McDermott
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Posts posted by McDermott
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50 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:I think it was just some poor writing. Tomonatsu's gender should have been clear from the beginning.
How? Samurai armor + mempo, how should the gender have been clear from the beginning?
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3 hours ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:Kuroiban > Kuni Tsukai Sagasu > Phoenix Inquisitors, as far as 'rule of cool', goes.
Honestly, the Isawa Inquisitors in "old5R" were mostly fanatical, power-hungry jerks. Which, to be fair, is pretty much spot-on as reference to real-world Inquisitions.
Pfffbbbttttth to the Kuroiban. How many top secret secret organizations does one clan need?
Kuni Katsuyoshi reacted to this -
8 minutes ago, Doji Namika said:The one who criticized the depiction of Hotaru was me, actually, not BD Flory.
And even if that artwork was done by the most Japanese of persons, I would still have preferred her depicted as more Asian looking. It's true that with the other color filter it's better, but she still comes across as a European blond haired woman, and it's far from the first time I've seen L5R artwork of Cranes with their hair dyed white.
Anyway, while I actually like the artwork, my preference is to see those who are supposed to look Asian to actually do so, and not European. We have Merenae, Thrane and whatnot who can appear that way. And to see a bit more of the range of looks that part of the world has to offer. Rokugan draws from more than Japan, so why not show it?
This is all subjective and personal, of course. For some a kimono and katana is enough to communicate that oriental feel, others would like it accentuated more.
Thats fair, but there's pretty clearly an off copy of her art floating around that makes her look drawn blonde. The version on the artists page pretty clearly has white/silver hair.
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Just now, BordOne said:Thanks. I asked you specifically about Japan because this country is pretty unique when it comes to asian countries and social and cultural changes tend to go a bit different there.
I know the pale skin is a sign of wealth. I also suspected that Japan out of all countries might be the fastest to go away from this idealization.
I'm living in Taiwan right now, telling a girl she is brown or yellow is the same as telling her she is ugly here.
I'm straight up not japanese so.....
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1 hour ago, BordOne said:We need to deal in numbers. I am not sure how it looks in Japan, im positive @McDermott can tell you more, but in other asian countries both in media and society the ideal of beauty always includes whiter skin and majority of the people want to work towards that ideal.
Eh, probably not, I can say that the ideal of pale skin has its root in the concept of wealth. Basically having pale skin meant you weren't slaving away in the fields to survive (as in you weren't tanned and weathered, not everything is rooted in american racial dynamics) and had resources. The fact that you had those resources meant that a lot of the beauty destroying aspects of things like malnutrition and backbreaking physical labor didn't affect you. Basically its a holdover from WAYYYYY the hell back when that has only recently began to fade away.
Ide Yoshiya reacted to this -
Just now, BD Flory said:Show me where people are claiming, in this discussion, to speak for all Japanese people.
For myself, I never claimed to speak for any Japanese people, or Japanese-Americans, or anyone else.
Then i'm going to ask you, do you or himoto actually have a point? Because when people argue the points you seem to be TRYING to make you immediately walk it back.
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30 minutes ago, BD Flory said:One thing that's being left out in the "how they portray themselves and prefer to be portrayed", argument is the assumption that, even if true, Japanese peoples' feelings about how they should be portrayed are neither universal, nor necessarily representative of people of Japanese heritage throughout the world.
It also, generally speaking, falls into the same trap of speaking for someone else that people accuse posters concerned with diversity of, and/or presumes one person of Japanese heritage speaks for all people of Japanese heritage.
Also the fact that the people bringing it up, aren't actually japanese, and regularly try to pull the "well these japanese people don't speak for ALL japanese people" . Well, they have more right to than a bunch of white kids do, and more right to than americans of X heritage do too. I'm actually japanese from japan and don't really care trumps "I took some classes on power and privilege in uni and read woke blog posts" every single time in the credibility department.
Silver Crane reacted to this -
11 hours ago, Ser Nakata said:It still amazes me that it is posts like this that reach ten pages or more...
Maybe Hotaru's hair is blonde and not white. But that still could be a dye. Albeit not a white one, but a blonde one. Maybe she has her own brand of shampoo made of sunrays captured in the tears of artisans drenched in the amazingness of the latest art pieces received at Kyuden Doji.
Or maybe, maybe... *GASP* Maybe she dyes her hair blonde as a statement. Maybe she does it so that Lions won't dye their hair blonde to look like real lions on the battlefield?Or maybe, as ive pointed out the pic on bell of lost souls has some sort of filter on it that yellows the whole picture compared to the version posted on the artists deviant art.
version on BOLS, pretty blonde, but the entire image is kind of yellow
version on the artists Deviantart, pretty clearly white hair with shading.
Also, artists name seems to be ignatius tan, and also seems to be based out of hong kong so the how they depict themselves vs how white people depict them argument seems to be based on an automatic assumption the artist is a white dude. Seems likely thats a faulty assumption.
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I've seen a couple pictures and one definitely has a blonde tint to it, but theres also clearly some sort of brightening filter over it compared to the other versions i saw where the hair was much paler.
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13 minutes ago, Doji Namika said:She's blond. She doesn't look in the slightest Japanese. And I don't think myself, or anyone else, a stupid westerner if they wonder what's up with that.
Actually, what is up with that? Is it whitewashing? Did she try and dye her hair white but took the wrong bottle home from the grocery store? Did one of her ancestors have some sexy time with Merenae?
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4 minutes ago, Himoto said:No ; we're taking nuanced position because real life is complicated and one-size-fits-all answers tend to be pretty terrible answers.
This is a dodge, its a dodge because the two of you have been given counterexamples for every complaint you've brought forward, then proceeded to shift the goal posts on your position. "Its complicated" isn't an effective cover for that.
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45 minutes ago, shosuko said:What you have essentially said in the first quote is "They depict themselves as "white" in their art, it does not follow that they want US to draw them the same way." You even add "that is a self-serving leap of faith" to further emphasis that we should not be doing this...
Then you come back and claim you haven't said it's offensive for western artists to depict them the way they depict themselves... When the previous line you say doing exactly that is a "self-serving leap of faith."
So what are you saying exactly? And why are you saying it? What is your basic message you want to convey? Do you think Samurai in L5R being depicted as they are in this game is a disservice because the characters look as "they would depict themselves" because "It does not follow they want to be depicted that way by strangers"? OR are you just saying they should be "conscious they are addressing a primarily western audience" (which they are)
The two of them aren't really taking a firm position because a firm position can be argued with. There's just a lot of vague statements about should, which get walked back or hit with "do you think i dont know that DUH" when they're contradicted or shown to be an inaccurate perception.
8 minutes ago, RandomJC said:Then how do I, as a western artist, depict someone of that culture if I can not look at how they depict themselves?
However you want that doesn't move into caricature. You're always going to find someone unhappy with your depictions, eventually to the point that people will say you shouldn't even do so because you're a western artist.
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8 minutes ago, BD Flory said:What makes you think I'm not aware of all of that? It's a big part of why I'd like to see variety in ethnic representation, and attention paid to this by art direction.
Well the things you choose to criticize followed by the rapidly shifting goalposts when someone points out how you're wrong about the setting make me think you're not aware of all that.
Bayushi Tsubaki and Bayushi Bajie reacted to this -
Korea is the phoenix.
Indonesia is the mantis
Crab are a china/japan fusion.
Naga have a south asian (india/pakistan) theme to them
Dragon are tibetian/japanese fusion.
This is what i mean when i say you don't seem particularly well versed in the story and setting yet choose to play critic of it.
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1 minute ago, BD Flory said:The key term here is "flaws."
A setting and story that acknowledges those flaws, and that they are flaws is one thing. And it's absolutely true that some of the most compelling stories and characters can be born of those flaws. Recognizing them as such, and weighing duty to a flawed system against conscience and justice and other heroic qualities is the stuff of which drama is made.
"The Gods say to keep dirty foreign influence out." "That's cool, we don't like them anyway," is a crap world view, sure, but more importantly, it's bad writing, because there's no internal conflict.
You really come across as not very familiar with the body of work regarding this setting.
Bayushi Tsubaki reacted to this -
Just now, Himoto said:Quite frankly, if you can't imagine anything better than creating a system that needs to legitimize (both in the sense of justifying, and in the sense of presenting it as without negative consequence) extreme xenophobia to work...you don't have enough imagination in the first place,to be a good witer.
This is a PROFOUNDLY arrogant statement. Maybe manage some writing success of your own before you throw claims like that around.
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1 minute ago, BD Flory said:I'm sorry, "the natural order of this setting champions and justifies xenophobia and isolationism even among its heroes," isn't a problem for you. It rather is for other people.
Yeah like two of you.
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2 hours ago, Himoto said:The two order of beings who are above any fictional celestial orders and gods : Readers, and writers.
Even by then, China was trailing severely behind in technology, which directly contributed to losing the aforesaid war. This was after about two centuries (ish) of relatively (compared to Rokugan) mild xenophobic isolationism.
Medieval China (through various dynasties) fortified the Silk Road, traded and sent embassies with its neighbors, welcomed foreign visitors and ambassadors, and sometime adopted their ideas. The Yuan (Mongols) more so than the other, but even the Ming era saw flourishing trade and diplomacy. Heavier-handed xenophobic isolationism comes into play fairly late in Chinese history, and was rapidly followed by the decline and fall of the Chinese empire, a decline that they've spent the past century working hard to recover from.
Even Japan was fairly mild on its xenophobia compared to Rokugan: even at the worst of Japanese isolation, they still received yearly trade ships from the Netherlands and European books were not entirely unknown. And, of course, Japan had fairly open lines of communication with its East Asian neighbors. And that's at the worse of Tokugawa isolationism. Pre-Tokugawa, Japan still had extensive contacts with East Asia, and, at various periods, traded over a much broader region.
Again, that period of isolation directly led to a severely technologically behind Japan (that did a much better job of catching up than Europe, but still needed decades to do it).
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Meanwhile, we have Rokugan. Rokugan, whose isolation has been near-total for not the two centuries of so or Japan and China, but for six centuries; whose xenophobia lead to conservative elements that want to put even ambassadors to death (cf Rama Singh). That rokugan has no nearby equal nation with which to maintain trade : no Korea or China (or Japan) to trade with and learn from (via the exchange of ideas).
That Rokugan is a grossly exaggerated parody of the real instances of xenophobic isolationism in Asia, where even the real consequences (of what China and Japan actually did) are laundered away, leaving only pretty clean xenophobia. To make sure the consequences of that don't catch up with Rokugan, Wrath of God wiped out the relevant nations with footnote plagues.None of what you said is actually a problem with the setting except for those who want to participate in checkbox diversity at the expense of focused storytime.
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3 hours ago, Himoto said:Which in turn is nowhere near as cringey as the Pretty Clean Not Evil xenophobia some fans insist on.
Portray heroic characters who believe in xenophobia as one of their flaws, yes. Portray an empire that stunt and limit itself because it fears outsiders, yes. But don't sanitize xenophobia, let alone make it right. It's a rotten, at times downright murderous mentality that's founded on cowardice (in Rokugan's case, institutionalized cowardice), one that will almost always lead to serious harm for the involved parties, by isolating and limiting them.
Portraying rokugani who are right to fear outsiders ; a Celestial Order (as AEG almost did with the Phoenix-Unicorn war) that *actively* punishes the empire for not being xenophobic enough? That's bollocks.Dude china didn't NEED anything from the west, until british merchants started smuggling in opium. There was a whole war fought about it until the UK forced a bunch of concessions out of the emperor. Obviously modern times are different, but we're dealing with a medieval era setting.
Bayushi Tsubaki reacted to this -
3 hours ago, titanmatrix said:Ooph. These comments in this thread are cringey.
It's fantasy, they could put dark skinned folk in if they want, they have chosen not to. It sucks.
That said, you could easily have forces from far off lands join the game.
And boy I miss the Burning Sands.
Not as cringey as this. Its a fantasy world they could X if they wanted is the most useless comment. Checklist diversity is worthless.
At least have the courage of your convictions to just own what you want them to change. Stop dancing around the reality of what you want which is to make sure every character isn't asian analogue in a setting about an asian analogue empire with loose historic ties to japan and china.
Bayushi Tsubaki reacted to this -
1 hour ago, Bayushi Tsubaki said:I gotta say I wish L5R could actually focus a lil more on non-Great Clans and spend some time with the nonhuman elements of the Empire; they exist, after all. But I also understand why that never works out, because a living story with minimum 7 different points of view that need covering with very limited fiction release just doesn't leave a ton of room for exploring hengeyokai, yuki no onna, ryu, nezumi, etc and so on.
I mean i like the supernatural/nonhuman aspects too, its just that the line between their being a part of a story about the rokugani and the story being about them seems to blur the more they get included and you invariably end up with a grip of stories focusing on them and their POV.
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5 hours ago, BD Flory said:That's true, but the stories we tell say something about us, too. If we tell a story that lionizes xenophobia (no pun intended) -- where xenophobia is not only common, but rational and correct -- it also says something about what we feel about our world. It's what stories do.
That aside, I'm not even sure I agree with your assessment. I mean, I don't know all the ins and outs of the story over 20 years, but the Unicorn, with all their foreign influences, were just as important as the other clans on the Day of Thunder. Or they had just as much of a shot at being important, anyway.
And once again, I don't think anyone in this thread is advocating for diversity without regard to story and setting. A society with a wide range of skin tones can be xenophobic. "Asian," like "European," includes a variety of phenotypes and skin tones. Outsiders, of whatever ethnicity they might be, can be rare, and mistreated and disadvantaged in various ways.
There are a lot of ways to develop diverse representation without tokenism or trying to be "colorblind."
Well, lemmie put it this way, i dont give a crap about the nations outside of Rokugan. I dont give a crap about the burning sands, ivory kingdoms, thrane or merinae except as antagonists to the empire. In fact I dont give a crap is too nice of a framing. I am actively hostile to the idea of their inclusion. I feel that time spent on them is time away from the core stories and focus that made L5R as successful as it was, and you can almost track the rises and falls of the game and community population by how much focus is diverted from the great clans and their stories toward other nations and species during a given arc. There is so much that can be done just with the families of the great clans and the minor clans that design and story time spent on cultures outside rokugani culture is pretty much a waste of FFG's time and energy.
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1 hour ago, twinstarbmc said:Crane clan champion's gay? No problem.
Original champion swapped for a woman? RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!
Really?
There's a large segment of retcon ragers in the CCG fanbase. A gay champion is just as easily an aspect of the characters sexuality not revealed in story yet. Gender swap is going to clash pretty hard against those folks psyches.
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14 minutes ago, BD Flory said:Nothing beyond, "because FFG thinks people will like it," is required.
Far as i can tell they havent chimed in one way or another on this subject matter so if thats whats required....
Dark Hands of Heaven - Crab Fiction
in Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game
Posted
Those were people Kisada knew, on the wall, prior to the attack. Tomo was a random bushi in full kit in the midst of a confusing melee.