Mae

... Aaaah, the 80's. Such days of musical perfection...

I've been watching the thread since just after the logs or examples or whatever were removed... honestly, I can't bring myself to believe the OP isn't trolling. On the off-chance, though, that this is a legitimate cry for help and/or for any future legitimate inquiries to the topic, here's my couple of shiny coppers: Should both IRL partners be okay with ERP? -- ERP can be a legitimate aspect of roleplaying; for some people as natural and normal as RPing someone eating or taking a walk somewhere, and it has no more effect on their personal life as RPing eating or taking a walk somewhere. -- Of course, there ARE people out there who ERP is done solely for a sense of gratification and a person engaging it has no real legitimate RP reasons behind the act. This is what I would consider cybering, not ERP, but I know not everyone follows the same reasoning I do. -- Knowing what the motivation is behind the acts is probably one of the first steps in deciding if you should be understanding about your IRL partner's want to participate in ERP. -- On the flipside, what are your objections to your partner's desire to ERP? Is it an ambiguous "It's wrong/cheating!", or do you have specific reasons that relate to -Your Personal- feelings? If you are really against the idea of your partner ERPing, you will probably get further in reaching some sort of understanding if you first sit down and identify your personal motivations and objections. Respect the IRL relationship. -- Of course. The IRL relationship SHOULD always come first. There is, however, no cookie-cutter answer to what "respect the relationship" means, because before you can respect the relationship, you have to define it first, and that definition is going to vary from couple to couple. Communication and understanding is key to any relationship. -- There are people here who are in healthy, committed relationships (long-term dating, married, etc) who participate in ERP with people other than their IRL partners, and they have their partner's permission to freely do so. Other people in healthy, committed relationships, their IRL partners have a few stipulations/restrictions ('only if the player of the other character is the same gender', 'only with X-person/people because I know them', etc). Other people, again in healthy and committed relationships, don't participate at all because their IRL partner has objected to the idea. As for the OP... again, on what I think is an unlikely chance that it's not a troll... there's obviously more problems in the relationship than just the ERP. There was prior cheating involved, a lack of respect (the name calling), and... some intolerance (the edited-out "perverts" comment). Add to it that the OP had already labeled the boyfriend as the "soon-to-be-ex"... again, there's enough there for me to think that the relationship was doomed even without the ERP aspect.

In no particular order... Wish we could normally carry our harps out like this... Derp. Rainbows in Thanalan? Ohhai, Blue, ummmm... you're not going to eat Mallow's brains, are you..? Every once in a while, I bump into this player and it always makes me giggle. Hanging with fellow bandits in the Shroud Duskie Juuuust a picture of a bush. Nothing interesting here, it's just a bush. I remember that! Happened while I was taking this one! Been toying around with the idea of eventually giving Kara a tattoo... Scare-Gardener "What do you mean, you can't dye or train a goobbue?!" Old picture of Silke. Weird genes at work, here.

FictionPress.com and FanFiction.net are the other two I know of/use.

Ah, cake. Who can truly say that they hate all types of cake? The problem with cake, though, is that it can destroy diets... but not any more. I present the Perfect Diet Cake: Who wants some?!

Smoochies!

More cute octopus

Tribal miqo'te have the dilemma of which is the proper course of action: the indoor litterbox that later needs to be cleaned and the leavings buried in the desert, or to just skip the litterbox since it all ends up in the desert in the end. There is a committee already assigned to solving this, but they are split between what is more polite versus which is more sanitary. Aaanyways, even though there's no physical presence/item, I'm -pretty- sure I've seen references to both latrines and chamber pots.

This brings to mind when people think you should go to party? I've gone to party for just when a kiss last longer than two sentences (Where my partner said something --> I say something --> He says something --> go to party) even if we don't erp because I don't want to inconvenience anyone and make them uncomfortable. EVEN THEN, I not really comfortable with PDA in front of other rpers anyway. If my character is in an RP relationship we can use our own time to slobber all over each other. I wonder when it an acceptable line to most people? I'm kinda the same. I don't go much further than "they hugged/kissed/got cozy" in actual RP. If there's more to any of those actions, whoever I'm partnered with and I'll just handle those details OOCly as a sort of mini "fade to black". We're usually cracking jokes at our own expense during that OOC process, cause we still find that awkward. I don't expect everyone around me to feel the same, though, so I set my tolerance for other's PDA's at a different threshold to preserve the peace and my own sanity. Would I be absolutely thrilled if everyone took it to party before tongues come into play? Totally. Is it gonna happen? Probably not until six months after the universe ceases to exist.

I'm in the camp of "If it's (OOCly) consensual, if I don't see it then I don't care". And I'm of the opinion that 90% of the people who purposefully ERP in public (MT's happen, and worst I'll do to them is gently poke fun) are either non-RPers trolling or the people who are just around to cyber. I could be off on that percentage, but I like to believe that most actual RPers of any flavor -are- classy enough keep it private. I also draw the line between acceptable and time to take it to private at third base; holding hands, hugging, cuddling, making out, and above-the-waist-and-above-clothes touching is fine, but when clothes come off, hands disappear under hemlines, dry humping, or obvious pre-orgasmic moans start cropping up... yeah... I really don't want to see that. I'm also firmly in the camp of sex being a normal part of life (on a purely biological sense, reproduction IS the goal of existence), so if it makes sense that my character would bump uglies with another person's character, then I'm fine with it as long as the other party 1) is someone I'm OOCly comfortable with and 2) respects my "fade to black" stipulation. Which might seem odd because I'm perfectly fine writing a smutty short story if I'm in a mind to do so, but for me there's just something REALLY uncomfortable with the idea of doing a collaboration with someone and in a chatlog.

I'm also in the camp that sometimes the more generic/cliche dislikes can act as an indicator of interests or be a flag/warning/explanation for people who might be walk-ups or have just left a random encounter. I personally and generally don't list dislikes in public profiles UNLESS it's a trigger for particularly intense (see: hostile) response. Kara doesn't have any true triggers... she gets a little funny and defensive when someone pesters her about the collar she wears, but it's not a violent response. Actual dislikes on the master profile, Kara only has two constants: Rain. Kara HATES rain; it makes her skin itchy, she doesn't like the feel and sound of wet clothes and shoes, she doesn't like the way rain re-animates some smells (wet garbage, wet chocobo), and she hates it when she ends up splashing herself because she had to walk through a puddle. It can make roofs, tents, and caves leaky, and it can flood out/turn normally dry and pleasant places into quagmires. -- Actually, aside from bathing and the rare swim, Kara doesn't like getting wet. Rain is just 'the worst' form of getting wet because there's no way to avoid it shy of staying indoors until the sky clears up and everything's dried out. --- On the specifics of bathing... I think she'd be even happier if she could take a dust-bath like a chinchilla does... Perpetually cold climates. Yes, Thanalan can get cold/chilly at night (as deserts normally do), but it's not a constant freezing like Coerthas (now) is.

Heya. Soooo... I know you and I haven't actually spoken directly to each other, and I think we've only RP'd together once for about... five seconds (I was on an alt), so I don't really know if it's my place to chime in, but I get what you're going through and I have a couple suggestions. Although a lot of RPers won't admit to it, we all become overly emotionally invested in roleplay at some point for some amount of time. Whether or not it's that one minute of rage when someone steps over a line and badly screws with plans, five seconds of actual panic when something bad happens, or something more long term, it happens to us all. The short-term reactions are perfectly normal. The long term reactions can also be normal (especially if you're naturally an emotional person AND you're doing something you greatly enjoy), but if the bleed-through is causing issues where it's affecting you to the point of interfering with your normal life, then it does need to be addressed. You've already realized that this is something that needs to be addressed. This is good, you're already working in the right direction. Identifying what exactly triggers these reactions is the next step, followed by realizing that you need to step back from the situations. This, though, is when it can get tricky. Do you have to step back just a bit, or walk away entirely? Something in the middle? You're going to have to do a lot of trial and error with this. Some days you'll burn yourself and not step back until too late, other days you'll step back and later realize you could've gone further. It's -okay- that this happens. There's no quick fix to this, it's a learning process. Don't get overly discouraged, you CAN do this. You may even want to consider asking those you RP or hang out with often (you said your roommate and some RL friends also play, might want to ask them if they'd be okay with this too because they're able to observe you in the flesh) to gently prod you if they think you're getting too invested. Just a "Hey, why don't you get up and take a five minute break?" from someone could be enough to help. That's all I would suggest for now for the emotional investment and bleed-through. Once you start getting better with identifying the general area where the line is (don't fixate on the exact line, just look for that general area for now), you can start looking for further things to help address this. Don't overload your plate, you'll only put yourself into a panic or a negative-feedback loop every time you have a hiccup or bump. As for the addiction to the game... cold-turkey works for only a small portion of people when it comes to any type of addiction. Just work on cutting back for now. I don't know how you order your daily routine, but perhaps push back your log-in time by an hour, or your cut-off time by the same. If you don't already, log out entirely when it's time for whatever meal. Maybe during the work/school week you only play for two or three hours, and then your weekends/off-days you can play for as long as you want provided you've gotten all your daily errands and chores already done. Doing your best to establish and maintain a schedule for when you allow yourself to game puts control of the situation in your hands -- I would not suggest using any parental controls to artificially limit yourself, as those can create a feeling of resentment. Another thing that can help for both the addiction and the emotional investment is to find some small hobby or craft you can do right at your computer -- something that takes your hands away from your keyboard for a few minutes at a time and your eyes away from the screen for ten seconds every once in a while. And before you say you can't do crafty things, there's plenty of easy-peasy little things to cut your teeth on. Any religious/spiritual meanings aside, I remember making these in kindergarten-- two popsicle sticks, a dab of glue, and some yarn and you're good to go. I make flowers like this myself; felt, needle, embroidery thread, and a pair of scissors, and as long as you're dexterous enough to not cut yourself with the scissors it's almost fool-proof. Or... take a string of lights, buy some bulk ping-pong balls, poke holes in them, and make some of these. Halloween's coming, look up easy tutorials for decorating your apartment (and do this for any holiday/season). Again, stuff that takes your hands away from the keyboard, and breaks your attention from the screen for a few seconds... and you can invest more time/concentration into if you need a more lasting distraction. I hope some of this helps, or at least gives you an idea of what direction to start moving in. Whatever you decide to do, it's going to be a frustrating process. You'll hit bumps and have setbacks, but you can do this.

Hrm. I've already done a slow, lingering death to a character, and I've had a lot of the same happen to people around me IRL recently, so that's not really something I'm too keen about doing right now... so I guess I'd rather see Kara go with a quick death in her old age. A sort of "It's a shame she's gone, but she was old and it was just a matter of time" deal. Go in her sleep, or have a heart attack and be dead before she hits the ground. She's still too immature for me to picture her having a 'loved one', but even still I'd think she'd be alone only in the sense that no-one was physically there when it happened. Like... out for a pleasure ride on a chocobo, has a heart attack and is dead between falling out of the saddle and hitting the ground, body is found not long after by a courier, patrol, or another traveler. The Gardener would probably just disappear, leaving people wondering if she moved on to somewhere else or died and her body was never found.

I have only perma-deathed one character. I had a cute little Blood Elf warlock back in Warcraft. She was young, easily hurt, and had a desire for power... and this led her to making some very bad life choices. She ended up very badly fel-tainted, and spent a very long time teetering on the edge of becoming a fel-elf (those who remember Burning Crusade lore/content, these ran in two types: various Wretched, or elves that actually became demon-like). Her trying to stay herself was the core of her later storyline, and she had several brushes with falling to the demonic tainting in her body. When my desire to play the character further began to wane, I set it up to give her a slow decline into death, to give myself time to decide if I wanted to save her or not. In the end, she died; suicide by soul-sharding herself, in hopes that she wouldn't revive as a demon. I feel it was appropriate for the character, it was logical that she'd never get a 'happy ending', and I've never once regretted it. None of any of the other characters I've played, I've felt a perma-death was appropriate. Put on long-term hiatus due to grievous wounds, retirement (I am currently a huge fan of Babies Ever After endings), and MIA situations, sure I've used all those. I've even done a sort of 'pass the torch' situations, where it's a sibling or child that steps in to take over for the character that's been retired.

Gods, yes. I cried when I found out that I couldn't wear Snow's pants on Kara. Similar line of thought... the level 1 'underwear' sets. Make unique items for each race/clan (Highlander Camise, Roegadyn Undershirt, etc versus the magical shape-shifting Hempen Camise and Hempen Undershirt) and let them be equipped by any race. I'd love to be able to wear a Midlander or Miqote's undershirt over the bondage-gear I get as a Highlander.

A piece that can be equipped to both belt or off-hand slot -- in the belt slot, it shows up as a belt with pouches/bags/satchels; in the off-hand, it shows up as a backpack. Also, "campfire" minion. Kind of like the wind-up Sun, it stays where it's been summoned.

Me: "Aw, damn, they don't carry half the mats for what I planned for dinner..." Husband: "... You mean ingredients, right?" Me: *blinks* Me: "... Uhhh. Right."

I remember MRP, and I remember GHI... but I'm also remembering a third RP addon in WoW that (at least when I was last playing seriously at the end of WotLK) was starting to replace both of those on my server. It was like MRP and GHI rolled into one. It was a bit quirky and crashed often -- my memory is suggesting that we might've been beta-testing it, as I can't find it on Curse anymore -- but we LOVED the book-maker and the ability to puppet minions/pets/NPCs to other users without having to use brackets.

I haven't had a need for it so far in XIV, but I have in other games. In XI, my main (Draenen) has pulled extra duty as her older sister (Malay), a 'random' mercenary (Path/Patheel), and on few occasions... a male Immortal. -- Mal was the original name of my XI character. When I left XI years ago, I left Mal's story on a "MIA?! Dead?! Gone?!" note. When I came back years later, I decided I wanted to continue as Mal's younger sister. For that, I forced a name change when I moved servers to be with an RP group -- I had a lot of gear, levels, and mission progression behind me, and I just didn't want to have to do it all over again. Anyways, Mal has since been found to be alive and I occasionally play her on Draen, just because I don't feel like grinding up another character and struggling to get another set of Mal's 'signature' gear. Appearance-wise, they look similar enough for people to know they're related, but Mal is athletically trim with motherly attributes while Draen is a bit taller and heavily muscled to the point where she's almost masculine. Also, Mal is a RDM/BLU/DRK, whereas Draen is magically inept and is perma-jobbed as THF. -- Path was/is a scenario/filler character. Draen was occupied elsewhere with a different plotline for a while, so I made up a merc to run with the main group until Draen ICly got back. Only thing the two shared was job/skillsets -- Path was a small, skinny thing with a long black ponytail and wore a Mirke. She ended up persisting through the original need, and has made a few appearances since. -- The male Immortal is for storytelling. Typically I ghost him, but sometimes there are scenarios where a physical presence is needed. A secondary character of mine, Merior, was made in the expectation to play double-duty as both The Mirror ('Mirror' was already taken) and The Farseer. In actuality these two are the same person, just at different points of their life. They are identical save for natural aging (Mirror is early 20's while Farseer is mid 40's) and Mirror wears black/brown and uses a flute while Farseer wears white, carries a dagger actually called 'Farseer', and uses a harp. Nyiia (Nyiiaia) and Niiya (Niiya-Jiiya) were originally Tarutaru twins that I DID create and attempt to level separately. They were actually a bit of a downtime gag. I picked a male and female model that, when wearing a hat, gave the illusion of being identical. I was very sneaky when it came to getting them both pearled ("Hey, um... so, I changed my mind on Nyiia's appearance and deleted her... can you repearl me?"), made sure they had the same gear despite being two different jobs (Nyiia was a ninja, Niiya was a samurai), and decorated their rooms the same (EXPENSIVE!). The RP group encountered Nyiia first and her hat was knocked off, so for the first couple weeks the group thought they were dealing with a single, particularly absent-minded Taru girl who hid blond pigtails under a hat. From there on, I would switch back and forth between the two at random. Someone finally noticed OOCly the different names after about three weeks, and after that I would just pick at random between the two and ghost the other, RPing them as identical twins. A week or so later, someone knocked off Niiya's hat and "... You're a BOY?!" shenanigans ensued. After that, it wasn't really worth keeping both around and the RP group began to move out of the twin's encountering range, so I deleted one at random. Future interactions with the twins, I'll decide at random which is 'really' sitting there. In World of Warcraft, I did it for a short time before Wrath of the Lich King was released. During the Second Plague and Scourge Invasion events, my main character doubled as an estranged family member who was a Death Knight. Amarilli was taller/normal sized (Dreizhen was SHORT), had shorter, curlier, and slightly darker hair, and was all stitched up like some weird living ragdoll. After WotLK landed and the Death Knight job became available, Amarilli was made as her own model.

To be honest, Gridania RP tends to be slim even on a good day. Carline Canopy RP is usually later at night (as already stated) US-time and with a smaller crowd that's typically sort of book-ish (wine and tea drinkers versus the beer and ale drinkers of Ul'dah). The Falls, the Theater, and those big open areas on either side of the Botanist's guild tend to be the other locations used. Black Shroud RP, though, that's fairly common. Or at least it is when I'm out and about; it's rare that I go a a day without blundering through a group or two while I'm doing my daily routine. So if you're not seeing any/much RP in the city itself, it's likely because they're all out doing something in the woods. Buscarron's Druthers and Fallgourd Float (even with the influx of Coil lurkers) and Little Solace often have people RPing there.

I want to say that I saw it alluded to in one quest out in Coerthas... there was a "my lord" and "my lady" exchange, and in the context I took it to be the same as "my lord husband" and "my lady wife"... another NPC talks about her 'beloved'. To be honest, though, I would assume that the region the NPC is in (or 'grew up in'...) would more often dictate to the husband/wife trends than race or clan.

As long as the nude beaches were instanced. Not that nudity bothers me (and even less-so when it comes to pixels), but I just don't want to be sitting in the middle of town and have someone come and waggle their uglies in my screen. Last thing I want to do is try to explain it to someone who's peering over my shoulder (mother, grandmother, little cousins, random other people)...

"One's tempted to believe that all of Murgodom is deliberately ugly, and then one comes across a room like this." "I suspect that the ugliness was to satisfy Ctuchik - and Taur Urgas." Garion replied. "Underneath, Murgos probably aren't much different from the rest of us." Brador laughed. "That sort of thinking is considered heresy in Mal Zeth." he said. "The people in Val Alorn feel much the same way." ... I'm worried I'm about to open a can of worms, but I can hope that people won't go on a political/historical rampage, right? ... Right? Anyways. I'd imagine it wouldn't be too different from how civilian Germans were during WWII -- some were all for it, others weren't pleased but they went with it because they were seeing some/hoping for some benefits and/or were afraid of opposing and getting in trouble, and others were obviously against it.

Cocoa and coca are not the same plant but they do grow in similar climates so its existence in Eorzea doesn't seem like a stretch. Oops. Fail on my part -- I'm running on a lean mixture right now and didn't catch that lack of a second 'o' when I was looking at where exactly cocaine comes from and how it's processed. Thanks for the catch, heh.

Seconded for the petticoat. My only other little nit-pick would be the collar -- I think it could benefit from some (or maybe a bit more) batting to give it some rigidity. Other than that, it came out awesome.