3 hours ago, BordOne said:

She has white hair. I tought the Crane are supposed to have white hair. It being slightly more yellow in some places is called "shading".

Also don't know any westeners in history wearing this type of clothing while fighting with this type of weaponary.

Look at her picture. Her kimono has white and blue in it. Feel free to disagree, but to me and everybody I asked it's not shading or dyed white. Her hair is blond. Also, it's slightly curly.

The genetic trait for blond is recessive, meaning both her parents must possess it, and then she had a one in four chance to be a natural blonde. Now, unless the Mantis have been turned into vikings and have been raiding the Crane coast the last couple of centuries, that's impossible.

Yes, without Caucasian genes thrown into the mix on both sides of the bloodline, the chances for a Japanese/Asian person to be blonde are not small, not even astonishingly minute, but zero .

I have no horse in this race, but Hotaru as pictured, is Caucasian looking to me personally. Again, feel free to vary your mileage and all that jazz. And no, I doubt a Japanese person would object, but that still doesn't make her look Rokugani to me and I would have expected the Champion of the Crane, who define what is beautiful in-setting, to look like a blonde with curls.

I would have simply preferred her to look Japanese, and if we are doing more ethnicities and skin-colors to use Asian ones, not Europeans.

I've seen a couple pictures and one definitely has a blonde tint to it, but theres also clearly some sort of brightening filter over it compared to the other versions i saw where the hair was much paler.

For those who don't know, Crane don't have naturally white hair, but they commonly bleach it that way in honor of Doji Hayaku , founder of the Daidoji family. At least, that's the way it worked in the previous canon.

It's probably just drawn natural-looking because it's easier to color that way, and/or the artist didn't get the memo.

It still amazes me that it is posts like this that reach ten pages or more...

Maybe Hotaru's hair is blonde and not white. But that still could be a dye. Albeit not a white one, but a blonde one. Maybe she has her own brand of shampoo made of sunrays captured in the tears of artisans drenched in the amazingness of the latest art pieces received at Kyuden Doji.

Or maybe, maybe... *GASP* Maybe she dyes her hair blonde as a statement. Maybe she does it so that Lions won't dye their hair blonde to look like real lions on the battlefield?

Who knows? Might be all kinds of reasons for it, ic as well as ooc.

What I have heard from people in the business is that even with clear instructions and art direction it is hard to get artwork which isn't generic white person dressed up as whatever you ordered. So that's likely what happened here. Order samurai-ko with white hair, get blond viking princess cossplaying.

Anyway, it's not an ugly picture, so that's something.

11 hours ago, Doji Namika said:

Look at her picture. Her kimono has white and blue in it. Feel free to disagree, but to me and everybody I asked it's not shading or dyed white. Her hair is blond. Also, it's slightly curly.

The genetic trait for blond is recessive, meaning both her parents must possess it, and then she had a one in four chance to be a natural blonde. Now, unless the Mantis have been turned into vikings and have been raiding the Crane coast the last couple of centuries, that's impossible.

Yes, without Caucasian genes thrown into the mix on both sides of the bloodline, the chances for a Japanese/Asian person to be blonde are not small, not even astonishingly minute, but zero .

Assuming genetic sequences work in precisely the same way in a fictional setting that has spirits inhabiting every part of the natural world.

11 hours ago, Ser Nakata said:

It still amazes me that it is posts like this that reach ten pages or more...

Maybe Hotaru's hair is blonde and not white. But that still could be a dye. Albeit not a white one, but a blonde one. Maybe she has her own brand of shampoo made of sunrays captured in the tears of artisans drenched in the amazingness of the latest art pieces received at Kyuden Doji.

Or maybe, maybe... *GASP* Maybe she dyes her hair blonde as a statement. Maybe she does it so that Lions won't dye their hair blonde to look like real lions on the battlefield?

Or maybe, as ive pointed out the pic on bell of lost souls has some sort of filter on it that yellows the whole picture compared to the version posted on the artists deviant art.

version on BOLS, pretty blonde, but the entire image is kind of yellow

version on the artists Deviantart, pretty clearly white hair with shading.

Also, artists name seems to be ignatius tan, and also seems to be based out of hong kong so the how they depict themselves vs how white people depict them argument seems to be based on an automatic assumption the artist is a white dude. Seems likely thats a faulty assumption.

26 minutes ago, McDermott said:

Also, artists name seems to be ignatius tan, and also seems to be based out of hong kong so the how they depict themselves vs how white people depict them argument seems to be based on an automatic assumption the artist is a white dude. Seems likely thats a faulty assumption.

The artist who has done the Unicorn and Dragon champion appears to be from Korea, judging by their art profile, seen in a different thread.

4 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

The artist who has done the Unicorn and Dragon champion appears to be from Korea, judging by their art profile, seen in a different thread.

That's good. I always figured at least the Shinjo were supposed to be "Korean" given their naming conventions.

Wait, hang on...
Are we suggesting that because Hotaru's white hair isn't the same sort of modern paper/silver-white that modern stylists are able to achieve (and that we've grown accustomed to from older Crane artwork) that her artwork isn't correctly portraying a white-haired Rokugani?
Are we really trying to say that the available tools and dyes a Rokugani might use to dye their hair white won't take someone with a naturally dark pigment and turn it into a platinum-blonde at best?

Have you ever *tried* going from dark dark brown and/or black to pure white? Without some SERIOUS effort, it just doesn't happen. In the real world. In Rokugan, I imagine it's impossible.

On ‎15‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 4:59 PM, Eugene Earnshaw said:

The first step to making a convincing argument is to have a solid, nuanced understanding of what you are talking about.

I do have that, but explaining such a thing has been the work of entire articles and podcasts elsewhere, and exploring that on these boards would be the real waste of time. I'm just being honest about how little the opinions of the board members here mean to me. If we're really that meaningful to you, I would reckon that you're living your life badly.

1 hour ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

I do have that, but explaining such a thing has been the work of entire articles and podcasts elsewhere, and exploring that on these boards would be the real waste of time. I'm just being honest about how little the opinions of the board members here mean to me. If we're really that meaningful to you, I would reckon that you're living your life badly.

The problem is this statement right here:

On 6/15/2017 at 9:10 AM, Daigotsu Steve said:

And just to be honest, I have absolutely no care in the world what your understanding of the term is. I imagine I could Google something feminist and get it.

You're basically admitting that you don't care enough to even try to understand your opponent's position. But if you don't understand his position, then why are you even arguing with him? And if you aren't willing make any effort at all to understand others, then why should we read your posts?

@Fumi - So what is your position?

1 minute ago, Fumi said:

The problem is this statement right here:

You're basically admitting that you don't care enough to even try to understand your opponent's position. But if you don't understand his position, then why are you even arguing with him? And if you aren't willing make any effort at all to understand others, then why should we read your posts?

He's arguing with me, I learned years ago that it's pointless to argue on the internet at all. Even if that wasn't generally true, the forums of a game would still not be that place.

Think of me as a Crab. I know that they're wrong and wasting their minds and efforts and I really am entirely unaffected by thoughts or arguments to the contrary of that. I frankly have bigger fish to fry than to try and elucidate for these people. Wasting my time going into deeper paddling pools is something the young me did.

Why should you read my posts? Answer that question yourself Fumi. Or don't. But don't expect me to sell or validate my existence here or anywhere on such a whim, nor meet some kind of arbitrary standard set by you.

8 minutes ago, shosuko said:

@Fumi - So what is your position?

On what? If you're referring to the OP, I posted my take on that on page 6 .

10 minutes ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

He's arguing with me, I learned years ago that it's pointless to argue on the internet at all. Even if that wasn't generally true, the forums of a game would still not be that place.

It takes two to argue, and you two were going at it for a while.

11 minutes ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

Think of me as a Crab. I know that they're wrong and wasting their minds and efforts and I really am entirely unaffected by thoughts or arguments to the contrary of that. I frankly have bigger fish to fry than to try and elucidate for these people. Wasting my time going into deeper paddling pools is something the young me did.

Okay, so you're admitting you have no intention of changing your mind no matter what evidence is presented to you. At least you're refreshingly honest about it.

12 minutes ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

Why should you read my posts? Answer that question yourself Fumi. Or don't. But don't expect me to sell or validate my existence here or anywhere on such a whim, nor meet some kind of arbitrary standard set by you.

Expecting you to understand your opponent's position is in no way arbitrary. It's absolutely necessary for productive discussion.

The point of argument is to reach consensus. But you're making it clear that you don't care at all about doing that, so I guess there's no reason to waste further time on this.

2 hours ago, Fumi said:

It takes two to argue, and you two were going at it for a while.

Okay, so you're admitting you have no intention of changing your mind no matter what evidence is presented to you. At least you're refreshingly honest about it.

Expecting you to understand your opponent's position is in no way arbitrary. It's absolutely necessary for productive discussion.

The point of argument is to reach consensus. But you're making it clear that you don't care at all about doing that, so I guess there's no reason to waste further time on this.

1)It takes two to argue, but the homeless guy yelling on the corner isn't arguing with me just cause he's shouting in my direction and I tell him to stop bothering. My refusal to engage with this low crap is that.

2)There has been no evidence for or against this stupid and pointless discussion, it's just opinions on opinions. Some people have more time to dedicate to this topic than I do. Wicked for them. On things that matter you'll find me much more amicable. You won't see that here though cause people that bring these issues into gaming forums are wrong to do so imo, and I'll engage with these people just long enough to tell them so, if the mood grabs me.

3)Your definitions of these things are arbitrary, as is the standard you apparently hold people to. As is the standard you hold 'productive' to. Like, say, the notion that anything on this topic in this board could produce anything worthwhile for anyone, ever.

4)On that, we reach consensus.

On 6/15/2017 at 3:28 PM, shosuko said:

@Himoto - I think the problem here, why people think you are shifting goalposts, and why you think they are giving straw mans is that YOU are not offended by this. You are simply concerned someone MIGHT be offended by it...

I can't speak for Himoto, but for myself, I haven't brought up who might be offended at all. I began from, "here's what I think would be neat," and other people assumed that I wanted those things because I was offended by their lack or because I thought someone else was.

Part of the whole problem with the shifting goalposts assertion is that I haven't set any goalposts, and people are trying to acore points anyway, or find some perfect answer that solves everything.

Speaking as someone who works in media, there ain't one. I'm sure FFG knows this, just as I'm sure (given both their comments and what I've observed in this and other games of theirs) they're interested in being inclusive and diverse as the opportunity to do so presents itself. You just do the best you can.

People like Neil Gaiman, writing about the myths of other cultures, or hell, David Simon, writing in large part about African American communities in Baltimore, tend not to catch flak for doing so because they earn it. They do their homework, and are respectful on the subjects and their portrayals when appropriate.

And in both cases, once they've demonstrated that, it's easier for them to operate with the benefit of the doubt when addressing topics that range even further afield. Everyone knows David Simon is not authentically African-American, and didn't grow up or live with those particular struggles, nor did he suffer through Katrina in New Orleans. But he spoke to people who were, listened to people who were, and so far as I know never uses his platform to speak over people who have actually experienced what he writes about.

A big part of the difficulty in discussing cultural appropriation (which is related to authenticity, but complicated by a range of economic and other factors) is that cultural appropriation isn't something that really happens on the level of an individual artist. It concerns who benefits economically, which version (the original authentic version or the appropriated version) is recognized as authoritative or genuine, and so on. This is all stuff that happens based on how the audience and the creative community reads it.

Bob making barbecue sushi isn't cultural appropriation. Bob making barbecue sushi, calling it sushi, and the rest of the world coming to understand "sushi" to mean barbecue sushi and not authentic sushi, destroying the livelihoods of authentic sushi chefs is more what is meant by cultural appropriation.

In an L5R context, it would be like FFG's mythology being taken by its audience as authentic Japanese mythology. Then, when confronted by a competing version actually made in Japan by Japanese designers, artists, and storytellers, said audience insisting that version is less authentic than FFG's.

Which again, to be absolutely clear, I'm not saying has or hasn't happened in the history of L5R or AEG's version. I'm not the one throwing around the term.

On 6/16/2017 at 3:14 PM, Ide Yoshiya said:

That's good. I always figured at least the Shinjo were supposed to be "Korean" given their naming conventions.

What makes you think this particularly? I hate that I have to clarify this, but I'm genuinely curious.

One thing that's being left out in the "how they portray themselves and prefer to be portrayed", argument is the assumption that, even if true, Japanese peoples' feelings about how they should be portrayed are neither universal, nor necessarily representative of people of Japanese heritage throughout the world.

It also, generally speaking, falls into the same trap of speaking for someone else that people accuse posters concerned with diversity of, and/or presumes one person of Japanese heritage speaks for all people of Japanese heritage.

30 minutes ago, BD Flory said:

One thing that's being left out in the "how they portray themselves and prefer to be portrayed", argument is the assumption that, even if true, Japanese peoples' feelings about how they should be portrayed are neither universal, nor necessarily representative of people of Japanese heritage throughout the world.

It also, generally speaking, falls into the same trap of speaking for someone else that people accuse posters concerned with diversity of, and/or presumes one person of Japanese heritage speaks for all people of Japanese heritage.

Also the fact that the people bringing it up, aren't actually japanese, and regularly try to pull the "well these japanese people don't speak for ALL japanese people" . Well, they have more right to than a bunch of white kids do, and more right to than americans of X heritage do too. I'm actually japanese from japan and don't really care trumps "I took some classes on power and privilege in uni and read woke blog posts" every single time in the credibility department.

4 minutes ago, McDermott said:

Also the fact that the people bringing it up, aren't actually japanese, and regularly try to pull the "well these japanese people don't speak for ALL japanese people" . Well, they have more right to than a bunch of white kids do, and more right to than americans of X heritage do too. I'm actually japanese from japan and don't really care trumps "I took some classes on power and privilege in uni and read woke blog posts" every single time in the credibility department.

Show me where people are claiming, in this discussion, to speak for all Japanese people.

For myself, I never claimed to speak for any Japanese people, or Japanese-Americans, or anyone else.

Just now, BD Flory said:

Show me where people are claiming, in this discussion, to speak for all Japanese people.

For myself, I never claimed to speak for any Japanese people, or Japanese-Americans, or anyone else.

Then i'm going to ask you, do you or himoto actually have a point? Because when people argue the points you seem to be TRYING to make you immediately walk it back.

12 minutes ago, McDermott said:

Then i'm going to ask you, do you or himoto actually have a point? Because when people argue the points you seem to be TRYING to make you immediately walk it back.

Please check six posts up, where I explain, again , what I've been saying throughout the thread.

Specifically, the first paragraph.

"I can't speak for Himoto, but for myself, I haven't brought up who might be offended at all. I began from, "here's what I think would be neat," and other people assumed that I wanted those things because I was offended by their lack or because I thought someone else was."

People have been persistently setting out strawmen like cultural appropriation, and I address those concepts both because some don't apply the concepts correctly in their posts (such as asserting the blame for cultural appropriation is on individual artists), and to explain that it is not at all what I'm arguing.

2 hours ago, BD Flory said:

What makes you think this particularly? I hate that I have to clarify this, but I'm genuinely curious.

Korean (given) names are dual syllables that, when romanized, are either hyphenated or use a space in between. The phonetic constructs found in Shinjo names also have a strong Korean feel.

2 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

Korean (given) names are dual syllables that, when romanized, are either hyphenated or use a space in between. The phonetic constructs found in Shinjo names also have a strong Korean feel.

Interesting, thanks! I see what you mean now that you point it out.