Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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You might notice some content changes around long-established characters occurring in the near future. In particular, you'll see, at some point, Connected: the Orient change to Connected: the Widow.
When I started writing Fallen London back in 2009, I wanted to make a particular point about Victorian British attitudes to the outside world, and use language that signalled to the reader that they were entering a time and place with a different mindset. I made a conscious choice to use the word 'Orient', as a word which - in British English - has a complex history and has been the focus of lively debate, but which is still in current use.
I didn't realise that it's a much more problematic word in American English, and 2/3 or more of our audience has developed in the US. I also didn't realise, candidly, how iffy it would look to have ethnicities as disparate as Turkish and Tibetan tied together. I wanted to indicate that the Victorian Orientalist, the chap who studied the cultures east of the Golden Horn, was more likely to have connections with a variety of non-European cultures - but it turned out not to be a terribly useful point to make. And finally, I think it's become more problematic over here in the last five years (SOAS in the link above are much coyer about what the name stands for than they were last decade, I think).
By the time I did realise, it was substantially baked into content, the narrative surgery required to remove it was considerable, and it's not an outright nasty word in the way some period epithets are. So we de-emphasised the quality, added some flavour to make its context clear, and hoped we'd think of a better solution some day.
That better solution has turned out to be to tie the quality to the Widow - who although [spoiler] not actually Chinese herself [/spoiler] has considerable pull with the Chinese community in Spite - and disconnect many of our East Asian NPCs from the Widow. This makes Connected: the Widow something of a mirror of Connected: the Duchess, which makes sense given their relationship. We're indebted to Amal El-Mohtar for suggesting this.
I know that some players will be annoyed that we didn't make the change years ago, and others will think we're bowing to political correctness. To the first charge: sorry - we're learning as we go. With hindsight, whatever the word's historical relevance, I'd never have used it. To the second, I agree that we have lost some of the flavour of Victorian London. But we've never made a serious virtue of historical realism, and one too many people mailed me to say [I paraphrase] 'look, I like your game, but when I see that word used in that way, it makes me feel like I don't belong here.' In the end, that's the important thing.
edit: spoiler tweak
edited by Alexis on 11/20/2013
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
11/21/2013
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In Spitalfields did Mrs P
A shonky pleasure-dome decree
Near where the Stolen River ran
Through caverns measureless to man
(Pre-order Sunless Sea!)
A barren patch of swampy ground
With hurdle fences was girdled round
And there a carnival of sensuous thrills
Such sights for curious Londoners to see!
And here were jugglers dressed as emperors
And murals of exotic scenery
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
Her foul fag-end, her blue-rinsed hair!
Count your moon-pearls for her twice
And don't dare try the lumps-with-bread
For she on well-water hath fed
And can't be fooled at any price
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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Some supplementary points. Here's a late nineteenth century source giving us a reminder of the kind of casually appalling racism in vogue at the time:
'It would hardly be supposed that an effeminate race such as the Chinese would have a taste for working in metal. But it should be remembered that they have not always been a degenerate race softened by luxury and by too great a facility for enjoyment.'
...that's actually from a V&A Museum handbook. We're just never going to be interested in immersing our players in that kind of material for pure flavour's sake.
And here's Orwell, talking in 1943, intelligently as ever, about the ways attitudes change and the terms we use need to change with them - with inevitable irony, using terms which are now themselves very much of their time.
"It is an astonishing thing that few journalists, even in the Left wing press, bother to find out which names are and which are not resented by members of other races. The word 'native', which makes any Asiatic boil with rage, and which has been dropped even by British officials in India these ten years past, is flung about all over the place. 'Negro' is habitually printed with a small n, a thing most Negroes resent. One's information about these matters needs to be kept up to date. I have recently been going through the proofs of a reprinted book of mine, cutting out the word 'Chinaman' wherever it appears and substituting 'Chinese'. The book was written less than a dozen years ago, but in the intervening time 'Chinaman' has become a deadly insult. Even 'Mohamedan' is now beginning to be resented; one should say 'Muslim'. And after all, we ourselves do not actually like being called 'Limeys' or 'Britishers'."
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Passionario
Posts: 777
5/17/2016
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th8827 wrote:
With a bit of a stretch, we might be able to get Renown: Khanate and Renown: Parabola.
Currently represented by Suspicion and Nightmares, respectively.
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Passionario: Profile, Story, Ending
Passion: Profile, Appearance
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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an_ocelot wrote:
And I am 100% over people looking at me and thinking about "Mystery" and "the Unknown." Gasp! I'm just a person like everyone else!
You know, part of the reason Connected: Orient lasted so long was that it took me a little while, having spent so much of my adolescence wanting to be mysterious and unknown, to get my head round that. But, like, totally.
an_ocelot wrote:
(Yes, it's true, I am not actually an ocelot, sorry to disappoint you all, but really, ocelots can neither type nor dictate, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.)
Tigers, fortunately, are more flexible.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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Cocytus wrote:
is there any Irish presence in Fallen London?
In seriousness: undoubtedly, although I think the only visibly Irish NPC is Wilde in heavy disguise. But referencing ethnicities directly has tripped us up in the past. You add a couple of visibly French NPCs and someone notices that both of them like wine (because lots of people in Fallen London like wine) and it looks like a stereotype. We have two probably-Jewish characters (that I can think of) - Schlomo and Madam Shoshanna - and we've been accused of anti-Semitic stereotyping because 'all [our] Jews are mystics.' As it happens, Schlomo is Freud (minor spoilers there) and Shoshanna is a riff, like so much else, on the Waste Land, but even innocent intention can look weird on the Internet.
A related point I may have mentioned elsewhere is that Paul drew dark-skinned versions of the fist and muscled torso icons. And we never use them, because we realised that if we illustrate a storylet about fighting or hard labour with a dark-skinned icon, people will quite understandably say, good grief, what exactly are they suggesting?
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Chris Gardiner
Administrator
Posts: 539
11/20/2013
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This is an entirely trivial side-effect of this change, but I think that when we used 'orient' to lightly mock Victorian prejudice or purloin a sense of authenticity by repeating it, we occasionally did so at the cost of more imaginative language. There are some cases where using 'Oriental' meant we missed a chance to use a more evocative image and give a sense of the wider world.
In addition to being offensive, 'the Orient' is a cliche and - like all cliches - toxic to vivid writing.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
11/20/2013
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Bless you, Miriam Plenty - because if something's worth doing, it's worth doing half-arsed while shouting at clowns.
--
Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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Master Polarimini wrote:
But I actually liked the idea of a general and mysterious "Orient" that fascinated so many (especially in the popular culture) around the Victorian period...
And so did I! But real people are playing this game who are from - or whose families were from - what Victorian Britain identified as 'the Orient'. Some of them, over the years, have found it has the incremental effect of making them feel the game's not for them. It's only polite for me to recognise that.
edited by Alexis on 11/20/2013
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
11/20/2013
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Curious Foreigner wrote:
While I can understand it, it still makes me sad. As a member of the alemannic language family tree, the word Orient has no negative meaning for me; It's instead linked with a sense of Mystery, of ancient and mighty civilizations and the Unknown.
I don't understand why this word is treated with such scorn in the States, but I'll just have to accept it.
Well, "The Far East" is almost as good a word.
I think those very implications you describe are a large part of the problems people have with the word. "Orient" isn't and wasn't used exclusively negatively - a great many "Orientalists" made serious and successful attempts to bridge different nations, economies and cultures - but the term's become mired in an antiquated view of Asia as someplace distant, different, and unknowable - when, in reality, it's just another place with a bunch of ordinary people who get sore feet and sing songs and fart; that is quite large and diverse, but only distant in relative terms and not to the people who actually live there; and it's certainly not unknowable because, again, a whole lot of ordinary people know quite a bit about it, and for everyone else, it's not too hard to learn if you put a bit of effort in. In short, the term comes straight from the Victorian image of Asia as the Other, the grand and bizarre Not-Us - which is prime material for a satire of Victorian values, but isn't terribly inclusive for a large and diverse community like Fallen London has become.
--
Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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Curious Foreigner wrote:
I just don't understand the RL-problem with the word.
The historical explanation is - I've been told - that the Vietnam war highlighted problems of racism and perception around East Asia, so the term became a sore spot in the US in a way it didn't in the UK / EU.
But the actual explanation is, because it's so. There is no fundamental reason why 'a Chinese man' is completely neutral and 'a Chinaman' is offensive (in the UK, too). There is no etymological reason why 'an Asiatic' sounds racist but 'an Asian' doesn't: and that said, there are Asian people in the UK who dislike the term and would rather be called any of a number of other things (like their nationality or their religion). And there is of course no reason but history why Asian means 'South Asian' in the UK but 'East Asian' in the US.
Come to that, pace Orwell, I don't mind being called a Limey, and I'd think it was hysterical if someone called me a Britisher. Things change.
The bottom line is that if a good number of people say in good faith, sorry, we find that term offensive, then if avoiding it isn't a big deal, it's courteous to avoid it. It's rarely that simple, of course. Hence all these epic posts. 
edited by Alexis on 11/20/2013
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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Laluzi wrote:
tigers lording over the lesser cats and the leopards!
It's the Stripy Man's Burden.
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Nathanael S. Wells
Posts: 80
1/1/2014
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airshipmedic wrote:
I do find it odd there's be any backlash against political correctness, but as an American I see many pundits and a few politicians seeming to think political correctness is worth fighting AGAINST. I suppose an argument can be made for "freedom of speech," but at the end of the day, why are you fighting so hard for your right to be a jerk? Call people what they want to be called. It's a little sacrafice that goes a long way towards showing respect.
Ah, the issue of political correctness. I find it a bit worrisome that political correctness is dealt with almost entirely in absolutes, i.e. wholesale rejection or wholesale embrace of it. And the argument for freedom of speech that can and should be made is supremely important, in my opinion.
Opinions are exactly that. There are no right or wrong opinions, but without a doubt there are certainly offensive and hateful opinions (recently I stumbled across a blog where someone seriously voiced their opinion that LGBT people belong in work camps - for most strata of liberal, progressive Western democracies an incredibly appalling opinion, and certainly for me as well) and people are justified to judge, challenge and voice their disgust with such opinions. But "political correctness" is more than that - it implies the sanitation and presentation of facts to omit or refurbish politically sensitive details. It implies, in a way, a policing of reality according to a pre-conceived message you want to fit to it.
At the same time, political correctness is, in my observation, fostering an idea of moral supremacy and righteousness, where people are taking their own ideologies and world views as universal fact, leading to the idea of a One Right Worldview, all divergences from which are equalized to be "wrong" and therefore, evil. This is sometimes known as manicheanism, and it's as dangerous as all ideologies who claim full gnosis and pursue its expansion aggressively.
Of course, if someone fights for his right to "be a jerk", i.e. to maintain an unpopular opinion, that person has to expect to be judged for it by the opinion of others; freedom of speech certainly works both ways and if someone has an opinion that others feel particularily appalled about, it is within their own freedom of speech to react to it and to judge. But I can't approve of the discrediting of freedom of speech as a value and as a valid argument in this debate, and organized witch-hunts with the goal of silencing opinions.
As for the "Oriental" issue, I personally think it's for the better. As has been discussed extensively before my post, the game loses hardly anything and gains a more welcoming atmosphere for players. Ultimately yes, the source material and the Victorian Era were much less socially progressive than we are, and even though some players might for roleplay or immersion reasons not mind the bigotry and understand it as a game construct and not as a personal attack (I am both a sexual and a racial minority and while I don't *love* bigotry portrayed in the media, I can understand it if it is done for the sake of writing, much like I can respect a medium lacking minority characters because the story it tells can and needs to be told without diversity sprinkles) the atmosphere in Fallen London really hasn't lost anything because of, for instance, the laissez-faire approach to player race and sexuality, or in this case from dropping a somewhat offensive term for several Asian peoples.
As for why I don't like what I termed "diversity sprinkles" here is that they are a well-meant but ultimately misguided way to force diversity into a medium which in the end comes short of creating a compelling, sovereign character: you do end up with a character exemplifying whatever diversity identity you wanted to bring up, but at the cost of the character basically being a tag, somewhat two-dimensional; not Prima, who happens to be black, but the black, who happens to be called Prima.
tl;dr: I think Failbetter are really awesome in the way they deal with sensitive issues like this but "political correctness" as an ideology really ought to make you cringe, or at least, think.
--
Nathanael S. Wells, the Epicurean Polymath.
Founder and Patron of the Damnation Army, a philanthropic society devoted towards bringing food and clothes to the destitute and impoverished Seekers! Consider donating food (no Rubbery Lumps, please!) or clothes (no Veils-Velvet, please! We don't need another incident.)
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Curious Foreigner
Posts: 210
11/20/2013
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Put like that I can see the problem.
The main reason I didn't see the for you obvious problems is probably that there is hardly any cultural baggage about it in the past of my home, since it was uninvolved with the Opium Wars and colonization in generall. If it were something antisemitic, then I would probably have felt the same way as you about the Orient.
And that settles it for me. The feelings of a multitude of other players grounded in an actual demonizing of their homeland in the past is more important than my lingual-aesthetic preferences. What little it matters, I now approve of this change.
--
Cochimetl went North, and beyond. No poems, only candlelight now. (Well, maybe one poem.)
The Gun-Toting Gallivanter, after an extended absence, is back in London again.
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Kade Carrion (an_ocelot)
Posts: 1372
11/20/2013
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Curious Foreigner, I think the place to start is that "Europe" is a label coined by the people who live there while "The Orient" is a label coined by outsiders who, through it, are imposing a harmful cultural narrative about that geographical area and the people who live there.
And I am 100% over people looking at me and thinking about "Mystery" and "the Unknown." Gasp! I'm just a person like everyone else!
(Yes, it's true, I am not actually an ocelot, sorry to disappoint you all, but really, ocelots can neither type nor dictate, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.)
--
Social Actions: send them to Kade Carrion (she/her; no Tournament of Lilies, please). an_ocelot has gone NORTH and cannot benefit from social actions!
Possibly-Useful Things: Spreadsheets and hints and link collections, oh my.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/21/2013
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Zeek wrote:
So will there be any differences between how 'The Orient' connection functions and how 'The Widow' connection functions?
There are some very slight changes. But all the changes have now been made: enjoy the new dis-Oriented FL.
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Asami Sato
Posts: 36
11/21/2013
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As a half-Japanese American sociologist whose specialty is race, I feel like chiming in on this conversation.
As I see it, in the US, calling someone an "Oriental" is basically the same as calling someone a colored person. It's not super offensive, but it is not the preferred terminology and has lots of problematic baggage associated with it.
Ocelot is right, 'oriental' has often been used to make people and cultures seem very exotic and 'other' which can be marginalizing and very annoying when people who have encountered these portrayals of the exotic other think that all Asian or Middle Eastern individuals they encounter must embody some kind of exotic flair. I am often asked 'where are you from?' and when I explain that my great grandmother came from Japan when she was a little girl and spent most of her life here and all of my family has been born and raised in the US, the follow up question is pretty much always whether I speak Japanese and although I always respond politely part of me always wants to be like really?! I just explained to you that I have little to no connection with Japan, but you still have to figure out how I am different from you and everyone else. I don't ask white people if they speak German or whatever. What is implicit in these interactions is that I can't be truly American. So obviously there are a lot of issues and these issues can be connected to the term Oriental.
That being said, I actually had zero problems with the use of the term in Fallen London. I can see how it may have added to the charm for many. I even incorporated it into my profile description of myself. For me it was kind of nice to indulge in some un-PCness since I spend so much of my time thinking about racial issues, and I didn't read any disrespect in the FL usage of the term. Therefore, I am neutral about the decision to remove it because I can definitely see both sides of the equation.
edited by Asami Sato on 11/21/2013
--
Open to social requests, no photographers please!
Main: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Asami~Sato
Alt: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Calamity~J
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Riley37
Posts: 125
11/22/2013
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+1 for FL's priorities. You can't please everyone, there will be SOMEONE on the Internet who takes offense at use of articles such as "the"; but there's a point at which one is offending enough people, and losing their participation, to merit some edits, and I'm assuming that FL made a good choice about whether it had reached that point. +1 for the Orwell passage.
I live in San Francisco, and most of my neighbors have at least some Chinese ancestry, and I was not shocked by "The Orient". I was, however, kinda disappointed that the Connection seemed all about one particular character (the Widow), rather than narratively demonstrating connections with London residents with Asian backgrounds. So I see the re-naming as more accurate. If the Widow happened to be from Berlin, dealing with her wouldn't constitute a connection with Germany and German culture, eh?
If my FL character could recognize the difference between someone from "the Raj" and someone from "Cathay", and knew to greet the former in Hindi and the latter in Cantonese, then THAT would, narratively, be more about "The Orient". (Although of course - as one might know just from reading Kipling - someone from the Raj might have Urdu as their first language, and someone from Cathay might have Mandarin as their first language.) The book which refers to "Nippon, Tartary, Cathay and the Princedoms of the Raj" illustrates awareness that there is more than one nation and more than one culture to be found in Asia, though it does not mention Arabia, Persia, Siberia, Burma, or many other Asian nations and cultures known to Victorian London.
London was the capital of an Empire, and by economic advantage, armed force, deliberate promotion of opium addiction, and other methods, was acquiring wealth and resources from many lands. Fallen London is at the mercy of the Masters. Who's the colonizer and who's the colonized, now?
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airshipmedic
Posts: 50
1/1/2014
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I agree that I like the way Failbetter has handled issues of race (a big part of why I hunted down that excellent article & shared it in this thread). My favorite example of it is the sillouette avatar. Also quite fond of the 3 gender options, but this originsl debate was about race. I really don't think of political correctness as all-or-nothing or universal in any way. My ethics professor wouldn't let us use cultural relativism or ethical relativism in any of our essays or tests, but I think cultural relativism play a part (unfortunately) which is why the UK fanbase didn't react quite as strongly to "Oriental" as the US fanbase did. And there's a way to stand up for freedom of speech, while also seeing why someone might want to avoid saying EVERYTHING that pops into someone's head. I think Failbetter was motivated by the feedback they received, wanting to be inclusive, which was a refreshing reaction. They didn't proclaim this as a "freedom of speech" or even motivated by political correctness (this was more about "correctness" for the audience).
And if political correctness is about sweeping racism under the rug, or about moral superiority for some, I don't personally feel that way. I'm probably not alone. How can I be morally superior when I myself have made the occasional verbal mistake (accidental, without intention to harm)? I mentioned before how using the term "jerk" was probably an error on my part. I can't really guess at someone's motivations.
Aaaaand I shouldn't go any further with my feelings about "freedom of speech" because they are complex, and wonky, and get my head bitten off on the internet especially. Let me thank everyone for being civil. I joined this forum because it is more civil than most.
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Master Polarimini
Posts: 310
11/20/2013
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But I actually liked the idea of a general and mysterious "Orient" that fascinated so many (especially in the popular culture) around the Victorian period...
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Devices workshop opening soon...
Follow my story at http://www.fallenlondon.com/Profile/Master~Polarimini
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Mr. Mercutio
Posts: 133
11/20/2013
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I greatly approve both of the change and of the manner in which you have let us know about it. The regular transparency from Failbetter is really awesome, and it makes being a part of this gaming community a treat.
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Mr. Mercutio
Immortal. Rich. Only moderately insane.
 Want a taste of immortality? Reach out to me in-game to ask for a sip of Hesperidean Cider. Please follow Ocelot's guide to asking here.
New to our dark city? Send me a message in-game and I will respond when I can with a welcome gift!
I welcome most social actions, so feel free to send them to me. Just please don't ask me to Loiter Suspiciously or to help with the Affluent Photographer. I have disavowed all knowledge of her.
 Galatea LaChance
She has gone North, and none shall know what she found there.
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circe
Posts: 435
11/20/2013
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Makes sense. I hope this means we see more of the Widow and the Duchess in the future. Both are fascinating ladies and it would be fun to learn more about them both.
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Lady Circe in Fallen London - http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Lady~Circe
Adding no Suppers without prior arrangement, with only 5 Free Evenings a week and being a Patron I can't accept them all.
No Affluent Photographer, Sharing Research with Another Scholar or Boxed Cats accepted. I will send Boxed Cats though. All other social actions welcome. Will help menaces, please be reasonable.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
11/20/2013
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
an_ocelot wrote:
And I am 100% over people looking at me and thinking about "Mystery" and "the Unknown." Gasp! I'm just a person like everyone else!
You know, part of the reason Connected: Orient lasted so long was that it took me a little while, having spent so much of my adolescence wanting to be mysterious and unknown, to get my head round that. But, like, totally.
an_ocelot wrote:
(Yes, it's true, I am not actually an ocelot, sorry to disappoint you all, but really, ocelots can neither type nor dictate, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.)
Tigers, fortunately, are more flexible.
I'm thinking we should all transfer our wish-fulfilment fantasies onto cats. If only we could all be Corresponding Ocelots and Tiger Keepers and Parabolan Panthers!
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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Laluzi
Posts: 456
11/20/2013
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
an_ocelot wrote:
(Yes, it's true, I am not actually an ocelot, sorry to disappoint you all, but really, ocelots can neither type nor dictate, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.)
Tigers, fortunately, are more flexible.
Are you being racially supremacist about breeds of cats? You may play innocent, but the Labyrinth of Tigers shows your true colors; the Master Race of tigers lording over the lesser cats and the leopards!
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Feel free to ask if you need something! Uninterested in Trailing the Affluent Photographer.
Mercer - an enigmatic and brutal individual. Frightfully strong. Has even more frightful manners.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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My final points on the subject (possibly)
(1) a toast to Chris, who did the heavy lifting on this one while I was busy pontificating over here
(2) this is, I believe, the last storylet in Fallen London that contains the word 'Oriental'. http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/alexisthetest?fromEchoId=2789992
(Note: the 'test' popup will be gone tomorrow after a certain engineer has expiated his shame by dying in battle.)
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th8827
Posts: 823
5/16/2016
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Wow. This is an old thread that I did not know about. Development history is fascinating.
Related to the current comments, the duchess is related to Cats, and the cats are related to Parabola. I know that the Duchess herself does not represent Parabola, but the rest of her subjects do.
The Widow, on the other hand, can be tied into the Khanate easily enough.
With a bit of a stretch, we might be able to get Renown: Khanate and Renown: Parabola. That would be fun, and open a lot of possibilities.
edited by th8827 on 5/17/2016
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/th8827
Gone NORTH. It's nice here.
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Guy Scrum
Posts: 197
11/22/2013
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Cocytus wrote:
Having said that, can we do something about these damned Boreals? Screaming out windows at all hours, eating their meat far too rare, and who knows what they're up to with that infernal contraption at the University? It's not cricket.
It's too bad that boreal, occidental, and austral aren't used more often. They're so much more colorful than northern, western, and southern. I suppose the history behind 'oriental' put them in an awkward spot.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Guy%20Scrum
Interactive fidgeting writer simulation
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Jonquil
Posts: 36
11/28/2013
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
Cocytus wrote:
is there any Irish presence in Fallen London?
Shoshanna is a riff, like so much else, on the Waste Land, but even innocent intention can look weird on the Internet.
I had *no* idea. And Death By Water was staring me right in the face, too! I need to read more carefully.
Thank you for making this choice, Alexis. Now I can recommend this game to my Asian-descended friends without worrying about annoying them. Which, to me, is the crucial thing about matters of language -- not excluding people. ("A gentleman is one who is never unintentionally offensive.")
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/JonquilS
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Leraika
Posts: 56
11/29/2013
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streetfelineblue wrote:
Jonquil wrote:
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
Cocytus wrote:
is there any Irish presence in Fallen London?
Shoshanna is a riff, like so much else, on the Waste Land, but even innocent intention can look weird on the Internet.
I had *no* idea. And Death By Water was staring me right in the face, too! I need to read more carefully.
Thank you for making this choice, Alexis. Now I can recommend this game to my Asian-descended friends without worrying about annoying them. Which, to me, is the crucial thing about matters of language -- not excluding people. ("A gentleman is one who is never unintentionally offensive.")
Wait, no idea of what? What does Death by Water have to do with Shoshanna?
She's probably meant to equate with Madame Sosostris, the fortuneteller in 'The Waste Land' who first makes reference to the sailor whose death is chronicled in the Death By Water section.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
edit: now with less forum breaking
edited by Leraika on 11/29/2013
--
Leraika - Smoldering Academic and occasional woman-about-town
Feel free to send me requests!
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airshipmedic
Posts: 50
12/31/2013
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I think it's an excellent change, although I will miss the mention in the FAQ that linked to an article interviewing the game developers about racism. Does anyone have that link?
I do find it odd there's be any backlash against political correctness, but as an American I see many pundits and a few politicians seeming to think political correctness is worth fighting AGAINST. I suppose an argument can be made for "freedom of speech," but at the end of the day, why are you fighting so hard for your right to be a jerk? Call people what they want to be called. It's a little sacrafice that goes a long way towards showing respect.
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airshipmedic
Posts: 50
12/31/2013
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@Gillsing: I go back to saying it's a small sacrafice, simply learning a new word. I've had moments where I used a term that I didn't realize had negative connotations, and was corrected (sternly at first, but that response usually softened when they realized it had been an accident that I am eager to correct.) I realize now that using the term "jerk" wasn't doing me any favors, and it came after skimming the comments to see people agreeable to the politically correct jargon change. I don't think Fallen London writers were jerks for using "Oriental" to begin with, since it seemed more like a cultural misstep than an intentional attack.
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scuffles
Posts: 12
12/4/2013
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I hadn't noticed, I don't mind, I think it makes sense, I like the word Orient purely because it allows me to use Occident occasionally. I like the thought that if Leyton Orient move to Ealing, they could become Leyton Occident.
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th8827
Posts: 823
5/17/2016
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Connected: East would basically be Connected: Salt, and we all know how much bad luck he can be.
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Gone NORTH. It's nice here.
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Kade Carrion (an_ocelot)
Posts: 1372
11/20/2013
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Alexis: heh. Totally.
Curious Foreigner: thank you for listening. It is much appreciated.
Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook: excuse _me_, but I am the _original_ ocelot in Fallen London, if anything the Corresponding Ocelot wishes he were me!
(Not really, I have it on good authority, but I couldn't resist.)
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Flyte
Administrator
Posts: 671
11/20/2013
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I think this is for the best. More than half my relatives would have been regarded by the Victorians as Oriental, but the term has never offended me, perhaps because no one in contemporary Britain can pronounce it with sincerity. But it clearly has different connotations in the States, and it wasn't doing any useful work in Fallen London.
Honestly, there isn't much useful work that it can do, because it conflates societies and people whose only unifying feature is the ways they were interacted with and thought about under European imperialism. I don't know if there was a time when that was one of the things Fallen London might have come to be about, but it certainly hasn't evolved that way.
I think Chris's point about the writing is sound, too; the storylet Alexis linked to didn't work for me either as humour or a contribution to the setting, perhaps because it seems so anxious about being misunderstood.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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Flyte wrote:
I think Chris's point about the writing is sound, too; the storylet Alexis linked to didn't work for me either as humour or a contribution to the setting, perhaps because it seems so anxious about being misunderstood.
It's always rather difficult, as a writer, to respond politely to someone who tells you on your home territory that you're not funny. Especially if they're correct. Fortunately, neither Chris or I wrote this (the terminal 'fez' is a typical example of Nigel Evans' gift for prosodic comedy, IMO).
I think you're reading between the wrong lines:
- The storylet was written in early 2010 when we were far from 'anxious about being misunderstood' and remains unchanged (except that I removed an anachronistic doughnut), because
- Chris and I conferred, and we happen to think it's really quite funny and also inoffensive
- and I linked to it as a microcosmic example and epitaph of what we were originally aiming for: "the Orient" in gently derisive hygiene quotes.
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Playersideblog
Posts: 397
11/20/2013
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Cocytus wrote:
Indeed, congratulations on your finely nuanced approach to cultural sensitivity. I am also relieved that you're not getting rid of the quality altogether!
This leads me to wonder; is there any Irish presence in Fallen London? A lot of us migrated to Britain during and after the Famine, which was just before the Fall. The trend continued into the 20th century and indeed, goes on to this day; I myself labour in Unfallen London, building roads for the English like my ancestors, only I do it from behind a computer.
You'd probably find us on the Docks, complaining about cheap Clay Man labour.
edited by Cocytus on 11/20/2013
I have no idea if this is canon, but until stated otherwise, this is absolutely canon to me. I always knew I liked the Dockers.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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Cocytus wrote:
This leads me to wonder; is there any Irish presence in Fallen London?
Here and there.
- Alexis Kennedy
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Curious Foreigner
Posts: 210
11/20/2013
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While I can understand it, it still makes me sad. As a member of the alemannic language family tree, the word Orient has no negative meaning for me; It's instead linked with a sense of Mystery, of ancient and mighty civilizations and the Unknown.
I don't understand why this word is treated with such scorn in the States, but I'll just have to accept it.
Well, "The Far East" is almost as good a word.
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Cochimetl went North, and beyond. No poems, only candlelight now. (Well, maybe one poem.)
The Gun-Toting Gallivanter, after an extended absence, is back in London again.
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Cocytus
Posts: 187
11/20/2013
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Indeed, congratulations on your finely nuanced approach to cultural sensitivity. I am also relieved that you're not getting rid of the quality altogether!
This leads me to wonder; is there any Irish presence in Fallen London? A lot of us migrated to Britain during and after the Famine, which was just before the Fall. The trend continued into the 20th century and indeed, goes on to this day; I myself labour in Unfallen London, building roads for the English like my ancestors, only I do it from behind a computer.
You'd probably find us on the Docks, complaining about cheap Clay Man labour.
edited by Cocytus on 11/20/2013
--
Cocytus, the Avuncular Wordsmith, a river outside a box.
Stock Titus, a rapturous individual ahead of its time. (Dormant)
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Kade Carrion (an_ocelot)
Posts: 1372
11/20/2013
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As someone with ancestral ties to the "Mysterious" "East" / "Orient," I applaud this change, because (I assure you from personal experience) the entire concept is not just a quaint historical quirk but an actual ongoing stereotype.
(Edit: x-post with Alexis.)
edited by an_ocelot on 11/20/2013
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streetfelineblue
Posts: 1459
11/20/2013
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For a minute there, I thought the connection was going to vanish for good, much to my chagrin (the Urchin-Orient conflict card is a useful Nightmares reducer for me). Seeing that it's mostly a redenomination, I can't but cheer the effort of game creators so considerate of their gaming bases' opinions and sensibilities. Chapeau.
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Playersideblog
Posts: 397
11/20/2013
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streetfelineblue wrote:
By the way, what's a "riff"? Not a musical phrase in this case, I guess O_o
It's a bit of an analogy; a musical riff is a bit of flourishing and personal take on the melody, putting a twist on it. Similarly, a narrative riff takes a concept or known character and puts a unique spin on it.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
11/20/2013
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Curious Foreigner wrote:
I see your point; but I don't really see the difference between the terms "Europe" and "Orient" in that regard. Both describe a collection of different cultures, and certainly not everyone who uses "Europe" has an actual understanding of the different People involved, yet noone (as far as I know) has a problem with that word.
I see how the change makes Fallen London more inclusive, as you said. I just don't understand the RL-problem with the word.
Yeah, on paper, it's not a big difference. I suppose the problem is that we're not only talking about how people in different regions saw each other - we're talking about terms used during a time of dramatic power imbalances, when Europe was invading and colonising much of Asia. So, there was a huge power imbalance - like millions-of-lives-irreparably-altered huge - in how different terms were used. If I were to call you some dehumanising term - say I said you were indeed a Curious Foreigner, and in fact not only Curious but quite Different and Alien. That wouldn't really matter, because I'm just some bloke and no-one listens to me. But if everyone said such things about you, from heads of state down? If the terms were used in propaganda inspiring troops to take control of your nation, and parroted by every chatterbox on the street? Then the terms would rankle, as they never would have if they weren't associated with those actions.
Anyhow, I'm just trying to sum up off the top of my head what decades of study have said before me, and will continue to say, far more eloquently and with considerable debate on all sides.
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
11/20/2013
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Also, what ocelot said.
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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streetfelineblue
Posts: 1459
11/20/2013
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By the way, what's a "riff"? Not a musical phrase in this case, I guess O_o
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/20/2013
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oh, the tone-of-voice free Internet. You haven't given offence!
(1) People have been saying much worse things about my work for years, and I eat feedback and p*ss storylets. But if I ever think a piece of my own writing is so exceptional that I make a point of quoting it, and someone takes the time to post 'meh, wasn't all that' then this is the noise I will make
*harumph*
and I might or might not have my feelings hurt. This isn't by any means an unusually sensitive writerly response, and it's unlikely to be diverted by diplomacies like 'personally' or 'for me' or 'of course everyone's different', so I thought I'd give you a friendly warning for similar cases here and elsewhere in future. Which alas didn't come across as that friendly, apparently.
(2) I didn't want to take credit for Nigel's (fine) work.
(3) It did look like you misunderstood/I didn't make clear why I posted the link. Whether or not that's the case, all misunderstandings are hopefully now erased.
(4) bonus advice with, honestly, no subtext: if you ever are worried you've been offensive, google "i'm sorry if I've offended" first. Your apology may not be taken as you intend it.
edit: getting round my own curse word filter. I must fix that.
edited by Alexis on 11/20/2013
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Kade Carrion (an_ocelot)
Posts: 1372
11/20/2013
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Flyte, as a data point, I didn't read Alexis's comment as offended or upset, rather correcting a possible mistaken impression on your part.
Edit: I really have to stop cross-posting with Alexis today. This is getting weird.
edited by an_ocelot on 11/20/2013
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Dolan
Posts: 296
11/21/2013
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Holy crap, Alexis is FURIOUS. Flyte, you better be careful, or he's going to eat you.
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Spacemarine9
Posts: 2234
11/20/2013
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Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook wrote:
Bless you, Miriam Plenty - because if something's worth doing, it's worth doing half-arsed while shouting at clowns.
This statement resonates with me on a deeply personal level for reasons too complex and boring to describe.
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/alexisthetest?fromEchoId=2789992
I don't know why Mrs Plenty has set up a pleasure garden in the Forgotten Quarter but I'm sure her reasons are as good and valid as any.
edited by Spacemarine9 on 11/20/2013
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Owen Wulf
Posts: 715
11/20/2013
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Well, it makes sense to me, the faction in question was strange not only in it's exclusion from the initial line-up of joinable factions but also in what exactly they were. The points we raised through the faction were almost always through criminal or at least ambiguous means, but the label also covered people living in Spite who just wanted to go about their business and others throughout London. Differentiating between normal Asian groups and the underworld operations setup by the Widow will require some adjustments to a number of storylets. But it opens the door to a clear and precise standing with the actual groups in the area, especially the Khanate across the Zee.
---
edited by Owen Wulf on 11/20/2013
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Zeel
Posts: 257
11/21/2013
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So will there be any differences between how 'The Orient' connection functions and how 'The Widow' connection functions? (I'm asking about expansion or removal btw). Because with this change, it would be interesting for the Widow to become more personally involved in a greater number of storylets, now that you're connected to her rather than the entire group.
P.S. Alexis, you're not alone. I didn't even know the term 'Orient' was considered offensive until I started playing Fallen London and read the FAQ.
edited by Zeek on 11/21/2013
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streetfelineblue
Posts: 1459
11/20/2013
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Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook wrote:
Alexis Kennedy wrote:
an_ocelot wrote:
And I am 100% over people looking at me and thinking about "Mystery" and "the Unknown." Gasp! I'm just a person like everyone else!
You know, part of the reason Connected: Orient lasted so long was that it took me a little while, having spent so much of my adolescence wanting to be mysterious and unknown, to get my head round that. But, like, totally.
an_ocelot wrote:
(Yes, it's true, I am not actually an ocelot, sorry to disappoint you all, but really, ocelots can neither type nor dictate, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.)
Tigers, fortunately, are more flexible.
I'm thinking we should all transfer our wish-fulfilment fantasies onto cats. If only we could all be Corresponding Ocelots and Tiger Keepers and Parabolan Panthers!
...SO agreeing, my nickname isn't entirely casual ^^ Also, dibs on the jaguar. Jaguars are cool 
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Kade Carrion (an_ocelot)
Posts: 1372
11/20/2013
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Alexis Kennedy wrote:
It's the Stripy Man's Burden.
I need an emoticon or abbreviation to convey "actual, literal, groaning/laughing out loud."
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Kittenpox
Posts: 869
5/17/2016
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th8827 wrote:
Wow. This is an old thread that I did not know about. Development history is fascinating.
Same. I'm glad to see that they went with this decision, though.
[spoiler]I'm not sure why I was surprised to see Amal El-Mohtar's name mentioned - one which I've heard many times on some of the audiobook podcasts I listen to (EscapePod / Podcastle / Pseudopod, primarily ^_^ ), and so I shouldn't be surprised to hear her mentioned in other story-driven things like Fallen London. It was just kinda neat. :-) [/spoiler]
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Current [Fabulous Diamond] count: Twenty-Five (of 50). Halfway there! ^_^
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Currently: Returned to the Neath, and regaining my footing in this place. :-)
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th8827
Posts: 823
5/16/2016
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I'm pretty sure that the Isle of Cats are not really cats.
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Gone NORTH. It's nice here.
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Alexis Kennedy
Posts: 1374
11/21/2013
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Ark the Wise wrote:
As a matter of curiosity--is Cathayan under the same umbrella, in terms of acceptability, as Oriental?
Cathay is archaic and tended to mean specifically Northern China, though it has been used more generally, especially in poetic or picaresque writing. One of our revamped bits of content refers to 'Nippon, Tartary, Cathay and the Princedoms of the Raj'. We've tended to use deliberately archaic terms (see also: Hongkong rather than Hong Kong, Peking rather than Beijing) when we wanted to emphasise the distance of history, and/or because they're attractive words in themselves. As Chris said yesterday, specifics are usually stronger.
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Theus
Posts: 311
11/21/2013
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I'm reminded of the great deal of diversity even within a group that could be referred to as "Tartars".
If you're the kind of person who could listen to a history professor talk about one subject for 8 hours (and I believe there are a few of us in the active FL community), I highly recommend the podcast series: Hardcore History - Wrath of the Khans by Dan Carlin. http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive/Show-43---Wrath-of-the-Khans-I/Mongols-Genghis-Chingis
edited by Theus on 11/21/2013
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