Holiday Name Changes

[AngharadTy]

Yes, covet is right on the money. They're turning holidays into lies. And for me, Halloween is my big holiday--I'm pagan, I'm drawn to it, it's very spiritual for me. That's kind of embarrassing to say in public, but there. And now it's Morostide? What the fuck is that? I'm not drawn to Morostide. I think it's dumb.

And the "well, it's not Earth" argument is not logical. All those items for the holiday have an Earth history behind them. I don't care if you change the name to Jax-o-lantern, it's not. A holiday with candles, menorahs, dreidels? Noooo, that's not anything Jewish! How could it be! This isn't Earth!

Geez. Just say the planet was colonized by Earthlings. There. I solved it. Have holidays already.

[shaelyn76]

I love Halloween! I look forward to it in real life and have looked forward to it on Subeta the last couple of years(last year and I was hoping this year too). I am really rather disappointed by the abrupt change in the names of items as well as the seeming attitude of "get over it" that I see all over the forums if anyone dares to say they don't love it and think it is the best thing since sliced bread.

Halloween is being taken away from me in real life far too much(really, what the hell is trunk or treating? and why does my son have to call it an Autumn party instead of a Halloween party?)and now I feel like it is being massacred on Subeta as well.

I like that Subeta is attempting to make itself more of a real place, with a history and characters that actually do more than look pretty or ask you to fetch things for them. I can go with that and be happy. My problem with the Halloween change is simple...it was completely unnecessary. Leave Halloween and Christmas and Easter alone. They seem to be the three biggest holidays people look forward to. Like others here have said, Subeta could always have added their own spin on those holidays without completely changing them. Nobody ever said that everybody has to celebrate Halloween the same way in real life, so why should our Subeta-life be any different? They could have left things as they were and ADDED to them with more Subeta-ish traditions or themes.

I'm not angry, but I am highly disappointed and rather put off by the changes. Change needs to be made for the betterment of things and this does not (IMO) better Subeta in any way.

[Ierosbats]

For me, this is frustrating in the same way pet art anatomy can be frustrating. If someone draws a Kumos and effs up the legs and refuses to correct them because "it's not a dog! It's a Kumos", well... no. Just because it's a Kumos (and therefore obviously different, duh) doesn't mean you can just invent your own way of how to draw legs and expect people to accept that. If you're drawing what is VERY CLEARLY a creature based on a dog (or a wolf or...whatever), it has to follow the damn rules. Same goes for Halloween. Well, sort of. Halloween is obviously more of an abstract concept than a dog, so there's more leeway in how to interpret it but FOR THE MOST PART...

You can't have it both ways. If Subeta wants to distance itself from earth holidays, well, fine, but if you're going to do that then DO THAT. Completely remove everything Halloween related and come up with a completely authentic Subetan substitute. That would suck and be dumb, but still be a more appropriate decision than this. Don't just keep every aspect of earth Halloween and change the name to Shmalloween and act as if you've reinvented something and made it your own. That's like me going up to Keith, cutting his hair and declaring I have improved him, that his new name is Krief and he now belongs exclusively to me. Or... something like that. If you want to exclude certain aspects of Halloween (or whatever point they're trying to make about Jesus and Christmas or something) then fine! Who's stopping you? But it isn't necessary to pretend you've just established Some New Thing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I agree with Ty and Covet and BGryph and... well, everyone. Halloween can't be improved so this is stupid. Damn. I hope this crashes and burns harder than all the server meltdowns.

[klaatu99]

First off, merry meet Ty. Now to the meat of this post. While to me, Halloween (Samhain) is an important religious holiday, I'm rather apathetic about the name change on Subeta. As long as they keep the main body of the traditions, like trick-or-treating, pumpkins and costumes, I don't mind. It's not like they're canceling Halloween altogether. Now before I get lumped in with all the folks in the forums saying "if you don't like it then leave", I'm not one of those, I've leveled my share of complaints about the way things on Subeta have been changed/adjusted/etc, but this is really nothing more than a tempest in a teacup.

edit: Yes, Morostide is a stupid name, they could have tried a little harder on the rebadging of the holiday.

[Sayle]

I really fail to see how changing the name somehow makes it inauthentic or stolen. Nobody's claiming that Morostide is an original Subetan holiday; obviously it's not. We're not getting rid of these holidays, but we are distancing ourselves from aspects of the holidays that restrict us.

I'll be sad to lose the great multicultural feel of the site.

Oh, the multicultural feel isn't going to go away. Subeta's nod to Oktoberfest, for example, came after the decision to change the way we celebrate holidays. The multicultural flavor is one of my favorite things about Subeta.

[AngharadTy]

... we are distancing ourselves from aspects of the holidays that restrict us.

By "aspects" you mean "just one aspect--the name"? It's putting a feather duster on a duck and calling it a peacock. Of course we know what you mean (plural, general you from here on out): don't call it a duck. But it's a duck. To call it anything else is baffling and silly and in some ways rude. (I also have no idea how a name restricts anyone in any way, but... I'm not the one trying to think up content.)

As an extreme example, imagine if the U.S. passes laws saying that we can't call Chanukah "Chanukah" anymore. Of course Jewish people will still celebrate it in exactly the same way, and all the history is still there, but no matter what you call the holiday now, they'll be piiiiiissed. Now, Subeta isn't a government or a country, so of course the metaphor doesn't work in every way. But that's why it's offensive, at the core. I understand wanting to take a word charged with religious or spiritual overtones and changing it to be something else. But: it's a word charged with religous and spiritual overtones. It can't be changed without ruffling feathers. If you didn't want something on the site, you should never have put it on the site. You can't close the barn door after the horse has gotten loose. Of course, you can try, and when you have absolute control over visual content on a site, you can even succeed in many ways. But you can never succeed totally, and you make a fool of yourself for even trying.

Oh, the multicultural feel isn't going to go away. :) Subeta's nod to Oktoberfest, for example, came after the decision to change the way we celebrate holidays.

My first reaction to the Alegarten thing was, "Weird, they're making up holidays now." And then later I realized that it was meant to be Oktoberfest (Jessi pointed it out to me after I was deeply baffled that the Halloween bloodred sabre had Morostide in the name instead). It was actually very confusing. I had to doublecheck to see if somehow "Alegarten" was an alternate German word for a beer festival that I already knew about. And of course it's not, and I don't even "get" it--"beer garden"? Is this the holiday where everyone visits Busch Gardens?

Also, for someone who has little-to-no exposure to a holiday, changing the name completely will make the holiday--and therefore the multicultural aspect of the site--pointless. Loy Krathong is not very well known in the States. I had heard of it perhaps once in an Asian studies class and forgot about it after that. Even though I knew about the candle rafts, in general, I didn't know the name of the festival, I didn't know when it was, and I didn't know any more than "sometimes people put candles on little floats and send them off." You change the Krathong to the "Pretty Flower Thingy" and it completely loses its mystique, its history, and its educational value.

[Ierosbats]

I really fail to see how changing the name somehow makes it inauthentic or stolen. Nobody's claiming that Morostide is an original Subetan holiday; obviously it's not.

So then...what... what's the point? I'm completely lost. The name is different just for the sake of being different? Because hey, we can so why not? I don't understand this restriction thing at all. You (in the general sense, I know this wasn't your decision, Sayle) want more creative control over Halloween but HALLOWEEN WON'T LET YOU! so instead you need to create your own I Can't Believe It's Not Halloween? I'm pretty sure the Halloween Police will let some exclusions slide just this once. They're probably really busy giving tickets to people singing Happy Birthday without a permit.

[Luxe]

This is really a way for us to step away from celebrating offline holidays. It may not seem like such a problem on the user side, but it was a real problem for us as staff to be obligated to celebrate each and every single holiday that was important to users. Inevitably, we missed someone's independence day, or saint's day, or queen's birthday. If we move towards celebrating Subeta's own culture and holidays, we can be fair to everyone by not celebrating any real holidays. No one gets left out, and we don't have to walk on eggshells hoping today isn't some bizarre holiday we couldn't find mention of on the net. We also don't have to make the excuse that Subeta is an American site and we're only celebrating American holidays. Remember how well that went?

And to quote myself from the Subeta forums:

We planned to announce this change in the news when the festivities started. Unfortunately, there were a few news posts mentioning Halloween that needed to be changed ASAP. Halloween no longer exists on Subeta. Subeta culture celebrates Morostide: a three week period of pumpkin hunting, trick or treating, hexing, costume wearing, and other such festivities.

All holidays will be moving to this pattern as has been stated by several staff members in this thread already. So those of you with holiday galleries can still have them. The holidays will just be known by new names. Subeta has slowly begun developing its own traditions and variations on holidays over the past four years and it doesn't make sense to try to cram them under a blanket term just because it's familiar to us.

I'm excited to see Subeta develop nations with unique cultures, customs, races and patriotism. Haven't you ever wondered where people like Jaxon Skelly and Quentin are from? Is everyone from their hometowns like them? Is Jaxon even human with his pointed ears? What about the graveyard shop keeper? These are questions we can't answer until Subeta has had these changes made to make it a unique place.

Morostide will be similar to Halloween in many aspects, but when you think about it, we have always deviated from the traditional Halloween celebration. Likewise, there will probably be bits of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa in whatever celebration we have in December, but it will not be wholly one of these holidays. How many deities does Subeta have? How many powerful beings? And yet, Subetans have no holidays to honor them? Does that really make sense to you? We have the resources to use and we're just ignoring them and making our most important Subeta characters nothing more than quest givers.

I understand that it looks and likely feels a bit scattered right now because obviously we can't change all of Subeta's holidays in one fell swoop. It's going to take a while and a whole lot of work, but I think the end result will be very worth it. The history of the world of Subeta is very shoddy with holes and patches all over the place. Frankly, it makes us look amateur. If we originally wanted Subeta to be Earth, we would have had a setup similar to PowerPets (I believe they are the site with an Earth world map and adoptable pets from each region). Instead of a kumos, you could adopt a husky, and pandas instead of chais.

I hope it will start to feel better in more time. This really isn't a new concept at all. Stories and games have been redressing holidays for years. The World of Warcraft has Hallow's End, Harvest Festival and the Feast of Winter Veil, all nods to Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Durin's Day and Yule are both Tolkien's versions of New Year's Day for the dwarves and hobbits. Dr. Seuss has Jingle Day Eve in the winter which seems to be a reference to Christmas. Star Wars has more than I care to count: Harvest Day, Productivity Day, Winter Fete/Fete Week, etc. The part that makes this difficult is that we didn't do this from the very beginning. Unfortunately, there's little we can do about that now, and I apologize for whatever confusion it causes, but as I said before, I think the benefits outweigh the inevitable growing pains.

[Sunwolf]

"Subeta culture celebrates Morostide: a three week period of pumpkin hunting, trick or treating, hexing, costume wearing, and other such festivities."

So. Why the hell isn't the Pumpkin Patch open? Why can't we Trick or Treat yet? Is it really going to be three weeks, or are you sticking to the "But Halloween is only one day, the 31st" excuse? It makes no sense.

[shaelyn76]

So let me get this straight...Subeta is still going to have that multicultural feel that so many of us really enjoy, but it won't acknowledge or celebrate any real world holidays anymore? That is completely contradictory. If you(by you I mean staff)don't acknowledge any "real" culture's holidays/traditions as has been done in the past, then you can't really claim to maintain the multicultural feel of the site. It will no longer be ethnically diverse as it will all be Subeta, Subeta, Subeta. There will be nothing genuine to represent the many different nationalities of the players of the site, only Subeta made up holidays (that are really Earth holidays with a different name) that will be somehow vaguely linked to a Subeta character to justify it all.

Instead of making things better, I can foresee a whole lot of people getting really pissed that you have taken an important celebration from their culture and fucked it all up by changing the name and messing with things that are either sacred or at the least very important to those of that culture. Honestly...do you think that Chinese players will be happy when you take Chinese New Year and rename it The Paralix Festival and then take all of the traditions associated with it and make them based off of Shinwa for shits and giggles and to make it more Subeta related?(Chinese New Year was just a random example I pulled out of my ass, so no, it isn't a terribly specific "complaint").

The more mature feel of Subeta was closely followed by how they always seemed to try to include their players heritages on my list of reasons why I really enjoyed the site.That seems to be going by the wayside now and that makes me sad.

Now, I get that the staff had to feel overwhelmed by people complaining that "their" holiday had been neglected. Wasn't that the whole point of the thread in Main where staff asked for players to tell them about holidays that were important to them? I can't speak for other players, but I know that I personally did not expect every single holiday known to man to be given a full on hoopla treatment on Subeta. For me it was enough that holidays that had been celebrated in the past had the items associated with it unretired for a while and maybe a new free gift that related given out.

I also get that Subeta had a very spotty history(read that as none at all with only vague references to a past here and there) and that the staff wants to make Subeta more of a real place. The way they seem to be planning to go about that makes Subeta seem like even more of a Neopets ripoff than has been claimed in the past. On Neopets it seems like every single fucking day is a "holiday" of some sort and it takes away from the whole idea of what makes a Holiday important. Holidays need to be special, not ho-hum. They need to be something you look forward to and enjoy celebrating...not something that you look at the news and say, "Oh, it's Kumos Day. Yay, I guess".

I guess what is leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth is that the implications of these changes seem to almost push the players to list themselves as Subetians first and whatever nationality and religion they are in real life after that. I may play on the site, but I certainly do not live there. I may enjoy the site, but it is far from my only form of entertainment. I may love talking with people I know on Subeta, but I have friends in real life that are just as and in reality, usually more important to me. I am not a Subetian. I am a person who plays Subeta as a hobby and a pass time. Maybe this is yet another way for staff to imply that those of us who do not spend every waking minute of our time on Subeta are somehow less than those who do.

No, staff does not have a time machine to go back and make this how it has always been. Yes, it is "just a name change". No, I am not going to quit Subeta over it. Yes, it will be nice for Subeta and its characters to feel more real in the long run. No, the names of Halloween (and I am guessing Christmas, Chanukah, Solstice and Kwanzaa, Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, New Year's, Valentine's Day, Mother's day, Father's Day, Memorial Day, etc.) should not have been changed...leave them alone and make Subeta's own holidays separate from Earth's with names, histories and unique celebrations. Would it have killed staff to leave Oct.31st the fuck alone and still call it Halloween(including all past Halloween items in that remark as far as leaving the names alone)and then announce that the weeks leading up to Halloween will be called Morostide and will include the following celebrations:(then put a list of what those celebrations would include).It might have helped to put why it was called Morostide and maybe start working on building that history that Subeta needs.Yes, this frustrates me and YES! I am sick to death of anyone who doesn't bow down and praise staff for every single thing they do betting told to "just quit already" or to "leave if you don't like it" on the Subeta forums. I am allowed to express an opposing opinion without being told to GTFO.(I did not have this happen to me on this particular issue, but I have seen plenty of it directed towards other players and it makes me angry).

To sum up...I think it sucks and no excuses or reasons I have read from staff on this name change have made it any more palatable. I am really glad I disbanded my holidays gallery before this came along.

Apologies for the excessive length of this, but I had a bit to say on the subject.

Oh, and merry meet to all my fellow pagans here...I didn't realize there were so many of us.


One more thing...if we aren't going to celebrate real world holidays on Subeta anymore, does that mean that Keith's birthday will no longer be acknowledged or celebrated? I know not much was done for his last one, but will any and all mentions/references to his birthday be gone now?

[Luxe]

"Subeta culture celebrates Morostide: a three week period of pumpkin hunting, trick or treating, hexing, costume wearing, and other such festivities."

So. Why the hell isn't the Pumpkin Patch open? Why can't we Trick or Treat yet? Is it really going to be three weeks, or are you sticking to the "But Halloween is only one day, the 31st" excuse? It makes no sense.

Don't you think you're overreacting just a little bit? By my calendar, there are still several days to open the pumpkin patch and other festivities and still technically have three weeks to celebrate. Whatever day it starts this year will be marked down on the calendar for next year so we have defined dates. This is something Subeta has never had for Halloween. It could be October 1, or it could be the 4th or 5th or 10th. It's always varied, and therefore it isn't late yet. My only answer for you is that it's coming.

So let me get this straight...Subeta is still going to have that multicultural feel that so many of us really enjoy, but it won't acknowledge or celebrate any real world holidays anymore? That is completely contradictory. If you(by you I mean staff)don't acknowledge any "real" culture's holidays/traditions as has been done in the past, then you can't really claim to maintain the multicultural feel of the site. It will no longer be ethnically diverse as it will all be Subeta, Subeta, Subeta. There will be nothing genuine to represent the many different nationalities of the players of the site, only Subeta made up holidays (that are really Earth holidays with a different name) that will be somehow vaguely linked to a Subeta character to justify it all.

You're not thinking broadly enough. I did mention Subeta's countries and races and patriotism. By that I mean that we are actually going to reevaluate Subeta's cartography and instead of having a carnival the size of Alaska plastered on a world map at random, we'd like to have a country or nation instead with a certain type of people and culture and a carnival within. In this respect, there will very much be a multicultural feel to Subeta, even if they aren't all cultures that we're used to in the real world. Remember The Senate? Where are the members from? What parts of Subeta do they govern? What are their ethnicities, cultures, holidays?

I also get that Subeta had a very spotty history(read that as none at all with only vague references to a past here and there) and that the staff wants to make Subeta more of a real place. The way they seem to be planning to go about that makes Subeta seem like even more of a Neopets ripoff than has been claimed in the past. On Neopets it seems like every single fucking day is a "holiday" of some sort and it takes away from the whole idea of what makes a Holiday important. Holidays need to be special, not ho-hum. They need to be something you look forward to and enjoy celebrating...not something that you look at the news and say, "Oh, it's Kumos Day. Yay, I guess".

I, personally, never mentioned Kumos Day or flooding the world with holidays that end up devaluing how special a holiday should be. I find the concept of pet-specific days tedious and uninteresting.

I guess what is leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth is that the implications of these changes seem to almost push the players to list themselves as Subetians first and whatever nationality and religion they are in real life after that. I may play on the site, but I certainly do not live there. I may enjoy the site, but it is far from my only form of entertainment. I may love talking with people I know on Subeta, but I have friends in real life that are just as and in reality, usually more important to me. I am not a Subetian. I am a person who plays Subeta as a hobby and a pass time. Maybe this is yet another way for staff to imply that those of us who do not spend every waking minute of our time on Subeta are somehow less than those who do.

The time you do spend on Subeta makes you a Subetan. As a member of that community, that is what you are. It's not a blanket label so much as it is an additional term to describe you. I'm an American, but I'm also a Puerto Rican, and a Christian. The terms don't cancel one another out, it just adds to who I am. I don't really see how trying to develop the culture of a fantasy world takes away from who you are or makes you feel like staff somehow thinks you are lesser to their other players. We're not forcing you to pay for the right to have the holiday called Halloween, nor are we giving you any fewer rights than those who spend several hours a day playing. All players are affected equally by this change.

No, staff does not have a time machine to go back and make this how it has always been. Yes, it is "just a name change". No, I am not going to quit Subeta over it. Yes, it will be nice for Subeta and its characters to feel more real in the long run. No, the names of Halloween (and I am guessing Christmas, Chanukah, Solstice and Kwanzaa, Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, New Year's, Valentine's Day, Mother's day, Father's Day, Memorial Day, etc.) should not have been changed...leave them alone and make Subeta's own holidays separate from Earth's with names, histories and unique celebrations. Would it have killed staff to leave Oct.31st the fuck alone and still call it Halloween(including all past Halloween items in that remark as far as leaving the names alone)and then announce that the weeks leading up to Halloween will be called Morostide and will include the following celebrations:(then put a list of what those celebrations would include).

This wouldn't have solved anything though. People would still see real world holidays and therefore expect to continue to see other real world holidays on Subeta. We didn't want to blur the line. We wanted it to be clear that we will not continue to celebrate offline holidays. Subeta is not Earth; if it helps you to think of it as more of another planet, then do so. This allows for the presence of humans and other familiar items, but still gives us room to make these changes. I imagine if we had colonized another world and met an unfamiliar culture and people, our holidays would mesh something like this as well. How many traditions have been blended together to create Christmas as we know it today? What about Halloween? Samhain never involved trick-or-treating and I imagine if any Gaels saw how it was celebrated now, they'd be rather perplexed by the evolution of the holiday. Likewise, All Hallow's Day. And yet, the lines from those traditional celebrations have all melted together into one familiar holiday for us. Personally, I don't see why doing something similar on Subeta is such a foreign concept.

It might have helped to put why it was called Morostide and maybe start working on building that history that Subeta needs.

As I said, we did, and still do, intend to make a news post explaining what Morostide is when the celebration officially opens. Unfortunately, the words Halloween and Morostide weren't supposed to make an appearance in the news or anywhere on site until the festivities opened and this news post was made. The cat was let out of the bag though when the Halloween Bloodred Sabre was released and later when Halloween costumes were mentioned in the news at the release of the Spiderweb Veil. It's unfortunate that it couldn't have been as cleanly planned as we had wanted it, but there's no time machine for that either. I acknowledge that mistake. This isn't what we had planned. Obviously, it's an adjustment for us as well.

One more thing...if we aren't going to celebrate real world holidays on Subeta anymore, does that mean that Keith's birthday will no longer be acknowledged or celebrated? I know not much was done for his last one, but will any and all mentions/references to his birthday be gone now?

This is something we haven't discussed, but as King Keith is an NPC on site, I imagine the transition wouldn't have to be too painful if Keith wanted Subeta to continue the celebration. I'm not entirely sure he does, though.

[FaithHeart]

If you wanted to not be held to a timeline for offline Holidays then why ask people to tell you holidays? The more I hear of the behind the scenes reasoning for this the less sense it makes. You don't want to honor holidays in the same way so that you can create more depth to Subeta backstory/lore/myth. I hear that and I think well that is silly if they are going to just rename things, but ok I'm all for creativity so lets see what happens. Then you don't want to continue with them because it creates strain on you to keep up with them in a timely fashion and it is easier to manipulate the names and dates with new set times than adhere to old set times. Saying we missed some obscure (to some) holiday (that we asked to be told about) and a few people get upset so we are going to change things up on the big holidays that everyone knows about is not going to fly. I would like it better to just be told, Hey it is OUR world and you just live in it, and btw, since you are a guest here, learn the language and culture of OUR world or get out, rather than to be told things that make no logical sense. I will say the lock step unification of the staff publicly talking about this is impressive and I am now imagining all of them wearing the same team Morostide t-shirts. I'm also thinking of paying in a new and inventive way to add to my backstory/lore/myth. It is called Cashification. I print out my new Subeta currency on my computer and then run my mouse over it to magically finance the cash shop. I know it is a new idea and will take time to adjust to - but change is good.

[Luxe]

I'm sorry. Without quotation marks I am having a bit of a hard time with your post, so forgive me if I misunderstand some dialogue or sarcasm. I'm not trying to ignore your points.

I only said that Halloween celebrations have never had a specific start date on Subeta, not all the holidays. Keep in mind this movement away from the real world is also a recent decision. You're right. We have asked people to come forth and remind us of their holidays on the forums, so we could make sure to celebrate in a timely manner. We have since concluded that we're still missing days and people are still getting upset. No amount of "Oh, you should have posted it in this thread in the forums, and if you don't use the forums then too freaking bad," will make it any better, either. (In my opinion, asking users to use the forums to have their holidays acknowledged is more in line with what shaelyn76 said earlier about Subeta only paying attention to the users who are online all the time and devaluing the contributions and opinions of the ones who are on less often.) Even if we do get the reminders, it's not as though the art team is sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for a holiday suggestion. We might still miss the day because of other obligations. It's way too much to keep up with. By setting Subeta's calendar, everything is defined, we know what we need to do well in advance, and no one gets their holidays ignored or forgotten because they don't exist. We can't just remove the obscure (to some) holidays and leave the big ones in. The response from the users would then be, "Well, if you're not celebrating offline holidays, why is Christmas still around? And Valentine's Day?" It would only serve to confuse people even more. We're starting with a big holiday, but the change is totally across the board. (Technically, we started with Keelholiday, but this seems to be the starting point because it is a big holiday, and I understand that.)

[AngharadTy]

You're not thinking broadly enough. I did mention Subeta's countries and races and patriotism. By that I mean that we are actually going to reevaluate Subeta's cartography and instead of having a carnival the size of Alaska plastered on a world map at random, we'd like to have a country or nation instead with a certain type of people and culture and a carnival within. In this respect, there will very much be a multicultural feel to Subeta, even if they aren't all cultures that we're used to in the real world. Remember The Senate? Where are the members from? What parts of Subeta do they govern? What are their ethnicities, cultures, holidays?

So instead of having real cultures, we'll have fake ones. It'll be just like Robert Jordan's disingenuity. "And this race has kinda yellow skin! And slanty eyes! That are almond shaped! And they have black hair! Sometimes they wear kimonos! DO YOU GET IT YET?!" I find that kind of thing borderline offensive (because it relies on stereotypes) and certainly false and underhanded.

It also irks me that all I see from staff on Subeta is, "I just don't understand how you could possibly feel this way!" Either muster up some empathy or respect our feelings from a distance, but please stop belittling our opinions.

[Luxe]

That's a bit unfair, Ty, when I've also said several times that I do understand other emotions that have been mentioned here. If I genuinely don't understand a certain opinion, I hardly think it's belittling to say so and offer the chance for it to be clarified instead of just smiling and nodding and not figuring out how to address it.