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Honest question about game
Sexual Themes n Shit

Ok, so I'm curious about a few things... I know that from reading help chastity and help sex and a few other helpfiles that sex is totally cool and there are actual legit professions of prostitutes and such.

However, I'm curious why it seems like literally everyone is dyke, fag, femboy etc etc?

I don't use those words in real life and they sorta bother me to see them thrown around so willy nilly in a game. It almost seems like there should be a filter to turn off the offensive shit.

Another thing I don't really understand is the RP based around relationships to such a degree of sexual relations that aren't faded to black or used to kill someone or vice versus.

I've walked into a few things in my time in game and been like OOCLY like EW and I get it, different strokes for different folks and I'm not trying to harsh your vibe or what you like to choose to RP.

I'll even go so far as to say I've talked about this game on a discord and had a friend from Tarkov jump in for about a total of an hour and leave because of the same communicability with the various shortdesc/name things. He is gay for the record and didn't like that he saw a "dyke" walk past him on the street.

So I am not trying to tell you what to do or how to play, but I figured it was worth noting that some of the in your face with these horrible offensive words is probably scaring away some new players like my tarkov bro.

1. shortdescs are self assigned so if someone wants to call themselves dyke, fag, femboy it's up to them.

2. it's very preferential and we should allow everyone to RP whatever they want.

For the record, I've been playing for 2+ years, have never had a romantic relationship IC, have never participated in any ERP with my current character, and am still successful IC (in my opinion). Try and find some people who are into action instead of sexing if it's not your bag : )

Some people are all about it, and many others don't touch it with a ten foot pole.

I mean, IRL a few people use those terms for themselves. For example, I'm a trans person, and I know a few other trans people who refer to themselves as "trannies", though that's usually in a joking manner.

The same for "femboy". It isn't generally seen as an offensive term, unlike the alternative term for that kind of individual, but a few people are offended by it and a few people identify with it.

Yeah I get it Floored, it just sorta lumped in with the whole sexuality versus crude names of said sexuality is the only reason I brought it up.

You will instantly know who I am if you try anything sexual because I'll be like OOC FADE TO BLACK, I was great.

Again too, you can call yourselves whatever you want, and have sex all day in character if that's your thing.

My only concern was maybe you're losing players due to the outward appearance of how offensive some of these words are. Might be good to toggle it somehow.

It's not offensive to anyone.
Definitely stand firm on your preferences with that OOCly. I ask for fade to black on sex and torture stuff, even if they're plot-critical. The consequences can be IC but it doesn't mean that you have to put up with it IC.

If you're with a group of people that are doing it and they don't want to fade, I'm not sure how to handle that. I've steered clear. I just wanted to jump in and say that you don't HAVE to ERP to be successful in SD. Chaste people like myself are out there.

No knocks on the ERP'ers though, for doing it. If it's their bag.

As Villa said, players own and assign their own shortdescs. There's plenty of people in the LGBQT community that 'take back' these words to remove the pejorative nature of them.

As for ERP, it's present in pretty much every RP game ever. Here it's not something that is nearly as verboten as in other games, and in fact, a good chunk of the game embraces that part of the cyberpunk experience because it's representative of theme. That said, there's plenty of people who agree with you that ERP isn't great simply for the sake of ERP, but that's entirely a player's choice for what they prefer or not. Thankfully, ERP in SD is an entirely opt-in experience, unlike many other things in game. Don't like tits and dick in your face? Don't frequent strip clubs. Hate prostitutes? Don't hire them, don't hang out in their haunts, etc.

I've sometimes spoken out against it in the past, but I will say, some of the most intense betrayal plots have come from characters that get their ''hooks'' into others via text sexing them into trusting them and then stabbing them in the back when they hit their career zenith. It's absolutely brilliant RP.

My gay homie from Tarkov said he wants no part of a game that's got DYKE in it. So uh, proof.
Well... sucks to be him? I jokingly refer to myself as a tranny faggot constantly. That's not everyone's deal, and it's not like we're forcing him at gunpoint to play.
Just wait til you see the shit we have in store for him.
Uh what?
We're all adults here (or at least we're supposed to be) so like villa said, people should be allowed to do as they wish. Some overdo it on both ends of the spectrum by either being publicly nasty or publicly disparaging, but generally it's just fine.

I involve my characters all the way in everything they do and they all have their own personal tastes and modus operandi. The separation there between what I like and what they like stops things from ever feeling too personal, instead allowing me to just laugh at most things.

Admittedly I have had bleed moments but I've found that playing to a strongly defined character makes those happen less frequently.

As for the shortdesc stuff, it's just that not everyone responds to those words the same way. Without going into too much detail, some of us are fine with the therm 'fag' or 'femboy.'

What villa might be trying and failing to say is, anything can be offensive to anyone, and that is why playing this game is a choice. We have some content in the game which will offend, and thus some people will not play.

While I understand your reasoning, those terms have been decided on as part of the game.

It sucks your buddy had a bad experience, but seriously, seeing the word dyke on the internet is about the tamest thing imaginable. The game clearly states it's adults only on the login page, and there's children getting murdered and people getting blowjobs in public in the very first city room you step into. That's not an accident, it's deliberate.

However, I'm curious why it seems like literally everyone is dyke, fag, femboy etc etc?

-bit of a huge and untrue generalisation.

I don't use those words in real life and they sorta bother me to see them thrown around so willy nilly in a game. It almost seems like there should be a filter to turn off the offensive shit.

-that is entirely unfair, you are entitled to your opinion. Sindome is so much about the harsh reality though, people are brutalised minute to minute, killed on a frequency where it is a daily way of life and so on. There is offensive content in this game, how do you content manage from a system point of view everything that someone may or may not find offensive, the answer is, you can't really.

Another thing I don't really understand is the RP based around relationships to such a degree of sexual relations that aren't faded to black or used to kill someone or vice versus.

-ERP is very common, and it doesn't always have to be rutting like animals, sometimes sexual acts can have a great deal of strength to a story between two characters, it can be a sweet part of perhaps a long waiting sexual tension or a beatiful and loving scene between two characters that love one another. At the end of the day it is RP. And FTB is there for those that don't want to do that kind of RP.

I've walked into a few things in my time in game and been like OOCLY like EW and I get it, different strokes for different folks and I'm not trying to harsh your vibe or what you like to choose to RP.

-I would be concerned if there was nothing In SIndom that didn't make you go Ew ooc if i was honest, but it is part of the game as a whole. I doubt it will get censored as well.. it is sort of a part of the built world.

I'll even go so far as to say I've talked about this game on a discord and had a friend from Tarkov jump in for about a total of an hour and leave because of the same communicability with the various shortdesc/name things. He is gay for the record and didn't like that he saw a "dyke" walk past him on the street.

-Two parts to this, firstly, you shouldn't be talking about IC stuff OOC with your friends, it is against the rules.

-secondly, I am really sad to hear your friends experience, but it is part of the game. It is like being offended watching a movie that says 'Hey there will be blood in it' then seeing blood and going 'eww blood, I want all this but without blood'. People are fairly warned about the game before they play.

So I am not trying to tell you what to do or how to play, but I figured it was worth noting that some of the in your face with these horrible offensive words is probably scaring away some new players like my tarkov bro.

-I think everyone who plays is fairly warned, and even if codedly you could filter things, the language used by PC characters would be impossible to do so and would be directly couner active to the world, the tech, the people, the players and information.

Sindome is an offensive place by its very nature. If folks are that sensitive that this would be a reason not to play, this isn't the game for them and changing our game to be a game for them would ruin it. (i.e. standards must be maintained)
Yeah I personally don't give a shit, just thought about it because I saw my dude pop in discord and I glanced at our past messages and it reminded me he was super turned off by the term.

I will say that it does almost seem like sexuality and non-binary stuff is sorta thrust in your face in this game. And I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. I love people having choice, I just don't want wanna have your dick, pussy or otherwise thrust in my face daily.

This is a game where people get murdered, dismembered, tortured, all kinds of awful shit, on a daily basis. If you can't handle seeing the word "dyke" or "femboy", I don't know what to tell you, chum. It clearly says "adults only".
"I will say that it does almost seem like sexuality and non-binary stuff is sorta thrust in your face in this game. And I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. I love people having choice, I just don't want wanna have your dick, pussy or otherwise thrust in my face daily. "

I mean... yeah. Those are both themes of the cyberpunk genre. You live in the future where people are getting their genes spliced with god-knows-what and replacing their body parts with lava lamps. Who gives a shit about gender binaries?

In the end, no one gets to tell you what you are or aren't offended by. That is up to You, and that should be respected. That is why you have a choice in playing the game. If you play, and don't enjoy what you see or experience when playing, you have the choice not to play.

This isn't a 'deal with it or get out' statement, its a 'You should know going into this game the type of content you will experience, and when you experience content you don't like, adjust your gameplay at your own comfort level.'

All of this with the @Rules in mind being followed always, every second, all the time. :)

Last I knew, staff has always been willing to consider and possibly add new shortdescs so I would encourage a more positive approach here by contributing what you might find to be more positive alternatives to the shortdescs you find offensive. Giving people more choice.

In the end though, I am 99% sure that some people would find the alternatives you propose to be just as offensive. But, as others have said, people here CHOOSE to call their character's those things. They are not forced to. I personally think that more options is a good thing as long as they are reasonable.

As far as ERP and relationship RP goes, it really is opt-in. I have chosen not to engage in it for years and have engaged in it for years. I have not been more or less successful in either case. And, as others have said, some interesting plot can and does come from this kind of RP.

I have even seen some PCs that are designed around the idea of using their beauty and sexuality to gain allies and win conflicts and they have done it well. That kind of RP is very CP in my mind and I would never want to see it go away, even if I often choose not to engage in it.

Lastly, I have never ever come across a player who refused to fade to black on sex scenes at my request. Should I find one who does, my PC will find a reason to distance themselves from them.

Consider the in-character experience.

Our characters are so insanely over-stimulated and burned out by 24/7 always-on audio, visual and even telepathic marketing and messaging that we go to extremes to push the envelope of what is outrageous behavior. It's nihilism and hedonism taken to the Nth degree. All day, every day. Our dark taboos (oocly) are commonplace and yawn-inducing in the (IC) cyberpunk future.

Then trying to stand out from that cacophony? People will go to extreme lengths.

Hi, I would describe myself as a hooded svelte queer in real life.

People do give off intentional signals about their sexuality, and I'm happy with how easily Sindome allows players to specify how their characters are presenting. It's very possible your friend misunderstood that these labels are self-assigned, which is liberating and cool. I would be annoyed if these description options were taken away, especially because of a concern troll thread.

The cyberpunk future is pretty gay and you have to live with that.

I'm not a huge fan of the lingering 90s edge that crops up in certain parts of the game, but my experience is that any character who makes an issue of someone's sexuality or gender or race in any way that can be construed as present-day bigotry bleeding into the IC world, they are cracked down on by the rest of the player base.

There were issues with this in the past but far as I could tell they mostly stemmed from players who are now banned.

@0x1mm

Well, it's just so out of place that when you see casual racism or sexism, it's like WHOAH! BIGOT ALERT! ICly.

I do feel that sometimes there is a bit of virtue signaling going on, but in my experience that's been dealt with ICly in appropriate manners (ultraviolence!)

I know some characters ICly that made a big stink over what seemed like obvious racial stereotyping in the past, and as you mentioned, that was dealt with OOCly and hasn't seemed to be an issue since. ;)

I too have seen that trend over the years. When I first started playing the femboys were something you saw now and then. Same with other 'non-traditional' gender presentations and sexual preferences. The games just seems to draw a lot of players who like to RP characters like this currently and that's alright. I have no idea why characters like that have become so prominent but I imagine it is partially a matter of how much more people have become OOCly and I am pretty happy about that. I also imagine that the trend will rise and fall just like you see waves of medics one month and waves of brawlers the next and waves of Russians the month after that.

*How much more open people have become OOCly...

I messed that one up!

Baguette hit the nail on the head. One of the themes of cyberpunk is that the shit humans do to -themselves-. Are able to do to themselves (or to others for that matter) is so far beyond the kind of drek we'd consider today that old verbiage and grudges hardly matter. In context of Withmore, I see words like corpo rat or cain as more offensive than dyke. 150 years after the modern day? LGBT isn't even a movement anymore. They're as equal as anyone else in terms of sexuality. They took dyke back for themselves decades ago, and it isn't even derogatory anymore.

And again, as was said, the hypersexuality and large number of femboys you might be seeing etc is entirely a result of a larger amount of the player population -choosing- to describe their character that way. It isn't by design or policy or w/e.

Finally, I'm sure you aren't the only person who FTBs. I've explored serious relationships ICly on more than one character and tried both. I'm fine with both. If FTB is what you prefer for your character's personal intimate experience, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, FTB's let you communicate meaningful rp without taking up time from hustle, which is why I prefer it. All you need to do is communicate that OOCly to whomever you are doing this rp with. If the issue is you want to see FTB in public locations where you aren't directly involved with rp? Like at a strip club for example? It's jus not going to happen. No one walks into a strip club and says, 'Man, I really wish these women wore clothes.'

Think about the cyberpunk theme for a moment.

Transhumanism of every sort is rampant: genderfluidity, genemodding, and assorted cybernetics are a package deal. Old-world cultures have collapsed, evolved, assimilated, and mutated in countless ways. A place where you can quite literally rearrange your physical anatomy in accordance with whatever you feel like doing or being this week. Want gill, a tail, or claws? Want to become more machine than flesh? Push this button to go bald, or get waist-length hair. Change your appearance to emulate a kindly old grandmother while you evade capture for that place you just bombed? Try to seduce someone to get data on some big happening in the local space? Anything is possible - with an open mind, there can be no wrong answers.

Welcome to the cyberpunk future - where you're the master of your own destiny, the government still sucks, and social constructs are upended - a time and place where no one cares what you call yourself or what your gender is - we're all just vibing and hustling along our character's plot arcs.

Oh no, strip clubs are strip clubs, you don't walk into one in real life or in a game expecting anything tame. It's a fucking strip club.

I more meant just the way it's like slapping you in the face with everything from shortdescs to assless chaps.

I've had to distance myself from a few characters simply because they are too over the top for me personally.

I have heard that "slapping you in the face" line out there in the real world, from people who don't like how queer people dress and act.

I'll be blunt. I'm getting the impression that's what your concern is really about.

I feel the 'in your face' nudity and sexual content as easily understandable given the theme. On the corporate side, sex and violence sells and makes moving up easier. In the mix life is short and rough and you take every edge you can and enjoy yourself as much as you can before you die. There are still 'prudes' for sure but I seem them as being the minority.

Just look at society today versus society a hundred years ago. I can't confidentially say that people back then didn't get their freak on as I am sure they did but all of this has become so much more open today. That trend is there and in a CP setting I only see it becoming more extreme.

fucking straights shoving their sexuality down my throat i mean i dont care what you do in public just stop shoving it in my face that youre straight
Take that 'in your face' idea and put it into context too. Cyberpunk, and Withmore specifically, hyperfocus on capitalism. Everything has a price, and sex sells like it always has. That chica or mona or any other shade on line walking the street in ass-less chaps? That transvestite over there flashing their junk to passersby in the street? That's advertising, baby. They're marketing a product and they want your flash. My tits are a billboard and my lipstick on your taint is buying me MORE ass-less chaps, sugar. It's all biz and hustle.

Keep in mind too when it comes to the mix (and this was kind of ironic to me when you mentioned your friend) open sexuality and the flaunting of it is one of the relatively few true freedoms you have.

My tits are a billboard and my lipstick on your taint is buying me MORE ass-less chaps, sugar.

This is going in my quotes folder.

^ As Baguette tongue-in-cheek sarcasm'd, just do you. I'm not a big fan of ERP myself, but I just tune it out like I tune out every single street corner having someone being robbed, murdered, raped, or kidnapped. If you're in a location where its okay for people to be sexual, then either go anywhere else or just deal. Not sure what else to suggest here. You're not forced to stay at any particular location where these things happen.
I'm lost as to whether the subject of this post is about how characters present or how they act towards other characters, but assuming it's about actions directed at your character: FTB and @rules about unwanted sexual roleplay are not options. If you ask another player OOC to FTB a scene, or ask them to not direct sexual roleplay towards your character, and they continue? Time to XHELP.

LGBT+ players make up a significant percentage of the active player base as a whole, which really should be unsurprising since Sindome allows for an immersive expression of identity to which players might be subject to oppression, persecution or violence for presenting in their daily lives. I suspect this percentage will only increase over time.

As a brief observation as someone who has been on the Internet since a 14.4k SLIP connection in 1992...

The Internet has always been a place for freaks and geeks. It has always been a counter-culture haven where people could express themselves in ways that were not socially acceptable IRL.

One of the oldest online communities is FurryMUCK. Even way back when, some of us would cringe about what the Furries were up to. You can even see their influence here and the decision that the staff made to prevent Sindome from becoming "FurryMUCK 2.0, Now with teh cyberz!"

FTB and OOC consent around sexual and hyper-violent RP are in the @Rules. Staff is very clear on those. To reiterate what others have said, I have also had RP FTB without any issue.

i have made a thread about potentially offensive shortdesc words in the past, and in my experience, the community is extremely adamant on defending the useage of 'fag' as a self-descriptor.

i learned that 'dyke' is a reclaimed word that is rarely used as a pejorative anymore -- but the same cannot be said for former word.

a majority of the sindome community simply does not want this to change. after the last thread on that subject, i decided to take a break from the game and came back with a plan to just ignore the useage of the word in the game, but it does still irk me when i eventually see it. it's mainly used by randomly generated mementos, anyways.

i am still disappointed that the main response to concern over using 'fag' in the game is basically to respond with 'well it actually is not offensive' or 'if you do not like it, simply do not play'. while i am glad that all who say these things are relatively unaffected by the usage of the word, it is deeply uncomfortable for people who have to deal with these things in their real life.

@batko That's one word I'd be a hundred percent up for removing. It's a conversation I'd want us to have in good faith, though, which I don't think was the case for the original post.
@Batko

I say this in good faith, but I think you're experiencing confirmation bias on the Mementos thing. I'm 100% positive that it's entirely random what names and shortdescs they get. I have, at times, snickered or gasped at their names and shortdescs as a result.

It was in good faith.

I'm just saying a word you can't get away saying in front of strangers without getting the OH shit this guy is X, shouldn't be used in game descriptions.

Specifically if you look back when I was on OOC and said something along the effects of Mentally Retarded and had almost instant xhelp sends from GMs about not using that word.

So we are super conservative about some stuff, but hey, call folks fags and dykes all day and don't worry about the feels? I'm just trying to figure out what the line is here.

@TalonCzar

i dont mean to say that it is disproportionally used over other shortdescs by mementos, but i do mean to say that the only characters in the game that i have seen use them are randomly generated memetos

Nobody said your character can call people fags and dykes and not suffer IC consequences. Plenty of PCs will respond to that. But if someone wants to call themselves a fag or dyke I have no interest in barring them even if I had a problem with those words.

I also think it's dangerous to assume that just because you and the communities and people you interact with would react a certain way to a certain word that it means that EVERYONE would or should feel or react the same way. I have seen first hand that this is not the case on many occasions.

While I have no iterest in taking away in taking away a player's ability to label their character a fag or dyke or any other shortdesc someone here might find offensive, I would reiterate that I think offering up alternatives would be great. Instead of restricting how players can express themselves maybe give them MORE ways to express themselves.

@volo

It's just about theme, really. It's the same reason people will look at you like you have a third eye growing out of your face if you start calling people rapscallions and roustabouts in public in 2020.

Calling people mentally retarded isn't vogue in 2105, it's way, way dated. Calling people blanks or nulls conveys the same meaning, and doesn't make it seem like there's OOC bleed happening.

And don't make any mistakes, if you're acting ICly bigoted towards players and it seems like there might be OOC motivations for it, you -will- get talked to by staff. IC bigotry 100% OK. OOC Bigotry 100% not acceptable. Just understand that acting ICly bigoted will absolutely get your character on a significant number of shit-lists IC. It's a thing, but it's honestly not compelling RP and people recognize it as such.

"It's not offensive to anyone...."

Factually, literally untrue. It's clearly offensive to Volo. It's also been offensive enough that Batko is uncomfortable. It's also been uncomfortable enough that this is hardly the first time this has come up on the forums.

I couldn't be more excited for reclamation of slurs and empowering them for the right people. That said, I think it's more than reasonable to entertain a good-faith discussion of the impact of it here, especially on new players who are probably still trying to grasp the intricacies of theme, what reclaiming those terms looks like, etc. It's complicated and I'm not sure if I'd make a change or not honestly, but the conversation is worth having without the sarcasm.

Speaking of new players, since it gets talked about at every town hall, how about this for new player retention: patience. Nothing about Volo's posts, this or the others, have felt like they weren't made in anything but, yes, good faith. If you see a topic from a new player you've seen hashed out before, yeah, maybe encourage them to use the search feature or whatever. But if you're not personally up for engaging in a genuine conversation about something a newer community member wants to bring up, remember the cardinal rule of the BGBB:

you're not obligated, ever, to respond to a thread.

I 100% support you being however you wanna be, in real life. I am equal opportunity as it comes.

I am realizing though that players are the life blood of the game, I have introduced one person to it, and he ran away within an hour, so I brought it up. Am I super comfortable with seeing all the dykes and fags running around? The word of it, not the action of being one. Yes.

I can suck it up and get that it comes from a place of self identify, but again, you want new players, not all new players will get that, clearly I'm at 100% who don't with my one fellow.

Now, they say it's just whining if you don't try to brainstorm a way forward and I don't want to come off as whining? What if, and again, just spitballing, but what if there was an option for it, like cacophany was added. Say every character starts out with @option gendersafe enabled and they only see folks by male/female/nongendered (not sure of the official phrase for that, so don't roast me on it). Then they have the option to disable that and boom they see all the fags and dykes they want.

I think that would be fair and good for the game because people who don't wanna see it don't and folks who do do. It's a more newbie friendly game and less people will run away yelling at someone on discord about their horrible game and why would I send him here?

Is that at least fair?

I'm not going to add anything to this discussion because I don't think it'll help, but I ask that since we all know what the words in question are that we please stop endlessly using them. There's no need to hammer them home two to three times each per post.
Well this took a turn.
@Jameson We are talking about a player who has used in-character the most offensive possible form of the word he's claiming to be offended by, to describe another person he didn't like. That's on top of various slurs about disability and casually throwing around rape as a comparison for getting the bad end of a deal. Right now xooc is talking about how this player uses racial epithets super casually.

I am calling this situation for what it is. I don't believe this is someone who's genuinely offended by slurs. This is someone who's uncomfortable seeing characters who are visibly gay or gender non-conforming.

IC/OOC separation: I could call you anything I want ICly if it's something my dude would say. I'm talking about the difference between the player and the character here.
@Rhicora,

That's not what OOC chat is for. That's what xhelp or emailing staff is for. If you think someone is acting in bad faith, it's a community violation.

@Volo,

While you're not wrong, the fact you'd be comfortable RP'ing someone who'd use the words liberally (especially in a derogatory fashion) seems very at odds with a good-faith argument that you're genuinely uncomfortable seeing them elsewhere in the game, used by folks who have chosen to reclaim the terms so.....I'm really not sure what you're getting at with all of this.

Jameson

I get what you're saying but it's only meant to be offensive when used as a slur and in this game these words are always self picked, i.e. you are only called such if you identify as one, NOBODY save for the odd outlier goes around calling people these words if they don't describe themselves that way.

If we remove the words then what happens when a gay character wants to identify themselves as one of these pronouns? Wouldn't that be actually even more offensive that they don't have a way to display themselves as such.

As far as how people want to identify: It's a point in favor of custom @shortdescs and having @pronoun options separate from them, then staff could wash their hands of the entire debate over what is a valid identity.

I do think it's an appearances issue to have homophobic terms in the actual game code, versus the IC content. I mostly see it as a product of the time that we can eventually do away with through more complex systems.

villa, i have not seen any player characters nor recurring NPCs use the specific descriptor i am uncomfortable with, nor do i think it is reasonable to say it's offensive to not have the option to refer to oneself with such a descriptor (it's not a pronoun, completely different thing) since pretty much everyone understands how it has been and still is used as an anti-lgbt slur.
Volo, you know this is an extremely queer-friendly place, a lot of how those words wound up as @shortdesc options is because players wanted them. Queer players. Taking back the word, so to speak. This can't be a new idea to your gay friend from Tarkov.

And yeah, a lot of what goes on here is people acting out things they are curious about IRL, in a safe non-judgemental place. There's bound to be a lot of genderfluid, unapologetic screamingly queer characters.

It looks like this thread is about/has become about several different things. I'm seeing few things throughout this thread that, to me personally, read as defensiveness and microaggression. Totally understandable, but I'm glad to see some people calling it. This stuff is tricky to talk about. LGBTQ+ topics are sensitive for a lot of us and (thank fucking god) are coming up more and more often in public dialogue. "Correct" use of language in LGBTQ+ discussion is a constantly moving target because we are only BARELY starting to acknowledge (collectively, as a society) that some kind of etiquette is called for at all.

Personally, RP environments like Sindome have given me a lot of space to explore and develop my own (admittedly complicated) sense of gender, sexuality, and self. I am an emotional, narratively minded, relationally focused, sometimes sexual, and often complicated person. I cannot overstate the value I have found in Sindome as a playground for learning about myself, nonbinary representation and all, and I would never want to see that experience curtailed for someone else. The cyberpunk tone/aesthetic fits my temperament to a T, so it really all just happens to work great for me.

That being said, I do get the discomfort around certain words, particularly when there is a lack of supporting context (i.e. not being aware of the generally inclusive attitudes/culture of the playerbase). I can see certain words driving some people away if that context is not effectively established. I think it's too bad that this happened with Volo's friend. I absolutely do not have a good answer for this particular situation, but I do see it bringing up a very worthwhile conversation and I do think some sensitivity is called for.

And I say all of this as someone currently enrolled in a mental health counseling grad program with a focus on topics in sexuality and gender, who has spent way too much time researching and writing about these topics, and who is genuinely tickled to see this conversation happening here at all.

Reclamation of once offensive labels in a sense of pride or identity is a very common thing IRL, and ICly. Growing up as a gay man, the term "queer" was considered an insult, but it now is used to represent a community that I am a proudly a part of. The same for "dyke". Even as early as the 1970's, it was reclaimed and used as a term of strength for some really awesome lesbian activists.

If a person sees that word and immediately reacts with "that's bad" without being a part of the community that they are claiming to be offended for, then they need to check themselves and understand the context. They can't claim moral superiority when they aren't a member of the community in question, and said community has reclaimed a word to refer to themselves as. That's just virtue signalling. If the words are being used by an outsider, or in an insulting or demeaning way in an effort to hurt a member of the community, then that would be the right time to say, "Not cool."

Now, if the real argument to seeing these words is because you simply don't like LGBTQ+ identity "in your face"... well, tough. We're here, we're queer, get over it.

Just based on an context-less reading of this thread, I'm on board with Rhicora's assessment, or at the very least that something disingenuous is going on here.
The person who started this thread has been removed from the community for a variety of reasons, several of which have been pointed out in this thread already.

(Edited by Slither at 10:46 am on 10/29/2020)