Critical Research Fails

[commandercomplainer]

I'm willing to suspend disbelief for a lot of stuff, sometimes you have to for role play but good God some things it's seems the person writing doesn't even try to connect what they're talking about to real life. Like, they've heard the word before and thought it was a cool concept and couldn't even be bothered to look up the most basic definition of whatever they're doing.

Really though, the next prompt I see that has prisoners wandering around high security facilities unsupervised or that treats psycopaths like misunderstood romantic figures is going to make me start ripping my hair out.

[astrivid]

Every single time I see a modern orphanage prompt I cringe. That and every modern day asylum prompt.

[Chairubplay]

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, blind prompts.

I scream. Every time.

[livvykitty]

This one four line prompt where the guy wants to play human Psiionic as the caretaker of the responders character who is somehow incapacitated and unable to care for themselves. It just seems... Kind of really fucking gross

[astrivid]

Apr 28, 2016 21:42:41 GMT Chairubplay said:

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, blind prompts.

I scream. Every time.

Whats wrong with blind prompts? I've wanted to write one for a while personally in a vent-y way being mostly blind myself.

[Chairubplay]

If it's for venting, then absolutely that's understandable because I'm also legally blind, but every blind prompt that I've personally seen has either been for cheap smut(!!!!!!!!) or was grossly inaccurate with regard to what their character could do and what kinds of services they had access to. And for some reason, blind prompts with the ONLY ACTUALLY BLIND CHARACTER IN HOMESTUCK are as rare as unicorns.

[Dave Strider]

Apr 28, 2016 21:53:00 GMT Chairubplay said:

the ONLY ACTUALLY BLIND CHARACTER IN HOMESTUCK

there's actually two blind characters in hs chair

:V

That being said I used to be guilty of the inaccurate blind prompts. No more. Never again.

[Chairubplay]

Apr 29, 2016 8:21:33 GMT Dave Strider said:

Apr 28, 2016 21:53:00 GMT Chairubplay said:

the ONLY ACTUALLY BLIND CHARACTER IN HOMESTUCK

there's actually two blind characters in hs chair

:V

That being said I used to be guilty of the inaccurate blind prompts. No more. Never again.

I didn't count Sollux because he's sighted for the majority of the comic, but you're right, yeah.

[cherubplaying]

Apr 28, 2016 21:53:00 GMT Chairubplay said:

blind prompts with the ONLY ACTUALLY BLIND CHARACTER IN HOMESTUCK are as rare as unicorns.

/sweats nervously

i'm planning to remedy that by posting a prompt about it, but like... inaccurate depiction bothers me, and it might bother people who are legally blind.

[Astro]

//double sweats

Man, its hard playing blind Terezi (as in a humanstuck AU) because, I, as a sighted person, don't really understand the struggles, so I really try not making it the main focus of the rp. In canon I just, well, follow canon, which is an inaccurate way to play blind people but you can argue that

a) She's an alien, so like,, their body may deal more extremely with the sort of thing. Especially since you can get killed if you show any weakness.

and

b) she was taught how to cope by a magical blind dragon in her dreams.... so yeah, its obviously meant to not be taken at face value for an accurate portrayal of blind people.

That being said I am sighted! So I really have no say in the matter, and if I'm wrong in my thinking please correct me. But, yeah, even I can agree that exploiting stuff like this for things like smut is really not ok. Why is it a thing. Same for trans and mute prompts. Why is a character being selectively mute so popular.

[terepy]

///sweating towel guy image here

i try my hardest rping blind terezi to the best of my ability though im always worried that im getting her totally wrong. it doesnt help that i actually refuse to play her sighted since its such a big part of her character and her identity, so when i go into humanstuck i find myself in a right bad pickle

BUT id like to say i at least get some of the issues right? my sister actually works for the local school for the blind and visually impaired and i often ask her about how things go there and hang out with some of the kids there regularly for helping out around the school BUT ITS ACTUALLY really good research to boot. like im no expert and i certainly can never hope to understand what its like myself since i am sighted, but ID LIKE TO THINK THAT MAYBE if anyone needs some help on aspects of any blind prompts/terezi prompts they want to write they can ask me for a sort of unofficial, hopefully accessible source?

quietly stumbles around and tries to present this offer gracefully, failing horribly in the process

[cherubplaying]

May 2, 2016 5:14:39 GMT Astro said:

Why is a character being selectively mute so popular.

/nervous sweating intensifies

since kurloz is mute in canon but he can speak through... mind-control or something, i just often portray him as selectively mute in humanstuck. i find that the most challenging (but also most fun) part of having him selectively mute is making him look for ways to communicate with other people without the use of spoken words, that is until he feels comfortable enough to speak around them.

[Ethan]

why are you guys all so sweaty pls shower

anyway! i think a large part of it is just ppl being attracted to the idea of being helpless and cared for? or conversely, with the psionic thing someone mentioned earlier, taking care of someone who can't do anything without you.

i'm probably reading too much into this though, hah ^^;

[Astro]

May 2, 2016 13:43:37 GMT cherubplaying said:

May 2, 2016 5:14:39 GMT Astro said:

Why is a character being selectively mute so popular.

/nervous sweating intensifies

since kurloz is mute in canon but he can speak through... mind-control or something, i just often portray him as selectively mute in humanstuck. i find that the most challenging (but also most fun) part of having him selectively mute is making him look for ways to communicate with other people without the use of spoken words, that is until he feels comfortable enough to speak around them.

I mean like, not Kurloz, since he has a sort of 'excuse' but like I never see prompts for him, anyway!! what's up with that?

And how do you play a mute character? I think it's pretty cool if you can make the story work. I remember one prompt that specifically asked for your character to not be able to understand ASL or anything like that. How ??

[Nepeta]

May 2, 2016 19:04:18 GMT Astro said:

May 2, 2016 13:43:37 GMT cherubplaying said:

/nervous sweating intensifies

since kurloz is mute in canon but he can speak through... mind-control or something, i just often portray him as selectively mute in humanstuck. i find that the most challenging (but also most fun) part of having him selectively mute is making him look for ways to communicate with other people without the use of spoken words, that is until he feels comfortable enough to speak around them.

I mean like, not Kurloz, since he has a sort of 'excuse' but like I never see prompts for him, anyway!! what's up with that?

And how do you play a mute character? I think it's pretty cool if you can make the story work. I remember one prompt that specifically asked for your character to not be able to understand ASL or anything like that. How ??

Oh!! As someone who has played Mute/Also-Occasionally-Nonverbal Nepeta, I tend to focus on ASL during it. Which can be fun, but also complicated to RP, because I try to make sure to mention each of her hand movements. Which I guess can be confusing? Also she writes stuff down a lot if a character doesn't understand ASL or isn't very good at it. There's also body language, which while not like, a main thing, is really useful.