#stop using the word 'ethnic' if you don't know what it means for fucks sake

[sangue-dolce]

good god can you imagine being this dense. y'all will just use words and concepts willy nilly on a whim with no idea what they mean and embarrass yourself publicly like this. feel some shame please.

#stop using the word 'ethnic' if you don't know what it means for fucks sake #leave eastern europeans alone in your us///am//erican-ass devoid of any meaning or sense rhetoric #and study some more малоумен кретен такъв #никой не ти иска мнението за източна европа можеш да се правиш че не съществуваме както попринцип всички правят #докато не дойде възможност да плюят по нас #източноевропейците само казват че са били 500 години под робство и те не разбират мъките на останалите народи go fuck yourself #бичили сме баси айляка щото сме бели в миналото абсолютно нп нп go die fr #txts

[rpbetter]

hey! ive got a question! is it acceptable or problematic to rp a biracial character with a face of which you don't know if theyre actually biracial/partially white? like, I'd like to play an Indo Dutch character faced by marcel fritz, an indonesian model with an assumably german name origin, but with no noted relationship to any european ethnicity..

Hey there, thank you for your question!

I want to say, before anything else, that much of this advice is opinion based. It’s my opinion, formed by my experiences. The basis of what we consider acceptable or problematic is often thus influenced, even when there is an underlying hard yes/no possible. Furthermore, that you’ve both taken the time to consider this matter and reach out to someone tells me that you’re already infinitely more on the side of acceptable here than most people. A hell of a lot of RPers (and published authors, screenwriters, etc.) don’t bother to worry about these things, so thank you for being concerned!

As to your initial question, “is it acceptable or problematic to rp a biracial character with a face of which you don't know if theyre actually biracial/partially white?” I feel like this isn’t inherently problematic. Before anyone kills me, I say that because it’s reality-reflective. Human genetics are weird as hell. It’s often difficult to tell someone’s detailed ethnicity with full accuracy just by looking at them, especially if their genetic heritage isn’t one that presents in a way that is widely recognized, thus obvious. A person can be biracial and present as entirely white, as the race of their non-white parent, or in myriad combinations in between.

So, on a very basic level? There’s nothing problematic about the way this character looks.

What can make it problematic is the handling of the situation, which you explain in more detail, “I'd like to play an Indo Dutch character faced by marcel fritz, an indonesian model with an assumably german name origin, but with no noted relationship to any european ethnicity..”

In order to answer this better, I looked up the model, Marcel Fritz, and also double checked the surname origin. I wanted to see Marcel because where we get into potentially problematic areas with casting muses who are diverse in race is pretty apparent immediately in whitewashing. While there isn’t a load of information anywhere about him, he does legitimately fit your desired parameters without being whitewashed. He doesn’t look like a white European dude with some cliché “exotic” features as a selling point, is what I’m saying. That’s good, that’s very acceptable!

Now, as I said, I also couldn’t find much on his actual history. Marcel is most often a French name, and you’re right that Fritz is German in origin. The Dutch language isn’t one of my strong points, but it does seem to have a lot similarity, use, and transferable word instance with both German and French. (Reasonably.) I think it’s very likely, given the Dutch history with what is now Indonesia, that the model has some Dutch ancestry. Regardless, he doesn’t show any extreme reflections of any manner of what we’d think of as white European appearance. I don’t think it’s going to matter much if, three years from now, you find out that the model is, let’s say, German...it’s believable, both visually and in real-life history, that your muse isn’t.

So, again, you have thought about this, you have done some research, and you haven’t grossly physically whitewashed the muse for the sake of giving them some kind of sex-appeal while remaining, you know, white. You’re doing great so far!

What you need to do to keep doing great is to make sure you’re being respectful and realistic about the muse’s culture, experiences, and so on. Refraining from whitewashing them culturally where you’re already not doing so in appearance.

I, obviously, don’t know if you created this muse because you are from the same background, or one similar, but if you’re not, this is extremely important. It’s one thing for me to point out adherent stereotypes that have points of accuracy with my own race while portraying a character, it’s a whole other, legitimately problematic as fuck, thing to do it with a character who isn’t my race. Even if there are similarities to my racial or cultural experience, it’s important to responsibly portray the things outside of my viewpoint and to be aware of them. You feel what I’m saying?

I also don’t know what sort of muse you’re making, and that’s definitely important. A muse that is never going to set foot in our reality is going to have different experiences. It’s still important to be aware of potential stereotyping in your plots, language, and overall representation.

I call this “don’t make all your villains black, even if the characters are all cyborgs in space” when trying to explain it. It means that while a totally fantastical setting may never have generated the same stereotypes and racism  and so on as it did in real-life history, we’re interacting with the content as people with those realities. So, you’ve created a fantasy world set in a fictional space saga, you set it up where there’s representation of different races of humans, but didn’t set up as though they have a real problem with racism between humans. That’s great and viable. But...if you, the creator, are still making every one of your villains black men, that’s bad shit.

No matter how unreal the circumstances, be mindful of the reality of the people you’ll interact with and how your muse presents to them. Fantasy, supernatural, post-apocalyptic, whatever narratives and their muses may be lacking our identical experiences with racism, but that doesn’t mean your audience (in this case, the RPC and your writing partners) isn’t going to see it like an offensive neon sign. Make sure you’re not doing that!

And if this muse is going to be played in our reality, or a close derivative thereof, it’s your responsibility to be accurate and respectful. Bad representation is worse than no representation.

To avoid that, keep researching, and don’t stop at just dry history and info; check out real people’s perspectives on blogs and platforms like tiktok, instagram, and youtube. It’s important to have a range of real-life experiences from real-life people similar to your muse. I know it may be tempting, especially if you are white, to engage only with cultural tragedy and negative experiences as a point of realism. Those things are important, but fixating on them erases positive culture and history from the experience.

For example, you say you want the muse to be Indonesian and Dutch. You can ask yourself questions and build on them, like: did he grow up in Indonesia, and if so, what real aspects of this heritage did he experience/learn? From whom? What was a visit to his Dutch-heritage grandma’s house like vs a visit to his Indonesian grandma’s house? Can you list three things that are not well-known outside of Indonesia that are of significance to your muse? If he came to another country, what were the biggest cultural shifts he experienced that had nothing to do with his physical appearance?

By answering these kinds of questions, and those that will naturally come after them, you’re developing a more genuine portrayal. It’s a good way to stay fully in the lane of “acceptable” instead of becoming problematic, including giving others a cliché, offensive, hollow “representation muse.”

It’s always tricky, as I said in the first paragraph, these things can be seen as problematic if someone really wants them to be, as beyond the foundation of legit problems we have different viewpoints, emotions, and experiences. There are people in the RPC who, at the same time they demand more diversity, are hostile to anyone writing a muse who isn’t identical to their own culture, race, or gender experience. You are likely to run into them, it’s an unfortunate part of writing diverse muses. So long as you are approaching it with the genuine desire to not be offensive, doing the research, remaining mindful of how you’re using your muse in different writing situations, and keep being willing to learn more, ask more, listen more...you’re alright.

Hang in there, be respectful and accurate, and thank you for choosing a different muse-type and being interested in doing the right thing, you’re awesome for that!

As a last note here, I know I said “respectful” several times, but I think people may get something...less intense, maybe, out of that. This is a sensitive issue, there are so many things to be respectful of.

I mean things like, be mindful that in many cultures there are unspoken “rules.” Outsiders are not to speak certain languages or words, know some mythology, customs, or interact with other aspects of the culture. Please, be respectful of these things! This isn’t finding cool inside knowledge for your muse, you need to leave things like that alone when you encounter them. It’s fine to research and know they exist by way of that and stop there, it’s fine to allude to the fact that your muse isn’t going to share some knowledge with anyone, but it’s not at all fine for you to expose and use it.

These things often seem ridiculous to outside parties, people who are looking into the window of a culture that’s tinted by being raised in an industrialized, wealthy, or science-oriented culture. That’s inappropriate, and yes, problematic! If you start to feel like this, remind yourself of how things like the varied brutalities of colonialism were justified for so long; that these people were all ignorant savages. Don’t be like that.

Furthermore, if you are of the same ethnicity, if this is your experience, you really do have slightly different rules. Using the above example, let’s say that in a mun and muse shared ethnic experience, the muse has an aunt who is Very Superstitious. That’s difficult for the muse, who had a vastly different cultural experience as a Millennial or Gen Z person, but also loves their aunt. It’s alright to approach the reality of the muse viewing the things she speaks of as stories, where she views it as hard truth. However, this easily falls into an offensive category of tropes when written by someone white who is just going for...well, those tropes of generational disparity represented through Cool Weird Religious Beliefs.

That sort of shit is what you need to be mindful of avoiding when being genuinely respectful. Not everything is open and usable to everyone, and it is someone’s actual life experience and heritage you’re using.

#rp better #diverse muses #rp advice #muse development #Anon E. Mous #answered