sforze

Please do! And if I'm not online (Work's a little crazy lately, so it can be unpredictable), feel free to shoot me a PM and I can make myself available when it's convenient for you or anyone else who wants to RP or chat :>

Any weird mix races I haven't covered (like Titor's situation!), feel free to do some creative adaptation to fit your circumstance. This is a completely free-for-all "event" that you're free to use as you see fit. :> Have fun!

This is a general, unorganized event that you can take and run with as you see fit :> I thought it might make for interesting RP and gives you an easy connection to the healers/doctors/chirurgeons/etc. of the world if need be! Please feel free to message me in-game under Fina Archer if you need a starter (Fina would be a carrier), a medical professional who is able to identify/treat it, or if you have any questions! [2.55 spoilers, maybe?] With Ishgard reluctantly opening its arms to Eorzean aid comes exposure to previously rarely-encountered germs and bacteria for which most Eorzean citizens have not built an immunity. Starting in Coerthas, the Northern Influenza spreads rapidly and lasts 2-5 days with symptoms coming on suddenly and strongly and tapering off over the rest of the duration of the sickness. Those who frequently come and go from the north are less likely to fall ill, but may still carry and spread it to others. GENERAL SYMPTOMS * Aetheric flow lessened, abilities weakened * Fever * Chills * Nausea * Fatigue * Sneezing * Congestion * Sinus pressure * Diarrhea RACIAL-SPECIFIC SYMPTOMS Miqo'te * Uncontrollable shedding, possible temporary bald spots in severe cases * Loss of balance/uncontrollable tail/ear twitching Roegadyn/Highlander * Rapid onset vertigo * Unusual weakness Lalafell * Watery eyes * Deep, hoarse voice Elezen * Extremely, painfully sensitive ears (amagad a stiff breeze just blew on me!) * Jelly knees Midlander * Sudden, but brief onset blindness of varying degrees (from mild blurriness to total obscurity) * Extreme, uncontrollable hunger *** Northern Influenza is NOT fatal. *** WHAT TO KNOW IF YOU'RE A MEDICAL CHARACTER * There may be multiple names for the sickness floating around ("Dragon fever", "ice fever", feel free to make up your own) * The symptoms (especially racial-specific) will be confusing at first and may make you mistake the illness for something it's not * There is no known 100% cure, though symptoms may be treated with existing medicine * You may have to confer with other medical pros to pinpoint details about the illness.

1. There are two ways to handle trolls and which one you choose depends on the context of the situation. * Ignore them completely I blacklist anyone who is spouting utter nonsense or doing something blatantly trolly (dancing on tables, sitting on my character, etc.) and focus on the chatbox until they get bored and fuck off. This is the most common situation and honestly the easiest solution. You're already using so much of your imagination to fill in the scene for RP that pretending a troll isn't there usually isn't too hard. Sometimes they seem to AFK while their character dances -- if I notice/suspect that's the case, I just move my party to another table or location, NBD. * Engage them in annoyingly good faith This is far less common and isn't always right for every circumstance. If you can't commit, don't bother. If the fuckwad in question is trying to troll-RP with you (usually noticeable by a lack of punctuation/caps/grammar, obvious absurdities, a name like 'Salty Balls' in guild , etc.), you simply RP right back as earnestly as possible, no matter what they say. Kill them with sincerity. Example exchange: TROLL MCTROLLSON: hey how are u this is a hot day in uldah my boobs are sweatin You: reflects on TROLL MCTROLLSON for a moment, considering the words carefully. The fair maiden did, in fact, look to be glistening in the heat. You: "Yes, you actually look a bit red in the face! Have you had adequate water? Are you dehydrated? It's actually quite dangerous to spend so much time out in the sun, you can grow sick and die. Do you need medical attention?" There is some risk to this, but if you feel you're skilled enough and would get some amusement out of it, I've dispatched some trolls this way with fair results. *** 2. I would honestly handle this IC as much as possible, whenever possible. People can be quiet/sneaky IRL and maybe get to second base in a covert area of a bar, sure, but that doesn't mean someone can't stumble upon them at any moment and have them sufficiently embarrassed/shamed/ejected/banned from entering (as the situation dictates). Couple that with sending a private message OOC letting them know your rules/preferences/that they can rent a room for it if they like, and that should suffice. Obviously you can't force people to comply, but then you can refer to point 1 on ignoring trolls -- which is what you can safely call fellow RPers who refuse to respect your wishes like that. *** 3. I don't think it's unreasonable to close access to the house when it's not open IC. You're not exactly allowed to wander most closed business places after hours. You can always list your hours on the sign out front and/or in your FC description if they'd like to reference. If they're still bitching about it, the best I can say is just stop caring what they think because they're not really people you want contact with anyway. It's not a difficult concept to understand that sometimes other people have a different schedule than you/you came late/it just didn't work out. Hopefully this is helpful!

DPS queues are forever ridiculous It's the nature of the beast when you and everyone else wants to play the pewpew classes by an overwhelming margin. Here's hoping Heavensward will make tank/heals cool again (well, kind of -- I love healing and I also love the almost instaqueue, so it's not exactly advantageous to me since I'm already benefiting from the imbalance <_<) to help smooth things out a little more.

Ahh, I wish I would have contacted you again after we RPed on your lala! You were super-great and I had an awesome time :] I'll keep an eye out for you and say hi if I catch you online. I'd love to RP with your grump, even if they're a giant asshole and we never talk IC again on those chars! 8)

I'm copypasting my weirdly detailed list here from a storyline I had a hand in: How did I come up with it? I went through a list of different alchemy reagents/recipes in the game and took a little of this, a little of that based on the descriptions of the ingredients, what alchemy recipes they commonly show up in, and what imaginary properties they'd share in common with the recipes they're in and carry over to a fantasia. I came up with the recipe under the attitude that Fantasias are rare, difficult/expensive/time-sensitive to create, easily perishable (so you can't stockpile them), and not always 100% effective -- thus, some of the more stringent guidelines. Hope this is helpful! Edit: Posted this at the same time as above

*slowly being swallowed by picture that was only supposed to be a scribble*

Got carried away. Didn't intend for it to be anything more than a sketch, but...well, I'm having fun.

It's not the prettiest or THE MOST ANATOMICALLY CORRECT EVER!!!!!11 but weirdly enough, the approach that's helped me the best is to think about the actual composition of the skull underneath my drawings...I'll literally draw one out sometimes in the relative position I want the face and then layer over it with the facial features just because it feels more...accurate and three-dimensional to me.

I could definitely see some Art Nouveau influence, even if it's indirect 8) The Josephine card in particular, there is a little flourish in there that seems like a heavy nod. Anyhow, moar art! It's Trenton as a dark knight. The platemail makes me want to die.

In the same vein as what Clement is saying, this Wikipedia article (linked to the particularly relevant section on Second Life/WoW) strikes especially relevant in the last paragraph -- You can make your case however you like for adults (or people you think might be an adult) mashing simulated teen genitals together, but ultimately I have a feeling that if this were brought to Square's attention in any major capacity, they wouldn't want much to do with it, either. Yes, teenagers lie -- I lied online when I was younger and I'm sure most others here did, too. However, as adults in the situation, it's our responsibility to assess our actions as adults, which also means we assume 100% of the risk in the matter, even if the risk seems very small. It's up to each player to decide what that means for them.

I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make by pointing out that imbalance is universal (that's right, I agree...), so if I missed something here, feel free to correct me or add what you meant to say. But...of course there are moral components to sex to consider. If a person is 18, but found to be severely mentally handicapped, their body is physically "ready" if they've gone through puberty, but I think you could agree that it's probably not right to have sex with them when you examine other factors outside of pure "biology". If a person is 10 and is experiencing early onset puberty, I don't think you would encourage an adult to have sex with them despite the "nature" of their physiological development. If we can agree on that much, then we basically can agree that putting so much emphasis on physical development is a very, very small part of the picture and that there are other important factors to consider. That having been said, and a bit more on the original subject -- people can, ultimately, play how they like and what they like. My opinion is just one of many. But I'm in agreeance that I'd probably avoid it myself as much as possible.

If sex is something that's purely physical with no mental, emotional, or societal contexts or consequences, sure, we can go with "nature" (though this also has some really distasteful implications, if you really dig into it). But in a world where sex doesn't exist in a vacuum and there are things like power imbalances due to age, social status, wealth, etc., and different levels of emotional/mental maturity besides, relying purely on whether or not someone's hit puberty just doesn't cut it. There were imbalances in the pre-1800s and there are imbalances today. In that way, I think the "what nature wants" argument is just a little bit beside the point.

Manderville bunny outfit ain't shit.

^_^' As someone who tends to judge morality based on intent, that problem is a constant sticking point for me. More oft than not I just avoid making a judgment, since I'm ill-fit to do so. I would prefer to not assume anything of the other player for the most part, but occasionally OOC banter can be telling. In such cases I think I've got a pretty good reason to suspect them of blending, but rarely do I act on it. I think it really is a kind of 'go with your gut' thing that varies from player to player. There are certain behaviors that I pick up on in other players that sometimes just gives me a really bad feeling, or their IC shittiness is pretty transparent in some way that sets off the alarm bells. It's difficult to explain to other people, but I usually just move with what my instinct tells me and stay away from people who set it off. There really isn't a 'one size fits all' approach for it, you just kinda go with what feels right to you and what makes your own experience better. :> (I wasn't referring to you explicitly earlier, btw, to be clear)

You're not referring to the tone, you're very poorly paraphrasing the points being made. Nobody has said "if you aren't a woman, don't RP as one", or, "If you don't have a PhD from a women's college in the studies of the alternative sexualities of tubers, don't RP as a demiromantic Jerusalem Artichoke". You're being extremely uncharitable to what's actually being said and it's not constructive to discussion. What are you saying then? tl;dr - That if you're trying to write a convincing character and not simply gun it straight for wish fulfillment, you have to think about more than just the sitcom version of the gender/race you're trying to portray.

You're not referring to the tone, you're very poorly paraphrasing the points being made. Nobody has said "if you aren't a woman, don't RP as one", or, "If you don't have a PhD from a women's college in the studies of the alternative sexualities of tubers, don't RP as a demiromantic Jerusalem Artichoke". You're being extremely uncharitable to what's actually being said and it's not constructive to discussion. Please try to actually engage with what we're saying and not just look for an attempt at wit.

I think the "people first" approach to writing women is good in theory, but rarely bears out very well in practice. It's somewhat the same approach as saying that you 'don't see color' -- gender and race matter very much and the society in which they're placed will yield different experiences, expected roles, and so forth. I think it's a very bad idea to cast those things aside and smooth it out as all people having equal experiences. If you want to write convincingly for a different gender (or someone who is agender, genderqueer, etc.), it's important to REALLY pay attention to the societal context you're given. The XIV world in particular is rife with female leaders and politicians, but still has troupes of half-naked cat-girls dancing in the streets for cheering men. There are formidable female warriors and wizards, but women stuck in pirate caves swearing on "what little virtue they have left". It's a weird world where some vestiges of conservative values are maintained where in other situations, there are more progressive ideas that get teased out. If wish fulfillment is what you're going for, I mean...feel free, play how you want, it's your free time and you can assume the risk, however slight, of insulting other people with an unintentionally offensive depiction (I've had guys playing women who tell me at length IC about how much they looOOOoove when men sexually harass them...) but if your aim is to write convincingly as a member of another gender, it's really important to consider it from a three-dimensional angle and consider staying far away from common stereotypes/tropes. Personally? When I get a whiff that someone's playing close to common (and often sexist) tropes, I lose a lot of respect and run very, very far away.

We live in an imperfect world where mistakes happen and sometimes messages get missed. There's no way to fix it so that 100% of the people are always there and responsive 100% of the time, without fail, but patience and PMing people seems to be a good first bet. I personally filter my tabs to put my FC/linkshells into a separate window so I can monitor multiple things at once and easily parse through the junk when chatscroll becomes a problem. I also try not to AFK in known public RP places or move myself if I plan to alt+tab and not monitor my screen. I also benefit from a dual monitor setup to where if I alt+tab to check something, I can keep an eye on things on the other screen, so that's pretty helpful. If I come back and see someone is sitting at the same table/looking at me/etc., I immediately apologize OOC out loud to announce I'm back and then try to find if anything's been said. Easy stuff, really.

I'm doin' it. I'm gonna start parking my ass at the Drowning Wench until it becomes hip. You saw it here first -- I'm making it A Thing.

I understand your hesitance, but I think it bears saying that you can be patient, persistent, and positive AND critical of how things are at the same time. Those concepts are not antithetical to one another. Part of being helpful and solving problems within groups of people, in my opinion, is being able to cast a scrutinizing eye inward as much as you do outward. I understand why some feel defensive over this post and it really wasn't my intent to upset anyone, but I really do think people in the community are intelligent and can handle stuff like this reasonably.

People find themselves in fortuitous situations for a host of reasons. Maybe they joined the community at a good time, maybe they met the right people/had the right resources, maybe they had friends they came with -- you really do have to take that into account before you say "I did X and everything worked out for me!" The point of entry each person has into the community is going to be a little bit different at different periods of time. There's a gulf of difference between asking to have a place at the table the minute you show up (AKA: hay i'm new please open your circle to me and accept me uncritically and be my bff) and asking to have a fair shot at earning that spot at all. The advice being given here IS solid, fundamental advice, ultimately. There's nothing wrong with offering suggestions, especially because I've asked for it and have benefited from a few ideas I hadn't thought of. I hope that others who have had similar issues have caught a couple words of wisdom that they didn't have before, as well. As an aside, I also want to pause and say thanks to everyone who has reached out to me in light of this thread. I've had some better experiences since I made the original post and I still plan on putting myself out there and trying.

[snip] I guess, you could say the moral of my post is; You cannot assume a position of victimization and saying that 'the others are at fault' for not including you, If they have roleplay wherein you have none. They're clearly doing something right, something you're missing. Now you have a thread full of truly helpful input that could, if you took it as such, help you find exactly what you are looking for, yet you deny this as help, infact, you slam it as criticism. Neither myself nor Presidio are new to RP. I've run successful communities before for other games, which is part of what another here said about 'culture shock' and adapting. If I'm having issues as someone who has done well for themselves before, I can't imagine what completely new RPers are feeling if they're struggling, too. That should be a red flag, not a cue to yell 'bootstrap it harder, everyone else is doing it right and you're wrong'. I guess that's the part of your post that really stands out to me in a very, very negative way. Boiling it down to "just take the advice and you'll get what you want" and "stop being a victim" isn't just ignorant of the conversation that's been happening, it's frankly incorrect based on the experience I've written about in this thread, as well as being kind of rude/dismissive, even if you don't intend it to be. I've taken much of the advice that's been offered and I still came in to make this post to hopefully start a conversation on why it's still happening and try to target any possibilities of doing better. By nature, that shows that your own advice is moot. I really hope you reconsider what you're saying.

I think part of the point that's being made is that the mountain, so to speak, in this case isn't an unreachable third-party or inanimate object...it's a community made up of everyone here. So it's not just that the person climbing could be doing something better (and they probably could~), but the 'mountain' is made up of actual people who can reflect on themselves and the ways they shape the community. If I'm not the only one who's felt this way (and by many indications, I'm not), isn't it possible and even kind of likely that the static 'mountain' in this case is the common thread between those having issues? Certainly not everyone has to or will care about this kind of thing and that's fine - but if you're someone who thinks of yourself and/or your community as 'inclusive', then it's worth considering the problem from multiple angles. That's why I'm pleading that in as much as I'm going to try to be more direct with people through /tell, tunnel-vision and all that can be addressed from the top down, as well.