Blaine County & It's portrayal (?)

[Moonsong]

I'm getting tired of the constant reports on this thread because people can't be mature, Warnings are going to be dished out to those who derail, flame or troll in this thread beyond this point. Most of us are having a constructive discussion, if you've nothing useful to contribute please move on. 

[Goblinguine]

TL;DR: The roleplay hasn't always been that way. It is just the current trend. Currently the County feels like a way for people to live out their cowboy fantasies. Where the character's around become hostile to those trying to portray anything out of the current zeitgeist.

 

I'm just going to preface what I'm about to say, by saying: None of us are perfect roleplayers, and none of us should hold any authority over telling another player or group of players that their roleplay is not good. However, we are all playing within a community that requires collaboration. This means we all need to be responsive to criticism, there is no community in this server that is 100% perfect, and all we can do as a community is slowly work towards making improvements. 

 

I wouldn't say the Country Bumpkin-isms have always been in play here. Back in the Summer of this year, roughly May/June time. We had a small slowly growing group of roleplayers that were all focused around the 24/7 store. The roleplay was mostly laid by Donnie Hoggreaser, the lease holder of the store. The roleplay was very wholesome and mainly focused around small menial tasks around building notoriety of the store and get people into the area. The roleplay was more comedy driven and was mostly light hearted.

 

The majority of characters interacting with this group held none to next to no stereotypes being outlined in this thread. Of course there were exceptions (my own character being one). However, through spending time with these characters that did up-hold these stereotypes it was clear that (for the most part) they were well thought out characters and had legitimate reasons for being in this specific part of California, rather than their native Southern states. Characters that were being portrayed with these stereotypes / Country Bumpkin-isms were very noticeable, and people would comment on them ICly, as most characters were being portrayed as Californians.

Towards the end of the August/September it was clear that there was a building population of characters that were portraying these stereotypes. In my opinion I'd say what is more worse than the accents and character portrayal is how hostile the roleplay seems to be. I've seen (and experienced) characters being rejected from interactions with other members in the community just based off of one 'bad' interaction. I attempted to turn my Country-Bumpkin-ism character into more of a stoner-type character (whilst also, dulling down her accent) just to be met with unrealistic hostility, or people just ignoring roleplay and walking away from it. I even opened a sex store, which was intended to function as a location to break-up the very frequent diners and taverns seen in the county. The store having the purpose of more of a gag / joke store, than a serious sex store unlike the ones seen in the city. However, I was just met with OOC trash talking ICly. Comments such as: "Would there really be a sex store in Sandy Shores?" All because, the current norm of roleplay in the county appears to be very serious and driven more down in-line with values of Conservative parts of Southern America, then that of a rundown Californian town.

Personally I have no issues with the roleplay taking up the majority of the county currently, however I do believe there is room for improvement. Which starts with the acceptance and allowance of diverse characters. Instantly reacting to 'bad' interactions with hostility doesn't make people want to interact with your character, and it's just damaging to your community. An example of this:  I saw a character that was ex-Military react to an act of violence with comedy. The character had experienced multiple tours and was plagued with PTSD. A fellow county character saw the comedic gesture as one of disrespect (understandable), and responded by tailing the ex-Military character and beating him up. That is quite an aggressive escalation for something that could be easily shrugged off. 

Allowance for more diverse characters that break from the Southern American / Country Bumpkin zeitgeist will allow for more challenging roleplay, roleplay which is going to only develop your character's in more unique avenues.  

[Paenymion]

56 minutes ago, Goblinguine said:

 

You do make some valid points, but just wanted to discuss your sex shop example: Mainly, wouldn't negative reactions be expected in *any* small town? Especially one that is conservative.  Some won't care, but others will mutter about it and say how terrible it is and that it doesn't belong in their town.  I don't think you could ICly expect a warm welcome opening that kind of business there.  In real life, California is liberal but IC, a Republican won the district election which means the majority of Blaine residents are conservative minded.  So we're back to that question of Real Life vs In game lore.  But I don't see the point of IC elections if the views of residents are supposed to follow reality.

 

But I'm all for greater OOC openness to diverse characters, I think that is something everyone can keep in mind.  For what it's worth I know many who RP in Blaine have been reading this thread and the general concern about "over-hickness" has been noted.  So in that respect, the thread might have served its purpose by now in nudging people to dial the extremes back a notch. 🤠

 

[Engelbert]

On 12/15/2020 at 6:58 AM, Sacred said:

Not at all the point I was making, doesn't make sense for someone with a $500,000 car to be living in a run-down city like Sandy Shores.

I may be wrong, but Grapeseed and Harmony belong to Blaine county too and there some nice houses around right?

 

[Garras Up]

2 minutes ago, Engelbert said:

I may be wrong, but Grapeseed and Harmony belong to Blaine county too and there some nice houses around right?

the only houses in harmony are trailers or rundown looking homes, and grapeseed doesn't have any houses apart from a rundown farm house

[Ketamine Kowboy]

10 hours ago, mj2002 said:

If you believe the portrayal is so poor, perhaps you should do something about it instead of participating in a thread that is basically just bashing communities, it's rather disappointing really. Instead;

What part of opening a discussion and wanting to educate people about it is not "Doing something?" 

But anyhow, to avoid derailing the thread, this isn't a Baline exclusive issue, I see it everywhere, especially in the field I roleplay in, that being Eurasian. I see people roleplaying like they were in the 90s, going around in track-suits and saying "DA" to everything, as well as them speaking like "Zdarova comrade, do yous kno' where Iz can findez de batroom." So lack of research and poor portrayal is undoubtedly a server wide issue, and it's difficult to report this since people will argue that it's within the realm of possibility, without realizing that possible =/= feasible.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Garras Up said:

grapeseed doesn't have any houses

Grapeseed is actually only second to Paleto Bay for having the highest concentration of, decent looking, actual houses in there.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Guest

[orangejuice]

On 12/16/2020 at 5:19 PM, zUgg zUgg said:

Totally incorrect and almost offensive; what gave you the inclination that they partake in incest? If anything those are European teeth in the photo you posted...

I didn’t mean to offend anyone, that’s just how the American countryside is stereotypically viewed in Europe. 
 

You have to understand, we have watched a lot of films that paint American country folk as racist, inbred, uneducated and often having deformities due to said inbreeding. Their normally serial killers and hunt down city teens on vacation. These films are American so then Europeans believe it’s true. It’s the only reference to the US country we have.
 

Although I of course know that the American countryside isn’t realistically like that, it is the imagine that comes to mind as popular film culture has engrained that image in our heads.
 

The server has a large European population, who only having seen US country in films with that ridiculous  image are then going to roleplay in the way this thread is complaining. It’s the same as the over exaggerated gang bangers who roleplay as if it’s their favourite gang based film. Rather than research it, relying on what they saw in movies. 
 

Again I’m sorry I offended you, I was just offering an insight to one reason why their is such an unrealistic, ridiculous portrayal of “yee-haw, y’all met my lovely wife/sister?” country characters. 

[Engelbert]

26 minutes ago, orangejuice said:

I didn’t mean to offend anyone, that’s just how the American countryside is stereotypically viewed in Europe. 
 

You have to understand, we have watched a lot of films that paint American country folk as racist, inbred, uneducated and often having deformities due to said inbreeding. Their normally serial killers and hunt down city teens on vacation. These films are American so then Europeans believe it’s true. It’s the only reference to the US country we have.
 

Although I of course know that the American countryside isn’t realistically like that, it is the imagine that comes to mind as popular film culture has engrained that image in our heads.
 

The server has a large European population, who only having seen US country in films with that ridiculous  image are then going to roleplay in the way this thread is complaining. It’s the same as the over exaggerated gang bangers who roleplay as if it’s their favourite gang based film. Rather than research it, relying on what they saw in movies. 
 

Again I’m sorry I offended you, I was just offering an insight to one reason why their is such an unrealistic, ridiculous portrayal of “yee-haw, y’all met my lovely wife/sister?” country characters. 

Umm everyone knows that stuff used and portrayed in movies is exaggeration of whatever they are portraying. Besides what you described fits more to central european villages given they have large gypsie communities unlike US. While it is true we don't get to hear any yee-haw from those, more like "Fek off whitey, this our land." followed by barrage of stones.

The stereotypes we are fed with are actually less horror oriented. More like, a small town with a diner, general store, sheriff's office, everyone knows everyone, locally known troublemakers and "that" hot gal who's judge's daughter.

And sometimes youget a small family oriented group who deals with meth and guns or marijuana. What you described is basically "Wrong turn" movie 1,2,3.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Engelbert

[orangejuice]

58 minutes ago, Engelbert said:

Umm everyone knows that stuff used and portrayed in movies is exaggeration of whatever they are portraying. Besides what you described fits more to central european villages given they have large gypsie communities unlike US. While it is true we don't get to hear any yee-haw from those, more like "Fek off whitey, this our land." followed by barrage of stones.

The stereotypes we are fed with are actually less horror oriented. More like, a small town with a diner, general store, sheriff's office, everyone knows everyone, locally known troublemakers and "that" hot gal who's judge's daughter.

And sometimes youget a small family oriented group who deals with meth and guns or marijuana. What you described is basically "Wrong turn" movie 1,2,3.

I think you should try and interact with more Roma and stop believing negative stereotypes painted by the media lol.

 

But yes, in my original comment as I said, a lot of the country role players I have saw poorly portraying country life are effectively roleplaying as the characters from the wrong turn/hills have eyes and being hostile towards anyone not from their clan. Either that or they are roleplaying an old western Indian and cowboys theme type of scenario.
 

It’s very rare to see people roleplaying “normal people” in the country, I believe I saw a Native American group in the country that was refreshingly good but not sure if their still around. Just playing as normal country folk with no over exaggerated nonsense.