Support. Didn't know they didn't even have this

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regardless of personal opinions on individual matters, i think it's fair to agree that if wolvden can employ a cultural consultant, lioden can do the same, and i can't think of any good-faith arguments about why they shouldn't have an assessment done. i genuinely believe they can afford it.

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there is literally no reason to not support this, and not stating why you're not supporting is incredibly unhelpful and extremely annoying.

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Support; I also do have a bit of rant about Wolvden, how the "big sibling little sibling" trope is too true for comfort. Wolvden is getting everything on a silver platter; more art, more coding, more of everything. Favorite youngest child, "its newer so it needs more" kind of stuff. It really makes me feel like Lioden is an abandoned older sibling, who's "old enough to go on without" and a list of everything Lioden is not getting but Wolvden IS getting. Its really upsetting to see such unfair preference given to Wolvden.

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...Especially when Lioden is more popular and makes more money.

Barely anyone plays Wolvden (at least in comparison to Lioden). I'm not saying abandon Wolvden, but like... give the game that's making you money more attention?

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Precisesly! Lioden is an already established and well-working enterprise so... why would you want to abandon it in favor of trying out stuff on a new site?.. Its really sad. Sibling rivalry is real, our admins love Wolvden more than us.

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wolvden was created with many more restrictions which made the game better, as well as much more detail and care as they didn't have such an old coding system like lioden does, but a coding system would not affect this suggestion whatsoever.

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TBH LD has had a number of concerning issues RE: player behaviour and cultural depictions on its site for a very long time. A smaller issue, but one of the things I wish had been done differently is just make up some different critters to aid you during June, rather than effectively take a culture's pantheon and just turn them into fursonas for people to ship. Especially when some of the deities depicted are nothing like how they're depicted in the cultures. Rehashing the "why is Anubis a soft uwu sad boy" thing, for instance. He's one of their oldest gods. Why's he behaving like a sad anime romance novel character?

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I wonder what a cultural consultant would say about Anubis! I personally prefer this version, over blockbuster trope of Anubis being an evil god of destruction. This trope is extremely common and the way Lioden depicts Anubis is a fresh view on him, at least in my opinion

If cultural consultant would find the depiction of gods to be offensive, I think simply renaming them will work perfectly. They're interesting and cool characters, themselves, and if they cannot be gods, they can very well be high priests of said gods

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I would love to take a crack at an Egyptian God accurate June event and put my African Studies minor to work. And I could tie it to the July event (did you know that Apademek and Menhit/Mehyt are both African deities? Menhit has an Egyptian counterpart, but Apedemak does not; they're both Nubian! Egyptians were typically pretty accepting of other religious deities, and saw them as just Gods they didn't worship. I think we could take a page or two from their book).

Also some part of it was due to the colonization by the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians themselves, who colonized Nubia during various parts of their existences.

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I did indeed know that! The story actually feels more sinister because - at least how it reads to me - Apollyon is an angel of destruction coming in to destroy a native African kingdom and sweep away the ruler's daughter. It's a smidge concerning because Apademak is written as 'the clearly bad choice' despite being a native deity (and as far as I've been able to read, nothing like the depiction here), and Apollyon being the 'good choice saving Menhit' and I *don't* want to say it, but it feels very ick to me that it's framed that way.

I know that Apollyon is a much more complicated figure / place than this singular occurance, but I'm not certain LD has gone that route given the very literal imagery and statement of destroying Apademak's kingdom with fire.

Players requested a re-write due to the incest and NC content but I also genuinely think the characters themselves could use a re-write, more directly featuring Menhit versus her father, rather than Apollyon being framed as a conquering hero figure.

And yes, I agree, tolerence goes a long ways. They had it right.

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YOU GET MEEE I've had this problem for YEARS. I felt like I was insane for thinking that. I always side with Menhit cause I adore her.

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If I'm being honest menhit feels like a side character rather than a main one which she is meant to be. The entire storyline is about you getting involved in the drama between two kings with menhit being the argument

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Ive always thought the self-proclaimed god Apedemak was just named after a god, but is in fact just a lion practicing some magic. Some zealous devotees can name their cubs in honor of gods, after all. We've never seen any of them do any actually "godly" stuff, just wearing some decors and using some applicators. And Apollyon says he's a King of the fire lands I believe, not god? So Im getting a pretty "pretend" vibe from all of them, neither of them is really "godly".

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Yeah honestly the way Menhit is written isn't my favorite. If you're gonna name her after a goddess of war, can she at least not pull a Zelda and make the protag solve all her problems? Can she be a badass?

I don't really subscribe to them not being intended to be divinity if the names and symbolism is this heavy handed. The terminology is there. 'Celestial Kingdom' pretty specifically refers to heaven, and the angels and demons in October's storyline segments are lions. It's even more obvious especially when Menhit's reward includes the "empyrean future" background - a term synonymous with heaven. Lioden's always been purposeful in the words it uses. For example, Goridhe is the Matabele word for gold, and Dhahabi is the Arabic word for gold. Tefnut is the goddess of rain and the BG she gives us shows rain clouds.

Even Apollyon's dialog is a bit on the nose in some of his quest stuff:
"The End will come, and flames will swallow all impurity. Like a phoenix, the world will be reborn beautiful and free."
"Only the fire of justice can burn through deception."
"The answer to life, the universe, and everything is... death."
"The day the fire rains from the sky is the day I will call victory for all Celestial and corporeal lions."

Again, Apollyon was the destroyer angel.
"Have you noticed that falling meteors are on fire? Coincidence? I think not."
I think the symbology here was pretty purposeful and who they are pretty obvious, but... Iunno. Given historical precidence, it never sat right with me that Apollyon's coded as the warrior saviour here, not Menhit. I legitimately always got the vibe that Apollyon was deceiving her, using her for his own goals. And if that's the case, a second story that reveals such would make me feel much better about how Apollyon is written.

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