Story Mode Controversy --REDUX

[Rotor]

, so I'm well versed in making up bull■■■■.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 12:00 PM

A long time ago in an internet far far away existed this "WoT generator". A thing of beauty. You could select 2 to 5 paragraphs, give a simple sentence and VIOLA! It was comprehensible unadulterated grammatically correct BULL■■■■! But you could tie up the untrained for a few minutes.

 

[Adam the Waster]

AI generated image, which most people associated with laziness. lol I never once heard anyone claim the design was "problematic" from a political POV.

People complain about the native American plauge spitter over the mummy one,

I liked the native one but it should have been a normal Zombie or a cazador bandit zombie

 

[Dark Sun]

I can't really see a lawsuit happening, TFP do live in the country and they're not likely to publish something that obviously "dangerous". Some "Indian Expert" suing on behalf of the image of a tribe ...? A fictional tribe in a game ...? Yeh, US allows for anyone to sue over anything, but this would be petty, and it would not succeed.


And I would strongly advocate against that way of writing. Not only for this specific case, but in general - everything nowadays feels like it's written with HR in the room, because they are. Checklists of things that might offend someone somewhere, they dull every bit of writing.

Then again, BI is Canadian iirc (?) ; that's the guys who like to have parades on stolen land while apologizing for having their parades on stolen land ... kinda reminiscent of good old fashioned keepaway in school corridors... wouldn't be surprised if they were already in the progress of altering the stories to their higher standards.

Thank you for spelling it how it is. The problem isn't the material itself per se (imo), it's the fact that there are two hundred chefs in the kitchen and HR and other executives are constantly meddling by breathing down their necks and micromanaging every decision in the name of "market research" and "squeezing ever last cent out of the dollar". Even progressive people are getting tired of it. Bad writing is bad writing, period, and when something is so on the nose to the point of tone deafness and where it reeks of "how ya doing fellow kids?", it turns off even the people they're trying to cater towards. It's somewhat of an equivalent of the live service model. Executives going off of what they perceive will net them the most profit for their quarterly earnings, even if the masses have rejected it time after time. It's the definition of insanity.

There is also a level of entitlement in today's world. It's why there's a plethora of cases of big budget productions with famous IP's being given to people who are not familiar with or actively dislike the source material, and change it beyond recognition while patting themselves on the back. On the most extreme end of this, you get shows like "Resident Evil" which have little to nothing to do with the games themselves, or "Velma" which are just spite-filled dumpster fires.

As I've stated before, corporations are not your friend. Their sole purpose is to make money, all of the money, by any means necessary. They're like a farmer who owns a farm *full of geese that lay golden eggs and they helicopter parent all of them to the extreme to ensure the safety of their investment.

(*Except in this case, it's their attempt to force convert regular geese into magical golden egg layers. They'll fail a thousand times and still continue.)

Bad writing is bad writing. Meddling is meddling. It's no different than Hollywood pressuring writers of foreign works to change their material to appear "more American", to the point it would miss the mark on the intent and message of the creation, like a poet being pressured to rewrite their creative works to be more "formal" and "corporate". In the end, it would create a stale nothing burger of little to no substance. For instance, there is something very particular about "British humour". Changing it to suit the standards or tastes of another culture would only spoil it.

 

[khzmusik]

Well, as long as folks are entertained...

That TFP are definitely allowed to depict a native American as a criminal

I think I see the problem. You misunderstand what this entire thread is about.

It was never about depicting a Native American as a bad guy, just like it was never about depicting a White person as a good guy. We all agree it can be OK to do that.

It was about specifically how they are depicted as good or bad. If the depiction presents racial stereotypes as true, that is the issue. That's what turns it from a story where the bad guy happens to be Native American, and the good guy happens to be a White guy, into a contemporary version of a "Cowboys and Injuns" story from a dime Western.

The story of 7D2D does that.

Is the "Casino Indian" trope a negative racial stereotype? Yes. I was not the one who created or named the trope, and I was not one of the people who determined it was a negative racial stereotype. It is not my opinion. If you don't believe me, read the sources I posted - and keep in mind I could not find a single source which said it is not a negative racial stereotype.

Does the Duke exemplify the "Casino Indian" trope? Yes. Does the Duke have potentially redeeming qualities not related to the trope? No. Is the trope presented as real? Yes. Is his depiction a criticism, satire, or joke about the racial stereotype (a la Chief Lazarus from It's Always Sunny)? No. If you don't believe me, read the text about him in the game's translation files, which I also posted in this thread.

None of what I'm saying should be controversial.

You also seem to misunderstand what the "Casino Indian" trope is. It's not just "someone associated with a tribal casino who is a criminal." Fair enough, there are a lot of articles to wade through, and most people aren't as obsessive about things like that as I am.

So, let me try to summarize the trope, as I understand it. A "Casino Indian":

• Is Native American. (Obviously, but it means a non-Native cannot be a "Casino Indian.")
• Owns the casino, so all its profits go into their pocket (not to the tribe). It is implied, or outright stated, that they own the casino because they are motivated by greed.
• Is only allowed to own the casino through legal loopholes, and/or by tricking lawmakers into handing them rights ordinary Americans don't have. (As Jen says, "rigging the game.")
• Takes valuable things - money, land, local business, tax dollars - away from non-Native (usually White) people.
• Is directly associated with organized crime. Either they are a willing participant with non-Native criminals (e.g. allow the Mafia to launder money through the casino for a kickback), or themselves behave like an organized crime boss (loan sharking, running protection rackets, has criminal underlings, etc.). They get away with it because tribal casinos are unregulated hotbeds of criminality.
• Is economically and politically powerful - powerful enough to rival, if not outright dethrone, the economic and political power of non-Native (White) people. Often this is accomplished through corrupt means (bribing officials, back-room deals with shady politicians, etc.).

The Duke has all of the character traits which fit this trope. He has no character traits which do not fit this trope.

In the real world, this trope reinforces negative attitudes towards tribals casinos, and can be directed against Native Americans in general and their rights. "They're not paying their fair share." "They don't need our help, they have casino money." "Casino handouts have made them greedy and lazy." "They claim it's 'sovereignty,' but it's really just a license to violate the laws the rest of us have to follow." You know, stuff like that.

Do you think this is the message The Fun Pimps want to send? I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure it's not.

On the other hand, your replies sound like you're saying "but that's all true tho!" But I don't want to assume that (it's why I asked what you were saying about the trope, and not what you were saying about me).

Also, I don't think it'll be safe for me to use any of his mods again... because I think he'll add some lines in the code such as: "IF user = "Jost_Amman" then <many bad things will happen>"...

Don't be ridiculous. I don't hold any personal animosity towards you. I think you're factually wrong, and consistently misunderstand what I'm saying, but there are far worse things to be in this world.