Talk:Malik Destiny

First off, we want to genuinely apologize to those who we hurt during the process of discussing proposed edits to the Malik page and to any other pages over the past several months. We were too defensive over this, and we are working as a team to make changes to how we approach lore and sensitivity issues. We’ve put together a list of pages and projects to work on with the lens of culture in mind, and are working on some page edits for several Garages players.

We want to thank everyone who contributed to the past several days of conversation on Malik. Thank you especially to Cliact for coming into the Big Garage to talk with us, to Astrid for getting the article project started, and to Paopuleaf for writing the original proposal, and for allowing us to work from there on our rewrite.

The edit to Malik’s page adds more depth to the cultural background for both Original and Alt Malik, and keeps some of the video game traits of Alt Malik’s original world while moving it away from being too different/distant from Earth or too literal of a Final Fantasy 14 clone.  It removes references to anti-monarchy or killing kings while adding that Malik is an anarchist, and keeps a good amount of the content from Paopuleaf’s edit. It also adds some Expansion Era lore like Alt Malik getting less afraid of water as he got swept in flooding as well as the time he hit a homerun into the dying Coin (awesome). We also tuned up the “Places Malik got banned from” page which will be posted on that talk page.

We welcome feedback, suggestions, or questions on this edit. Thank you again to anyone who has been following along with the Malik edit process, and stay tuned for further edit proposals from the Garages.

Here's a link to the proposed new text for the page!

As it's been 24 hours, I've applied these edits! Thanks again to everyone who helped with this.

Hey wiki folks!! I was talking to some other Blaseball fans about Malik's page and the possibility of expanding more on his backstory and cultural background, and ended up writing a whole page update for the catboy. In summary, what this proposal tries to do is:

- Update both Maliks backstory to incorporate more of his Kuwaiti background, moving around some of the goofs to focus on his relation to it

- Find a middle ground with Alt Malik where his background is still grounded in real life culture, but the JRPG catboy goofs we all know and love are still there

- Throw in some more relationships with other Garages, just for fun and flavor

The full page can be found here, & has comments + edit suggestions turned on for anyone who wants to suggest changes or additions to the page! I know it's a pretty big change, and I'd love to have some more Garages input on it.

Hey, wanted to let you know that I like most of the changes, but I'd like to aim for something that still allows for more of the JRPG flavor. Malik's had a lot of lore, gags, and fics written about him not only looking and acting like a JRPG protag, but functioning like one - being able to see other players' stats, having RPG-like UI that only he can see, Precognition as RPG-style telegraphs, Skipping as lagging, etc. While I think that expanding on OG Malik's cultural heritage and making it so Alt Malik doesn't abandon it is a good thing, and that having him be a voice actor and LARP-er is a clever way of doing that, I worry that this exact set of changes squeezes out some of that more directly video game inspired flavor. Is there a way we can write Alt Malik's world working in a more JRPG-like fashion or some other solution that allows for this into the changes while still keeping the bulk of the expanded lore?

Again, like the changes overall, and maybe this is a silly thing to get hung up on, but "Actual JRPG Character" Malik Destiny has been his main interp pretty much the entire time I've been a Blaseball fan (since late S7), and I'd like to see a bit more of that preserved if possible.

We can definitely get more of that in there! How do you feel about the modifications that Malik gets (Fire Eater, Skipping, etc.) helping him sort of "tune in" to those JRPG mechanics? Local catboy gets to see his hyperfixation in real life, gets REALLY hyped about it. Fire Eater is a pretty early on mechanic, too, so it'd be a consistent element of his page.

While I love our catboy getting some love, I've got a few comments that I'm gonna make as well. That's not to say this isn't a bad edit or anything like that! I love the edits and additions that OG!Malik gets in this update. However, I'm a little hesitant about Alt!Malik's changes for the following reasons:

-This makes Alt!Malik (Meowlik) an entirely different person. Quite a bit of his characterization for the garages in the past has been because he's a jrpg catboy, and while that characterization can carry over here, we lose the history he has as a jrpg protagonist who saw the endgame in the rpg he was in.

-While further representation is a good thing, because of the stark differences between the existing Meowlik and this Meowlik, it feels less like ensuring that Meowlik is representation and just replacing him entirely. It's almost like raining on the parade for the previous Garages by erasing that history he's got.

-That's not to say this isn't a fun character concept! It should entirely be in the wiki if enough people want it. But because it's so different from the existing Meowlik, it should be its own IRM, I'd say. particularly because we had this discussion with Mcdowell and opted to create a more representative IRM alongside the "classic"/more fantasy version. That way folks that like the representation have their rendition of our favorite catboy, and folks that like and value the jrpg catboy can keep him close, too, without either side feeling bad for not falling in line with the wiki version. It doesn't erase the work that folks have put into his characterization in the past, and it doesn't mean that we can't have other interpretations in the future.

-Also, a more personal comment as a Garage who's been around since late season 3, is that this interpretation sorta erases the original joke of Meowlik. we came up with a jrpg catboy because og Malik liked jrpg's so much and wanted to be in an isekai/be isekai'ed/however it's phrased. so hey, Malik did end up isekai'ed when he got alternated with Meowlik, and switched places with each other. This sorta...does away with that joke and the thought that malik got to be really happy because he got his dreams of being a jrpg protagonist. Meowlik got a new cause to work for, with a new team and friends and family, and OG!Malik got to escape blaseball into a world that he's always dreamed of, making it so that they both really would say that they had the better end of the deal.

so, tldr: I like the OG Malik changes. I like this interpretation of Meowlik. However, I'm wondering/thinking that it may be better suited to IRM rather than replacing the existing interpretation on the wiki of Meolik.

Could this be an IRM rather than a replacement of the existing lore? I'd agree with Asiruki that him being literally from a JRPG is a big part of his character, and removing that feels like this would no longer be reflective of one of the most common interps of this character.

While I would usually be very down to implement IRM for any guy, the reason this rewrite was started was to address problems seen with Malik's current wiki page- specifically that the hard dedication to Alt! Malik being a JRPG protag entirely took away focus on his cultural background. Like I said with Asiruki, I'm very willing to work on a compromise where we bring in more of the "JRPG protagonist" mechanics and jokes, especially since they're a big part of his lore as a Garage! I'm a big JRPG fan, I love the goofs and I love Meowlik's interaction with them. But I'm not comfortable with just adding IRM and leaving his original page standing, because that solves basically none of the problems there, if that makes sense.

Also, as a side note, none of this is currently on his wiki page:

"we came up with a jrpg catboy because og Malik liked jrpg's so much and wanted to be in an isekai/be isekai'ed/however it's phrased. so hey, Malik did end up isekai'ed when he got alternated with Meowlik, and switched places with each other. This sorta...does away with that joke and the thought that malik got to be really happy because he got his dreams of being a jrpg protagonist. Meowlik got a new cause to work for, with a new team and friends and family, and OG!Malik got to escape blaseball into a world that he's always dreamed of, making it so that they both really would say that they had the better end of the deal."

I'm very willing to try and work in the "they both got the better end of the deal" aspect, but it's worth noting that it wasn't textually here to begin with, so I really didn't... know it existed! I'm happy to now, but. It's the kind of thing you can't really assume people would know just from reading the wiki.

I've mostly been a passive watcher of the initial proposal, but I will be forthright that part of reason why an update would be nice is because the original page had incredibly uncomfortable connotations when combined with Malik being Kuwaiti? I mean, it was already previously talk paged and yet this page both had Malik being explicitly Kuwaiti and also from a land famous for thievery- and while it was probably accidental, I think the misgivings regarding the connotations of this (with the Middle East being both stereotyped as a crime filled, backwards exotic place, Aladdin/Ali Baba being one of the most popular images in the West... It's really a yikes! Moment and was only pointed out by a *non garage very later on) (*edit because i remembered the incident a bit wrong)

Like to be forthright, I think that adaptations to make Malik more fantastical is totally doable, especially when there have been many fantastical players, but I think:

A) Your point That the JRPG stuff added depth and is central isn't very reflective of what is on the wiki, where it's largely about Malik being funny because they are out of touch and because they do crimes. I think that if there really is depth here, then you should write up those edits to Paopuleaf's doc and ground Malik's characterization better because grounding their lived past and where they have been helps make a round character and makes it clear that oh, we are not just riffing on old classical tropes that tend to be very Orientalist, especially when portraying other societies.

B) In addition, I think this is a reasonable request to make- if there's an expectation that Paopuleaf is an outsider and should be willing to edit according to your desires, I believe it is also fair that Garages be willing to discuss amongst themselves the issues raised and creating concrete solutions or compromises rather than creating a list of what they expect to see kept without committing to contribute to the work of writing a wiki page and the work to actually like... Address these concerns and writing a better version of a player.

As I'm writing this, I hope this doesn't feel like I'm coming out of nowhere but I just want to nip these issues in the bud given prior experiences.

Some concrit on the original page and what I think would be nice to keep

- removal of the antimonarchist stuff

- better incorporating them being Kuwaiti as a positive thing (the original only had the King bit where very specifically Malik only felt negatively about it)

- incorporating being Kuwaiti and Greenlander in lore, even in brief, as part of their personal & familial history

- removal of the thievery based land (it's whats on the wiki and was left to stand this whole time so I think it's a fair enough concern) unless it is grounded... So much better, but at the same time the vibe of a thievery based character who isn't adjusting to modern USA and kinda from the Middle East is like, kinda dicy from the get go

- removal of the thievery based land (it's whats on the wiki and was left to stand this whole time so I think it's a fair enough concern) unless it is grounded... So much better, but at the same time the vibe of a thievery based character who isn't adjusting to modern USA and kinda from the Middle East is like, kinda dicy from the get go

Oops meant my other comment to reply directly to this one sorry hope you see it!!!!!! Not sure why it didn't do that :[

Like I said earlier, I don't mind if this is an alternate interpretation. The Garages that have spoken up in our discord have also indicated that this would be more than welcome as an IRM. However, it feels somewhat disrespectful to try and erase the previous work done on Meowlik in the past.

Anti-monarchist sentiment is important to all of the Garages. We're a punk, anti-capitalist, anarchist team. Almost every player has some stripe of this mentality, and Malik being anti-monarchist is fairly important to his character, and has been for a long time. No kings, no gods, only cats. It's sorta his motto, has been for a long time. While the Garages as a team has been re-evaluating their "kill all gods" stance, we've never questioned the anti-monarchist sentiment. Just because one of his parents may come from a place with a monarchy, does not mean he can't be anti-monarchist. In fact, it may give him even more of a reason to be such, as he has direct experience in what it actually means to be living under monarchist rule. I don't know if any Garage would really support such a change, but I can't speak for anyone other than myself.

The Garages in the past have always been a very wiki-hesitant team. It's taken a long time for us to start utilizing the wiki to its fullest extent, and that's perhaps why some of our oral tradition for why we've shaped certain characters certain ways hasn't made it to the wiki. Also, it's just something that doesn't always have a place on the wiki. It's a story that gets passed from Garage to Garage. That being said, it's why we're pushing to utilize IRM more often now, particularly because we have these historic interpretations that many fans love and hold dear. Being able to keep these historic interpretations while also creating more representative interpretations is important to many of the Garages. Again, I mentioned this earlier. We have other characters where we strove to create more representative interpretations, but we thought it important to keep the historic ones. Thus, the IRM. I still feel as though this would be a wonderful use of the IRM, especially with the way that this alternative interpretation strips any literal JRPG-Protagonist away from Malik. I simply don't see a way to reconcile a mundane catboy voice actor with the historic interpretation of a catboy JRPG character without minimizing or brushing aside one or the other.

I totally understand! Old lore especially is really important simply because it kind of captures the zeitgeist of the era. Nonetheless, I think it is worth examining if something popular really is good and should be publicized like this. Again, not an experience unique to Malik or the Garages, at least 2 teams have resources specifically catered around integrating more diverse and sensitive writing and would be happy to talk with the Garages about the same struggle.

Before I move on to my thoughts on how to work on the issues you've raised, I do want to talk about the 2nd part. And again, this is already sort of brought up but- as per Riptide1st's talk page, it once again vibes badly with the Orientalist tropes baked into Malik's page. This is what I meant in my reply down the thread- I don't see an issue being raised with Malik meaning King turned into a positive thing per se, but I don't think I have successfully communicated why I think the lore isn't just unfortunate, but the connections that enabled it to arise are inherently problematic and it's not really clicking that the issue isn't strictly that "A Kuwaiti person can't be anti-monarchist" but that "A group of writers who very obviously skew very American and kind of white writing a Kuwaiti American as only contextualizing their ties to Kuwait as inherently oppressive and negative strongly echoes the fear mongering, xenophobia and ignorance that is often echoed out of ignorance, racism or paternalism." I'm a non American who hates my government fr fr, but it is a very different dynamic when it is a local writing about local issues vs outsiders who do not specialize in the field and have made their ignorance clear trying to act like an authority. There is...a lot of nuance tied to being anti-monarchist in Kuwait and in the general area where states tend to be emirates and to be honest, none of that is here, none of that is meaningfully addressed or integrated in his characterization as a Kuwaiti person and how it feels to be visibly non white in activist spaces where historically, activism has never been a bastion of intersectionality. And that's totally fair and I definitely wouldn't be able to write convincingly as a anti-government Kuwaiti activist, but that is kind of exactly why I prefer to stay in my lane not just because I will fuck up but also because I'm vulnerable to propaganda, my own ignorance and my own pre-existing bias and I don't think the Garages, at any point, are willing to admit this until forcefully pressed, such as the kill all gods issue. Again, the issue is not 'I'm not allowing you to write things without going in depth", it is "please stop glossing over and creating situations for your fictional characters that Americans and American Blaseball fans have continuously subjected non White, non Catholic/atheist fans to".

Now, moving on because this ties to my proposed solution. While the wiki is meant to document Blaseball lore and events, it's not necessarily a repository of Blaseball lore. It is not meant to be wholly comprehensive of all headcanons and different minutae, it is merely a useful record keeping tool. It is a bit of a mess, but we've had similar issues and if the issue is only "regardless of different concerns, we consider this important and key". Given that I don't think it's worth pursuing wether or not we agree on the sensitivity issue, the simplest solution is to remove it because it is highly contested. That is not a reflection of wether or not you can discuss or pursue this in Maincord or in other avenues, it is simply a reflection of the fact that this specific content hasn't been agreed on. The same way Zion Aliciakeyes birthplace isn't on the wiki because theres two distinct interpretations and the same way I do not put my neutral evil characterization of Famous Owens on the wiki.

I also hope that while I am willing to workshop with you ways to meaningfully preserve the elements of alt!Malik into the wiki update, I think there first needs to be an examination on what specific nunace makes that Malik work and what themes are in play and how strongly they need to be tied to the JRPG stuff. Alternatively, I have not seen any response about my comment that a possible compromise could be better fleshing out Malik's alt origin place or adjusting his 'crimes' and difficulty adjusting to sound less like what I've said. In addition, as both I and Paopuleaf have said- the VA thing might not be set in stone if Garages understand the issues we have pointed out and are willing to work with us on creating a rewrite. It takes effort. There's just no better way I can say this. i think the original wiki page has such unfortunate implications, and I can not tell if you fundamentally disagree with me on this in which case I believe that the solution is now more of "we should remove irreconcilable differences from the wiki as the garages can have their own documents and lore not on the wiki". If not, yeah it takes a lot of time and effort and a willingness to let go of things we liked. That's just what my team has done and it sucks but it's doable. Nothing about the important themes, that I do genuinely like and also I read a lotta webtoons about modern girls becoming western fantasy protags its a super popular genre, but like, it's definitely not unique or only possible to explore via the wiki page as it currently stands.

HI I don't have a lot to contribute here but I do want to say that I removed the thievery based land line a long time ago! Unless it's still there and i missed it? But I'm pretty sure I REmoved that!!!! I'm not really active anymore because of a lot of stuff going on but I got an email about this so I just wanted to say that thanks!

hi apricots, you can change your notification settings by going to the menu in the top right (you should see your username linked there, sorry I'm on mobile right now and it looks like a little down arrow), then go to Preferences, then Notifications. from there you can uncheck email for anything you're watching :)

LMAO omg lol. I actually did the edit bcus I accidentally spied your talk post as i was double checking my typo fix lol. I modified my post once I realized a Garage edited Malik's page, but I think as good as that edit was, I edited my post while flagged the edit because I think its important to point out that said content was allowed to stand for so long without anyone seeing the issue with it.

My bad! I did edit my post once I realized my mistake dw, but I did keep the original spirit because I do think it's very worth pointing out how long it stayed up and who had to ask for it to be changed. I didn't mean to detract from what your edit, I just don't want to quibble about is it here, who edited it because it detracts from the main point of it was here for so long and it never went away til someone else pointed it out.

My bad! I did edit my post once I realized my mistake dw, but I did keep the original spirit because I do think it's very worth pointing out how long it stayed up and who had to ask for it to be changed. I didn't mean to detract from what your edit, I just don't want to quibble about is it here, who edited it because it detracts from the main point of it was here for so long and it never went away til someone else pointed it out.

I want to be clear: I'm not saying its an awful one time incident that I'm holding against y'all. I think its great context for the dynamic here that I kinda think we're all feeling where like, I really wish we didn't have this weird dynamic of non Garages seeing weird stuff on Garages pages that Garages seem really reluctant to meaningfully change, both when changes to the the initial lore are proposed and also if changes are accepted as necessary, there is little done with regards to proactively examining lore you made in a similar timeframe that may have initially seemed fine. it feels like I'm repeating myself for the third time on yet another Garages page yknow? Like, word for word repeating because it's the same issue and from very similar creative influences.

So. Apologies for mixing up the events! Credit where credit is due. But I think it's an important bit of context that I hope Garages are aware of.

if I may provide some context for us not really keeping every page up to date and re-examining older lore, it was mainly just me making lore edits for a good stretch of time there. That, coupled with the absolute barrage of players the Garages got in discipline and expansion did not give me the time to comb through everything, leaving a lot of early era blaseball lore up. i'm just a guy, and even though i got some help later in the game, when dealing with 53 pages of player lore (not even going into how many Emblem Warhorse we have or the community lore pages) we're bound to miss some things. we welcome suggestions and feedback when we mess up, but i don't think its terribly fair to expect us to be perfect

"I want to be clear: I'm not saying its an awful one time incident that I'm holding against y'all. I think its great context for the dynamic here that I kinda think we're all feeling where like, I really wish we didn't have this weird dynamic of non Garages seeing weird stuff on Garages pages that Garages seem really reluctant to meaningfully change, both when changes to the the initial lore are proposed and also if changes are accepted as necessary, there is little done with regards to proactively examining lore you made in a similar timeframe that may have initially seemed fine. it feels like I'm repeating myself for the third time on yet another Garages page yknow? Like, word for word repeating because it's the same issue and from very similar creative influences."

like I'm sorry to be petty. But I want to be clear, it's not just an issue of Garages missed stuff bcus theyre sleepy because other non-Garages in this thread are playing catch up with their own teams as well. it's that at least we're trying to just take the L and fix it. I did not bring this issue up to be mean to Garages and call you lazy because I'm also the Tigers wiki guy rn and I'm lazy. I bring it up because I've written at least 15 paragraphs of explaining why this issue is so sensitive on the wiki, on three talk pages with at least 7 of those on this page alone. it's not clicking that the issue is the process that left us here. everything you're saying is a byproduct of the inability to accept that yeah the wiki is out of date because we messed up but we're working on it. no, the response has singularly been 'we did not fuck up please therefore adjust your edit accordingly'.

I don't think a single person is expecting yall to be perfect. But I do think people expect a response when people point out justified concerns within lore, especially since discussion of racism in lore isn't a new issue, both within the entire league, and on the Garages. It would be really nice, within fans of color, to feel actually confident enough to bring up these concerns without the instant defensive and protective nature that gets taken so often, which more than often results in those fans of color being punished literally or socially for bringing up their concerns.

Edit: furthermore, teams far smaller than the Garages have addressed issues with racism in their lore on a massive level, and have accepted help from a varity of sources. I understand you are one person, amen to trying to update the wiki as just one guy, but this proposal as I see it is a gateway to getting more support with wiki updating and improvement of lore in the future, so the protectiveness of the original, especially in the context of the article's original existence prior to edits, still doesn't feel great.

Thank you!!!! Also doy you know how to turn off notifications because I keep getting emails :'[

I wanted to leave some feedback on this proposal! I think it is, frankly, really fantastic and a huge step-up in terms of centering Malik's actual cultural identity and limiting some of the concerning issues I saw within discussion of his Kuwaiti background. This utilizes popular interpretations present in both written and oral Garages history, and utilizes the JRPG elements quite well without being blatantly weird about Japan.

In my personal opinion, this is a major improvement and aims for the mentality of sensitivity and informed character creation a lot of non-white blaseball fans have been begging for out of the loudest voices in the community.

I don't know if IRM is an ideal choice in this situation just because the original page does have it's significant issues. The blatantly offensive part has been removed but it still has that tinge of the idea of what in western countries an immigrant and children of immigrants "should" be, especially one from a country that is wildly demonized in media like those in the Middle East. That being the idea of needing to wholly reject everything about your country or origin while staying completely uncritical of your new one. By no means am I saying this was the intent of the page but whether by complete accident or subconscious biases it did still made it in. When I proposed to remove the "land that encouraged thievery" line this was very much something that was on my mind cause it was simply the worst part of a larger problem but I didn't want to really start something over it cause someone who actually is from the Middle East brought it up before in a previous talk page and was pretty much soundly rejected. This new version solves this particular issue pretty elegantly by giving Malik a connection to Kuwait and giving the tattoo an alternate meaning so the anti-monarchist sentiment doesn't directly play into that trope. If in the end there is an IRM I think those parts should be added to both versions of the page

Moving back to the main thread because this isn't directly a response to any of the pre-existing reply threads- IRM is absolutely not a good compromise here. The purpose of this rewrite was to fix problems with the original page, and implementing IRM just goes "hey, here's this page with all the bad stuff, and also here's this other page you see sometimes that's fixed." IRM is not a bandage for significant issues, and it shouldn't be treated as it.

What there is, is absolutely a way to reconcile JRPG protagonist Malik & this version of Malik. It's already been done in the article, the groundwork is there, and discussions about how modifications could add a little more JRPG fun, the thing with both Maliks getting a better deal, and other such suggestions can absolutely help bridge whatever gap is there, if necessary. This article is not going to shut every JRPG Protag Meowlik joke in the discords down, it is not going to erase oral history of the Garages, it is not taking away anything from Malik's interpretation besides the stuff that had some pretty bad implications behind it, even if they were made in good faith. Our catboy is as good as ever!

I'm going to make some suggestions for additions to my original proposal, as a sort of jumping off point, and trying to address some of the issues highlighted by Garages I feel can be implemented!

- Having the modifications Meowlik received over the course of his Blaseball career give him little video game mechanics, such as being able to see players' & umpires' stats (is it FK? who knows! ambiguous as left to the reader.) or having video game esque "lag" when he goes up to bat with Skipping

- Talking about how both Malik & Meowlik find joy in the alternation (re: Meowlik finding a new cause and a new team- this can easily be brought over to Meowlik finding a team for the first time with the Garages, and finding a lot of joy in how he can help the team get to their goals ("quests" if you will!!)

I really do want to find a compromise here, and I want to have a good discussion about it, but it won't happen if the holes we keep going into are "I'm not accepting any change" or "this should be an IRM." If the VA thing needs to be worked on, we can do that! If we need to implement the above suggestions, we can do that! But there's almost never going to be a compromise that fully keeps every aspect of the hard JRPG Protag gimmick, and that needs to be kept in mind.

to touch on the JRPG mechanics, as this seems to be a thing people liked to say they'd like to bring a bit more of in: i think that something like the new items system that came in during the S15 elections would be a prime area we could look at re-introducing part of this? this feels like something that could naturally lend itself to a comparison to inventory management systems, both touching back on the joke whilst further grounding Malik in the world of blaseball.

hey, outsider here: this is turning into a Lot of a thread. it seems like the conversation has kind of turned from "here's a proposal for new lore, let's discuss" to "let's talk about the garages lore/wiki process and how we feel about it". a lot of people are sort of appearing suddenly to voice their frustrations, and i feel like no one's coming away from this conversation satisfied right now. to that end, i'm going to ping moderators @Pokeylope @Daxleopard and @Inumo, (kind of at random; i'm still not super clear on wiki moderator etiquette, sorry), and request help ensuring that the discussion stays on-topic and doesn't become vitriolic.

hello everyone, mod Sav here. I'd like to encourage everyone to remain within the scope of the initial proposal and not veer into litigating past issues, team cultures, or lore creation processes. Additionally, I'd like to reiterate that the IRM is not a solution for sensitivity-related proposals; rather, the specifics and goals of this kind of critique must be addressed directly. It is critical that all content be open to thoughtfully brought critiques on the basis of sensitivity rather than insulated by historicism; that is, emotional attachment or age is not a sufficient response to said critiques.

paopuleaf has brought a substantive proposal and been receptive to specific critiques and clear about their reasoning. I'd encourage all contributors to read thoroughly because there are places where compromises are being made and other places lamenting lack of the same (eg, re: the literal JRPG elements). changes to the original proposed edits are being considered and there is a lot of thoughtful discussion. I know how much effort that takes and I appreciate that, for the most part, the topic has been approached constructively.

I'd also like to just state right out that it's inappropriate to demand details of someone's identity on this platform. if you feel that there is additional context that the mod team should be aware of for community safety reasons, you can always contact us directly.

Fair enough! My apologies, I deleted the question 👍

I'd really appreciate some clarification why the move away from alt Malik (from here on Meowlik) being explicitly a JRPG character transferred to the world of blaseball is such an important change, I've personally always appreciated Meowlik as being a FFXIV character with the name plate filed of, being a reference to a miqo'te gunbreaker, FFXIV is a really important game to me as it was the first place i really had to explore my gender identity and is a place where many of my most important relationships were founded. Meowlik was my first favorite player because of that connection i had with him as a character and id personally be really sad to see a move away from that. On a more team wide basis, It is to my understanding that Meowlik is one of the garages most popular players, and a lot of the proposed changes in this thread are a bit too sweeping of changes to what are cornerstones of Meowlik's lore, in particular while blaseball is on hiatus. If there is a specific concern with Malik being from a jrpg-like setting I think most garages would be happy to listen and make changes accordingly.

this isn't to say any of the other recommended changes to Malik's character are bad ideas that should be thrown out, I'd like to see if we can come to some agreement about Malik as an anti monarchist, perhaps by just saying he's an anti authoritarian or anarchist, but i personally always felt like him being an anti monarchist was more in reference to his name meaning "king wave" , not an explicit call out on the validity of the Emir of Kuwait, but I can understand where the concern comes from. id also love to see changes that explore his Kuwaiti and Greenlandic cultural heritage in original as well as incorporating elements of it into Meowlik as his bio already states that JRPG Washington exists, so I believe there's ways to incorporate JRPG Kuwait and Greenland into Meowliks bio as well to help him be better representative of those cultures while still keeping him connected to his JRPG origins

to bring it back to the original request, could i possibly have some clarification where the interest in moving Meowlik away from explicit jrpg character is coming from?

I think we should really put a pin in the anarchist idea since I think that is really good. Obviously I can only speak for myself but my main issue is with how what is currently on the page is an immigrant who only identifies negatively with their country of origin while also staying completely uncritical of their current one. (I've talked about this in my previous post a bit) The anarchism does help a lot there as it would be very critical of the US as well. It's also why I like that little tidbit from the suggested edits of the small connection of live performances in Kuwait giving at least one positive.

As far as the JRPG stuff goes I don't really have much to say on that. I know next to nothing about and have never played FF14 (maybe one day) so I don't know the references. You're going to have to wait for the response of others there but one thing that can get tricky is looking for a video game version of Kuwait to implement since Middle East equivalents in fantasy games tend to be all orientalism for the most part. Probably not impossible but definitely a potential pitfall that bears pointing out before someone falls in.

(Also this was meant as a reply to Vivi whoops)

I have played FFxiv and can say that it has Orientalism towards the Middle East. With respect to you I will be putting my fuller thoughts in a separate post.

Sure!! Specifically, when concerns about Meowlik's content in particular were brought up in discussions, part of the concern was that the hard dedication to him being a JRPG character from a JRPG entirely took away focus from his cultural background. Moving away from that to where he came from a world more adjacent to ours, while keeping his connection to JRPGs as a part but not the whole, is an attempt to help highlight his background, ground his character in the real world places tied to it, and keep the focus off one sole aspect of his character.

(This is meant as a direct reply to Vivi Avi- talk page mechanics on mobile elude me, haha)

Sorry in advance if this is not as clear as I'd like or rambly, I haven't done much at all with the wiki since perhaps when Jaylen was brought back over a year ago. To me Meowlik's original world is already a world adjacent to ours, albeit one with jrpg mechanics (so the stuff earlier about being able to see health bars and having such abilities and going on quests and the like) it's just that it perhaps isn't very clear on the wiki at the moment. It would less be a Kuwait equivalent and more literally Kuwait just also there are cat boys and the like. I suppose best summed up as "what if FF14 was in our world" but of course more the blaseball equivalent. There would still need to be care put into not being misrepresentative of Kuwait, but I think enhancing his page to both make that more clear and include ways in which his Kuwaiti and Greenlander heritage influences his life in positive ways could be a vast improvement on the page as it stands. I think this would still get across the goal of making jrpg an aspect of his character while still grounding him to the real locations and cultures. (This all included with the other changes as mentioned making him a broader anarchist and adding more background to og Malik, I quite like both of those)

Re: @Impern, how does this look for a piece in the article about the Items system becoming an inventory system for Meowlik?

After the Items system was implemented in the Season 15 elections, Destiny joked about it being an “inventory system.” Much to the team’s bemusement, this seemed to affect how the team interacted with their new items, with Destiny himself reporting that he “saw an inventory screen every time he closed his eyes in the locker room.”

Also, @Beowulf, the groundwork for that's already there in the proposed article! Right now the flavor text is:

His world was very similar to the one he found himself in after the Season 4 elections—with the exception that everyone in it was a catperson—so his life took a very similar path to the original Destiny’s up until he tried surfing.

If you have any specific suggestions on how to smoothly add flavor text about video game mechanics being a normalized thing in daily life over there, that would be appreciated! I've been thinking on something along the lines of stores with a built-in HUD system, being able to see people's names above their head in bars or other public places if they let you, and possibly a joke about character creation screens as they relate to being trans, but I'm not entirely sure how to write those in without going off on a Meowlik-unrelated tangent.

Addendum: It's also possible we could mention that his original world had some normalized video game mechanics in real life and then leave it at that? Also not sure how to phrase that nicely yet, but leaving it vague and up to interpretation what that means would make for some fun reader/fan interpretation.

Paopuleaf, I think part of the disconnect with the video game aspect is that you're proposing to also change the adventurer portion of Meowlik's backstory in favor of him being a Voice Actor, at least in your original proposal. His current interpretation of having been an adventurer is one of the primary parts that point to it being a video game past. His current page states that he was an adventurer who went on a quest to kill a king and a god. We can change that quest to "overturn a government and kill a spiteful god" or something along those lines, if we want to make it more general and less focused on killing kings. By keeping the mentions of gunblades, his past as an adventurer, and some of the other video game flavor text (I could point this out line by line in the current interpretation, if you want, but there's more there) (also I like the addition you have in your latest comment about the inventory system), and simply adding more information about his cultural heritage, it might feel less like you're re-writing and changing an interpretation completely, and more like you're trying to help Meowlik be a more sensitive and representational character.

Specific questions: -Is it possible to add some information about Meowlik's past and uplift his cultural heritage without changing his actual backstory from being a video game adventurer on a quest that got interrupted by his alternation? Add in how he valued his parents' rich culture, how he found ways to blend cultural practices from two very different lands, that they gave him a purpose and support in his quest to depose unjust governments? -Is it possible to have the interpretation of his past as a JRPG voice actor who adopted the slang and LARP'ed as an IRM entry, one that uplifts his cultural values and heritage as well? (While also threading the needle between "appreciating Japanese culture" and "someone fetishizing a culture based on video games" because that's been a long-running concern in blaseball and we don't want to be weird about Japan)

I feel like you're very stuck on the JRPG thing when multiple times it's been said that it's open to change? From Paopuleafs previous message: "he came from a world more adjacent to ours, while keeping his connection to JRPGs as a part but not the whole, is an attempt to help highlight his background"?

I think it also seems fair that if you are very particular about how the og alt!Malik's background is portrayed but also agree that Malik should be a more sensitive portrayal, then it might be worth it for you/the Garages to perhaps do some research on Kuwait & Greenland as well as discussing some basic information? And then volunteer any specific lore thoughts you have on what might be in character ways for Malik to connect to his heritage or the local Kuwaiti & Greenlander community in Seattle and this way, we can help keep his lore sensitive but also have a good jumping ground of what the Garages would like to see and thinks are in line with the Malik in your community.

Hey, just wanted to say that I appreciate everyone who's approached this from a place of wanting to work together on this, and I'm glad I've fostered this discussion, but there have been some frankly pretty bad faith anonymous comments on the google doc proposal about this, and I've decided to remove public access to it and step back from this discussion entirely. I'm very sorry to both the people who wanted to see an improvement come through and the Garages who took the time to work on this. I really hope this fosters some good discussion in the future. Thank you very much!

I wasn’t able to see what any of the comments on the Google doc were before it closed, and I personally was on mobile for much of the conversation yesterday because of work, but I apologize if anyone was saying things on it out of bad faith or trolling, or out of unkindness. I for one really appreciate the time and effort that Paopuleaf and everyone else in this conversation has been putting into considering this situation.

On the Garages end, having a character that portrays marginalized backgrounds in a sensitive manner is still really important to us, and we still really do want to try and find something that works for everybody here.

Pretty much everyone I’ve talked to really liked a lot of the additions proposed by Paopuleaf, especially the stuff adding more cultural background context to Malik and Meowlik, the agreement we were coming to on the anarchism stuff, and the agreements we were starting to come to on adding some level of video game quality to Meowlik’s original world.

We still would like to work on this and are wondering what we should do next. Should we try to propose an alternate page change on a different thread?

I'm also going to @Sav just to check in on whether there's any wiki policy things we need to be aware of at this point.

I think summarizing and restating the changes still under consideration in a new thread is the way to go. this thread has some very important points and will remain visible for context and reference, but it's also A Lot so whomever is taking point on continuing the proposal should begin a new thread to refocus.

Hi. I may be new to this thread but I am no stranger to Blaseball discourse about the cultural background of non-white players. I read through these posts and really feel like many people who are set on keeping the jrpg background to alt!Malik are overlooking what Orientalism actually is. I want to make it very clear that I am not condemning enjoying jrpgs and specifically FFXIV or asking you to reconsider your personal connection with FFXIV and jrpgs at large. What I am asking is for you to look around any personal connections in this moment. Please consider the broader scale of Orientalism and it's ramifications on alt!Malik's wiki. To aid in what I'm saying I have a paper specifically about Orientalism in FFXIV and a video lecture by a professor on the basics of Orientalism which I will link below. In total they should take under 20 minutes to look at both. Orientalism hurts people. It gets real people physically endangered and many different ways. Frankly, given what many people defending alt!Malik in full have said, it doesn't seem like this is understood. Please work to understand what you are feeding into and condoning when you defend these ideas. There are many ways to keep alt!Malik's adventurous spirit and rebellious nature without falling into Orientalism. I want to believe you can even keep rpg elements. But those at not mine to suggest. If you have a deep individual attachment to the jrpg alt!Malik that you don't want to give up, well no one's gonna rip it from your mind. The wiki is often the first place people go to to learn about a player. Don't let the first impression of alt!Malik be one that feeds into Orientalism.

Thanks. 

https://obiter-dicta.ca/2021/11/08/politics-culture-and-orientalism-in-final-fantasy-14-endwalker/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kaq-k1PjvsE

Unless I've been subject to a massive Mandela effect, final fantasy 14 is a Japanese game, right? Is the reference to a Japanese game what's Orientalist here, I'm genuinely confused

Hi! literally right above you is a url with the words "politics culture and orientalism in final fantasy 14".

yeah, and, it doesn't seem at all related to the point solanum seems to be making, as far as I can tell

Did you read the article and watch the lecture before coming here? Let me break this down for you. -Orientalism is about Asian but historically targets the Middle East -Malik Destiny is Middle Eastern -People want him to be based in jrpgs -FFXIV is a jrpg that was mentioned many times in this thread -That paper is about how FFXIV perpetuates Orientalism towards the Middle East

The mention of FFXIV isn't whats most important here. Its Orientalism as a whole that was one example.

If you are still confused here are links to an audiobook of Edward Said's Orientalism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46a8QxHKp6U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiIqTMwtb1Y

i'm aware what orientalism is, thanks, i'm just confused on what the connection between "middle eastern" and "jrpg" that's being made here is. like, outside of people trying to write a cartoonish fantasy kuwait to merge the two different characters I don't see why there'd be a problem with it

I think if you were aware of what Orientalism is and read the thread you'd understand the connection. Thanks.

also i swear I keep trying to do the cool reddit-style indented reply and it just doesnt seem to ever do it sorry everyone

@Sav yeah hi i dont know how Snerkus' responses aren't bald faced sealioning & bad faith engagement

@snerkus as far as I've seen there are two main issues brought regarding the JRPG background:

(1) the non-real-world origin story combined with a real-world heritage distances the character from any grounded, realistic connection to the heritage being claimed.

(2) the specific game used as the character's origin has a history of poorly thought through representation of the specific kinds of cultures being drawn from for the character's background, which is a problem on its own and one that further complicates the first point.

I hope this clears things up. if you need further help, please DM me. I can ensure that further useful information or summary is reposted here for general access but the discussion here should continue to be focused on how to bring the content in line with the goals of editors.

okay, yeah, point one makes sense, thanks. point two i don't fully agree with (i think the game does a far, far better job than most, but getting into a full discussion of it here seems outside the scope of this page lol, so I won't get into it). anyway, thanks again, i appreciate it

hi! an irm i've proposed for brisket friendo mentions a friendship with malik in the trivia section. here's the full text.

When the options of which land could be meant are Greenland, Washington and Kuwait the line "Some attribute this behavior to being from a land that encouraged thievery" sticks out really negatively for one of those in particular. Would probably be wise to just cut that bit out and only leave the second part of that sentence as something along the lines of "Some say it is in the nature of being part cat." to help with sensitivity

Makes sense to me!!! How does this sound?

Malik Destiny is perhaps best known off the field for his penchant to get into mischief. The list of places he is banned from is long and storied, but this does not stop him from continuing to break into these places and cause mayhem wherever he roams. It was once theorized that this is because he is part cat, but Destiny confirmed at an afterparty that his true reasoning for the shenanigans is to bring the team closer together and keep spirits up.

It's been 24 hours and somebody said you okayed that language on the Discord so I'm going to go ahead and add it!!!!! Feel free to say something if you'd like any changes!!

Malik is mentioned in an IRM proposal for Goodwin. The specific by-name mention is:

With help from Malik Destiny and Greer Gwiffin, who were her teammates on both the Garages and the Society, Morin was able to connect with blaseball for the first time as a source of joy. Even though her team was eliminated, she became close friends with Destiny and Gwiffin and began to have fun learning about the splort.

Malik Destiny is mentioned on Hollywood's proposed page update (found here: Topic:Wclahkghkz1x2204) as an consultant on queer and anarchist themes in her fantasy series.

The relevant section is:

With advisement on queer and anarchist topics from Malik Destiny, the Flowers’ Salih Ultrabass, and the Sunbeams’ Hahn Fox, the adventures of no-longer-teen wizardess Quillana Moonmarked took on a decidedly more anti-authoritarian streak.

The first three books in the continued series followed Quillana’s growing disloyalty to the Kingdom of Derevor. As Destiny described it while accompanying Hollywood on a book tour, “I mean, there’s countless evils in this kingdom, but isn’t the true evil the existence of a monarchist, imperialist system that enlists a single teenager with undeveloped magical skill for domestic defense?” Destiny’s real-life experiences overthrowing a kingdom much like Derevor informed Hollywood’s writing of the series, earning him a dedication in one of the books.

Hello, I am a long term blaseball fan and on the Hades Tigers. I made an account because I want to talk about an issue I have with the fanlore around Malik. I don't want to start an argument or a debate, honestly. I just want to express my discomfort as an Arab person.

I am just uncomfortable of the possibility that this bit of lore was written by someone who's not from an Arab country forcing or pushing their views without really having background to talk about it. I do not want to antagonize or vilify anyone, I just wanted to reach out and say this without causing trouble. I hope you can understand where I'm coming from, and thank you for reading and your consideration.

Hi! Thank you for bringing this up. I am not sure if the original writer is an Arab person or not, but for now, what would you like to see changed here? Malik being anti-monarchy has been in his lore since the start, from the looks of things, but reworking and rewording things is def possible.

Honestly speaking, I would like the anti-monarchy thing just changed or at least reworded. I've no problem with much else. I might suggest that he doesn't an imbalance of power or rights, or someone who forces their will by force, that kind of thing!

hello, long time garage here, I just wanted to provide a couple clarifying thoughts. I completely understand the concern of non Arab peoples writing about Arab characters but I feel I must note two things, the first that Malik themself is not from Kuwait, he is the American child of a Kuwaiti and a Greenlander. The second being that while it can be touchy, the garages are a fairly political team and we like that to come across in our players. Kuwait has a long history of anti monarchism, as does Greenland and so does America. We would love input on adding nuance to our beloved characters but I do not feel the outright statement of Malik’s politics is inherently misrepresentative, and am curious why Malik being anti monarchist is a concern.

Well it's because it just feels like how a lot of Western Media portrays us, in the sense that whenever they introduce a middle eastern character, the characters try to distance themselves from places they've originated from. Malik isn't from Kuwait but he's still Kuwaiti. The fact is that the US embeds this idea in Arab Youths that they should not like their countries because they're conservative and "stuck in their old ways" and not as progressive as The US. Like for example an Arab Woman who hold contempt for hijabs or burkas. It's just a ploy to show how "liberating" it is to live in the US rather than "Bad Conservative Asian Country" and we're not even the only victims of this. I am not accusing you doing this, but this is what it comes off as.

EDIT: Also a long shot suggestion but why not make him a full Greenlandic Native? Just something to consider, maybe alter or revision.

Just adding a few bits of lore we keep forgetting to add to the wiki. Updates include mentioning that both prime and alt Malik are trans masc, Malik being a Jaylen Apologist, becoming the tank of the team via Fire Eater blessing, establishing his relationship with Nolanestophia Patterson, documenting his hijinks and tomfoolery, and some trivia. Details can be found here.

Just adding a few bits of lore we keep forgetting to add to the wiki. Updates include mentioning that both prime and alt Malik are trans masc, Malik being a Jaylen Apologist, becoming the tank of the team via Fire Eater blessing, establishing his relationship with Nolanestophia Patterson, documenting his hijinks and tomfoolery, and some trivia. Details can be found here.

Removed this note from main entry since Garages community at large isn't really interested in putting alternate takes on the wiki and current moderation policies request all such changes be discussed first anyway; archiving here per admin request as this is essentially a moderation decision:

At the end of Season 4, Destiny was affected by the Alternate Reality decree and replaced with an alternate version of himself. The Garages community has agreed that this alternate version is a "canonical" version of Destiny, and as such is not subject to the Interdimensional Rumor Mill.