rpanons | You're all idiots except for me

You're all idiots except for me

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Here's something that's been on my mind lately: What makes it okay for professional writers to write about (and capitalize) on things like terrorism, child abuse, rape, etc. etc. when it's so unacceptable in a community-based hobby like RP (and even fanfic)?

I'm not saying there's a double standard, because that all grosses me out too and I'd rather not see it around here, but I want to know what the psychology behind it is. Why is it okay (for a given value of "okay") in one arena, but not another?

Because if someone writes a book about terrorists raping children, you don't have to buy it. You don't have to read it. You won't find passages of the book plastered on the walls of bookstores for anyone to accidentally come across. You probably don't even have to talk to anyone who will read it.

But when someone rps these things, it's a lot closer to you. It'd be like your sister bought that book and left it open on a table in the middle of a graphic scene. The community is smaller, so the possibility of being connected to the people who wrote those things is higher.

That all being said, I've seen people rp terrorists, play characters who were victims of child abuse, and rape happens a lot in sex games. Likewise, I know no one who would enjoy reading a book about those subjects for pleasure. So it's not as much of a double standard as you think.

I agree that it's not true that fiction gets a free pass to be offensive (this comm complains about canons being trashy all the time), but I actually asked the opposite question of OP a long time ago and got pretty much the exact same argument flipped (i.e. you can avoid the subject in rp by not playing or looking for it, but you can't avoid it if it's in a story without stopping the story). I think it's more of the social aspect (it's not about offending the general public, it's like offending someone in the same room as you) and the wish-fulfillment vibes other anons mentioned. People don't play Nazi fetish characters to philosophically work out their experiences with antisemitism.

I think because when the community-based writers fuck up, they do so magnificently and with absolutely no sign of a filter or sensitivity at all and thus we end up with an OC inspired by a woobified version of the Boston marathon bomber.

tbf published authors do too, it's just less likely to affect you because you aren't in close proximity to their work while they tag around to try to pass ac

Plenty of people will complain about that too but the biggest difference is that when you RP you're supposed to be considerate to the fact it's a public forum and someone didn't necessarily join to play with your Nazi pedophile

because most of us in fandom/rp/fanfic circles are ill people who have no tact or senses of boundaries. see: boston bomber soulbonder girl and hetalias who play out natural disasters. we don't just cross the line, we cross the entire fucking street, and that's not good because everything we do is highly accessible to the rest of the people in the hobby. so if you do something gross, it's all we see and hear about for weeks

if it's done right, it's done in a way that puts a mirror back on society. it's commentary and saying their opinion on a subject that is taboo to talk about in reality and not fiction. it's the same way good horror is often social commentary, even snuff horror. a lot of it isn't and it is just there to capitalize on the shock and people who watch it or buy it either hope for something more (or comeuppance or a "good" ending that will make them feel a way that reality doesn't) or maybe they just like trash.

in the end, it's something that normalizes it in a way that makes it acceptable to talk about. it means that people can discuss the horrible thing rather than say it's taboo and gloss over it like it isn't happening- or it's not happening to THEM, so who cares?

as for why it's not in dwrp it's because it affects other people. books and movies and shows are contained in that medium, you don't have to engage with it. here it might be your character's best friend being raped and you have to deal with that or maybe it's a player who is obviously getting off on it. or maybe it's just plain old out of character. it's the same reason it's not acceptable irl to some degree, even if it is just rp.

i read and watch a lot of horror and even have enjoyed movies like irreversible but i don't want to play in a game that allows rape. if a character that was abused touches on it, i don't always mind it but most of the time? my character doesn't want to deal with that. there's enough in real life and in the media to make me aware of it and i don't want my writing to be about this character's tragic past or present. it's because it's self-indulgent hurt/comfort and it's not important social commentary even if you fool yourself into thinking it. this is not the venue or platform for that awareness. that's all.

Excellent points and I want to add that while these themes are often used as commentary in fiction, DWRP is often used as wish fulfillment or fetishism.

Both of you have good points and I'm bookmarking this.

the mistake you're making is thinking that the rp relationship is author/reader. it's not. when you read a book, the story belongs to the author, and you're just along for the ride. when you rp, you are a co-author. you can reasonably expect a level of respect for what you want to play, but in turn you also have to respect that you are playing with other people, and there are social rules you have to follow. one of those rules is "don't bring up controversial topics unless you're 100% sure that everyone involved is okay with it".

there are novelists who use these things for shock value and cheap sympathy, but you can always put the book down and walk away (and let's remember that being professionally published does not magically make authors immune to criticism; plenty of them get called out for poor treatment of sensitive issues). there are rpers who play characters who do or have done awful things, but social rules say that you can't just walk away whenever you want - that's thread-dropping - so it comes down to the other player to respect when someone asks them not to tag or to gloss over certain aspects of their character when playing with them.

tl;dr it's because rp is inherently a social hobby and reading a book is not.

While that explains the taboo in RP, it doesn't really explain it in fanfic, where the relationship is author/reader, and it's no harder to close a tab than it is to put down a book.

da, but ayrt did mention that authors who write poorly about such topics will get criticized.

that pretty much IS what happens in fanfiction. If it's written well, people are likely to praise it. If it's written shittily or obviously over the top for shock/horror, people are going to roll their eyes. I have never seen a good effort get panned. I have seen people write a lot of shitty stuff to get ignored or blasted.

You're lucky with your fandoms, then. It's out-and-out taboo to touch on in a lot of them, regardless of whether the fic handles it well.

No one's complaining about criticism of legitimately poorly-done efforts, the problem is the growing number of people that insist some subject matter is absolutely verboten.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2015-05-19 12:32 (UTC) - Expand

well, op was asking why it's considered acceptable to talk about controversial things in books, but not so much in rp. the debate over fanfic is usually over content/trigger warnings and not whether or not it's okay to address those topics at all, so i don't think that's the same issue.

Thank you for your answers, everyone! I thought the social aspect was the key element to all this, so I'm glad I'm not the only one.

people write for all sorts of reasons and to communicate all sorts of things. people rp mostly for fun. it's tasteless to use still-cooling bodies for fun times.

also while it might be more socially accepted for writers to do it, i personally feel that it's still unclassy as fuck.

I'm not even necessarily against the concept of incorporating these things into RP, but because this is a collaborative hobby, there should be sufficient warning. In the case of the Boston Bomber OC, no one in the game was informed of the connection between the character and the real-life inspiration. Players whose characters interacted with this OC had no idea they were reinforcing this person's twisted views about a real-life terrorist. They became unwitting participants in this person's fantasy, and that is what makes this situation most disturbing to me.

the boston bomber oc case is an extreme example but i think one of the reasons subject matter like rape, child abuse, terrorism etc. tends to be frowned upon in rp is because there are so many examples of players doing it so badly and using it for cheap angst and drama instead of actually writing it in a way that treats it with proper gravity and sensitivity. the bad apples have ruined it for the good, so even people who might treat such subjects with more decency shy away from trying because of it (or because they fear being painted as a cheap angstmonger), and general consensus thus becomes "please don't".

granted, professional writers can be very much guilty of a lack of sensitivity, too- but then again, with professional works you can also look at reviews and summaries, ask friends' opinions etc. ahead of time and maybe draw on past experiences with those writers and make an informed decision before you choose to consume that media. wheras with rp it can be more of a crapshoot and it's very easy to end up stumbling across something that's upsetting or even triggering without meaning to.

wait so this boston bomber oc was a real thing and not a hypothetical example

what

i totally missed this, what happened?

yes. someone made an oc and then started to tweak them more and more to fit the boston bomber. they had a plurk about it and they're now banned from the game they were in and the one they were trying to join.

And 'fit the boston bomber' isn't exaggerated - the player thought the real dude was innocent and deserved to be smothered in hugs.

Further reading:
http://wankgate.dreamwidth.org/37218.html?thread=144116066#cmt144116066

Bring brain bleach.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2015-05-19 07:37 (UTC) - Expand

I thought it was the opposite? People will wank a canon to hell and back for containing rape, and if it's sexualized rape, then the canon is garbage. Rape is super fucking common in dwrp smut though, and not uncommon in fanfic. And it's always meant to be titillating (or else it's an excuse for hurt/comfort).

And the concept of something being "problematic" wouldn't exist at all under OP's logic.

purpose of writing. published fiction can and is often expected to exist to provide social commentary, explore themes outside the average daily experience, etc etc, so when something awful happens in a book you don't automatically assume that it's a reflection of the author's unfiltered interests.

rp (and fanfic to some extent) is usually about self-indulgence or catharsis because it's created and consumed for personal satisfaction instead of intellectual challenge. when you read fanwork that has terrible content, you generally assume it was written because some aspect of the scene tripped the writer's id. this is why it's more acceptable to play out h/c scenarios stemming from rape/abuse/etc than it is to just play out the abuse/etc with no followup.

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