Best posts made by surreality

@thebird said:

I find my PB first, and build a character based on what/who they look like, to me. I'm an artist and super visual, so maybe that's part of it. I've been told that's very backwards.

I end up doing this sometimes, too. Though it's less 'I want to make a character, let me find a face', as I stumble across a face, a personality/concept pops into my head, and I'm stuck thinking, 'Well, crap. Where the heck am I going to play that?'

Other times, I have a vague character concept that can be boiled down to one word (wolfblood, noble, waitress, etc.) and search from there, and image-hop until something presses the 'generate backstory' button (that apparently somebody installed behind my left eye or something).

The look of a character, be it a picture or text, is something I focus on pretty intensely. It takes me forever to write a desc, even if it's one of standard or short length. Going to college for costume design will do that to a person, seriously. Every little choice ends up being somehow significant, and if it isn't significant or part of the basics (height, build, hair color, eye color), it needn't be there. This gets really damn wordy now and then with characters that have lasted a long time and collected their share of scars/mementos/etc. they keep on their person. Almost nobody reads +views, so the things just start to sprawl on (and on and on and on) eventually. Heck, almost nobody even reads descs these days, and I still do this.

It makes it easier to pick a face based on general vibe, then extrapolate from the imagery from there. It makes it almost impossible to find something if I start from the desc and an elaborate personality and try to find an image to match it.

This was so 'do I love this or hate it', but it definitely falls on the side of hate it in the end.

My father sends the 'Biden's great grancestor owned slaves!' meme. <insert urge to throttle the shit out of my father for about 300 reasons here>

This gives me the opportunity to note that children don't get control over the lives of their progenitors -- particularly those who died before they were ever born -- but I fully welcome him to engage with me about why they somehow should.

Like, dude, you're someone who had at least one uncle who fought for Mussolini in Africa. Pretty sure if you or I had a say in that in any way, that wouldn't be the case. (Never talk to my grandparents' generation about WWII; half were resistance, half were in Mussolini's army. Holy shit they lucked out that there wasn't a Thanksgiving dinner to have over there.)

@Thenomain Yup, that's why 'label your intent right up front' is so critical.

There's also a blue-violet version that's very 'starry night sky'.

There are also certain circumstances that would make it less likely -- for instance, your characters have left the bar proper and wandered to the alley out back that isn't represented as a physical space on grid -- or you're picking up a scene that began and ended days before in IC time, etc. (I would argue in the latter case, finish up the scene in a temproom, but people don't always do so.)

There are non-asshole reasons inclusion by default is sometimes unrealistic.

@Roz I watched it shortly after it came out, and again more recently. ***NSFW content***

@Apos I get what you're saying, definitely. I started on MOOs that were very similar to what you're describing. (Ghostwheel and Cybersphere, they had coded everything, and it was pretty neat.) It is a huge adjustment between the two.

The sandbox thing is more 'is there a metaplot' question than anything else; sandboxes are generally 'there's no metaplot, do whatever you want to do within reason' and there's not really any over-arching storyline for the game that's being led by the staff. TR wasn't a sandbox for a long time... then it was when the metaplot ended. I only got there after it ended, so I can't really compare the two in terms of experience.

@Roz Very much so, re: meant well, failed. ***NSFW content***

@Apos Yup, and the 'there's drama there' affects both the poster and the named person exactly like you describe.

Very rare is the conflict on a game that is 100% one-sided, and the kind of player that can't stop themselves from provoking others or behaving in an inappropriate manner is going to stand out on their own, and usually pretty fast. Basically, in the cases of the worst offenders, by the time you read in someone's +finger that whoever you +fingered has a problem with that person, odds are good whoever is doing the reading has figured out that JoeBobFuckFace is a jerk already.

@Sunny Apologies, not the intent -- though, yep... that's how easy it is for good intentions to go sideways. <virtual hug sent>

Tempted to spin off a 'Jealousy on M*s' thread, but it's a lots of work day. But there should be one, because that is one hell of a broad subject.

My husband sent this to me with the note: "I think I found our cat's previous owner." (Not really, thought it's funny that she's a dead ringer all the same.)

Murderflouf snowball of doom.

@Arkandel A number of people I've encountered forget the 'other people on the other side of the internet connection' factor somewhat regularly.

I've noticed it more over the past decade than in previous years. I don't know if it's the prevalence of MMOs, or what -- but the instances of 'treating other players like game sprites rather than people' seems to have grown compared to when I started out.

@JinShei This one really hammered the feels.

I have to agree with @Roz on this one.

Digital space is not consequence-free space. People often have a bad habit of treating it as such simply because the consequences of their behavior are not often delivered on them personally or directly, and are instead shoved off to be someone else's problem.

People who behave this way understandably start to be considered the problem themselves after they've caused enough problems for others, which is the eventual actual consequence for them personally.

In some ways, it hasn't been the kind of hell for me it has for my husband. I'm used to being home and generally isolated. I'm also lucky: my parents live next door.

It hasn't been an easy year, regardless. I'm dealing with different kinds of isolation than I'm accustomed to, and while that's 'like everybody else', they aren't the same things as most other people, which is unhelpful.

I'm watching a lot of movies and shows. I'm trying to design a perfect dream house I'll never live in just to do it. I keep waffling over designing a game or not, then getting distracted by something else. (I know what I want to do, it's the doing it that's... meh.) Still trying to help people deal with Qanon disinfo and chaos, harassment, and threats.

@Lithium I don't disagree that it's a possibility, so I'll ask you to quote what you're getting that impression from -- as right now you're arguing against something I've not said. People in this community have gotten married, which is well known on the boards here, after all.

Thing is, there's a possibility that someone may think dragons are out there. Or that they can drink blood and gain supernatural powers. People in the really real world think you can cure AIDS by having sex with a virgin -- people genuinely believe some impressively stupid things and take action based on those beliefs every day.

There is literally nothing out there this does not apply to in some fashion if you slide far enough down the slippery slope.

"Someone might" is not reasonable cause to insist "anyone who does anything to inspire someone to maybe someday" on any of these subjects.

There are also a lot of assumptions going on here about what people know, and what people don't. The glaring horror shows of doing it wrong are going to stand out for obvious reasons, but they do that in any given subject area. I've run across quite a few knowledgeable people in this hobby in this particular subject; they just tend not to advertise. They don't hide it, but they don't throw up the neon sign, either, and as a result, they're quite easy to miss.

Sovereign was not looking for characters to interact with his character. He was, explicitly stated, looking for players to exploit. That was his intention. There was no slope, no 'maybe feels may evolve', that was the deliberate intent behind being there in the first place. The difference is pretty huge.

I have shrunk, apparently. Thank you, doctor, last news I was expecting. I have crossed beneath the 5ft-nothin' line, barely topping 4ft 11.

I feel the compulsion to app a WB again...

@Lithium said:

Gods above and below... I have never in my life seen so much vitriol against education in my life. It's like people are content to swim in the muck with the bottom feeders throwing feces and make believe instead of just have a discussion.

Statements like this are, I suspect, where what you may be attempting to communicate is failing miserably.

I'm quite educated on this subject, thank you very much, and encourage others to educate themselves as well if they have an interest in exploring these subjects in the real world. (Which essentially makes me just want to tell you to go fuck yourself, but that's not what I'm doing.)

People roleplaying something, and players consciously engaging in RL exchanges around a theme are not the same thing, and no amount of 'but it all centers around <theme>' is going to make them the same. Many themes can and do entail similar visceral or emotional reactions from players in the same way, from wanting to have a child to rape scenarios to simple lovey-dovey dating fluff. (And yes, I have actually run across a player on a game who wanted nothing more than to find a girlfriend there with which he could have a child -- these things happen.)

THB Trading -- http://www.tkbtrading.com/ (safe link, I swear!) There are a couple of other sites as well, but that one had the best selection, IMHO.

Beware, though. That site is dangerously easy to spend a fortune on. They even have holo mixers.

EVIL, I tell you. EVIL.

The 'travel to... ' pigments are the chameleons. Not cheap, but oooooh, shiny.

...dammit, they have flakies now. facepalm I had to look, I just had to, and... siiiiigh.