I'm not talking about cutting off someone's legs and then mocking them for being wheelchair bound, but rather the community's attachment to the slur "retard".
I seem to remember reading a thread where someone expressed their OOC discomfort at how overtly sexual pubSIC was and they were told to express/deal with it ICly. Yet, any time I’ve seen someone ICly express a dislike of that slur, instead of people OOCly taking the hint that “Hey, this term is outdated, offensive, and you’re alienating a lot of players” people have their character jump to defend its use.
It's one thing for the player base to do this, but when puppeted NPCs are actively defending its use, it gives the impression that staff support and encourage its. It sends mixed messages for a game that touts itself as caring about accessibility to have staff actively encouraging and defending ableism.
In addition to the above, it’s incredibly immersion breaking. It’s 2022 and I don’t think I’ve heard a friend or coworker use the word for nearly ten years now. It doesn’t feel like I’m in 2107, it feels like I’ve gone back to 2007.
Yes, I know that Withmore is a horrible place, the Mix is a slum on steroids, and there are countless atrocities happening every second and most characters really shouldn’t/wouldn’t care about someone’s choice of words. So maybe don’t make them have to?