Sol (
solerika) wrote in
abyssdressing2009-02-26 12:35 am
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Important Discussion Time.
It has been brought to my attention that some of our players have been having issues in being dragged into things they don't wish to take part in. To keep this place fun for all, I would like to remind everyone that to involve other players in a fight or scene without their consent is godmoding, which is clearly stated to be against the community rules. If you are uncertain if something you plan to/are doing with a character is godmoding, refer to this definition. When in doubt: Ask the person you intend to thread with.
Please remember that not everyone is comfortable playing every kind of thread or with every type of character: You are not obligated to reply to a post or comment that makes you, as a player, uncomfortable. Everyone should feel free to post without the worry that they may end up negatively affecting their character.
Before replying to posts, it would be good to consider the following; the type or age of the character to which you are replying, the consequences of interacting with that particular character, and most importantly, the feelings of the player behind the character. We're all here to have fun, and while sometimes it's disappointing to not get the reaction you want from people, keep in mind that not everyone wants certain characters/situations forced upon them.
Perhaps to avoid such issues in the future, we can regularly have a discussion post like this or if preferred, an OOC community. On that note, you are welcome and encouraged to use this post to state your opinion on how things are going in
abyssdressing. Not everyone is going to agree with things said, so do keep it civil. If there is something you would prefer to discuss in private, I can always be reached through PMs.
Please remember that not everyone is comfortable playing every kind of thread or with every type of character: You are not obligated to reply to a post or comment that makes you, as a player, uncomfortable. Everyone should feel free to post without the worry that they may end up negatively affecting their character.
Before replying to posts, it would be good to consider the following; the type or age of the character to which you are replying, the consequences of interacting with that particular character, and most importantly, the feelings of the player behind the character. We're all here to have fun, and while sometimes it's disappointing to not get the reaction you want from people, keep in mind that not everyone wants certain characters/situations forced upon them.
Perhaps to avoid such issues in the future, we can regularly have a discussion post like this or if preferred, an OOC community. On that note, you are welcome and encouraged to use this post to state your opinion on how things are going in
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Also in the spirit of things, I would like to add my own two cents. Keep in mind that this has no impact on the mods or the community itself, it is just my personal thoughts on the subject(s).
Firstly, I would like to EPICALLY reiterate the second point made in this post. Sometimes people just aren't interested, and it is their prerogative to post or not. It's entirely possible that they don't like the idea, they don't like your character, or maybe they just don't feel like playing the day it was posted. It's not a personal attack if someone doesn't reply to your post/your comments, the post/comment itself likely just doesn't appeal to the player/the player's muses. And I agree wholeheartedly to the statement of "it sucks", but that's life. Refer to the saying "Life sucks and then you die", plzkthx.
Secondly, my biggest pet peeve is the term "AU". It means Alternate Universe, for those of you unaware (I promise I'm not patronizing anyone, I'm just a snarky bitch). This, however, is not an excuse to be out of character with someone. I know that one of the core values of this community is for everyone to have fun and it can also be a place to try your hand at a character you've never written, but if you don't think you can handle a canon version of the character, an AU should not be your excuse to write them incorrectly. If the Alternate Universe you have schemed up in your head is so starkly different from the canon that, say... Luke no longer behaves like Luke? You may want to rethink your AU. If it gets to the point that their core character traits are sacrificed to your ideas, then it is no longer the character but an Original Character, and I believe it was already brought up that OCs were not accepted here.
Finally, and I should be done yammering now, I am completely behind the concept of an Out of Character community. It could be fun, and I think it would be highly beneficial in the sense that it would give players a place to publicly express issues they may have. Beyond that, I would like to suggest, if players are comfortable, a contact list! Seeing as it was mentioned that if you're not sure if what you post will be godmoding you should ask the person you intend to thread with, we should all have a way to contact one another. I know that there is always Private Messages on Livejournal itself, but I for one am ridiculously scatterbrained and don't always know I've received a message (particularly not with LJ notifications being as failget as they are today). 8Db
/tl;dr from the Token Bitch
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For that matter, what happened to making weaknesses for your characters? Vampires are, I'm sorry to say, not all-powerful or super-special (and, quite honestly, are rather sickening by now in my opinion). The fact that they're all being played as such is extremely off-putting and is a direct contributor to why I, at least, haven't been around as much. They're played as godmods and they drag anyone and everyone into things, whether they want it or not.
And this leads me into a very important reiteration of "stop and think a moment before replying to someone's post." If the character who posted seems like one who maybe the player won't want certain sorts of characters involved with, ask them first. For instance, my
I'm middle-of-the-road on if we get an OOC community or not. It's up to how many people say they'd like to have it.
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I haven't strike Scion with Nebby after that one time and I haven't had plans of attacking with Nebby since.
And...of course they would act like so because that's what the character themselves believes. I gave Nebby weaknesses but he's also a character who doesn't really have anything to lose and will go all out. He's a character that absolutely believes he is all powerful. I mean unless you meant how they post, then nevermind lol
Sorry, these sort of issues makes me paranoid and go back to
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And by all means, Nebby!Luke and replica!Nebilim are awesome. We need some antagonistic crazies up in this joint. It makes the dressing room a little more lively, gives it a little plot and all. The only point that I think is trying to be conveyed here is to please be clear that your crazy is crazy and likely going to attack people. It's kind of like the NWS tags-- maybe this should be a post to spur a "fighting!" tag or something. As a general rule it's fairly obvious, but not everyone is aware of what they're getting themselves into so it may not be a bad idea. What is mostly trying to be dissuaded is posting to a pre-existing post in an antagonistic manner without prior consent of the player in question. 'Cause sometimes that's just not cool. :|
...♥ ilutaisa.
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But I digress. The thing is that, when a character is "being hunted" without the player's consent, unless they went in and read through all of the comments on everyone's posts (and, quite honestly, there's some posts that even I won't read, in spite of the fact that I try to read all of the, because they're just really not my cup of tea in some way or another), they wouldn't even know about it. So they might reply to a post and get into a fight right away that they didn't even know was coming, or they might make a post for their character and suddenly get jumped/attacked/your word of choice here... and have no idea why. It's... really unfair to people and it certainly doesn't encourage someone to actively play their characters.
But, the thing is, there have been (and are) characters here that you can't damage in any way, no matter how powerful, quick, well-trained, or just plain good your character is in a fight. Even if you manage to land a hit on them, and they instaheal! You move to strike them, and "nope, superfast so-and-so is superfast!" And unfortunately, even with doing absolutely nothing, Asch manages to get targeted by people, and the only reason I know about it - and thus continue to avoid using him - is because I've looked through as many posts as I can. It's simply not fair to expect every single person to do that, and some may not be comfortable with certain characters being targeted.
BUUUUUUUUUUUUT anyway, I go on-and-on (and this is because I'm sleepy and have a terrible headache, so I get rambly), while the latest bit with the Nebilim-types has certainly spawned me not using Asch again, it's really just the latest instance of planned attacks against a character without the player of that character being consulted.
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I'm sorry if people are making it difficult for you to post with Asch though. All I can really say is, if it turns into that you do have the option to just stop responding to the person.
And if this just continues to pop up with everyone, then people should consider NOT making such controversial characters :| Because no matter what, I feel like this issue will continue to pop up regardless.
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And while people have the option to stop responding, the attacker also has the capacity to contact the victim first or the option to not respond in the first place if they were unsure of how it would be received. Plus, at times, it gets pressed, and then people complain when threads a player was uncomfortable with get dropped. Which is all a situation that could be avoided by a simple, "Hey, is it alright if..." message.
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That is cuz Asch and Luke + Lorelei arez teh shiiiiit \o/ <3
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And here's me again harping on my AU thing. Why don't we try something new with the dressing room? There are so many AUs here to begin with, it's starting to look like a "Tales of the Abyss themed" dressing room more than a Tales of the Abyss dressing room. Why not have everyone play at least one canon rendition of a character? For starters, it's a long-ass game, you can pull the character from anywhere to keep every Luke or every Asch or every [insert character here] being pulled from the same point in the storyline, and I think it'd shock some new life into the game that we haven't seen in a long time. Again, I'm not a mod so my opinion is, as previously state, just an opinion, but it's a thought.
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Also, those who are pointing things out, did you attempt to contact the people whose behavior is in question? Did you PM or IM them saying "Hey, this looks kinda godmoddy, let's work on that" or "I'm sorry, but I'm uncomfortable with how this is going, so I'm not going to comment further on that thread"? You'd be amazed how people will listen and respond if you just communicate how you feel.
Has anyone attempted to communicate, or are we all bitching and assuming the poor players know and are ignoring it? If no one communicates with the players in question, then those players have no idea. They're having fun and they think everything's okay.
In fact of weaknesses, has anyone asked? I know my characters have tons of weaknesses I've revealed. If anyone has forgotten a character's weakness, I doubt it's that the player hasn't revealed it or it doesn't exist, but rather it's been forgotten but the person playing the character remembers. If you say something like "Oh hey, this is kind of godmoddy. It's like your character doesn't have any weaknesses!" then I bet the other person will probably respond with weaknesses and ways to exploit them for true, maximum fun. I can comment with one particular way to hurt, maim, torture, and kill one of my characters. And it's all using things I've revealed. The other people here can respond the same.
On the issue of OOC, well, are we really going to bitch about that? Everyone here has a character that makes canon cringe and hate. Everyone. Go ahead and tell me your character is totally in character. Go ahead and tell me that even your AU still has character traits. Or are we going to go do what
Or, how about we communicate with each other instead of dumping it on Sol and having her sort it out? I've always hated the idea that if something is bugging you about one person you don't go to them and tell them to knock it off, but you go over their heads to the higher ups. I've seen it at work, and I hate it. It feels childish, very "I'm gonna tattle on you and then you'll stop." When did we stop talking? When did the idea of "try to get it sorted out between the people in question, and if that doesn't work, then go to the higher ups" get thrown to the wayside? We can be mature people. We can form clear, polite, and mature ways of saying "stop that." We can take the strain off Sol and make this group an even tighter community, one that feels like we can communicate freely and welcome new people in to communicate with everyone, both for compliments and concerns. And then we can go back to having fun.
Because isn't having fun what we're here for?
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This post isn't intended to target any one instance, or even two or three, but to address everything and get feedback would be beneficial in the long run to all players in the community.
If people start to say others are doing it wrong and have to change how they're playing, I'll say it right now: that isn't the case unless a person is breaking the rules. But at the same time, people might have preferences in the kind of characters they thread with. They can't be faulted for that, just as people have certain kinds of characters they like to play.
Sorry for such a short and disjointed reply. My icon is a very good representation on the state of my mind just now.
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...Besides, if rape is so triggering for you, why is it in half of your character's overly tortured pasts?
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Learn to read. "They're not as bad now, but whenever it does get triggering, I communicate." From the previous post. Maybe it's unhealthy, but I've put a lid on that panic. Or do you not remember me in the Borders parking lot, freaking because I was afraid that Javier may be raping me because I was afraid of saying no? That's a situation I'm not comfortable with. And you know what, unless the character is actively dealing with that situation, it's just a summary. It's not actively being played out in front of my eyes.
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Welcome to the Real World, sweetheart. Situations you aren't comfortable with are gonna show up a lot. That's why posts like these are made in places where everyone is meant to have fun-- because if it's not brought up on a larger scale than personal messages, the issue could happen again and again and again.
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And again, learn to read. I never said "have people constantly freak about not being in their world." Let me repost again.
but she has no reason to believe what she hears is real. Which is something I've noticed, all the characters here take the whole "not in your world" thing too easily. Being shown duplicates can, yes, show things are different. But that does not equal in a different world, especially given how Abyss has replicas.
Why should every character that comes here instantly believe it's real? Why can't people believe it's an elaborate hoax, or that it's all a lie? Too many people just accept it's a different world too easily. They don't do research into if it's true. They don't hold onto a belief that everyone's replicas. It's like another RP I was in. Everyone instantly trusted this one character because he said he was safe, and since people knew the canon, the characters believed it. My character was suspicious, because while I had read the canon, my character hadn't. We let the characters believe because we know it's true. We don't have enough people that hold onto the belief that it's a lie, or even that it's dream.
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I'm sure we all can learn that it's okay to talk to one another. Now that everything is hopefully a bit more clearer, we can all get back to having fun and just enjoying ourselves.
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I hope we do talk now. Things suck when we don't.
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Just to throw it out there again; this post wasn't made because of you. You were included in mention, simply because Vampires are a difficult character-type to look at in a fair way to everyone and the majority of the vampire population is yours. My own personal dislike of them aside, they are a generally difficult "race" to handle in an otherwise somewhat normal setting.
Pardon my bluntness, but if you took a look at the people that play canons, they tend to be the ones that have problems with AUs. Probably because if you play a character that has strict guidelines to follow, you have a lot more to conform to, as far as characterization goes. Countless Alternate Universe plots in which [x] character has a Tortured Past or [x] character is genderbent tend to blur together after a while, and it's fairly easy to lose touch with the core character values. To err is human, but this post stands as a reminder to try a little harder.
And like I mentioned earlier, this post is the communication. Rather than talk to every single person as a way to remind each player that we have had issues with god-modding, a public post was made as a reminder. Nothing was dumped on anyone; Sol has her own opinion and typed up this post all on her own. The issue was brought up by myself and the other moderator, because when characters like a frightened seven year old are thoughtlessly forced into a thread with a character ignorant to everything but her own issues, something needs to be done. Additionally, the post with both Nebilims involved characters being targeted without the players' consent. It was a general consensus to make a public post so everyone could express their personal thoughts on the community. With the absence of an out of character community in which to do so, this was the best way. Additionally, with Sol and Josie the only moderators, a lot of people don't feel it is their place to piss in other people's cheerios. So the issue is presented to a moderator, which is what a moderator is there for, and the issue is brought up in a manner everyone can see and understand.
Having fun is what we're here for. That's why when an issue was community-wide, it was brought up with the whole community. That way no one was singled-out, no one felt attacked, and it served as a reminder to everyone that there are still rules to be followed.
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Weaknesses... hell, I've got a vampire you can knock out, put into an east facing room he hasn't been invited into with the curtains drawn, and watch him bleed to the point he can't get out and get away from what will turn him into ashes.
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The post serves to inform people that if you are going to do something that can seriously affect another character without their consent, also known as god-modding, they need to inform the player they are playing with first. The issue with communication is there, so this post is bringing it to the attention of everyone as a whole. That way no one feels attacked. It's the most civil way to handle things.
You also have a character that completely ignores everything but her own problems. You've also got a character that rapes. Wasn't that triggering for you? What's the point in acting out something that is so horrible to you? Keep in mind I didn't bring up the weaknesses bit. It's always been something that kind of makes me go "meh", but I tend to avoid things I don't enjoy.
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Yeah, I do. Which can make her an antagonist considering when she gets stronger she'll want to kill people because she's fucking batshit. I have a character that I mentioned him attacking Wingy to Kris and she gave me the go ahead. He got hurt, which made me happy. He was poisoned and Wingy hurt him, so he had to go get some real blood to actually heal. You'd be amazed how therapeutic watching a rapist get his can be. And considering the situation wasn't her afraid to say no but rather was her fighting back, it was rather nice.
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Oh Asch; you and your lines. I wanted to just bitch-slap that ho during that part of the game. Drag him out if I had to.
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