Faust

My preferred expletive is "bag of dicks."

Context is king. A word is merely a brush stroke on a painting, and a single stroke is never appropriate or inappropriate without consideration to the context of all the strokes before and after it. A cunt is just any other hole until the surrounding organs and tissues are there to define it. At least that's my personal view.

To be fair, in a place like BG (or 4chan), you shouldn't assume that trollish comments aren't to some extent tongue in cheek.

Being able to change votes only makes sense. A good election narrows down the options to the two "best" options and allows everyone to choose from those. Imagine that you're a democrat, and there are 2 Democratic nominees and 1 Republican nominee for president. You like Democrat B along with 20% of democrats, but Democrat B has NO chance of winning the election. You would still rather Democrat A win than the republican, but you've already cast your vote for Democrat B! If only you had known! If only that 20% of democrats who voted for Democrat B had known, because that 20% of people could make the difference between a republican and a democratic president. That's why we have primaries in the US-- to reduce the number of "similar" options in the polls as much as possible. And since all of our options are pretty similar, narrowing it down to the two with the best winning odds is the only fair way to do it. Unfortunately we just didn't have time for a primary process, really. This has actually happened in the past, by the way. Votes have been split between 2 candidates in the same party, causing the least popular candidate to win. I was pulling for Lindblum, btw, even though I was one of those who pointed out the risks of rolling on the /v/ server. It will probably end up as good a server as any, but on the other hand, /v/ is just a click away to /b/tards, many of whom consider trollin' a sport. I really wouldn't have expected that to sway the vote though. Sorry if I reiterated anything, but no way was a sifting through all those pages.

I just changed my vote from Mysidia to Lindblum.

I wish I could change my vote now so that it would actually matter, but honestly the extent to which I care about which server we pick is the extent to which I think one town from the FF lore is cooler than the other. In which case, I would pick Lindblum over Besaid, personally.

I think our server could benefit from as little contact with chan as possible. Nothing against chan, but it's really not the kind of publicity I think we'd want. Someone innocently (or as innocently as it gets on chan) mentions that their server is the RP server, some pro troll swings by and notices, game on. Though personally I like Lindblum and IX-- definitely one of my top choices, but I was really pulling for Mysidia.

Mysidia grabs my attention as a cool server. Probably likely to be a lot of mages there.

:tonberry: Awesome, now what's it gonna take to get us a Cactaur?

We'll definitely get a musketeer and arcanist. They've already developed the graphics for them-- there's no way they won't use them for classes.

I've asked the Transcendence LS to roll on whatever server we select. They're a "fun" LS and I think they would mesh well with the RPC on the non-RP side of things.

I kinda hesitate to do this so casually because it's the first thing I'll have really posted about my character in any depth. But I need a break from painting. You invite a friend over to your house for the afternoon. Describe what your friend would see upon entering your home. Have to pass on that one. My character is more of the woodsy drifter type. During the casual small-talk that ensues, your friend asks you if you have read any good books lately. How do you respond? "A book? I have read some manuals. That's right, people also read for entertainment. No, I never have. What should I try?" Your friend eventually leaves, and you're still bored. Restless, you leave the house and set out for a walk. Describe the neighborhood you live in. Doesn't have a place to live, but hopes to one day. Oh no! An orphan is in trouble! Down the street from where you stand, a small street urchin is being bullied by three larger youths. What do you do about it? Just depends on whim. Either ignore them altogether, defend the urchin, or potentially severely wound the bullies... any response would be emotionally detached. Adventure time! The next day, still restless, you decide that what you need is a good change of pace. How do you pack for your four-day road trip to Ishgard? Just another day. Surviving without provisions or tools is standard fare, though they may be acquired if the terrain or journey requires it. Along your journey, you spot some bandits waiting at a bridge across a wide but slow moving river up ahead of you. They haven't seen you yet. You need to cross the bridge to get to where you're going. How do you handle the situation? Again, whim. If I don't feel like a potential confrontation, avoid them altogether. Or possibly saunter straight by them and hope they give me a reason to maim or kill them. You have just arrived for the first time in a new big city. Where do you go first? Meander aimlessly, most likely. For being the 1,000th tourist to the city, you have been given a 6,000 gil voucher to spend as you like at the Ishgard Department Store (think FFXIV version of Macy's). What do you spend it on? Only what I need, and save the rest. All of that shopping has made you deliriously hungry. What sort of food establishment do you seek out for lunch? Not particularly picky about the food, but preferably someplace quiet and empty. Five months later and safely back at home, you realize the Winter Festival is approaching! What sort of present do you pick out for your mother (or nearest living relative, or closest friend)? I'm supposed to give them a gift? Pah. I don't know... flowers? Maybe I just won't bother.

I really tried to get in touch with someone about the JP RP community, but just couldn't find anyone fluent enough with the JP community to figure it out. This was the best I got for my efforts, one of them linked me to the wiki article on Japanese pen and paper roleplaying, which suggests that at least in some ways they RP like westerners do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_role-playing_games

The discussion of Sunseeker names reminds me of something I forgot to mention. Consider the case of Plainsfolk males and Moonkeepers-- they already have two names. So obviously the simplest option is to make those your first and last names and be done with it. There's also the option of smashing those two names together and treating them as a first name, first and middle name, or however you want to explain it, just like some people I know have a double first name. In the purest sense, it's hard to believe that those cases actually consist of a first and last name, while in almost all other cases NPCs only display first names. And most of us who picked other races still have no convention for choosing last names. So, I realize that only raises more problems and offers no solutions. In attempt to remedy that, here are my thoughts on Sunseekers with some specific examples: R'bhusha The way I see it, there are two plausible options. One is to simply cut out the apostrophe (Rhbusha), and the other is to replace it with its phonetic representation. Meaning... how does one pronounce "R'bhusha" anyway? At least in our language, you can't just go from R to B without a vowel sound (though SE certainly seems to enjoy letting us try). For my example I'll wager a guess that it's Riboosha. So in this case, we simply replace the apostrophe with the sound it's supposed to make... Ribhusha. I think lore-wise, this can be justified as simply a different representation of the same word, similarly to how the Japanese phoneticize other languages into romanji. There's also the practical benefit of not frustrating other people with having to struggle quite so hard with your name, and you don't end up with an odd looking consonant crunch. So S'dhodjbi becomes Sidhodjbi? But then there are these, which don't badly need an apostrophe to begin with: J'ludaba, M'naago, K'wabati I wouldn't find Jludaba, Mnaago, and Kwabati confusing in the least, though they could also potentially make use of a vowel between the first and second letters. So my recommendation for those who really want to be consistent with the lore is to simply weigh it out and decide which approach you prefer best-- I really don't think anyone will be offput by it. And of course, at least in my opinion, there's no need to treat the lore as absolute law when it comes to this issue. I picked my name without regard for the lore, and just happen to think it fits well enough.

So as requested, I began the task of writing down NPC names to give some specific examples of roleplay-friendly names. After not very long, it became apparent that sorting these names by clan was going to be difficult (in the case of Lalafell, sometimes even by gender). It's sometimes difficult to tell what clan an NPC is from because some skintones do overlap, and particularly depending on the lighting it is difficult to tell based on that. Then, many NPCs will have head gear that conceals aspects of their face that would be telling. Though I gave it my best shot, I'm not confident the list I was working on was accurate. But it did occur to me that retainer names would be easy to work with... all in one place, and no guesswork. Took a little time, but at least these names are guaranteed accurate. It's also clear, particularly with the Lalafell and Miqote, that clans DO affect names. However, it's also very possible that regular NPCs won't strictly adhere to these conventions and they don't need to be treated as law (e.g., I think someone saw a Roegadyn named Roosting Crow). Male Midlander Hyur- Bernard, Sevrin, Wauter, Raffe, Geoffrey, Highlander Hyur- Drogo, Engerrand, Wercrata, Raganfrid, Heidolf Wildwood Elezen- Roiteloin, Quentenain, Estrelaint, Voilinaut, Sylvaintel Duskwight Elezen- Ludovoix, Idristan, Astidien, Thievenaix, Corentiaux Plainsfolk Lalafell- Fewon Bulion, Alza Gamilza, Mozon Dalazon, Kazai Buoyzai, Telbi Kesulbi Dunesfolk Lalafell- Zazatyro, Chachamun, Nonomeda, Pipikkuli, Gegeruju Seawolves Roegadyn- Khanmhar, Pfrewahl, Eyrimhus, Swygskyf, Wyrkholsk Hellsguard Roegadyn- Bhirdraeg, Lydirfyst, Ourawann, Fraeloef, Zwynberk Female Midlander Hyur- Fionnuala, Placencia, Jessamine, Thomasyn, Margry, Wildwood Elezen- Heustienne, Dennia, Raimille, Valerine, Gaidelie Duskwight Elezen- Osaulie, Blaisie, Adaillie, Soubinie, Imailie Plainsfolk Lalafell- Ayoyo, Ratata, Sanana, Ushushu, Yuwawa Dunesfolk Lalafell- Popobi, Zozoi, Niniya, Bibigo, Jojolu Sunseeker Miqote- R'bhusha, S'dhodjbi, J'ludaba, M'naago, K'wabati Moonkeeper Miqote- Rhaq Nelhah, Miah Molkot, Wyra Lyehga, Yabi Kaatapoh, Fihpo Jakkya Please feel free to add to this list with other NPC names.