Veyils said: Ok so its basically anything with adult connotations at all is the line? No sex or anything to do with it should be in the game from what I'm getting of your description of it?
Mudsex and anything related to it is not advocated by Admin if that's what you're getting at, yes. What you do in private with someone else is your business, though. Sexy lingerie or dresses, for example, does not automatically mean it's gonna be sex-related, thus it's permitted. Reylari's chemise is a solid example of that... ...Dildos and chastity belts, on the other hand, are solely sex-related (dildos for use in it, the belts to prevent/discourage it). Thus not permitted. If you can't understand that line, you're either dense or trolling. Either way, again, is not productive.
I leave for one night and come back to discussion of dildo panties?
The deep, rumbling voice of Weiwae says from within your heart, "I am so happy to hear of your progress, and I thank you for bringing my influence over more shards of My Brother Tae."
Honestly I wasn't even thinking chastity belts were a sex thing at all. I figured it was just someone trying to be medieval.
You... Do realise that's what they were used for in medieval times, yes?
A chastity belt is a locking item of clothing designed to prevent sexual intercourse or masturbation. Such belts were historically designed for women, ostensibly for the purpose of chastity, to protect women from rape or to dissuade women and their potential sexual partners from sexual temptation.
Dildos and chastity belts aside: I, personally, think it would be fine to put something like $ before titles that are submitted in the future to mark them as works that may have material that might set off readers OOCly. Not really suggesting that we go back and review every book since some libraries (Hallifax) are at least double the size of others and this would be a massive time investment for our admin.
There is little cost in terms of effort and even less harm in including content warnings just as we ostensibly already tag the more benign content of lusternian writing (though that system overall is clunky, yes?). This is not some foreign unlusternian principle, in or out of character.
Saying something is sexy but not sex related is a bit of an oxymoron. Here's the thing, you're arguing that there is a clear line but there isn't. You can't say that a chastity belt is solely sex-intended but a bejeweled, mesh thong isn't.
My character goes commando because I see no purpose to underwear unless someone is going to see him in his skivvies. I don't intend to get into that situation so why would I bother with it?(Besides, everyone knows a real Dworf goes Clangorum.)
Edit: For the record, I am not attempting to troll. As someone who enjoys writing more comical stuff IC and OOC I want to be sure my work isn't going to get pulled for a vague, subjective guideline.
It seems like it would be a great idea to work on community guidelines is for handling material that falls within the rules but might be sensitive regardless. That way, producers of player content have tools that are broadly understood but are unobtrusive to flag their own content if they want, or disengage with other peoples content in a healthy way.
Like... I played an alt once (in another ire) whose early arc was modeled on my experience interacting irl with manifestations of ptsd, both subtle and spectacularly acute and frenetic. I would contact people ooc and warn them that the first arc was about having been enslaved and abused and would chill if they were uneasy and the episodes would happen "off screen" and be obliquely referenced instead, as the character worked to resolve the trauma and ultimstly cast away all their triggers, including their previous life and even race. You can certainly do mature storylines, and it does not hurt your ability tkt do that if you're checking in with the other players you are involving in them.
There is little cost in terms of effort and even less harm in including content warnings just as we ostensibly already tag the more benign content of lusternian writing (though that system overall is clunky, yes?). This is not some foreign unlusternian principle, in or out of character.
Tags are something of a pain to set up, and I don't think (not positive) that they're shared across libraries. So you could use them for it, but it'd be hugely inconvenient.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
Eh, I think the admin are being vague in their rules for a reason: they don't want to have to go to the trouble of clarifying things. Keeping things vague is a good way to fly under the radar, and therefore create a lot of leeway for both their users, and themselves, to wiggle out of uncomfortable situations.
However, what you feel may be vulgar is definitely subjective. A chastity belt is a device to prevent a specific action yes. And that, to some people is definitely not vulgar - it's to prevent it, not to encourage it. If you think anything even remotely associated with a certain action means it is "vulgar", and more importantly, if you think everyone should conform to your definitions of what is vulgar and what is not, then you're either dense or trolling.
Common sense is a oft-quoted defense that is simply not valid, simply because of the wide diversity of players we have here. Arguably, Lusternia is a game founded on that concept. It's not an alien concept to understand that some people do not have the same list of "vulgar" things as you do.
That is, by the way, probably one of the leading reasons why the admin don't want to make things so clear-cut. If you took a consensus amongst the admin and volunteer admin right now, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a division of opinion on what constitutes "vulgar", and what constitutes acceptable creativity. Unless, and until, Estarra is willing to make the executive decision to impose her own lines of thinking on the game, we're unlikely to see black-and-white rules listing what can, and what cannot, be accepted.
Everything is on a case-by-case basis. If you come across something that offends your sensibilities, you can petition the admin to remove it with the caveat that they do not have to agree with you. For example, if you started reporting every single chastity belt in the game right now, I would be pretty surprised indeed, if they were all pulled.
All of this, however, is a digression from the opening post. Trigger warnings... are entirely different, really, from design guidelines. And I also think that is an important discussion to be had.
There is little cost in terms of effort and even less harm in including content warnings just as we ostensibly already tag the more benign content of lusternian writing (though that system overall is clunky, yes?). This is not some foreign unlusternian principle, in or out of character.
Tags are something of a pain to set up, and I don't think (not positive) that they're shared across libraries. So you could use them for it, but it'd be hugely inconvenient.
Yeah, that was my memory from being a librarian. That system is dumb, but the larger point is that we already classify and tag works so its not impossible to include a "this is complicated and dark/sex/heinous violence related or adjacent (within the rules)" note or convention. Even something on the order of a mildly coded forward as previously noted!
I've been mulling over this, and I really do feel pretty ambivalent. At this point, I'm kinda shrugging and saying "why not?" at the idea of being able to tag your books as meant for a mature audience, or even artistically writing in a signpost that isn't explicitly a trigger warning.
It should be noted before we begin that we do not normally discuss issues such as this publicly. We are doing so purely because in this instance those involved have chosen to take it to the forums. In general if people have questions about issues they have filed they should file an issue if they have not, append to their existing issue if they have, message us directly (on Oneiroi, Norns or Erinyes) or they can email support@lusternia.com to appeal issue decisions. Our response in this instance should not be taken as an indication that all issues you wish to inquire about should be taken to the forums.
We are going to endeavour to address everything we can, but we hope you will understand that we cannot answer every post individually.
Sexual Content in Lusternia
It is certainly true that there are canonical instances of sexual content in Lusternia, or references to sexual content. We do not believe that their existence undermines our decision to remove a book that very clearly depicts an act of rape. Lusternia grows and evolves with time - the decisions we make regarding its content today will sometimes fall on different sides of lines that we drew a decade ago. If you are ever concerned about the existence of released content in Lusternia then you are encouraged to issue yourself to note it for our consideration.
Regarding designs that were accepted despite or not accepted for their sexual content: after speaking to the Charites we understand that the underwear design in question has been removed from the game and had made it through only because it flew under their radar. This happens. We are not infallible or omniscient; mistakes happen, and we do miss things. When it is bought to our attention, we will rectify it, but we can only do so if you tell us it exists.
Violence in Lusternia
It has been mentioned that a great deal of explicit violence of a non-sexual nature is present in Lusternia, and the question raised of why this is considered acceptable when sexual violence is not.
We do not wish our decision to suggest that we believe one type of abuse to be better or worse than another. We are not, with our decision, condoning the use of violence or the existence of abuse. The decision comes down to what we do and do not have control over in creating and curating our gameworld.
Violence, including explicit violence and including certain forms of abuse such as enslavement and persecution (we are certain you can name more), is commonly depicted in the genres of fantasy and science fiction as well as in gaming as a whole. At this juncture, and especially ten years into the development of Lusternia, it would be very difficult for us to eradicate that. It is at this point something over which we do not have control.
Sexual violence is not prevalent to the same extreme. However, there are complexities in how it is depicted, as it is often included gratuitously, and mostly shown as something inflicted upon women. In many of these depictions the women involved are not only denied agency but used purely as engines for developing the plot of men. Often it is heavily sexualised and glamourised. (We would like to make it clear that by saying this we are making no reference to the submitted book in question, but speaking about fiction in general).
It is true that there are an increasing number of works out there that attempt to depict sexual violence in a different way (for example the recent re-release of the Tomb Raider games). The difference between such works and Lusternia is that those games, books or films are free to put a rating of 15+ or even 18+ on their games. Lusternia is playable by anyone aged 13 and up. Whilst we do not hold strictly to any rating system (such as the ESRB or MPAA) we do take them as examples and tend to follow along similar lines to them. You will find that it is common amongst them for sexual violence and sexual content in general to have a higher rating than non-sexual violence. In following this we are not making a value judgement, we are simply adhering to current standards.
It is not unreasonable to aspire to a world where games and other works of art are a safe place to explore the darker aspects of human nature, and Lusternia does offer room for this to a certain extent. But we do not feel that it is an appropriate place to explore the depiction of sexual violence. Lusternia cannot be everything for everyone, and somewhere we must draw a line. That is why we have made the administrative ruling to disallow the depiction of sexual violence in a graphic manner.
In light of this thread and the issue leading to it we are working on preparing for you a guideline for Library and Bardic submissions in a similar vein to the Charites' guidelines regarding design submissions. We hope that this will make things clearer going forward.
Trigger Warnings in General
We do not feel that the content of Lusternia necessitates a hard-coded system for trigger warnings. However we respect that there are some things that people do not wish to read. If you are concerned that your IC text may fall into that category, we would advocate putting an in-character warning regarding its content. It does not need to be dressed up elaborately, nor to use the words 'trigger warning'. It can be as simple as an author's note, commenting that the text depicts whatever the topic is at length.
Administrative Communication
@Enadonella, we apologise that we did not contact you directly and accept that on reflection this was unhelpful. In general, we respond only to the person who files the issue, unless they file it against another person - and likewise we generally communicate through the submitting librarian if there is ever an issue with a book. We appreciate that in this instance those stances led us to appear dismissive and disrespectful, and for that we apologise. Going forward we will take this into consideration.
We would be willing for you to edit the book in accordance with our ruling and to resubmit it. Note that you will need to need to submit it on a different book replica - once a book has been submitted once it cannot be resubmitted.
Comments
...Dildos and chastity belts, on the other hand, are solely sex-related (dildos for use in it, the belts to prevent/discourage it). Thus not permitted. If you can't understand that line, you're either dense or trolling. Either way, again, is not productive.
Discord: Rey#1460
Discord: Rey#1460
My character goes commando because I see no purpose to underwear unless someone is going to see him in his skivvies. I don't intend to get into that situation so why would I bother with it?(Besides, everyone knows a real Dworf goes Clangorum.)
Edit: For the record, I am not attempting to troll. As someone who enjoys writing more comical stuff IC and OOC I want to be sure my work isn't going to get pulled for a vague, subjective guideline.
Like... I played an alt once (in another ire) whose early arc was modeled on my experience interacting irl with manifestations of ptsd, both subtle and spectacularly acute and frenetic. I would contact people ooc and warn them that the first arc was about having been enslaved and abused and would chill if they were uneasy and the episodes would happen "off screen" and be obliquely referenced instead, as the character worked to resolve the trauma and ultimstly cast away all their triggers, including their previous life and even race. You can certainly do mature storylines, and it does not hurt your ability tkt do that if you're checking in with the other players you are involving in them.
Tags are something of a pain to set up, and I don't think (not positive) that they're shared across libraries. So you could use them for it, but it'd be hugely inconvenient.
However, what you feel may be vulgar is definitely subjective. A chastity belt is a device to prevent a specific action yes. And that, to some people is definitely not vulgar - it's to prevent it, not to encourage it. If you think anything even remotely associated with a certain action means it is "vulgar", and more importantly, if you think everyone should conform to your definitions of what is vulgar and what is not, then you're either dense or trolling.
Common sense is a oft-quoted defense that is simply not valid, simply because of the wide diversity of players we have here. Arguably, Lusternia is a game founded on that concept. It's not an alien concept to understand that some people do not have the same list of "vulgar" things as you do.
That is, by the way, probably one of the leading reasons why the admin don't want to make things so clear-cut. If you took a consensus amongst the admin and volunteer admin right now, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a division of opinion on what constitutes "vulgar", and what constitutes acceptable creativity. Unless, and until, Estarra is willing to make the executive decision to impose her own lines of thinking on the game, we're unlikely to see black-and-white rules listing what can, and what cannot, be accepted.
Everything is on a case-by-case basis. If you come across something that offends your sensibilities, you can petition the admin to remove it with the caveat that they do not have to agree with you. For example, if you started reporting every single chastity belt in the game right now, I would be pretty surprised indeed, if they were all pulled.
All of this, however, is a digression from the opening post. Trigger warnings... are entirely different, really, from design guidelines. And I also think that is an important discussion to be had.