Posts made by Arkandel

I know some people will mock me and perhaps I deserve it, but I've never played it.

What are Exalted's themes? Why is it cool?

@Derp said in RL Anger:

@Arkandel said in RL Anger:

What the guy did was objectively creepy even if he has only the best intentions in mind

We have not, to my knowledge, ever developed a universal consensus on what constitutes creepy or not creepy in social scenarios, so this is false. It's subjectively creepy. And like all things subjective, it's by definition open to interpretation, though I concede that there may be multiple equally valid interpretations. I even said so above, when I said that I understand @mietze's hesitation.

That's hyperbole. Yes, there's no universal consensus for something like 'creepy', I agree, but there's a consensus of what's socially acceptable. Showing up unannounced at someone's workplace is inappropriate even without the romantic (or even sexual) connotations here; if someone I hadn't seen in 15-20 years just up and asked for me at the reception out of the blue I'd feel awkward. This is where I work for a living, it's not a social nexus.

Now, it can be argued some people don't put themselves on social media so that's the only way they can be reached... but that makes it worse, not better. If I feel strongly enough about my privacy to not take such easy, relatively safe steps to be approachable then most likely I wouldn't like more direct ways either.

The effect of all this is multiplied for exes. Big no-no. You're out of someone's life and then suddenly re-emerge like that? At best it's awkward.

Now if I just ran into someone I know at the movies or the mall or something sure, no problem.

@Kanye-Qwest said in RL Anger:

Seriously, @mietze, you need to lighten up and learn to take a compliment. Maybe if you ask nicely (or just state your own perspective) Derp will tell you how should react to things.

You make me facepalm even when I'm agreeing with you. You do the cause you're trying to defend more damage than good by defending it the way you do.

Hmm. What about in-game tools, has anyone here had significant success using those? I'm referring to things like RP-find flags (which show you with a red marker on who, announce your name to other seekers etc)... how much luck have you had with such hard-coded methods?

Please note I'm looking more for actual, tangible results here than whether something looks like it might work on paper.

And oh - if you don't use such commands, how come?

@Derp said in RL Anger:

Yes, well, forgive me if my first reaction to your statement isn't 'oh, of course, it's so obvious now! How did I not see Kanye's point all along', given your rather pronounced tendency to take anything that's even a bit off and turn it into something extremely inflammatory. At the end of the day, as much as I sympathize with @Mietze's point, it's still only one side of the story, and is skewed by her perception of events as somewhat creepy/off. (NOTE: I am -not- calling Mietze a liar, or saying she is wrong -- just that it is only one side of the story, there, and there exists a -possibility- that the intentions are more innocent than they may appear. I fully understand her hesitation in this matter.)

Although Kanye will be Kanye, it's not really a side-of-the-story matter here.

What the guy did was objectively creepy even if he has only the best intentions in mind, thought it'd be a fun reunion, would never hurt a fly, and would back off the first time he got even a hint she's uncomfortable by this.

@Coin said in RL Anger:

I have lived in some iffy neighborhoods and I have, though. I'm keenly aware I am not John McClane, man. I know that if someone comes at me from a dark corner my chances of surviving, let alone getting away unscather, are low. It's true that men are taught to be tough, but the real lesson they're taught is to believe they are tough. But we're not. Not really. Not in general. And I say this as someone who has gotten into his fair share of fights and can hold his own in a fist-fight. It doesn't matter. Once the piper or whatever hits you in the head, you're probably fucked, and that can happen to anyone.

Yeah, that's why I made the disclaimer about thinking you can take care of yourself. It has the same effect on whether you (the generic 'you', obviously you feel differently about it) are concerned about your physical safety under normal circumstances or not, even if it's unwarranted.

So is it fair to say from this (admittedly small) sample relatively few people are perusing the wiki for this? Only two seem to have mentioned checking there at all.

Or is it that using the wiki for that is a more mid/long term thing as opposed to simply logging on to look for scenes?

@Coin said in RL Anger:

@Derp said in RL Anger:

@mietze said in RL Anger:

Maybe guys would feel scared in that way though, dunno.

I actually had a guy I knew 10 years ago show up where I work and start with the smalltalk. Wasn't no big thang. Dudes, we think in different ways, I think. I still hang out with that dude, we went and saw Batman v Superman this weekend.

Did he show up specifically to find you?

Also, it's not so much "dudes think in different ways" as it is "society teaches dudes that inappropriate things are okay", which is what was being said above.

It's also different on a physical level. Most guys either can take care of themselves - or at least think they can which for the purposes of being concerned amounts to about the same thing - if someone got weird.

For example I've lived in some iffy neighborhoods in the past, I never thought twice about going out in the dark to grab something from the convenience store or whatever. Or walking to a parking lot on my own, etc.

@Ganymede I suppose the reason I like Tolkien's writing - nostalgia aside, which I won't deny is a powerful factor for me - is that he didn't simply write books; he created a mythology, history, several languages, wrote poems, told bedtime stories to his son about the combined world of Middle Earth and then, when all that was done, did he ever even write actual novels. Hell, the number of books he wrote which are not in novel-form far outnumber the rest.

That, and it's impossible for me to distinguish any more if I took an immediate liking to his grandeuse prose style with great attention to detail, straight-forward vocabulary and lyrical descriptions or if reading his work at the age I did shaped my preferences.

I know going through pages of going over the story of Beren and Luthien, complete with lyrics - some of them in Sindarin! - is not for everyone. For some reason. Probably because they are flawed human beings, like @tragedyjones.

@tragedyjones It's okay. Just know you are a bad person making bad decisions and you suck. No hard feelings. NONE.

@tragedyjones My heart can only take so much.

I read the Hobbit when I was in sixth grade and was absolutely blown away, and then the friend who lent me the book told me there was 'more to it' and handed me the Fellowship of the Ring. Holy shit, I spent that entire night reading it, it was the first time I ever lost sleep over a book - and it was so worth it. It single-handedly made a lifetime fantasy fan out of me.

I've read The Return Of The King 20+ times (in fact it's been a while, I should put it on my Kobo).

@Ganymede said in RL Anger:

@mietze said in RL Anger:

I think a lot of women understand why I feel a little sick. And if you're ever tempted to see an "old flame" who was the "most beautiful girl I'd ever met" and is the most wonderful memory all these years...sometimes it's kind of scary when you say that after all those other actions.

A lot of men should understand as well.

That said, whatever happened to sending someone a nice, complimentary letter? In the age of e-mail, it's so much easier to do, and substantially less threatening.

Yeah, send a damn Facebook request like the rest of us, buddy! It's a whole lot less creepy than showing up at someone's workplace asking to see them after 15 years.

You know what the weird part is? Something like @mietze's story would could easily be a Hollywood romcom plot. Guy pines for that girl he met when he was a teenager after a streak of failed relationships and decides to reconnect with her? Aww, that's adorable, right? Right? Many of those movies if realistically examined involve a hell of a lot of stalking, not taking 'no' for an answer ("I'll never give up on you!"), showing up at unexpected times with big dramatic public gestures of affection and so on.

So not only are we not being taught to think there's something wrong with this kind of thing, we're actually being raised to think it's great. This guy may not even consider what he's doing is really bizarre and someone could be easily threatened by it, he probably thinks it's romantic and cute.

My methodology isn't too detailed.

• Scheduled scenes, roleplay requests and +events are served first.

• If I'm part of group (coterie etc) they get first shot for scenes. +watch/who helps, too (ES hates it).

• At this point I might say 'hi' on channels if I'm feeling like opening it up; if I get RP requests from that I'll go.

• It's +where stalking time; is there a scene already going I like the looks of? If so I'll ask if I could join in.

• If all else fails I might toss a PrP or discuss scheduling one. It's a good way to meet new people.

As for setting the scene I rarely mind doing so especially if that helps get the ball rolling. However, unless folks explicitly give me constraints about their characters or are courteous about raising objections after the fact, it has at times irked me when I set and they get butthurt because whatever would their character be doing at a park/smokehouse ("I'm a vegan!")/etc. If you wanna set, set, else just roll with it dammit.

Finding a scene to join is a fundamental part of playing games online and yet it's either one the easiest or hardest things to actually do. I'm wondering if we can't share our methods here and maybe figure out a better way of doing so, or see if our current metholodogy is a reason players are sometimes considered cliquish or unfriendly to outsiders.

So you log on your MU* of choice and want to find RP... What do you do? What are your go-to ways - for example, do you scourge the who/where list? Go to Skype and tug on your friends' sleeves? Call out on channels? Use the in-game RP-seek code if it exists?

Share your secrets.

@Ganymede has bypassed security protocols! We have a breach!

@Coin Nngggghhhh.

@Coin Your mom is a Tolkien nerd.

@EmmahSue So @Ganymede is gone?

The last scene, come ON.

Winter is coming.

@tragedyjones said in Bump In The Night: A Chronicles of Darkness MUX:

Tolkien is lame.

I challenge you to a duel.