Posts made by surreality

@mietze Exactly. Which is why insisting it's a 'second offense' is putting forth opinion and claiming it as universal truth/fact. I'm just not even a little bit down with that.

It's worth note that not everyone agrees there's any offense here in the first place. If there was universal agreement on that front, this would be an entirely different conversation.

@miss-demeanor said in Regarding administration on MSB:

You aren't the only one that sees the not-so-subtle correlations between staffers who are acting in ways that they would ban people for on their own games. Its being noted with high amusement.

Consider this thirded emphatically.

General note: it's seriously annoying to see the board explode in a fit every time the mods do something, and it does. It's almost always the same handful of people complaining, and honestly, at this point, I wish they'd make their own forum, moderated in their preferred fashion, rather than dragging this one into the proverbial toilet of 'argue about every single mod action for pages on end'.

The staff/games parallel is not remotely off-base.

MSB the forum is now treating MSB the forum as it would a game on MSB the forum, and there is a point at which things become meta to the point of sheer absurdity. We passed that point weeks ago.

@thatguythere A lot of the folks freaking over this were not around for that, so I really can't fault them for being unaware of that history or why people might be so cautious about it now (or come down so hard on people musing on doing something along those lines).

Innocent ignorance is a thing re: some objectors and it shouldn't be ignored re: why people might be taking offense at something that seems so off the wall to them. Ideally, now that it is known, that won't be as much of an issue.

@thatguythere The concern raised was basically this: the claim that anybody was or is doing this is really, really suspect at best.

That said, I really don't object to people being reminded to not do this and don't take it as an affront. The vocal posters here (barring the old 4chan crew, so far as I know) are not people I would ever suspect of doing anything of the kind, even if some folks post about being tempted to do so once in a while.

There are, however, lurkers. Lots of them. And they're all unknowns. Some could be just too shy, some could be too scared to voice an opinion lest the hounds be loosed, but it's entirely possible there are complete shitlords in the bunch, too, who will never pipe up precisely because they know if they admitted to doing this kind of crap, they'd get roasted harder than any game they did it to and then some.

@mietze YES WE WOULD!

I mean, uh, what were we talking about again? Did somebody mention free food? <perks>

@sunny Respectfully, I don't believe you at all, so I'm not interested in discussing it with you.

@ghost Unless it was one posting account all the mods shared, people would guess pretty quickly; we're good at spotting 'voice', and all three of the mods here have pretty distinctive voices. Even with one account... the same would ultimately happen.

We already have people braying to know if all the mods were consulted on any given thing a single mod does, so it's hard to not be that pessimist who can see the petulant foot-stomping demands to know which mod wrote any given thing as a near certainty.

ETA: A whole lot of this comes down to people often making demands rather than asking, and not being able to accept a 'no' with anything resembling the barest shred of grace or introspection to consider whether their ask or demand was at all reasonable in the first place. It just becomes a reason to make the no-sayer/dissenting opinion's life a miserable hell thereafter as much as possible, cloaked in the most ill-adopted cloak of self-righteousness more or less ever.

@tempest I don't think you're one of the people playing that particular popularity/bullying game.

You're an equal opportunity shit-flinger, and, yeah, you're chill and fun to hang out with on a game.

That might be why you're not seeing what's kinda painfully obvious in regard to some other folks, though, 'cause that shit is so not subtle.

@saosmash Honestly? Some of the names in that thread were braying for Auspice's head in this one not so long ago. I've personally observed how long they wank on a grudge and go nit-picking and twisting anything and everything into a federal case for shit to attack when they single somebody out with the intent of causing harm or humiliation or driving someone out. It's childish bully behavior, it's bullshit, and there's no excuse for it, or turning a blind eye to it and pretending it isn't happening, amongst people who claim to be adults.

@tempest Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the fact that some of the same names who felt the need to create a whole thread to shriek about this were the ones braying for her head on a spike a handful of weeks ago.

It isn't a stretch to think they were likely none too pleased when they were told they weren't going to get the pound of flesh they wanted.

We've never seen that dynamic go down with an increasingly melodramatic display of micro-managing, histrionic hand-wringing, or aggressive policing of everything that person does or says on games (or forums), have we? Oh, wait, we absolutely have, all the damn time.

It's just gallingly transparent in this case. Whether or not there's an actual issue, the amount of drama it's generating is completely fucking ridiculous.

@fatefan We tried! It was a valiant effort.

For ye olde record:

I made a login there in a fit of 'maybe I will try something'. (That would be Lily, for anyone wondering who the fuck it was.)

I played one scene probably about a month ago, which was fine. I wasn't blown away, I wasn't offended, so I really don't have any feedback to offer in either direction, so I haven't bothered to really say anything. People were nice from what I observed, staff and player.

I logged in once after that a handful of weeks ago, thinking maybe I would carry on, but then my 'nope, I am still RP oomphless' kicked back in and I haven't logged in since. Likely won't, since 'the moment, it has passed' and I don't think I could get back into the character's head even if I wanted to.

That there's accusations of people from here trying to burn it down means I'm definitely not going to be putting effort toward trying to crawl back into Lily the Dorkbomb's skull. If it isn't true, that's shitty to claim, and if it is true? I'm not of a mind to get shot in some crackpot's feud crossfire.

@lithium One would think.

Or maybe the hivemind has finally reached maximum potential, and we can all communicate telepathically now.

(Were this actually the case, we would all be existing in a hell so much grander than any we could ever cause.)

@faceless Was it in Wales? Welsh appears to be a language made up on the premise of 'I totally dare you to pronounce this!'

@nightshade Agreed re: self-worth vs. work.

Like, I have reasons to be ego queen from hell about some of my stuff, and some people probably would? But that's meh to me, because that 'anybody could do this same thing if they put the work in' belief; it's pretty core and always has been, and keeps things forcibly grounded to the point that it's awkward to a fault for me to mention those things even if someone asks. (Plus, that's just begging for karma to kick you in the ass, IMO.)

The deliberate underselling can shoot somebody in the foot in ways that will prevent them from doing what they love doing eventually -- too much and you can't get new materials, or can't afford the next good sales venue, etc.

So seeing this dude do that, I wanted to shake him, because damn, he was amazingly good. They made under $500; it was $200 for the booth for the weekend, $129/night (x2 nights) for the hotel. Add in food for three people? Yeah, I'd be surprised if the guy broke even -- not even accounting for the materials that went into the pieces he sold, let alone his time or any profit.

If I saw this going down at the little $25/table church or fire hall shows or something, where people are primarily hobbyists not really looking to make an income from it, it'd be one thing (and it's seen all the time there), but this was not that kind of thing. It still ends up being the #1 reason those folks end up having to give it up: they don't account for their actual expenses to do it since these costs don't occur to them until it's too late.

Our recent cats we got as adults. They were between 3-5 (even the rescue didn't know) when we got them. Not gonna lie, that was way easier.

They are now up there enough (well into the latter teens) we know we won't have both of them for many more years, so the question of 'a pair of kittens' when one of the current two passes is an active question we're struggling with 'cause... yeah. We've had some nightmare catlings as well, and this is a big concern. But we also know both the current f'lines are very social in their ways, and would not be OK as a solo cat. (We try to acquire our f'lines as pairs because of this in general.)

@ganymede Really aren't any concise points on this one, and the attempts at such earlier just got a lot of snide commentary, so... meh.

And really, no; the negative impact in the case I was describing was... dude was actively shooting himself in the foot in a way that make things harder for himself and his family. $500 would barely cover the expenses of traveling to that show, paying for the space, paying for a night at even the cheapest local motel, and paying for food for him and his family to sell his work there in the first place.

It ended up costing him more to sell there than he earned, and that's before you count what he spent on the materials to make his pieces or his time.

So it isn't just customer ignorance that can screw someone over, no matter how good everyone's intentions are. It is very upsetting to see this happen, particularly to someone who is endeavoring to be kind, when that kindness puts someone notably into the red.

@mietze

@surreality said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

So I now have a $40 ring that I am always going to both treasure and feel incredibly sad about at the same time.

Again... this has been said. I know I'm wordy, but come on, this is two in a damn row, y'all, and that isn't cool.

@Ganymede That's the first thing I addressed, though:

@surreality said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

And if somebody's a novice, or does it as a hobby alone for free because they enjoy it, cool. If they feel inclined to do something pro bono or at a discounted rate because they like the idea or want to do a friend a favor, also cool. If they want to take a low payment for exposure and promotion, cool. A lot of this does actually have a detrimental impact on professionals, but there is a level of 'it isn't on us to control what other people do because they want to be doing it' to suck up and deal about.

It has some bad impact -- but nobody has any right to tell them to not do it. I mean, that was statement #1 in this whole thing. If somebody loves doing <thing> so much that they really do it all for the love, I'm the last person to take a crap on their head, even if it does have consequences for me personally.

If you mean the dude I mention definitely underselling I mentioned, though? He charged me barely above materials cost for the piece. And they're inexpensive materials. Dude wasn't doing this out of love, he was doing it to make a living wage, and his idea of what he can live on is a lot less than most of us. (He immigrated from a small town in Argentina where he was living in conditions I don't think anyone on this board would ever be able to handle -- we talked for a while. He isn't looking for anything more than a tiny studio apartment in an inexpensive area with his two (totally adorable) sons, and the guy knows how to stretch every penny to the fullest.) His work is sincerely gallery quality. People making similar pieces were charging 5x what I paid for the ring I bought, and up from there.

Most people doing jewelry work will by some parts as standard items. Simple stuff -- earwires, clasps, etc. He made all of them by hand. Every silver chain on his table made to go with his pendants was linked by hand with tiny tiny links -- and every one was soldered and sanded. (I do some chain work and this is... we will just dub it 'whoa and beyond'.) Even the simple braided leather 'chains' we see all the time for things that are the cheap options for a pendant all over the place? Nope, he was hand braiding them all out of the finest weight leather cord I had ever seen -- I was watching him do this during downtime -- and still only asking the $5 for them you pay retail for a mass-produced, machined item.

He felt he had to do this, to go to this extreme that most don't bother with not just because he could, but that he felt it was 'the way it should be done'. Mind-blowing work ethic, and this is workaholic girl talking. It's even more expensive to do it his way, not just for labor, too!

Dude had mines some of the metal himself before he immigrated. I'm not even kidding.

So I now have a $40 ring that I am always going to both treasure and feel incredibly sad about at the same time. He wasn't just blowing smoke about having mined the copper himself to talk up the price, either. It has some purchased materials, but those are silver and actual gold leaf, neither of which are cheap. Entirely hand made, fine work, truly created from the ground up. Even made some of the tools to do it with himself. I mean, for sheer awe factor? It is impossible to not have immense respect for this relatively simple object. (And it's not super simple; aesthetically it's gorgeous. If I'd made what I made the year before, I would have bought enough to cover every knuckle on my hand, no lie.)

I mean, seriously. Because while I'm not skilled at all in metalwork? I knew exactly what he'd put into that piece. And it was considerable. (There's a reason artists, even when broke, end up being the best customers of fellow artists.)

He would genuinely not take more money for this. I tried. Nope, just, "You understand what it is, that is special and rare, won't take another penny." The structure and design is deceptively simple; if I hadn't tried my hand (and failed horribly) at doing similar? I might not realize this. And that's the kind of thing that I would rather see people being rewarded for recognizing, rather than me getting a discount for understanding.

Re: the 'My cousin could totally make this', we eventually found a 'solution' of sorts. Because I would always be asked, "Explain how you did it," sometimes to the extent of asking for me to email them a pdf of an illustrated step by step to recreate my design precisely, with a 'to buy' list that would have included things that were not available for sale, being either vintage or components made by fellow artists and incorporated into the piece. (No, really. This was not a one-off experience, either. It was common enough that we had to make a policy, so to speak.) It was: "My teaching rate is $20/hour; take a card and give your cousin the info, and we can set up a time." (And for anybody curious, that is super dirt cheap for one-on-one mentorship and teaching.) Because, really? I'm totally cool with the idea of showing people how to do it. I'm just not going to teach a skill that took me hundreds of hours of trial and error for nothing so someone can just weasel their way into a discount.

I could tell stories about how that has gone over the years, but they're pretty depressing, with few exceptions. I've been lucky enough to find good teachers, and while I'm not a good teacher for a crowd, I'm actually great walking someone through things step by step in a way customized to precisely the things they're interested in regarding things I know. I wouldn't even care if they then made a hundred of the thing to become direct competition.

For a lot of the stuff I do, I also stick to minimal markup. I went through the art business seminars and classes in various places, but I also recognize that my work is fuss-intensive (perfectionist 'finish' streak) and that can crank labor costs through the roof if I'm not sensible about them. That said, training and experience ultimately bring those down because they become (dun dun dun) rote after a while. (The hardest thing about teaching is pausing to explain the things I 'just do' because after years of trial and error, because they're so ingrained and automatic they are not conscious steps in the process.)

@Insomia Sincere apologies for the derail. This is a subject very near to the heart for me, and one I am in the official season of dealing with on a near-daily basis. I know your heart is absolutely in the right place and I do think the project you're proposing will provide some great exposure to anyone who picks it up.

@nightshade said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

There's a tendency to regard artists as these ineffable creatures of talent who are somehow special, and if an artist buys into this, it can be severely damaging to their success.

This is the one spot where we disagree some, because the next bit -- the 'oh how I wish' attitude -- is problematic because, yeah, it is not just some magic that somebody yanks out of their butt. I've probably been luckier on the 'magic out of my butt' than a lot of folks I've known (mostly due to being raised in an environment full of artsy bastards who encouraged me to draw and sew and all the rest before I could even read) but I've still worked my ass off, and I don't think there's anything I do at all that anybody else is incapable of doing, and doing just as well with the work put in to doing it.

It's the 'having the will to do it until they do it just as well' that tends to be lacking, and it's a lot of what Awesome Teacher was talking about.

Some things do get it worse than others. A lot of the fine arts, or illustration, people see the learning curve more than they do with photography, jewelry stuff, the costume stuff I actually formally studied, etc.

That really does make a big difference, because many can't really tell the difference between the costume their cousin made for their kids from a commercial pattern for Halloween and the masquerade gala outfit somebody made from scratch, etc. other than 'it's fancier', and there's this assumption that with fancier materials, Cousin Jane could do the same thing just as easily, when it's just not at all the case. Cousin Jane absolutely could do it! ...if Cousin Jane learned the skills required to actually do it.

While I agree re: tell them to hire the other guy, or that sometimes that is a necessary lifeline it's handy to have, it isn't always that easy.

And it's not even always about the work, which is the aggravating part. I've been selling jewelry since I was... 10? 12? Somewhere in there. My mother was doing it as a side hobby, so 'Oooh, I wanna, too!' and I was bringing in more money at it than she was before I even hit high school. I still go back to it on the regular with lots of style changes and whatnot, but I take a professional approach to it in ways she didn't. I'm that person who insisted we take plastic, for instance, when she'd considered this absurd. (Our sales tripled.) I'm that person who insisted we get professional quality displays. (She refused. I'm now stuck footing the bill for them solo, and with less chance to fund that, as the shitty homebrew bullshit she concocted got us booted from the most profitable shows we did and were left with ONE, and I get to rebuild all of those relationships from near scratch, whee.) The differences in just approach alone are pretty big, and the difference they can make is also pretty big. That said, since I finally had the first bits of the displays that weren't kitbash half-assed bullshit, we managed to sell pretty dang well at our last show. Of the three jewelers in our section? All about on par in quality? Yeah, we outsold both of them by a mile. Their prices were lower than mine, on average. We got a last minute invitation to do another show the next weekend among a group of local artists that's damned near impossible to break into (quirky mini-town started as an artists' commun(e)ity; people living outside of it, even though it's no longer that really and hasn't been during my lifetime, just do not get asked ever -- yeah, one of those) that we never expected, too.

So... there is luck, and it helps. There's certainly shitty luck, too, and it... unhelps. But all the luck in either direction isn't ultimately going to go too far.

There are people who really will try to take advantage, either out of innocent ignorance or just being assholes. I don't tend to see people trying to explain 'hey, you know, this is actual work, and not secret effortless butt-yank magic' as putting artists on a pedestal so much as I see them trying to prevent the ignorance part of this equation through education. I mean, we're on the internet, and so we've seen this argument two bajillion times, yeah, so it's not going to be new news to somebody most of the time. It's stunning how many people I see face to face who none of this has ever occurred to before, though, and it's still a real problem.

A lot of people undervalue their work, too. One of the other jewelry artists in the room with me -- one of the people who did not do as well -- was, IMHO? WAY better than me. (We do very different things, so it's easy enough for each of us to feel that way about the other, which we did, but that's neither here nor there.) He had a ring I adored, and so help me, he would not allow me to pay retail for it, which I later overheard he did for everyone else, too. Which is sweet, but by gods, I wanted to shake the man until something rattled. He barely brought in $500 for the weekend. Ouch.