Musings on realism

So I’m almost done this part of OYHS. Nearly there and I’m not going to lie it’s hard writing about a Sky who is mixed.

Yes, I don’t have to be realistic. I’m not being forced. But at least for me, my personal goal in writing historical fiction games is to not romanticize the past. As someone who loves history I see we tend to get blinded by the clothes, hairstyles and art. Which isn’t a a bad thing. But I’ve never liked the trend of people saying the “good old days” and “I was born in the wrong generation” and “X year was the best time to be alive.” They tend to forget that most of what we think is “good” were ads made to promote consumerism and imperialism.

I don’t begrudge authors who write historical fiction and don’t add these elements because they don’t need to nor should they have to. It’s nice escapism to play a person who isn’t white and not be bombarded with issues the world has with you. It’s good and I think those stories are important too.

It’s hard writing slurs, it makes me feel gross but I want it to be for something, to matter. I want a mixed Sky to matter as half African/half East Asian/half Caribbean etc., person. Not doing so erases the struggles that minorities have faced for most of modern human history and how much they fought to be taken seriously in areas like Hollywood.

There’s only one slur I can’t ever write. I don’t know why this one and not the others but I simply can’t. The thing about bigotry though is that hateful people come up with many names to belittle and humiliate so I can use others instead. I know you guys know why I focus so much on accuracy in my games as you’ve read wwc but I just wanted to reiterate it again.

I’ve also added a warning at the beginning of OYHS because of this. That’s not to say every chapter will have just blatant horrible -isms but it will come up in an offhand manner from some characters. I also think I’ll add a “history” section to the menu to explain the place of POCs and WOCs in Hollywood during the time of the game.

Also a glossary for slang.

Anyway that’s all I wanted to vent about haha.

Sincerely, Jude.