Zhavi

Zhi backed up. The woman advanced. "Take me to it." Zhi sure wasn't about to bloody die for the damn thing, but it came down now to a matter of chances and choices. Attention and focus on her staring down the barrel of a gun was a right quick way of getting killed, especially if she wasn't quite sober enough to climb. That was rich. Did she ever climb sober? When was the last time? A wheezing, bubbling laugh forced its way past her lips. It was ugly. Just the way she liked it. "Yeah," Zhi said. "I'll do that. Get it? Don't be gettin' all itchy on that trigger, y'blimmin' churl." "Move," the blimming churl said, sounding as if she'd used up the last tiny bit of patience ages ago. Zhi couldn't well blame her. The trip to the hiding place was long and circuitous. Zhi was having a hard time walking straight, and had to stop a couple times to spit and retch and lean against something solid. She had the spins. Everything hurt. She couldn't quite remember why she'd thought it was a good idea to have Jager beat the living crap out of her, and why she'd thought overindulging in smokes and booze and dust would make everything better. Well, okay, it had, but she'd skipped over the had and into some land of gods make it stop except the gods were cruel and capricious and probably making sport at her expense, before getting bored and leaving her to wallow in her own mess. She fuckin' hated them. Zhi wasn't entirely precisely sure she remembered where she put the book. Lowtown, yeah, but lowtown was a sprawling, winding maze of spires and docks and bridges, and she'd hidey holes all over the damn place. The lalafel was getting impatient. Zhi wasn't sure how long they'd been walking, but awhile was pretty much a certainty. She was heading towards one of the small stashes she kept right above the high tide line, but the problem with that was that she had to climb-- there was a sound. A familiar sound. Then another. Syrupy-slow, Zhi spun on her heel, towards the sound-sounds, and the new smells, and the queasy feeling. Man-child: a scream. A yell. A woman's voice. A gun. A gun. Fired once; bodies and impacts. It was dark now. She saw well in the dark, turned and saw wetness on the wood planks. It was frequently wet in lowtown, but not like this. Not like this. Another shot, and she surged forward, feet tangling, and fell out flat, useless, the sudden jolt making her stomach move and roll and she felt acrid, stinking bile in her mouth, spat. Useless. Everything tangled up in a jumble, too fast, too fast. Three sets of breaths, three sets of cries, her own the kind of drunkhigh whimpering sick useless that she hated most of all, and she knew that voice, knew that smell, got up on her knees and crawled, crawled. She saw them moving, tangling together in some sick parody that would have made her grin if she was less pathetic. The gun was wrested free, and clattered away, leaving them groping and clawing at each other on the ground. Two sets of breathing: one rattling, gurgling, wheezing, struggling voice had been cut out and was gone. Gone for good. "Brindle?" Just like she'd taught him. "Brindle?" His blood. Eternity, and she was on them. She didn't have the strength to fling the carcass away, to throw and stomp and spit on it like she wanted. But she shoved it away far enough, half kneeling on it so she could get to him. Her fingertips walked over him until he made a noise of protest, his breath all stutter-pain. She started to strip. "Found ye..." He was so stupid. Such a ruttin', bleedin', sorry excuse of a damn brat. "Shut up. Where's yer blimmin' sense, huh?" She wasn't strong enough to tear cloth. Not even the shit she wore. She fumbled out her knife, cursing as she nicked herself. Took her two tries to get a strip, and once she had it she realized she couldn't do anything with it; skinny lad that he was, it wasn't long enough to wrap around him. "There's men... lookin'... Zhio." What was wrong with him? He was a complete lackwit. He should've cut and run. She cut more strips, cut herself again, managed to tie them together. His blood was soaking into her pants. She was wet with it. "Yer more trouble than yer worth, y'scrag. Think I don't know that? Huh? Now lookit what ye've done, gettin' all bloodied up. Think I've time t'be fixin' yer mess?" The words were a raspy snarl. Zhi hardly recognized her own voice. It took forever to get the mess of knotted strips around him. Everything was slick and hard to get a good grip on. "I knew it though...that ye'd come this way. I waited, see? Cuz I knew ye'd..." He was heavy. "Shut up." One. Zhi'd always loved counting. Since the time she'd been old enough for her mam to teach her to count coins, she'd counted. Maybe in that way, gil had been her first love. Shining, pretty, important: her mam had obsessed over how much gil they had, and Zhi'd learned right along with her. Even when she wasn't supposed to, she'd take it out when her mam was sleeping, let the coins tumble through her fingers, each familiar and warmed by her hands. Five. When she'd gotten older, when she'd started living on the streets for the first time, there'd been more and more things to count. How many mates in the gang she'd joined. How many things they stole. How many minutes, bells, suns since the lad she'd gotten all tongue-tied about had spoken to her, touched her, told her he'd loved her: all sweaty-handed fumbling about in the dark. The dark. Her favorite time in all the world. Twenty-seven. Betrayals. How inevitable. How many heartbeats it took before it stopped hurting. Before she stopped caring. Before she learned better. How many breaths since she'd recognized life in her stomach. How many agonizing weeks since she knew he wasn't coming back? How many moons until she'd gone to a midwife, all snarling rage, and sorrow, and heartbreak. Thirty-nine. How many years. How many years? How many fucking years since that bloody mess between her legs, since she'd made that choice, since she'd fucked everything up, since the wire, and the gathering in that room, and the look on Bree's face, and that toneless voice telling her that she wouldn't have to ever worry about being a mam, that it was taken care of, that they were all the family she'd ever, ever need? Fifty-two. She retched. She'd gotten over it. Stopped counting those things. Learned better. Become harder. Wiser. Her hands slipped, despite her clawing fingers, and they folded together to the ground. Fifty-three was a bitch. She'd take a little break before fifty-three, them tucked away in some feckless alley, and pulled him so his head and shoulders were on her, cradled between her stomach and her bent knees. Her back was against the wall, like it was supposed to be. Light was touching the city, more's the pity. Brindle wasn't hers to keep. He wasn't hers. She knew that. She'd sleep. Just a bit. Sleep.

Yessir!

No private chats up, see the icon on the bottom left, nothing happens when I click it (I can hide and unhide it just fine, however). Using firefox, if that matters.

Whenever you use grand global statements, you inevitably do the forum community the disservice of blanketing over the helpful bits, without contributing to it. When I see a lot of unhelpful things I don't agree with, I never respond to it (edit - unless I feel that I can turn it into good advice or help calm it down or neutralize it). I just try harder to be helpful. Drawing attention to negativity tends to breed more negativity and encourages a new circle to start. Contrarily, there's lots of good advice to give from numerous perspectives - even if you've already given lots of good advice.

There's a helpful little thread dedicated to just that question. Welcome and enjoy!

Take a deep breath. Let it out. Take a step back. Large communities are inherently contradictory. On one hand, they're easy to find a multitude of people to rp with. On the other hand, large communities mean you're going to experience a much wider range of rejection. And that's what this post comes down to: how to handle criticism and rejection, and what you make of it. I am not denying that you've had a difficult time, or that it has been hurtful or demoralizing. That is your experience, and no one can invalidate your feelings. However, in writing communities, and gaming communities, one of the keys to dealing with it is how you plan for it, and how you manage it. There are many ways you can go about this, but the key here is to find a way that works for you. It sounds like your method thus far has been to jump around on different characters. I'd propose that your theory as to why you're having issues -- that your characters are flawed or boring -- might not be what's going on. I can propose some solutions or thoughts as to what is going on, but it's going to be useless to try to help you work through unless 1 - you want to try to figure it out. 2 - you're open to some objective thoughts and criticisms. You have to be ready to hear things you might not want to hear, and you have to be ready to possibly change things oocly (how you approach people, your attitude, your methods). If you want to do so in a more private setting, please send me a message. I will emphasize: you have to be open if you want help. If you just need to vent, that's an entirely different thing.

In the sense of character building, I wanted to add to this, to help give you (Kattoki and anyone else struggling with deteriorating characters) options to think about. For the former, when I'm putting in the history and personality of my characters, I like to think about how people in real life cope with the day to day. People have a tendency to have a push and pull. In terms of a soldier, you might look at it thus: Pull: stress of fighting, being in danger, rigid military background Push(back): need for stress relief, to let loose, unburden self of tense buildup. In order to balance what the character does with how he is, pull from history (culture, socialization, society). The real life modern western push involves release in the form of living large, partying, socialization, and sometimes family life. However, you can also extrapolate from the different Eorzean cultures: a far Eastern soldier could use ancient Chinese concepts and philosophies, and engage in, say, tea ceremony, philosophy, meditation, forms, and occasional group celebration with friends & family where stricter social mores are relaxed. For my character Tani, I utilized people I knew irl (a comptroller & head of finance, and a friend who is an adorably dorky math geek) to form (some of my) research in dealing with her profession as a bookeeper to help inform the push and pull. Pull: lots of time spent indoors, deadline stress, familial obligation, fear of rejection due to work related causes. Push(back): gregarious and aggressively social in off time, absolutely no familiarity with coworkers, promiscuous, dedicated to not taking social interactions seriously. It's not necessary to fill out EVERY SINGLE GOD DAMN SPECK of your character's personality. I have, however, found it helpful to give myself lodestones that I can fill out later with rp. Tani's profession and most of her pulls are based off of events that happened in her life mostly pre-rp. Her pushes are how she reacts to that, how she balances it and copes with her drives, goals, and the things that shaped who she is. They do not form all of who she is, but they do represent most of what is obvious in how I present her character. For the latter: Honest to god sometimes I dialogue-check myself by speaking it out loud. I then alter patterns based on how much I just made myself cringe.

Back when I modded on a rp forum, we'd see a lot of people come through with, inevitably, one thing in common: making their character about the traits. They'd all end up the same: the traits, alone, inevitably became boring to play, and they lost interest in the character. Why? Because the character was never about being a person, it was about the trait. You can tell this is happening because when you ask questions about the character specific to who they are as a person, it will circle back to the traits. "Why does he carry two katanas around?" "He inherited them because I wanted him to have two katanas because they're cool." And thus, the history was all about allowing the character to have a certain weaponry, and really became about a human-shaped object that had really, really cool swords, yo, and could use them really freakin' well. Which then proceeded to fall apart because it had no depth. I like to think of it this way: the personality, quirks, and interests of a person often go back to something (or somethings) that happened while they were growing up or, if they are older, something (or somethings) that happened to them during their adulthood. People change, grow (for better or worse), and typically do things due to a learned set of behaviors. To give you an example, I'll present you with one of my characters: Saruna. She is an ostensibly simple character: a fifty-something housewife who was widowed a decade earlier and whose passel of children left one by one to take up their family heritage in the far west in bigger cities. She lives a lonely life, weaving to get by, growing food in a small garden. Her parents left the west to be with each other, and she was raised in a small town, met her husband, and lived a quiet life. Her focus was always on family: giving of herself to those she cared about was, to her, the highest achievement one could have. Her traits, therefore, followed from her history. Nature: she was a quiet child, therefore was never rebellious. Nature: she was a caring person, therefore it came naturally to her to want to be a mother. Nurture: following in her parents' footsteps, family was extraordinarily important to her. History: as she lost her immediate family one by one, the need to care about others expanded to those in her community. History: Her tendency to put others before herself and her loneliness made her more likely to be trusting and forgiving of strangers. Therefore: her strength of will comes from her desire to nurture and protect. Therefore: she is easy to involve in the stories of others, either as a mark for a scoundrel, a motherly figure to someone young, or as someone who steps out of her comfort zone to aid others in need. Her traits supported her as a person, never overwhelming the character or becoming the sole reason I played her. She was rewarding to me to play because, due to her simple life, she had an untapped potential that she didn't know about to become strong and stand up for what she believed in, even if that belief was rooted in a desire to protect an adopted family (she eventually went on to become a leading figure in a rebellion, standing up for what she believed was right). She was rewarding for other players because of the depth of her interest and focus in their characters. Ultimately, her character was about growth and second chances. She was easy to attach goals to and was a believable person. And that, to me, is what makes for a successful, long-lived character: they are a believable person. No matter how ridiculous their premise, no matter how odd their backstory, no matter how humorously you write them: you can look at them and say - "I know that type of person." It's not just 'oh, he's easygoing' but 'he's easygoing because ____.' If you just slap things on willy-nilly, you're going to end up with a mish-mash collection of glued-on traits that will not be rewarding to play. Take Verad, for example (FORGIVE ME FOR USING YOUR CHARACTER AS AN EXAMPLE). The character is humorous, but believable. We've all met the silly guy who takes himself too seriously, as well as the shady one who sells shit that he presents as legit. And yet, despite these traits, the character is not all about them. They form the focus for certain rps, but he has a backstory and is never presented as just a gag. There is more to him than meets the eye, and even when he's presented as 2-D, you can always see glimpses of something more just around the edges; an illusion that may or may not be more than it appears. That was what made him rewarding to play with (I haven't played with him in awhile, so I can't speak to his current incarnation). He was the sum of his traits, both more and less than their presentation. They melded together seamlessly and weren't just stapled on because they were unique or cool. Bottom line: yes, this is a fictional character for rp, but, within the rp this is a person who exists in a world and has a life. If you don't know who that person is, why they are the way they are, and what they want out of life, the rest is just glitter and noise: unsubstantial, and it'll get annoying after awhile. Don't focus on unique. Focus on enjoyable.

I'm for either tying it to an account with a character advanced to 60 MSQ point whatever, or veteran reward tier whatever. But as someone who likes leveling characters, it's not 1-50 (and, I guess you could say, 51-60) that's problematic in any way. It's the gate at 50 that irritates me. As someone else said, it needs trimming. Most of that "story" is unnecessarily broken up into a bajillion little mini quests (glorified messenger) that feel punishing rather than illustrative about what's going on, and would be likely to encourage a new player eager to get to the endgame to just skip them anyways -- except now they're gonna be frustrated by it. ....honestly I'd love a 'story' skip pot even just at 50 (and, once I stop being lazy, prolly post 3.0 stuff at 60, too). That's when I start getting whiny. The rest can be tedious, but it's the interruption to the feeling of progressing in levels that is, imo, truly frustrating.

Yup. On another character, I joined a FC. Big thing, busy, people chatting every which way. Too busy. Too big for me. RP was popping, but I tend to be more comfortable with small groups. As soon as I realized this, I apologized and left, and sought out a smaller FC. One where the members were hurting for rp, because they were still trying to find their stride. JACKPOT, BABY. And now I have all the slice of life rp I could ever want, with some plot mixed in, and opportunities to grow the complexity organically and at my pace. Bottom line? If you're not able to fit with one group of people, try another. Yeah, sure, that one person or group might seem just perfect, but no one is irreplaceable. There are lots of sparkling writers out there -- don't be fooled if they don't have a big presence on the rpc, or reddit, or tumblr, or in game. Take a chance. You might just be rewarded.

That's a really good point, too. Not everyone likes the same kind of rp (which someone else mentioned above, in a different way). Just because one person isn't into x kind of rp doesn't mean you can't find someone else who is!

It's an ic way to make contacts. For a while, a long, long while, I avoided anything that remotely looked like plotting or planning. And I'd go to the Quicksand, and sit at the bar, and just emote my character going about her business, slice of life style. And every time I did, she'd meet someone new, and out of that she got business opportunities and contacts who -- if I pursued -- I could have easily rolled into a plot. I've said it before, but just because you meet someone in a lull where there's no dragons being killed doesn't mean it has to remain that way. If anything, how a character acts in their day-to-day rounds can influence their character development. Besides which, sometimes a little slice-of-life can help a character process the dragon slaying or whatever big things are happening to them. I've had the most enlightening chats with strangers, in the past. Sometimes I help them, sometimes they help me. There's no reason why it can't be the same in rp.

The world was tilted. Zhavi blinked often, trying to clear her head, or the world, or all of it; she knew she had to cut a certain sort of figure, and knew that she wouldn't ever really be able to make it. Especially not when she looked like she'd caught the bad end of an angry chocobo, and then been run over by a wagon, besides. The cocktail of pleasant things she'd taken was helping keep her upright, but it was doing a number on her balance. She shook her head. Spat. Dry mouth. Nothing a good drink wouldn't solve. She probably should stop, but it was too rutting hard to do anything but keep moving forward at the moment. She stood in an alley behind a shop. Stood, instead of perched, because she'd tried to climb and nearly thrown up from the effort, and there weren't nothing like vomit on your breath to sour a deal and twist things around until you were lying flat down with a blade 'twixt your shoulders. No, she'd no intention of dying. Not intentionally. She frowned at the circling thoughts, trying to decide whether or not she was just a titch more jacked up then she'd intended. Intentions? The word didn't seem to want to leave. She stared at the same puddle of something rank she'd been staring at for the last quarter-bell, trying to breathe right and stand right and think right, because everything was too damn hard. She was too damn tired, propped up on things she likely shouldn't have taken together. The world tilted a little more. She was leaning against the wall when the lalafel woman showed up. They watched each other for a spell, seconds oozing past. "Rudder?" Zhi asked, finally, because she was right nauseous and starting to lose her calm, besides. Stupid name. Right stupid name, for a stupid scrag. The woman nodded. "Half now, not a gil less, an' I'll give ye th' place." "You're not going to take me there yourself?" Zhi narrowed her eyes. "Want it 'r nay?" "I've want of proof." "An' I'll jes bring ye a page, is't?" The woman hesitated. Shifted. "No. Describe a page to me." Zhi's turn to hesitate. She swore. Hadn't occurred to her. Why? Was she that far off? She hadn't even cracked the damn thing. Thrice cursed, the whole job. "Deal's off," she snapped, backing off. "Take me to it," the woman said. "An' let ye stick me through me bleedin' guts once ye've yer piece? I'm thinkin' no." "The smoke-seller and his get don't take no for an answer," she said, with the distinctive click of a firearm being readied. Hammer. Was that what it was called? She'd never paid attention. Dead was dead; the mechanics of how didn't matter so much. Not to her. Gods above, where had the lalafel hidden the blasted thing? Nald'thal and his bleedin' scales, but she'd stared down too many barrels too often. For a moment, the memories mixed into the present, making her queasy. "Shit," Zhi said.

I think that becomes an issue primarily when you want to rp with a specific person or group that is up to their eyeballs in plans and plots. It's the same thing that happens irl when you're friends with someone who's friends with a lot of people: your window of opportunity with them is incredibly small. So you either roll in with them (oh you're doing x on y day? I was thinking of going to that too, what would you think about going together? -- but also give them an easy out, since you don't want to make them feel like you're pressuring them) or you make plans far in the future and then give them a reason to seek you out. But I mean, I do what I've always done, from Zhi to new characters: play with new players. Sometimes they'll bail, yes, but they're fresh and usually eager to rp. Go to places where people hang out like wallflowers and peel one of them off the wall. Go to mixer events where there is inevitably one or two people who showed alone or with a group and is having a hard time interacting with so many people. It's the same problem as ever. Make your opportunities. Anyone can sit around saying "no one wants to hang out with me," but that's just the thing -- if you're just sitting there like a rock without a plan or set of ideas that sparks someone else's creativity, why would they want to hang out with you? Be proactive. If you're shy, you're gonna have to dip your toe in somewhere -- approach a FC or LS leader and let them know your circumstances and see if they have suggestions of members who might fit you. But at the end of the day, it's still the same ol' problem, just with a different window dressing.

Besides creating established roles, maybe have one or two "official" things the officers do, but try custom tailoring roles to what the individual is good at. For example, if one person is good at creating rp and getting people to rp, bam, make them the RP director or whatever. If one person is good at scouting out people, recruitment. You don't even necessarily need to give them official titles -- just let them know what they're in charge of. When I was an officer in a raiding guild that had around 20-25ish people in it, that was how they did it. When they brought me into the officer core, I asked what they'd expect me to do...and they told me 'just do what you're already doing, but in a more official capacity.' Same thing with most of the other officers -- they pulled in people who were going the extra mile, told us 'this is what we need' and we filled the roles. None of us had official titles; we were just officers. Our members knew who to go to for what, because it was essentially what we were already doing. And when one of us had to take a break for a move, or a baby, or a vacation, or an assignment in the middle east, we'd have a quick chat about who was taking what extra stuff on, and that was that. Same thing when I was an officer in a rp guild on a mud way back when -- I never had established roles, but I coordinated a lot of rp oocly. That was what was expected from me: building rp plotlines, supporting ones our members/other officers started, answering any questions that arose and brainstorming when needed. Likewise when I was a mod on a rp forum. We all had general roles, but I was the one people went to when they wanted to push this or that rp plotline -- because it was what I'd already been doing for a couple years. When I got mod status, all it meant was that I had more resources to do what I'd already been doing, and when people had complaints/concerns I could address and settle them or take it to the site admin more directly. The above won't work for everybody, but there's no reason why you can't look outside of the box for what will best suit your needs. But what I've always seen work best is take a good hard look at the people you have -- the one who goes above and beyond? Try them out and see how they work. The ideal officer (imo) is the one who has already taken on some sort of responsibility for themselves without needing to be asked and without micromanaging others. I've joked before that people who are officer material are the ones who don't want to go within 100 feet of the position, because they know how much work it is, and they know that responsibility is a burden. Those are the people you want. (not that people who are eager to take on a leadership role because they want to do good aren't good for leadership roles -- it's just in my experience they're a lot rarer).

Glad to see you made it onto the RPC < whimsical

I love Kameron Hurley. Mostly because she's weird, mostly because she's rough around the edges, mostly because she doesn't hold your hand and you wander around her stories lost until you can put enough pieces together to mostly understand what the everliving fuck is going on. Also she tends to write irreverently, which I love. Also, bug punk. The first line of God's War: Just a bit I like:

DID SOMEONE SAY TEA?!?!1?!?!111?!?! No, but seriously, am excite to throw my other rp character at it. <3

When I do walkup rp, I don't just plop my character down without anything. They aren't a sim that just got yanked off the sidewalk and shoved into a living room to HUG AND LOVE EACH OTHER ALREADY, DAMMIT. No, there's a reason why they're there. Every day, you have to sleep, eat, drink, relieve yourself, and have some down time. It's the same for anyone, no matter what is going on. Without those elements, a person is generally gonna crash and burn (even if the downtime is just some joking around before getting back to work). So consider this: What has your character's day been like? What have they been trying to do lately? Are they happy/sad/frustrated/determined/embarrassed about something? How do they feel physically? Mentally? Emotionally? These are things that you can slip into walkup interactions that make that conversation thus feel more connected to whatever overall stories or plots you've been in. Not only that, but they then drive the casual rp forward. Being approached by a "Hi, how are you?" bit doesn't mean you have to struggle along with a conversation. > maybe due to reasons above, your character has a headache they can't get rid of, and asks for help getting rid of it. > maybe they are tired and spilled food or drink all over themselves, and are kind of helplessly overloaded and need some help cleaning up. > maybe they are deep in thought and are startled, thus spilling drink or food on the other person. > maybe they have to pee and can't find the bathroom. > maybe they can't get a song out of their head but can't remember the flippin' words. > maybe they're in the middle of something related to whatever else they've been doing, and drag the other person into it. > maybe they've been musing about whatever else they've been doing, and drag the other person into a debate over it. > maybe they just can't find a freakin' gods damned tailor worth a damn in that stinkin' city, and go on a rant about it because it's interfering with the rest of their life! (you can exchange that with just about any other thing you need irl -- washing clothes, a good soap, good utensils, good paper, good woodworker, whatever). Whatever other story you're into, whatever you're doing: this is still part of your character's life. There is no starting and stopping for them. It's all connected. So blend it together. Delve into the practical aspects of their life, show them when they're not at their best. Put it all together. Casual interaction or conversation doesn't have to be directly related to whatever stories or plots you're doing, but it can enrich and inform those things, as well as maybe become involved (I've used casual interactions in the past to drag other characters into my character's shit). Also, don't be afraid of using the setting to push things forward. I've used bands of rowdy children, lovers who are getting a little too touchy-feely in public, overloud and boisterous drunks, things breaking, things spilling, things smelling bad, gossip about this or that npc (think like workers in guilds or whatnot; the best part is, because it's gossip it doesn't need to have anything to do with reality) -- anything that is worth comment on or provokes action. Bottom line: This is part of your character's life. Just because they are not immediately slaying a dragon does not mean it has nothing to do with slaying that dragon. We all have quiet moments in between big, scary ones that can inform how those big, scary moments go -- if you let them.

A friend shared this with me recently....holy fuck I'm in love. Traditional Inuit throat singing combined with electronica/metal and other influences.

I don't think anyone will just state "You can't do that." We all know better than to say that. Problem is what actually happens on this site and has shown up at least a few times in this thread... folks will easily say "Oh sure, you can do that, but don't expect me (and sometimes 'anyone') to play with you if you do." Which is, in my opinion, actually more destructive to people's confidence. Sometimes I feel like common sense gets dropped in rp. No matter that it's a pretend world, you're still dealing with people. I read a lot of fantasy books. Do I expect everyone to want to talk about them with me? No. I watch a lot of Asian romcoms. Do I expect everyone to want to watch them with me? No. I like my food seasoned in certain ways. Do I expect everyone to enjoy eating that food that I so painstakingly made? No. I enjoy going to the local teahouse more than any other place. Do I expect everyone to want to go with me? No. It's perfectly fine to enjoy what you enjoy. But no matter what you do there will be people who will not want to do it with you. They deserve to have fun, just like you. And it's good to remind people of that before they have a hard time finding people to play with -- encouragement and forewarning can go a long way for longevity. With any social activity, you have to work to find your place. You're never (or, at least, very, very rarely) going to walk in somewhere and have oodles of people clamoring for your time and attention right off the bat. It takes time to build connections, especially if you have an off the wall idea you'd need to pitch right to people to avoid alienating them. And really, knowing upfront that this or that idea might face resistance is, to me, far more helpful than a 'yeah, go for it!' that implies everyone and anyone would be happy to work with it. Social situations can be alienating and cruel. RP can be especially so, considering that creative ideas tend to ... leave people vulnerable. I'd much rather arm with knowledge than give them no warning at all. And that goes for dragoons or any other thing that people have passionate contentions or strong feelings about.

It's not working for me, but I appreciate the effort! <3

MORE PICTURES. MOAR. I wanna see the pretty pretty pages. ;_;

I luve you zhavi. I read your forums rp. Someday i will rp with your wharf rat Tonight, you're my favorite. <3<3

<3 you have always been quality entertainment, man.