bleeds and giving other students involved strange marks on their bodies and nightmares depending on proximity. Maybe this is what she’s been looking for, will Kida unlock the key to her mothers vanishing or perhaps meet the same sticky end her mother did all those years ago.

T:

damnlayoffthebleach: This is a faceclaim for Cassandra Cain,...

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 22:06:58 -0700

damnlayoffthebleach:

This is a faceclaim for Cassandra Cain, the second Batgirl in the DC comics verse. Cass is mixed race (half white, half east Asian [google said her mother was from northeastern China]).

It was found on this facebook account.

Cass looks like this in the comics:

Not Ellen Page.

TayTay:

On Creating Black Characters

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 11:29:18 -0700

impossiblebreakfast:

I’ve noticed that lot of people run into trouble when trying to diversify their work simply because they don’t know any black people. They don’t know how a black person would think or act, and they can’t write what they don’t know. So I thought I would write up a quick list of pointers for anyone having this problem.

Read More

I guess I had just hoped they'd be "nice" since the RP's been in action a while and I just recently was asked to participate (rare thing, I guess?). The mods have "stated" that they're fine with COC, but I'm having my doubts a bit, too. You're right - I should call them out. I'll do that in the next group chat we have and see how bullshit the answer is. Also, thanks for posting my question. My two characters are both American: a cis Black straight guy and a cis bisexual (cont'd)

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 16:53:37 -0700

Filippina-Chinese girl. My characters haven’t been in the RPG yet since I wanted their profiles checked - I realize now that I’ve been too lenient on the writers and have only been side-eyeing/suspicious. Anyone who would be willing to check my characters/call bullshit on anything can go to my ASK box or private message me & I’ll link them. Thank you so much.

Anyone willing to help a member out? Drop tuchankas a line.

I'm a white RPer who was invited to a nice group RPG. However, all the characters in it are white except for half of mine (I have 4). I plan on writing more POC original chars b/c it skeeves me out that the RPG's NYC is all white & supermodel thin - so this place helps me not fuck things up too badly with my POCs. I was wondering if any of the mods or followers would be willing to read my character profiles for my POC? I would be super grateful and welcome critque! Thank you for making this blog

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 16:13:13 -0700

Is this RP based on the TV Show Girls?

We kid, sorry.

I can’t speak for the other mod but honestly, if I see a RPG that is all white, I won’t participate. It shows me right away how the mods feel about race and generally, in my experience, if they do allow in COC, they are reduced to stereotypes. I know you called them a “nice group” but I have to wonder how nice they really are (my opinion of course!)

If I was you, I would flat out ask the mods why everyone is white and thin. (But I do like to call people out on that stuff!)

As to looking over your profile, I’m publishing this and anyone willing to help can contact you. If you want to send us a follow-up and let us know what race these characters are, or you can submit the profiles and let the community read/comment. Whatever you feel comfortable with.

I know that character creation is a deeply personal thing and opening it up to critique from strangers can be a scary but I think ultimately very important step.

virtualcrunch: Assassins Creed III Liberation main...

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 20:04:05 -0700

virtualcrunch:

Assassins Creed III Liberation

main Protagonist, Aveline de Grandpré, screenshots!

Background of character. Thoughts?

I'm coming in to introduce myself. I'm white, and I don't have the nerve to try my hand at a PoC character yet (specifically because I don't want to screw it up), but I'm following this blog to learn about how to do it right. I probably won't have much to contribute since I'm not even trying yet, I'll just be your silent stalker taking notes.

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:50:14 -0700

Sorry we didn’t publish this sooner. Us modly ladies usually aren’t online during the weekends (for future reference) so not ignoring, promise.

I just published a great resource and tagged it with ‘resources’. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. We want this to be not only a safe space but a space of learning for people. :)

Gee, I don't know how to research writing Characters of Color tastefully:

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 13:21:16 -0700

missturdle:

So You Want to Write a Fantasy: Writing Female Characters

So You want to Write a Fantasy: Culture

SYWTWAF: Writing What you Don’t know

A list of adjectives to describe physical attributes, Or, As it turns out, I could go to Starbucks with half this list

Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Some primers

More Primers

RaceFail ‘09: Or where Deepad’s I didn’t dream of Dragons comes from, and why.

Writing characters of Color

Writing Outside your experience

Media Representations Wiki - stereotypes/tropes/culture/etc

On A:TLA’s whitewashing - All The World’s White, the Rest of Us merely live in it

The Face of the Other: Do Manga & Anime characters look “white”?

Describing Characters of Color pt 1 & Describing Characters of Color (pt 2)

I Didn’t Dream of Dragons

Shame

So You Want to: Avoid Unfortunate Implications

Transracial Writing for the Sincere

Why Writing Colorblind is Writing White

What a Girl Wants: Representation

An Equal Place at the Table

Avoiding LGBTQ Stereotypes

The Problem With Colorblindness (and the Rest of Racebending.com)

Making Movies for White People: A Tongue in Cheek critique of Minority Representation in the Media, or lack thereof

From Margin to Center: Writing Characters of Color via Racialicious

Writing Characters of Color - a helpful community!

Why my Protagonists aren’t white (even though I am.)

The Dangers of Telling a Single Story (a helpful Video)

The Lack of People of Color in Historical Fictions

How to Read and Respond to Literature of Color

The Advantages of being a White Writer (in getting published)

Writing Characters of Colour (Now With 10% Less White Liberal Anxiety!)

Fic and Skin Tone (discusses Nyota Uhura, otherwise relevant)

On Problematic Writing

Writing Race in YA fiction: Debunking Myths

Diversity Writers: How to Write People of Color

The Importance of Inclusionary Writing

Racialicious

Overcoming the Noble Savage and the Sexy Squaw: Native Steampunk

The Intersection of Race and Steampunk: Colonialism’s After-Effects & Other Stories, from a Steampunk of Colour’s Perspective

Beyond Victoriana: For EVERYTHING Steampunk/1800s/Industrial Revolution that isn’t just Victorian England and the archives Tales of the Urban Adventurer

Can I just watch A Game of Thrones in Peace? (A brown feminist fan rant).

Fantasy and Sci-Fi race Bingo

Invoking Strangely Colored people

Many Voices

AfroFuturism, SciFi, and the History of the Future

Some Open Thoughts on Race & Dsyutopia

When Will White People Stop Making Movies like Avatar?

Portraying POC in YA Fantasy: Are we There Yet?

Debunking White Fantasy

Racism in Fantasy

Magical Realism is Fantasy written in Spanish.

1.) It’s not hard to figure out what to do, there are plenty of resources.

People say you have to get it right, do your research, but … what else are you supposed to research? It’s not like people with more pigment in their skin have completely different personalities than those with less, any more than any individual. It’s frustrating when I can’t even figure out what the heck people are talking about.

Bam. Research step one done for you.

2.) Writing characters of color/minorities is a good thing.

I don’t like the notion that fantasy authors are under some kind of obligation to present ethnically diverse worlds. I’m English, and a fair sized part of English history consists of unwashed beardy white people in mead halls. If I’m inspired by my own history and cultural heritage, then that’s what I’m damn well going to write about. I’m not writing about some other culture just to appease the people who think there aren’t enough black characters in fantasy, or whatever. You want it, you write it. Nothing to do with me.

You’re wrong.

3.) Your all White Fantasy Land Didn’t Exist in Real Life:

…the rather medieval one has more diversity than real medieval Germany probably had […] In a world with medieval means of transport, it just doesn’t seem natural to me to mix dark-skinned people with blue-eyed blondes in one setting. I just try to give the people a colour that fits the place where they live.

You mean like the people from Africa and the Middle east who began to take over Southern Spain, as well as the Jews who were pretty well spread out throughout Europe, the Middle Easterners they would have met on the Crusades, and the incoming Mongol Hordes who spread to the very edges of Eastern Europe before the empire finally collapsed? Don’t forget that Turkey is right there, and the silk road would have gone from Song Dynasty China, through India, and ended in Turkey before moving further westwards into places like Germany. Also the attempts at the Franco-Mongol alliance would have been pretty interesting. (That’s about the 13th century - arguably smack dab in Middle Ages Europe and definite contact between France/Christian Europe and the Mongolian Empire.)

Unless you’re writing everything in the far reaches of Denmark or something, historically speaking, I call bullshit on people who have societies that are only all white ever, because it’s just inaccurate. Consider the relative closeness of Northern Africa to Spain, or Turkey to the rest of Europe, the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Crusades, Slavery existing in Europe, including England, the slave trade, imperialism, Pax Mongolica, The Silk Road, Jewish Diaspora, the Islamic Empire vs The Holy Roman Empire, Egypt, Algeria, China’s sailing across the world, The Maruyan/Gupta Empires of India, tea trades, Columbus sailing in hopes of finding China, etc, etc, etc.

4.) I mean I just don’t believe you anymore. It’s unrealistic. Seriously guys.

You’d think I’d just denied the holocaust or something. Get a grip. All I said was that I’m going to write about my own cultural experience and anyone who thinks I should do otherwise for the sake of political correctness can bugger off.

This isn’t even about being PC this is just not being wrong about everything.

good lord.

Want Ad for www-fuck-this-shityolo

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:38:33 -0700

“I usually like playing romance with a main fantasy storyline. I don’t like IC things like roleplaying a certain character. I just like making my own and seeing how they interact with other people’s characters.”

Also looking for play by post or forum type RP with either players of color or characters of color prominent.

Do you know any places to RP that fit this description?

My friends and I play OC POCs on a couple of forum-based (like LiveJournal type things) RPs. I actually followed this tumblr because I'm white and I wanted to learn more to help not totally screw things up when I'm RPing (of the 11 characters I have on one game, 9 are POCs).

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:25:21 -0700

Thank you for joining! We hope you find something valuable here. :)

We’re actually working on a post on RPing something you aren’t familiar with in terms of race. There are a lot of good posts too on writing other ethnicities but RPing, to us, is another kind of animal when it comes to writing based RP. It is collaborative writing and it can be influenced by the person you are playing with as well.

Again, thanks for joining! Support and understanding are always important in these kind of endeavors.

Hey! Love this blog and I was wondering if you know any safe places for RPoc's. I don't like Roleplayer Guild because of what happened to me(I submitted here). Do you know any other sites with a large populations of POC? As far as I could see, I was the only one on Guild(Put i wouldn't know for sure because you can't possible comfirm something like that without checking all rp bios and characters) that made black characters and I didn't like that. Thanks for your help!

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:20:24 -0700

We’re going to open this up to everyone to hopefully answer (in the form of asks or submissions). Also, what do you usually like to play? If you want to ask us back, I can make a question for people to reply to.

The problem that we have found personally is that being a minority inside of a minority makes it really hard to find a safe space to play with other POC or to find characters who aren’t racist stereotypes.

If you are looking for something like play by post, I would suggest maybe journal based RP like on Dreamwidth or Livejournal. There are a couple of Want Ad type communities there. (We can compile a list of the ones we know and post it tomorrow if that is soon enough?) Again, it is hard to tell without going through bios, as you said. Yahoo used to be good for it but they have really gone downhill. I know that Twitter is huge right now but it is the same problem that is everywhere sadly. (I don’t mean this to be discouraging. I just want to be realistic in the advice we give)

We’re hoping this community can be a resource. Just let us know what you’re looking for and we will do a question so everyone can reply. :)

Hi! First, thanks so much for this -- my partners and I almost cried when we found this. Second, we were wondering if anyone else does primarily OC RP. We noticed a LOT of people playing ME, WoW, and canon RP, but we've been in OC (using famous faces). It's a little weird, but we were wondering if any other RPoC were even into it like us. Thanks again!

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:06:00 -0700

I can tell you that you are not alone, greyface!

Actually both of your humble mods play OC RPs (both of us also game too!) We have been playing together for over a decade (yes, we are that old!). We have done supernatural, horror, soap opera, fantasy, historical, fandom. You name it, we have played it but we mostly create our own characters.

I’m a Latina so I generally will make Latina OCs and our other mod is black, who generally plays black OCs. We will probably do a post in the future to show off our OCs (we just didn’t want to monopolize the space)

Please please please, tell us more about you and your partners’ OCs! We want to hear it, see it, we want to squee with you over it. You aren’t alone.

A Post Apocalypse Love Story by moonprintjulip

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:15:44 -0700

If you would allow me, I would like to submit this on behalf of my good friend moonprintjulip. Should you publish it, please give him credit for it and urge anyone who reblogs to do the same.

I love Fallout. It’s one of a very few CRPGs I’ve seen the ending to and still play on occasion. Lately I’ve been playing Fallout 3 a lot and I find that I’m more interested in looking at the series from here than its predecessors. For everything it may have done wrong in moving from turn-based gameplay from isometric viewpoint to a First-Person Shooter, I still feel like it’s a much more immersive game from the perspective of roleplaying.

Surfing the internets I came across this article; it makes some interesting points about the restrictions placed on the player during the creation and how it molds the formation of the narrative. Specifcally I wanted to address these paragraphs:

“… Since meaning within procedural systems is both limited by and dependent on restrictions, Fallout 3 as open to a far more complex reading that can be redemptive of the limitations of its character creation system. … One of Fallout 3′s most pronounced character restrictions has to do with the range of skin colors available for each race. For instance, Asian and Caucasian characters cannot have the darker skin tones available to African American characters. The legibility of these racial categories are thus dependent on color differences, similar to a 20th century color line divide. This ideology mimics the 1940s/50s American nostalgia of the game world, and effectively constricts the true range of physical difference present in people who self-identify as each of the four races in the “real world.” To put it succinctly, by forcing the player to identify with one of four rigid and institutionalized racial identities inside of a retro-futurist pre-Civil Rights world associated with segregation and nuclear annihilation, Fallout 3 affords a rare and bold consistency between setting and character (and let me note that whether this is conscious or not is of no interest to me). The player is uncomfortably hailed into mid 20th century American racial ideology.

Creating a character in Fallout 3 initiates the player into the violences of a system of raciological thinking similar to 1940s America, but the continued familiar violences of racial categorization seen today in the Census as well as job and school applications, advertisement, and so on.

These issues disappear in the gameworld, limiting them to character creation and squandering what could’ve been an interesting exploration, both procedurally and narratively, of racial politics and issues like nationalism and xenophobia which caused the destruction of DC.“

That uncomfortable juxtapositioning of a 21^st century body (the player) into the role of a 20^th century American worldview is at the heart of what I think makes Fallout 3 one of the more immerse sandbox RPGs of recent times while at the same time highlighting shortcomings and skirt-arounds that are typical in games. The Lone Wanderer is cast out of the place they’ve called home all their life in to an uncompromisingly harsh environment, put in the uncomfortable position of having nothing left of their former life and trying to reclaim some semblance of normalcy in finding their father, the only accessible vestige of their past.

An argument can be made for the lack of differential facial anatomy as a shortcoming of the game engine and not the developers, and to a point it’s a valid reply. It is a racial component, though, not just from the perspective of putting emphasis on the “retro-futurist pre-Civil Rights”-era world but because it not-so-subtly advocates the forcible assimilation of minorities into a white power structure that’s defined American (or European) culture. The argument of “why can’t you just be like us?” manifested as a physicality of total assimilation into whiteness to the point where the only consistent way of separating and differentiating characters by ethnicity outside of last names (Almodovar, Dr. Li, Vargas, etc) is the color of their skin – and what is the first thing you’ll see before you open up dialog and find out an NPC’s name? Nearly all randomly generated NPCs I’ve seen look Caucasian, just with darker skin, and most of the named PoCs aren’t distinguishable as their claimed ethnicity.

It’s really driven home by the limited array of selections you can make for your character. Skintone and color is tied to a limiting system of 2-3 sliders that effect pigmentation in very strange ways. Making my first characters I found it nearly impossible to get natural, normal brown tones of skin without first randomly generating faces and then altering them, because more often than not I came out with some sort of Yellowish-Greenish diseased looking flesh that made me think I was a Ghoul more than anything. Hair styles can be chosen simply by scrolling down a list and clicking one, but there’s not a single option that depicts natural afro-hair or even the slightest semblance of a curl.

Really? In a freaking post-apocalypse where day-to-day survival is iffy, you’re constantly put upon my any number of mutants, raiders and logic-defying abominations, you want me to believe that people of African descent still prioritize chemically straightening their hair over all else? The history of how hair is treated among those of afro-descent is rooted in assimilating and conforming to a white standard of beauty, so taking note of this lack of choice is particularly telling from both a modern (developer) and lore perspective.

In the context of the in-game history race is largely made a non-issue outside of McCarthyist prejudice against “The Red Threat” and xenophobic, propaganda-fueled anti-Chinese sentiment. What you learn about the USA prior to the bombs falling is largely from the perspective of faceless accounts of those dead or from a militaristic viewpoint in what I assume was an attempt at downplaying the pervasive racist ideologies of the 1950’s. Any nationalist rhetoric is presented as either brought on by madness in the case of Nathan of Megaton, or setting the tone of Pre-War wasteland. It’s there, but it’s presented as an aside to the overarching plot of the game and not delved into in any meaningful way. But still, as Higgin pointed out, it comes back up in more subtle (possibly more effective) ways, still presented in a way so as to be dismissed as a non-issue, but it was an interesting realization for me. Then again it comes up in some far less subtly ways also.

Higgin’s article tags the ghouls of the Capitol Wasteland as ‘racial proxies’ for addressing race within the context of the 40’s-50’s perspective of the gameworld.

“But that’s not to say that racial tensions completely disappear. Instead the game’s anxiety over race is displaced onto the “ghouls,” whose irradiated and disfigured bodies separate them from the rest of the human population, and who, as figures of zombie fantasy, allow for a safe and comfortable canvas for the issues of race announced by the process of character creation. It’s a classic design cop out: instead of tackling race head-on, we use fantastical proxies.“

This article makes the point that a typical trope of Science Fiction to “creates something alien to the reader, and uses it as a tool to examine ideas, problems, or concepts that turn out to be not alien at all. ” It’s a good counter-point, but in Fallout 3 Bethesda used this trope as a scapegoat for a much more insidious statement about racism, especially it’s history in the US. cuchlann goes on to write:

“The displacement he describes as a “cop out” is how SF works. A SF text creates something alien to the reader, and uses it as a tool to examine ideas, problems, or concepts that turn out to be not alien at all … The displacement is what it’s all about, when it comes to the “big issues” in a SF text.

So, what about Fallout 3? Well, unsurprisingly, it doesn’t try to tackle race issues directly. That’s not really what it’s trying to be about. It’s about a post-apocalypse. Does that excuse it from race issues? Not exactly. But a text can’t really be blamed for something it didn’t try to do. Henry James allowed that every author or text needed to be allowed to do what it set out to do. He called that intention a “donnee.” He claimed you judge the work on whether it accomplished its donnee, not whether it did something you think it should have done instead. So, in fact, Fallout 3 talks about race more than it even needed to.”

I don’t agree with the latter claim; personally I feel what can be inferred or is implied in a work is far more telling than most of what is explicit, and I definitely don’t feel Fallout 3 does much of anything to talk about race. Not in any meaningful way, at least. He goes on to say that “Falloutin general, and the third game specifically, use a kind of understatement to talk about things.“ - which is true, much of the history of the game is there to be inferred but not always spelled out for you. However there’s a few very pivotal examples that have stuck with me since I first played Fallout 3.

If one was to wander west past the Washington Monument you’d run into the Lincoln Memorial whereupon you’d find a group of encamped Slavers. Slaving in Fallout would be nothing particularly shocking, I guess, if you’d played the previous two games, but 3 drew in a lot of newcomers to the franchise. Anyway. Advancing on this dastardly bunch one might notice that by chance a fair number of them are Black. One might consider this a curious coincidence and shrug it off as a quirk of the randomly generated NPCs. But wait! Two of them in particular have names; so they’re not randomly generated to look that way, it was designed like that. Silas, I should note, is supposed to be asian(http://www.falloutwiki.com/Silas) – however I was playing modded and he looked black as far as I could tell. Leroy Walker, however, is clearly black.

So, you might initially shrug this off as alone it isn’t particularly poignant. However imagine my surprise when I learned Paradise Falls, the HQ of the Slaver faction, was led by a Black Male by name of Eulogy Jones. Even the doorman is black, though once you’re inside the Falls most of the named NPCs are caucasian. I [hope] I don’t have to explain the long, sordid history of slavery in America and it’s ongoing effects. I can’t believe that the development team at Bethesda needed to have it explained to them either. Point being, the fact that these two slaving groups, though connected, are led by black men is no accident. It’s an understating way of talking about race in context that offers little discussion or room for thought. Eulogy Jones is one of the biggest assholes you’ll meet in the Wastes; nothing is beneath him (don’t quote me on that, I didn’t talk to him extensively), he’ll even enlist the Wanderer to go enslave children. It’s demonizing and polarizing, meant to disgust the player and drive home how horrible these Slaver types are. But it’s twofold, because it also reinforces negative stereotypes people have about minorities, and specifically blacks. It reinforces also a fear in white people that, if given the opportunity, Blacks here in the US would do to them what they and their forefathers did out of spiteful malevolence. It’s ridiculous and entrenched in racial stereotyping but is seemingly a real one in some of the people I’ve spoken to about this, and Fallout 3 puts it out there not as a discussion place but a fact.

This is why I say the Ghoul allegory is a scapegoat. It’s a device within the mythos of the game to address racism and prejudice in a way that isn’t directly offensive to anyone. But then at the same time there is profiling and racism existent elsewhere in the game but not addressed as part of it, some of it subtle and some not so much. It isn’t even anything new, really, because Fallout 2 does the same thing with Joanne Lynette in Vault City, one of the very few minority (or black) characters in that game (not counting tribals), who is a managerial elitist and justifies systematic, government enforced slavery with bureaucracy and lawmaking.

Maaaaaybe it’s more tongue-in-cheek in Fallout 2 considering the tone of the game but I highly doubt it. I don’t want to think these examples were deliberate and malicious on the part of either creative team, but you see with media that invariably there’s little attention given to those issues relevant to people of color because by and large in development it’s white males making the calls. If you don’t go into something aware of your prejudices, assumptions and biases you’ll almost inevitably reinforce them somehow.

Why is caucasian the default race during character generation? What, aren’t most people caucasian? Why are there no afro-centric hairstyles? Well, who has hair like that? Who [would] want it?

Fallout 3 stands out from the previous two games in terms of atmospheric theme. I’ve always considered that to be a regional difference more than anything. In Fallout 1 and 2 I get the impression that even though society on the west coast is gone the communities that sprung back up out of the radioactive ashes are trying to reclaim some vestige of the old world and make their presence known and lasting. Trading is a norm in the West as is cooperation between communities and factions (sort of). NCR came to the top by domination through numbers, mob factions grew by spreading drugs and intimidation, Slavers by doing what they do naturally, etc.. All in all you get a sense of people working to make something out of what little is left after the bombs dropped.

Meanwhile on the East coast you see that everything’s gone completely to shit in the worst way, and instead of trying to work together mostly communities isolate themselves from each other or actively work against each other. Whenever groups of people get together to work for the betterment of everyone (Project Purity) something happens and it all falls apart and then it’s back to square 1, every man for themselves. I get the feeling that everyone’s basically given up on life - as evidenced by the overabundance of raiders and slavers, and there’s no looking to the future. It’s a day-to-day struggle for most people to get out of bed and keep despair out of mind; going on with living just because they’re too chickenshit to do anything else. Megaton is a perfect example of that feeling, from the patrons and employees of Moriarty’s (Nova and Gob are a great example) to Old Man Vargas. Brailee Ewers in Arefu is a good example also, and Arefu really drove home for me just how bad the situation in the wasteland is. Arefu is also a good example of the segregation of communities. The despair of wasteland hardships has driven any hope from the minds of wastelanders and when they get weak enough they turn to religion (the cults) or insanity (raiders).

The Brotherhood faction that came to the wasteland split because Lyons saw the hopelessness of the Capital Wasteland and he wanted to do his part to give them hope. This was nothing like what he’d left on the West Coast. 3-Dog touched on this sort of, with GNR as his way of parting the clouds and bringing a little ray of hope home to shine over the wasteland. He’s not presented in the Magical Negroe role either, thankfully, just a guy doing his part. The Lone Wanderer is working, whatever his motivations, to at best clean up the Wasteland with force. 3-Dog is working to unite the wasteland and give people something to keep them going; and it works. Gob and Nova have GNR on all the time to keep their spirits up. All across the Wasteland you can hear 3-Dog’s howl. I have GNR on all the time because otherwise the Wasteland is just too dreary.

QOTW 01: What do you play?

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:31:05 -0700

Oh gosh I really wish I had stories or advice to share on here because this blog is just so asljdfl <3

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 21:05:49 -0700

No worries, grayface. We’re glad to have you in any capacity that you can be in, even if it’s just sending us in love. (Cause who doesn’t love love?)

If you want to try out roleplaying, there are so many options from mediums online to video games to tabletop to even putting yourself in the shoes of a character you create. I know I am leaving so many other options out and I bet there are some I am not even thinking of. And if that doesn’t appeal, then support, like you’re doing, is totally essential.

Thank you. We love you right back.

Roleplayers of Color

latina-nerds-unite: jayveesto: Remember Me concept...

Followers, please reblog with your own opinions. Thanks!

Are you FUCKING kidding?

This guy, THIS GUY, is the star of upcoming Assassin’s Creed movie?! THIS FUCKING GUY?! Michael muhfucking Fassbender?! Is going to play the role of an assassin named Altaïr Ibn-La’ahad?!

ombrophilia: Remember Me, coming May 2013 from Capcom and...

damnlayoffthebleach: fairytaleacademy: Name: Kida...

damnlayoffthebleach: This is a faceclaim for Cassandra Cain,...

On Creating Black Characters

virtualcrunch: Assassins Creed III Liberation main...

Gee, I don't know how to research writing Characters of Color tastefully:

Want Ad for www-fuck-this-shityolo

My friends and I play OC POCs on a couple of forum-based (like LiveJournal type things) RPs. I actually followed this tumblr because I'm white and I wanted to learn more to help not totally screw things up when I'm RPing (of the 11 characters I have on one game, 9 are POCs).

A Post Apocalypse Love Story by moonprintjulip

QOTW 01: What do you play?

Oh gosh I really wish I had stories or advice to share on here because this blog is just so asljdfl <3

This guy, THIS GUY, is the star of upcoming Assassin’s Creed movie?!

THIS FUCKING GUY?! Michael muhfucking Fassbender?! Is going to play the role of an assassin named Altaïr Ibn-La’ahad?!