Dragon Age: Origins aka Those F*ckers - Pt 2

It appears the problem I was having in creating a Character/Avatar in Dragon Age: Origins is twofold.

1. I do not associate full lips in a wide mouth, married to a broad flat tipped nose as distinctly black features.

2. I did not play around with the presets as much as I could have.

The latter is on me. The former is tired.

Dragon Age's darker characters are all high yellow leading into redbone. The preset 'black' males always have corn row. I find it very telling that preset needs that distinctive hairstyle to denote blackness. And there are still those 'slanted' eyes I find so offensive and one skin tone set is distinctly yellow.

Things are not as atrocious as I thought them to be (there is not a deliberate exclusion / a total lack of effort), but the racism is still there in the stereotyped features and in the lack of ability to be darker than a wet paperbag. It says something about 'acceptable blackness' and attractiveness/desirability standards that is extremely raw.

It prompts me to also say that redness is not blackness, although both are skin shades and undertones among People of Colour.

I'm not sure which is more enraging/painful - thinking they hadn't made a place for black avatars at all (just sunburnt white ones), or discovering they don't believe anyone would want to be walnut stained dark in a pretend fantasy world.

I find myself thanking Perfect World for at least allowing me the chance to have an avatar as dark as I wanted, and giving me the chance to also have black avatars with varied facial features. I might download it again just for the character creation. It might be healing.

Dragon Age: Origins - You Racist Fuckers

An additional note about Dragonage: Origins:

I downloaded the character creator, after perusing the wiki, to double check on the possibility of creating a Character/Avatar of Colour.

1. There is no possibility of creating a character of colour in DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS.

2. There is the possibility of creating an extremely sunburned white person.

3. With diagonally degree turned, yellow face, chinky eyes because epicanthic folds are just TOO hard.

And then there are the Qunari. Someone needs to let me know if I'm the only one thinking - Golden skinned, religious fanatics who get their enlightenment from something called the ‘qun’" {I. shit. you. not.}, who are technologically advanced and were one half of a religious war, and were resented for their strict protocols, might just happen to echo a currently maligned religious group.


Here, let me give you a hint:

They divided children from their families and sent adults to ‘learning camps’ for indoctrination in their religious philosophies...Those who resisted were slain, instantly and without mercy. Many who obeyed their new masters, however, claim that they were treated well and even given a large amount of trust provided they followed the strict qunari codes of conduct and laws.

Now, what current religously allied group of individuals are viewed by Eurocentric/White Westernized Culture in similar terms. Hmmm. Who could it be. M? M? It's on the tip of my tongue.

Meanwhile I just [sarcasm]love[/sarcasm] how corn-rows have been re-appropriated for white tribal types. Y'know despite the fact that if you see someone white in corn rows these days, one doesn't think CELT, one thinks BLACK CULTURE & HIP HOP.

ETA: Update here

Tolkien You Racist Eurocentric Fucker

Dragonage: Origins

A friend is really excited about it, so I was looking into it - cause knowing what has a friend excited and happy is a good thing. And I look and I look. And I see things I like - which is rare. But I see a cgi movie/storyline I wouldn't mind paying 30$ (yeah no, not gonna pay $50 for it) to see and play. The whole concept of pause in play would help it all not be a rush of noise and jabbing buttons for me. The possibility of same sex romantic storylines? For both men and women? Woot!

And then...And then - Asian team member (Jon Santos) working on Dragon's Age in a promo video. Another Asian team member (Stan Woo). Someone possibly Latino (Jose Illitzky). Haven't seen anyone black yet.

Is there anyone non white looking among the avatars promo material? I think there's one dude. With white/whitish blonde hair - he might be dark skinned. I can't tell because I find a lot of the captured video to be dark and oddly coloured. But the shape of his nose and lips and jaw tell me nothing. And I'm probably only assuming he's black because he's a big guy playing back-up in the trailers for a white hero.

For all the "Oooh Origins. So important. Who you are will factor into who you become! Blah Blah" - Who you are? WHITE.

I repeat: Tolkein You Racist Eurocentric British Nationalistic Fellatioing Fucker.

Because of you, you dead, decayed old white man, the land of fantasy remains in the Pseudo Europa. But not just that, despite the fact that SPAIN was influenced by the Moors and that Rome had dark skinned citizens, fantasy is all about white elves (whether or not some new representation has elves as 'ghettoized' - cause really how fucking Othering is that. Yeah, we have slums for non-humans) and white dwarfs and white men.

Though I guess places like Feministing would be happy to see white woman avatars and white women in the promo vids as part of the design team. Woop de la fucking do la and a bottle of Tear Champagne.

Dark Heroic Fantasy = White Fantasy. Same as what came before. Meanwhile look at our even more deformed Trolls and Ogres & Evil Savages.

I can't choose to put aside the part where I'm multiracial black and go - at least they have gay people-. Because no matter how much I'd want to, the sucking wound at my side will keep on bleeding, whether I pay attention to it or not. Being uncounted and unrepresented still fucking hurts.

This year... this year - really, is the lesson I'm supposed to learn and have reinforced is utter, total disrespect and hatred for unthinking, racist white fuckers - selfish pigs who can't imagine a far off future, or a fantasy land (OMG Avatar: Live Action - Stop STABBING ME) without anyone but white people. Just...

Not just Schrodinger's Rapist, I have to juggle Schrodinger's Racist - time after fucking time, after fucking time again.

The Conversation I Want To Have, is not happening. Other conversations are and they're good and blessed and halllujah that they're happening. But the conversation I want to have, hasn't. Isn't.


Me. Specifically.

Me. The Non White Fantasy Fan.

Whether it's only one part of a conversation, or one conversation in a series of conversations - right now the one I want to have is; is it worth the effort of ignoring so much history and pain and continued invisibility via ignorance and 'doing what's easy' - is it worth the effort to put our own stamp in the fantasy playbox? Or should we cast it all aside, drop troll, ogre, dragon, elf, monster, orc - all of it? Do we start from scratch based on non-white, ancestral origins mythology? Do we give up trying to see our faces in those pseudo lands regardless of the spilled blood, rape, and servitude/slavery in their real life analogues?

I don't have an answer yet for myself. I've spent the past few months wrestling with the question, trying to come up with a solution other than screaming at the idiots I encountered at the beginning of the year. Cause those idiots don't give a damn about any pain but their own. This year has made that unquestionable.

But there is something, some teasing thought in my head about how our ancestral lineage is used as accessory and dressing for their tales. Some baby thought about picking and choosing.

I'm going to give it some time.

I tried to find a way to end this without saying I hate you all, you smug unthinking white monsters. I can't; you genocidal, story/culture serial killers.

NB: While I am depressed, I refuse to believe 'Resistance Is Futile', no matter how much has been lost or how many have been eliminated.

Still Alive

Still resting (now I'm battling some kind of cold - ugh). Still focused on my blood pressure and health.

Still getting ridiculous comments in the moderation queue. And said comments are still making me feel the net is filled with crackers and honkeys dressed up in nice suits, trying to pretend they're east coast debutantes and ivy league legacies they've actually thought about the meaningful things in life that don't involve licking the insides of their mouths and staring at their own navels.

Of course if the purpose of these comments is to make me think white menfolk can't jumplearn - then mission accomplished.

Also, apparently only Deepa D is authentically brown.

O.o

In other news, while I'm not looking up indie comics I'm attempting to wrap my head around D&D 4th Edition.

I find the Shadar Kai ridiculous, in case you wondered. They're so very...white. Of course someone will tell me it's not just white folk who've created a culture of Urban Tribalism, appropriating the markings (tattoos) of non white peoples, including piercings and hair styles. Personally I'm imagining the Shadar Kai at their own Burning Man celebration. Or would that be Burning Raven?

And oh yeah! Dear outraged white people - yes, I am imagining a world where y'all don't exist - aside from being a group of humans who don't live past 23, who indulge in extreme activities and who live worshiping a 'Dark Queen'.

It amuses me.

Despite being amused and occasionally intrigued by the shared world/ tweak your own concept, however, I still want to shoot stats in the face. And I will likely never play with people who need to roll die every five minutes (and or slash something to bloody bits). Stats look like chains of numbers meant to shackle a bunch of possible players who've no idea how to control themselves.

But other aspects of my geeky self glory - Medusas and Mariliths, and the Astral and Elemental Chaos Planes -- pretty pretty storytelling elements. Oooh.