An Arx Peeve Thread

Roz

pls read the BGs of rosters you pick up

Wizz

heck no, from now on all of my characters were born in the traveling circus regardless of what it says on any “sheet” or whatever pretentious BS

don’t ever tell me how to live my life

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Pavel

@Wizz said in An Arx Peeve Thread:

born in the traveling circus

That does describe most of Arx’s orgs, last I checked.

Jennkryst

@Roz Sure, I read it, but I can’t remember any of the commands to do anything… you expect me to remember anything in background that isn’t chaotic-chot and/or lewd-evil?

sao

@Jennkryst you don’t have to remember it, who can remember everything you’ve ever read?? you just have to read it in the first place so that you don’t take a character whose bg has established facts that you immediately contradict when you start playing because you don’t give a shit about the fact that someone wrote that.

Also no one remembers commands. Except @Roz.

Ashkuri

Not a peeve and I have full respect for demanding RL, and RL coming first.

But

I miss Scraps.

tsar

@imstillhere said in An Arx Peeve Thread:

Not a peeve and I have full respect for demanding RL, and RL coming first.

But

I miss Scraps.

I’m not sure who this is but thank you. It’s been a challenging adjustment on this end too. You can always reach out to me on Cristoph or Porter when I’m logged in if you want to chat, or I answer PMs here when they turn up! I’ve even been known to use Discord.

Roz

@Roz said in An Arx Peeve Thread:

pls read the BGs of rosters you pick up

this bother is still scratching at the inside of my skull.

there are very few rosters whose sexualities are made explicit. taking one of those few and then taking action to try and bring them closer to straight because you don’t wanna play gay is gross. just pick up a different character.

bear_necessities

@Roz said in An Arx Peeve Thread:

@Roz said in An Arx Peeve Thread:

pls read the BGs of rosters you pick up

this bother is still scratching at the inside of my skull.

there are very few rosters whose sexualities are made explicit. taking one of those few and then taking action to try and bring them closer to straight because you don’t wanna play gay is gross. just pick up a different character.

I actually had this conversation with a friend when I was considering playing Jasher. I love his BG and the complications inherent in his story but while I very frequently play male characters, I do not play gay male characters well or realistically. Ultimately decided to not go in that direction because I definitely would not want to play him straight considering!

Roz

@bear_necessities said in An Arx Peeve Thread:

@Roz said in An Arx Peeve Thread:

@Roz said in An Arx Peeve Thread:

pls read the BGs of rosters you pick up

this bother is still scratching at the inside of my skull.

there are very few rosters whose sexualities are made explicit. taking one of those few and then taking action to try and bring them closer to straight because you don’t wanna play gay is gross. just pick up a different character.

I actually had this conversation with a friend when I was considering playing Jasher. I love his BG and the complications inherent in his story but while I very frequently play male characters, I do not play gay male characters well or realistically. Ultimately decided to not go in that direction because I definitely would not want to play him straight considering!

And that seems like a super reasonable response and what I’d consider the best approach! And while I definitely don’t begrudge someone for missing something on their read of a BG, it becomes very different when the response is “oh well I’ll ask to change that” rather than putting down a character you just picked up that you don’t want to play to sheet in such a big way.

dvoraen

What @Roz says is one reason why I’m so hellbent on never playing roster chars or FCs, book chars, etc. I want to play the character how I want to play them, and an OC is the only way I can have my cake and eat it too without causing problems of identity. Plus, I’m so self-conscious about AM I PLAYING THIS CHARACTER THE WAY THEY WERE INTENDED??? with respect to roster/FC characters that it just becomes stress I don’t want.

Roz

@dvoraen said in An Arx Peeve Thread:

What @Roz says is one reason why I’m so hellbent on never playing roster chars or FCs, book chars, etc. I want to play the character how I want to play them, and an OC is the only way I can have my cake and eat it too without causing problems of identity. Plus, I’m so self-conscious about AM I PLAYING THIS CHARACTER THE WAY THEY WERE INTENDED??? with respect to roster/FC characters that it just becomes stress I don’t want.

I think the fairly common concern/stress of worrying about playing a roster/FC “correctly,” or how to put your own spin/interpretation on a character, is kind of a different thing, tbh, than wanting to change fundamental aspects of a character’s identity in this way. Interpretation of character motivation and subsequent actions is way more flexible an issue.

sao

A little ancient history:

When I first wrote Jasher in 2016, Apostate thought it would be good to have a gay character in the Thrax royal family and he was actually the first character I got back for revisions because he wanted me to make it clearer that he was gay. There is no way to read the sheet now that is ambiguous as to this fact. When I first wrote it I was a little cute about it because my experience writing rosters began with Firan where queerness had to be subtext or secret.

95% of the 100+ rosters I wrote were deliberately vague as to sexuality so that it could be entirely up to future players how they wanted to take a character, but for Jasher it was intrinsic to the conflict of the character and his base concept. There were a few that I hinted more expressly at bisexuality but mostly by deliberately not identifying the genders of partners or flirtations. But I can count the times in roster characters I wrote that that was defined on the fingers of one hand.