Death of the Douche
Ok, so for those of you who are new to the That Guy saga, here are the links.
http://bad-rpers-suck.livejournal.com/tag/that%20guy%20saga
Also, it has indeed been confirmed that the person playing Lord Speshul is That Guy, even if Lord Speshul and Douchelord are listed as being played by different muns. As a note, before the Lord Speshul character made it on the scene, Douchelord made several posts with That Guy which contained gems of these nature:
"It was just a little bit ironic that such a warrior, such a rustic old time fighter was putting himself into such a position"
"He was an old timer and maybe bowing and kissing a lady’s hand was a little odd for some, but he felt it was fitting given this formal occasion."
May I remind you all, the man is THIRTY years old. Only. Thirty. I have a guy who is fifty five and even HE doesn't kiss lady's hands (although he might not object to his one being kissed but uh that's just him...you understand if you play there with him <3) and he's not a guy with a very 'modern' mindset in the slightest. Seriously, how old does That Guy think that thirty IS? Anyway, it looked like he might be trying to schmooze up allies at first, presumably against Queen...and I was glad for it. I thought that would be cool, that it could for once be PLOT and have people involved instead of just me banging my head against a brick wall trying to get him to understand that ICA=ICC and that his guy can't be invincible and having to organize all Queen's people up just to have him vanish again before the smackdown comes...
But instead, his posts start disappearing. He's deleting the replies he made just a day or two ago! What is going on? That's when the Lord Speshul character showed up, which, in addition to his ridiculous history/powers and style of typing both ICly and OOCly, made pretty much everyone quite sure he was That Guy under a new handle even if the characters were listed as being different muns (and this has, as mentioned, now been confirmed via the admin that is his friend). And then Lord Speshul's...speshulness manifested itself in threads, an example of which dear Anomaly posted about, as linked.
I log in to Queen's account one fine morning to see this in my inbox from our remaining Admin, and That Guy's pal:
So I was talking to That Guy and I think he has decided to kill of his lion, but he wants Ulfric to do it. He's in a thread with Leopard where the cops should be arriving so I think once he gets arrested, I'll have Ulfric talk to him, they'll get in a fight, and Ulfric will kill him. Or something along those lines. Would that be alright?
Ulfric (name changed of course) is the leader of the werewolves, and played by Admin. He doesn't really do much, since Admin very seldom posts with her characters at all, and consequently the wolves are a rather inactive lot compared with some of the other groups...but I think that before I came here, one of Douchelord's earlier posts involved him peeving off Ulfric in some way. It certainly fits with his usual pattern of 'approach every high-powered supernatural around and try to prove how much bigger my dick is to them' that he followed with Queen and, recently, with Leopard, who runs (duh) the wereleopards.
I admit, my immediate reaction is to feel a bit like I'm being robbed of an entitlement. Because while Douchelord maybe have mouthed off to Ulfric way back in the day once, I'm the one who was consistently putting up with his shit both ICly and OOCly over and over again at length because I was misfortune enough to play the head lion. I just feel a little like Queen is owed being the one to get rid of him. But if I decide that, then I would be a bad RPer, firstly because I'm deciding that I'm entitled to changing the fate of someone else's character in a significant way, and secondly because in real life, the person who may most 'deserve' to take someone else out isn't always the one who does, so I can't really claim that Queen *has* to in RP. That's just being a brat like he is.
Once those kneejerk emotions are out of the way, I think of two things--first that it seems to make implications I don't like if Douchelord has been deemed by his player as too strong for any other lion, including Queen, to take down but then is taken down by Ulfric. And secondly, more importantly, all the networking that Queen did with others about dealing with him is now going to go down the drain. Even though I thought (and still think) that his claims of Douchelord needing a literal army to defeat him were ridiculous, I had decided to take him at his word this time and have Queen go about organizing one. Everyone that she had won over to the werelion side for this was pretty excited about it OOCly. I wouldn't mind losing the plot if it were just going to be Queen going after him, but other folks were so eager to let their characters loose and show their stuff, which many hadn't yet had much opportunity for. So I told Admin:
If you two want to have your character kill his, that's fine, I've got no reason to object, their your characters not mine. I admit that if I got to pick I'd rather Queen kill him because of all the trouble he's given the lions, but in real life karma doesn't always work out so neatly with who gets to deliver it also just happening to be the person who most deserves to deliver it, so I'm not going to argue for her right on that when it's equally realistic for someone else to do it just by chance.
However, what DOES bother me about the scenario is that way back when That Guy and I were discussing the original terms for Douchelord's punishment and ultimately banishment, he downright told me that Douchelord (so he believes) could beat any of the lions (which includes Queen) in a one-on-one fight, that there was no way any of them could take him. If you want to see for yourself, I still have the PMs between us saved. Now, firstly, I disagree with that idea, and secondly it wouldn't/didn't matter since the lions took him on as a group anyway and NOT one-on-one. But let's just go assuming that it's at least a possible fact (since it seems to be in his mind, anyway)--it seems a little insulting to me that a wolf can apparently beat him one-on-one but no lion can? Like, it basically implies that Ulfric is stronger than any of the alpha lions, including Queen herself, and to me that doesn't seem a fair implication to make. I'm not saying Queen is stronger than Ulfric either, just that I don't think it makes sense to claim that no lion can take him on single-handedly and win, but then a single wolf can do so and kill him.
There's also an issue that neither of you knew about, so I can't fault you for making plans, but Queen has been doing a lot of networking since Douchelord's return. Given that he also told me in those PMs that I would literally need "an army" to defeat Douchelord (yes, I can show you that too) that was actually the plan for dealing with him this time around. It wouldn't be just the lions facing him solo this time---the snakes and swans were going to be in on it, as well as a Master vampire and a rogue werewolf. Everyone involved was pretty excited about it going down, glad to give their characters someone to go up against since we really haven't had any 'villain' around that multiple groups could band together for and plot about, etc.
We were all keeping quiet about it OOCly for the most part since it was all very hush-hush ICly and we didn't want to risk any metagaming, IC/OOC crossover, etc. going down, and we also didn't want to put down anything too solid to him until the swans were in, the snakes got their new leader, etc. But, now that you know, I would urge you to consider this (and share it with him of course) as an alternative way of killing off Douchelord. Firstly because it would be a semi-boardwide plot, which we haven't had to date I don't think, unless you count the Masquerade, but this is one that the players made themselves, not that was provided for them. Secondly, I think those involved will be rather disappointed if we don't get to go through with this, many seemed excited. And thirdly, for the sake of Douchelord and That Guy, I think that going down in a blaze of glory against a shapeshifter army would be a much more badass and dignified end to just getting killed in a random brawl. I can't speak for him, but I know I'd prefer this for my own character to that.
So, let him know this extra option, and then get back to me on what you and he would prefer :V
Everything I put in that PM was honest. I really didn't have a problem with Ulfric killing Douchelord in and of the event itself, but I was concerned about if his claims about Douchelord's power levels were considered valid by Admin and thus the resultant implications of Ulfric being the one to kill him if it was made board canon that Queen wasn't able to. I put in the offer to show her saved PMs not to get him in trouble, but because, well, it's so outrageous that I expected she wouldn't believe me if I didn't, because I can still barely believe it myself. And I really was completely sincere in my belief that the plot would appeal to Douchelord too. He had seemed to be trying to be an OMG BADASS VILLAIN from the minute he stepped on the scene, so I really did think that this was a death for his character that he could really like, and could make the most out of him in his last thread. I thought that EVERYONE involved could actually be happy with this idea.
I thought wrong. This is what I got from Admin next:
So...I talk to him and while he was initially fully against the idea of giving Queen the satisfaction of bringing him down, I think with the right amount of plotting, he would be up for it. I talked to him for like an hour on the phone with him today trying to engrave the phrase 'meet halfway' into his brain. A lot of times he likes plots to be about him, him, him and I told him to try and find a way for everyone to interact and have fun. So...you might want to try sending him a PM asking him if he'd be willing to plot something out with you to where you could both be happy with Doucelord's ending. He is stubborn though, so I'm not too sure how much my talking to him helped, but one can only hope it did a little bit of good. <3
I'm baffled. Heck, I'm even kind of mad. Why is someone with that attitude here? Why is she allowing him to stay? Why did she bring him here at all? And what's his problem anyway? What I suggested WAS indeed going to be all about him, that's why I thought that he would LIKE it so that he could have the fun of technically being the star, even if it was a falling one, and everyone else could get the fun of getting to finally have someone to fight. I mean, why have all these awesome combat powers if you never get to use them? I really thought this would work out. But apparently the idea that Queen might 'win' in the end (EVEN THOUGH I SAID NOTHING ABOUT THAT HAPPENING IN THIS PLAN) makes him dig his heels in so hard he apparently can't get past anything else, even if it would give his character the grandest exit that this board has ever seen for someone.
I think for a bit. I really do want to save this plot for everyone else who wanted to be in on it. But given my past dealings with That Guy, I don't expect to make any progress with him if he's decided he's against this. Not to mention that I've found out that he has bad IC/OOC boundaries from Anomaly--she PM'd some of her concerns to Admin about it, and apparently he took that as a personal attack (I've also noticed that he tends to say "I/me" a lot when referring to his character). And right now I'm going through some really stressful IRL stuff with trying to get into grad school, which isn't looking so good, and I don't feel like I have the mental energy to go through another ordeal with him. In the end, this is what I send back to her:
I hate to say this, but I don't at all fancy trying to work things out with him. The last time, way back when we talked about Douchelord's banishment, it was like pulling teeth to get him to budge on anything. If it took you, an admin AND a personal friend of his, an hour on the phone with him to get him to even CONSIDER compromising with someone, then I'm not even going to try. I really like the idea of the plot, but I don't feel like it should be on me to CONVINCE him of it. If he doesn't want to, then he doesn't want to, and I'll just let everyone know that it's off.
I would say though, other players have noticed his tendency to only want his plots to be about, as you put it, "him him him" and it's made many of us reluctant to RP with him on the whole. The point of roleplay is that's a two-way street, and there isn't a main character with a bunch of extras---everyone gets an equal chance for the spotlight. Some plots may focus on a particular character, but other people still need a reason to want to join in, and most folks don't like being used as props. I'm not saying this to insult him, just that this is something it would probably help him to work on, because otherwise, he's not going to have as much fun here as he could. This has been a really enjoyable board for me, so I know how fabulous our members are and what they have to offer, but if this is how he behaves (can't meet people halfway unless an admin talks to him for an hour, derails a thread into being all about his guy getting shot after having attempted zero interaction with other characters in the thread, etc.) then he's not going to have a good experience here because it drives other players away.
Whatever issues I may have with his character ICly, or even OOCly with his behavior as a player, I still think it would be a shame if he missed out on having awesome RP with the awesome people here. It's a shame that anyone at this board might. But in order for people to want to RP with him, he's going to have to rethink his overall style both ICly and OOCly. That way, he can GIVE awesome RP back, and that's how you get it in return. I'm probably overstepping my bounds here since I'm neither staff nor his personal friend like you are, so this is where I'll stop.
Hope you have a happy holidays and that being the go-between for this hasn't been too stressful for you, and good luck with your Ulfric plot with him! ;D
And once again, I'm serious. He really isn't going to have a good time here. People really are tired of him. They mostly all either want to avoid him or troll him or both. And I don't blame them, he's incredibly annoying and frustrating and just bad in and out of character. And at the end of the day, I'd like for everyone to have a good time. Even the people getting on my nerves. That's why it's called pretendy FUN times. But he's not going to have fun acting like this, and he ruins the fun of other people. And he claims to have been RPing for nine years, I believe...he really needs to get this wake-up call through his head. But it's not my job to give it to him. He can clean up his act, or he can just continue ticking people off and losing RP opportunities for it. Myself, I'm just glad that Douchelord will be out of the lion's hair.
Oh, and just another note on something rather suspicious--way back, around the time of the beginning of the That Guy drama with Douchelord the werelion, That Guy also applied (and got) a character to be the leader of the weresnakes. At first I thought maybe he was an "animal servant", that is, a shapeshifter who has been bound to a vampire and thus ages nearly as slowly as the vampire (who doesn't age at all), but, nope, he wasn't. I was a bit confused, since I couldn't remember anything in the canon about shapeshifters aging slowly. So I PM'd the admins to ask about it, since by then I already had a shapeshifter or two and was now worried I might have done something wrong by having them just, y'know, look their age. I was informed that, no, shapeshifters will age normally up until the age of six, then afterwards age only one year physically for every chronological five years. Given that there was nowhere on the site where this was stated, I had already been playing, for example, Queen for awhile. Queen is thirty and looks thirty, and her history would be a whole lot different if she was in fact much older than she appeared by several decades, especially given that she is a woman AND African American, and that would change her personality tremendously I bet, so...I asked them if this age system thing could be optional, because reworking her now according to that would just make her someone else totally?
I never got an answer, but I decided to go with that anyway. Queen is thirty and looks thirty, one of my wererats also looks her age, the other looks five years younger than she is (since she was turned at six years ago and has only physically aged one year since), and my wereswan is 190 but looks 44.
Recently, some newbies are asking about the shapeshifter aging thing, and the admins give them a difference answer---it seems that they now say that the shapeshifters age one year for every SEVEN years, and there's no mention of born-shapeshifters aging normally up until six. Much confusion ensues as different answers are given at different times, especially since many people who had their shapeshifters just look the age they are are now very confused on if they have to change this now that they've found out about it, and finally the admins do what they obviously should have done all along and add this to the FAQ:
Though I don't believe it is ever clearly defined in the novels and people tend to age differently, we've set a range for you guys to choose from. It can either from 1 lycan year to 1 human year to 7 lycan year to 1 human year. The choice is up to you but please make sure your history/personality/time period matches up with whatever you choose.
If a lycan is taken as a animal servant by a master vampire, the lycanthropes aging process slows to a glacial pace - often very close to the aging process of their master.
Well, this is good. It means that all my characters work out as fine with their aging processes, and so do all those of the players who were worrying. But this reminds me again of how I seriously do NOT recall anything in canon about this. I check the Wiki for the series...nothing there on the facts about wereanimals, despite there being pretty much everything else on them. Still unsure, I ask a couple of other players who are basically THE people on the board to consult on canon members, and according them...nope, in the books, werebeasts do age a little bit slower because of their healing/regeneration capabilities, but NOTHING as drastic as what the admins are allowing to be possible at our board.
I wonder why they came up with this system then, if it's not canon. And then I remember...there was NOTHING on the board about it and NO other werebeast character (even the wereanimals played by the admins themselves) followed it UNTIL the weresnake apped by That Guy got in. Coincidence? I think not. I think he decided he wanted a super-old weresnake and whined till the admins let him, and the reason they took so long to add it into board canon was because they knew it was bullcrap and didn't want other players making use of it. Our admins have a history of openly caving to nonsensical demands like that from players who whine enough, so I would not be shocked if this were the case. In fact, I'll be more surprised if it wasn't.
Lucky for us all, That Guy made his long disappearance soon afterward, so Snake Dude was archived as his brief stint of...doing absolutely nothing as a leader. In fact he was so barely active I don't even think his presence having happened at all is considered board canon, and I really hope that That Guy doesn't remember his existence and try to bring him back, since the Snake King slot is currently filled by someone far more awesome and active, and because Lord Speshul is getting into enough headbanging bullshittery as it is. Oh yes, there's more, people, just because That Guy is finally getting rid of the lion that no one wants to RP with doesn't mean he's done, he is now working on making everybody hate his witch dude for numerous reasons, including some seriously canon-breaking Gary Stu stuff and some possibly creepy implications about his doctor/patient interactions as a psychiatrist (or psychologist, he can't keep straight which the dude is and probably thinks they're the same thing) and just generally making it All About Him in the most ILLOGICAL of ways possible.
Seriously, people are getting pissed. I think one is actually planning a vent post of their own soon here, as this has become our only space in which to openly express our woes now that it's been made clear any pleas to the remaining admin or the problem player himself fall upon deaf ears. Lucky we have so much fun there with each other, or we'd blow this popsicle stand!
http://bad-rpers-suck.livejournal.com/tag/that%20guy%20saga
Also, it has indeed been confirmed that the person playing Lord Speshul is That Guy, even if Lord Speshul and Douchelord are listed as being played by different muns. As a note, before the Lord Speshul character made it on the scene, Douchelord made several posts with That Guy which contained gems of these nature:
"It was just a little bit ironic that such a warrior, such a rustic old time fighter was putting himself into such a position"
"He was an old timer and maybe bowing and kissing a lady’s hand was a little odd for some, but he felt it was fitting given this formal occasion."
May I remind you all, the man is THIRTY years old. Only. Thirty. I have a guy who is fifty five and even HE doesn't kiss lady's hands (although he might not object to his one being kissed but uh that's just him...you understand if you play there with him <3) and he's not a guy with a very 'modern' mindset in the slightest. Seriously, how old does That Guy think that thirty IS? Anyway, it looked like he might be trying to schmooze up allies at first, presumably against Queen...and I was glad for it. I thought that would be cool, that it could for once be PLOT and have people involved instead of just me banging my head against a brick wall trying to get him to understand that ICA=ICC and that his guy can't be invincible and having to organize all Queen's people up just to have him vanish again before the smackdown comes...
But instead, his posts start disappearing. He's deleting the replies he made just a day or two ago! What is going on? That's when the Lord Speshul character showed up, which, in addition to his ridiculous history/powers and style of typing both ICly and OOCly, made pretty much everyone quite sure he was That Guy under a new handle even if the characters were listed as being different muns (and this has, as mentioned, now been confirmed via the admin that is his friend). And then Lord Speshul's...speshulness manifested itself in threads, an example of which dear Anomaly posted about, as linked.
I log in to Queen's account one fine morning to see this in my inbox from our remaining Admin, and That Guy's pal:
So I was talking to That Guy and I think he has decided to kill of his lion, but he wants Ulfric to do it. He's in a thread with Leopard where the cops should be arriving so I think once he gets arrested, I'll have Ulfric talk to him, they'll get in a fight, and Ulfric will kill him. Or something along those lines. Would that be alright?
Ulfric (name changed of course) is the leader of the werewolves, and played by Admin. He doesn't really do much, since Admin very seldom posts with her characters at all, and consequently the wolves are a rather inactive lot compared with some of the other groups...but I think that before I came here, one of Douchelord's earlier posts involved him peeving off Ulfric in some way. It certainly fits with his usual pattern of 'approach every high-powered supernatural around and try to prove how much bigger my dick is to them' that he followed with Queen and, recently, with Leopard, who runs (duh) the wereleopards.
I admit, my immediate reaction is to feel a bit like I'm being robbed of an entitlement. Because while Douchelord maybe have mouthed off to Ulfric way back in the day once, I'm the one who was consistently putting up with his shit both ICly and OOCly over and over again at length because I was misfortune enough to play the head lion. I just feel a little like Queen is owed being the one to get rid of him. But if I decide that, then I would be a bad RPer, firstly because I'm deciding that I'm entitled to changing the fate of someone else's character in a significant way, and secondly because in real life, the person who may most 'deserve' to take someone else out isn't always the one who does, so I can't really claim that Queen *has* to in RP. That's just being a brat like he is.
Once those kneejerk emotions are out of the way, I think of two things--first that it seems to make implications I don't like if Douchelord has been deemed by his player as too strong for any other lion, including Queen, to take down but then is taken down by Ulfric. And secondly, more importantly, all the networking that Queen did with others about dealing with him is now going to go down the drain. Even though I thought (and still think) that his claims of Douchelord needing a literal army to defeat him were ridiculous, I had decided to take him at his word this time and have Queen go about organizing one. Everyone that she had won over to the werelion side for this was pretty excited about it OOCly. I wouldn't mind losing the plot if it were just going to be Queen going after him, but other folks were so eager to let their characters loose and show their stuff, which many hadn't yet had much opportunity for. So I told Admin:
If you two want to have your character kill his, that's fine, I've got no reason to object, their your characters not mine. I admit that if I got to pick I'd rather Queen kill him because of all the trouble he's given the lions, but in real life karma doesn't always work out so neatly with who gets to deliver it also just happening to be the person who most deserves to deliver it, so I'm not going to argue for her right on that when it's equally realistic for someone else to do it just by chance.
However, what DOES bother me about the scenario is that way back when That Guy and I were discussing the original terms for Douchelord's punishment and ultimately banishment, he downright told me that Douchelord (so he believes) could beat any of the lions (which includes Queen) in a one-on-one fight, that there was no way any of them could take him. If you want to see for yourself, I still have the PMs between us saved. Now, firstly, I disagree with that idea, and secondly it wouldn't/didn't matter since the lions took him on as a group anyway and NOT one-on-one. But let's just go assuming that it's at least a possible fact (since it seems to be in his mind, anyway)--it seems a little insulting to me that a wolf can apparently beat him one-on-one but no lion can? Like, it basically implies that Ulfric is stronger than any of the alpha lions, including Queen herself, and to me that doesn't seem a fair implication to make. I'm not saying Queen is stronger than Ulfric either, just that I don't think it makes sense to claim that no lion can take him on single-handedly and win, but then a single wolf can do so and kill him.
There's also an issue that neither of you knew about, so I can't fault you for making plans, but Queen has been doing a lot of networking since Douchelord's return. Given that he also told me in those PMs that I would literally need "an army" to defeat Douchelord (yes, I can show you that too) that was actually the plan for dealing with him this time around. It wouldn't be just the lions facing him solo this time---the snakes and swans were going to be in on it, as well as a Master vampire and a rogue werewolf. Everyone involved was pretty excited about it going down, glad to give their characters someone to go up against since we really haven't had any 'villain' around that multiple groups could band together for and plot about, etc.
We were all keeping quiet about it OOCly for the most part since it was all very hush-hush ICly and we didn't want to risk any metagaming, IC/OOC crossover, etc. going down, and we also didn't want to put down anything too solid to him until the swans were in, the snakes got their new leader, etc. But, now that you know, I would urge you to consider this (and share it with him of course) as an alternative way of killing off Douchelord. Firstly because it would be a semi-boardwide plot, which we haven't had to date I don't think, unless you count the Masquerade, but this is one that the players made themselves, not that was provided for them. Secondly, I think those involved will be rather disappointed if we don't get to go through with this, many seemed excited. And thirdly, for the sake of Douchelord and That Guy, I think that going down in a blaze of glory against a shapeshifter army would be a much more badass and dignified end to just getting killed in a random brawl. I can't speak for him, but I know I'd prefer this for my own character to that.
So, let him know this extra option, and then get back to me on what you and he would prefer :V
Everything I put in that PM was honest. I really didn't have a problem with Ulfric killing Douchelord in and of the event itself, but I was concerned about if his claims about Douchelord's power levels were considered valid by Admin and thus the resultant implications of Ulfric being the one to kill him if it was made board canon that Queen wasn't able to. I put in the offer to show her saved PMs not to get him in trouble, but because, well, it's so outrageous that I expected she wouldn't believe me if I didn't, because I can still barely believe it myself. And I really was completely sincere in my belief that the plot would appeal to Douchelord too. He had seemed to be trying to be an OMG BADASS VILLAIN from the minute he stepped on the scene, so I really did think that this was a death for his character that he could really like, and could make the most out of him in his last thread. I thought that EVERYONE involved could actually be happy with this idea.
I thought wrong. This is what I got from Admin next:
So...I talk to him and while he was initially fully against the idea of giving Queen the satisfaction of bringing him down, I think with the right amount of plotting, he would be up for it. I talked to him for like an hour on the phone with him today trying to engrave the phrase 'meet halfway' into his brain. A lot of times he likes plots to be about him, him, him and I told him to try and find a way for everyone to interact and have fun. So...you might want to try sending him a PM asking him if he'd be willing to plot something out with you to where you could both be happy with Doucelord's ending. He is stubborn though, so I'm not too sure how much my talking to him helped, but one can only hope it did a little bit of good. <3
I'm baffled. Heck, I'm even kind of mad. Why is someone with that attitude here? Why is she allowing him to stay? Why did she bring him here at all? And what's his problem anyway? What I suggested WAS indeed going to be all about him, that's why I thought that he would LIKE it so that he could have the fun of technically being the star, even if it was a falling one, and everyone else could get the fun of getting to finally have someone to fight. I mean, why have all these awesome combat powers if you never get to use them? I really thought this would work out. But apparently the idea that Queen might 'win' in the end (EVEN THOUGH I SAID NOTHING ABOUT THAT HAPPENING IN THIS PLAN) makes him dig his heels in so hard he apparently can't get past anything else, even if it would give his character the grandest exit that this board has ever seen for someone.
I think for a bit. I really do want to save this plot for everyone else who wanted to be in on it. But given my past dealings with That Guy, I don't expect to make any progress with him if he's decided he's against this. Not to mention that I've found out that he has bad IC/OOC boundaries from Anomaly--she PM'd some of her concerns to Admin about it, and apparently he took that as a personal attack (I've also noticed that he tends to say "I/me" a lot when referring to his character). And right now I'm going through some really stressful IRL stuff with trying to get into grad school, which isn't looking so good, and I don't feel like I have the mental energy to go through another ordeal with him. In the end, this is what I send back to her:
I hate to say this, but I don't at all fancy trying to work things out with him. The last time, way back when we talked about Douchelord's banishment, it was like pulling teeth to get him to budge on anything. If it took you, an admin AND a personal friend of his, an hour on the phone with him to get him to even CONSIDER compromising with someone, then I'm not even going to try. I really like the idea of the plot, but I don't feel like it should be on me to CONVINCE him of it. If he doesn't want to, then he doesn't want to, and I'll just let everyone know that it's off.
I would say though, other players have noticed his tendency to only want his plots to be about, as you put it, "him him him" and it's made many of us reluctant to RP with him on the whole. The point of roleplay is that's a two-way street, and there isn't a main character with a bunch of extras---everyone gets an equal chance for the spotlight. Some plots may focus on a particular character, but other people still need a reason to want to join in, and most folks don't like being used as props. I'm not saying this to insult him, just that this is something it would probably help him to work on, because otherwise, he's not going to have as much fun here as he could. This has been a really enjoyable board for me, so I know how fabulous our members are and what they have to offer, but if this is how he behaves (can't meet people halfway unless an admin talks to him for an hour, derails a thread into being all about his guy getting shot after having attempted zero interaction with other characters in the thread, etc.) then he's not going to have a good experience here because it drives other players away.
Whatever issues I may have with his character ICly, or even OOCly with his behavior as a player, I still think it would be a shame if he missed out on having awesome RP with the awesome people here. It's a shame that anyone at this board might. But in order for people to want to RP with him, he's going to have to rethink his overall style both ICly and OOCly. That way, he can GIVE awesome RP back, and that's how you get it in return. I'm probably overstepping my bounds here since I'm neither staff nor his personal friend like you are, so this is where I'll stop.
Hope you have a happy holidays and that being the go-between for this hasn't been too stressful for you, and good luck with your Ulfric plot with him! ;D
And once again, I'm serious. He really isn't going to have a good time here. People really are tired of him. They mostly all either want to avoid him or troll him or both. And I don't blame them, he's incredibly annoying and frustrating and just bad in and out of character. And at the end of the day, I'd like for everyone to have a good time. Even the people getting on my nerves. That's why it's called pretendy FUN times. But he's not going to have fun acting like this, and he ruins the fun of other people. And he claims to have been RPing for nine years, I believe...he really needs to get this wake-up call through his head. But it's not my job to give it to him. He can clean up his act, or he can just continue ticking people off and losing RP opportunities for it. Myself, I'm just glad that Douchelord will be out of the lion's hair.
Oh, and just another note on something rather suspicious--way back, around the time of the beginning of the That Guy drama with Douchelord the werelion, That Guy also applied (and got) a character to be the leader of the weresnakes. At first I thought maybe he was an "animal servant", that is, a shapeshifter who has been bound to a vampire and thus ages nearly as slowly as the vampire (who doesn't age at all), but, nope, he wasn't. I was a bit confused, since I couldn't remember anything in the canon about shapeshifters aging slowly. So I PM'd the admins to ask about it, since by then I already had a shapeshifter or two and was now worried I might have done something wrong by having them just, y'know, look their age. I was informed that, no, shapeshifters will age normally up until the age of six, then afterwards age only one year physically for every chronological five years. Given that there was nowhere on the site where this was stated, I had already been playing, for example, Queen for awhile. Queen is thirty and looks thirty, and her history would be a whole lot different if she was in fact much older than she appeared by several decades, especially given that she is a woman AND African American, and that would change her personality tremendously I bet, so...I asked them if this age system thing could be optional, because reworking her now according to that would just make her someone else totally?
I never got an answer, but I decided to go with that anyway. Queen is thirty and looks thirty, one of my wererats also looks her age, the other looks five years younger than she is (since she was turned at six years ago and has only physically aged one year since), and my wereswan is 190 but looks 44.
Recently, some newbies are asking about the shapeshifter aging thing, and the admins give them a difference answer---it seems that they now say that the shapeshifters age one year for every SEVEN years, and there's no mention of born-shapeshifters aging normally up until six. Much confusion ensues as different answers are given at different times, especially since many people who had their shapeshifters just look the age they are are now very confused on if they have to change this now that they've found out about it, and finally the admins do what they obviously should have done all along and add this to the FAQ:
Though I don't believe it is ever clearly defined in the novels and people tend to age differently, we've set a range for you guys to choose from. It can either from 1 lycan year to 1 human year to 7 lycan year to 1 human year. The choice is up to you but please make sure your history/personality/time period matches up with whatever you choose.
If a lycan is taken as a animal servant by a master vampire, the lycanthropes aging process slows to a glacial pace - often very close to the aging process of their master.
Well, this is good. It means that all my characters work out as fine with their aging processes, and so do all those of the players who were worrying. But this reminds me again of how I seriously do NOT recall anything in canon about this. I check the Wiki for the series...nothing there on the facts about wereanimals, despite there being pretty much everything else on them. Still unsure, I ask a couple of other players who are basically THE people on the board to consult on canon members, and according them...nope, in the books, werebeasts do age a little bit slower because of their healing/regeneration capabilities, but NOTHING as drastic as what the admins are allowing to be possible at our board.
I wonder why they came up with this system then, if it's not canon. And then I remember...there was NOTHING on the board about it and NO other werebeast character (even the wereanimals played by the admins themselves) followed it UNTIL the weresnake apped by That Guy got in. Coincidence? I think not. I think he decided he wanted a super-old weresnake and whined till the admins let him, and the reason they took so long to add it into board canon was because they knew it was bullcrap and didn't want other players making use of it. Our admins have a history of openly caving to nonsensical demands like that from players who whine enough, so I would not be shocked if this were the case. In fact, I'll be more surprised if it wasn't.
Lucky for us all, That Guy made his long disappearance soon afterward, so Snake Dude was archived as his brief stint of...doing absolutely nothing as a leader. In fact he was so barely active I don't even think his presence having happened at all is considered board canon, and I really hope that That Guy doesn't remember his existence and try to bring him back, since the Snake King slot is currently filled by someone far more awesome and active, and because Lord Speshul is getting into enough headbanging bullshittery as it is. Oh yes, there's more, people, just because That Guy is finally getting rid of the lion that no one wants to RP with doesn't mean he's done, he is now working on making everybody hate his witch dude for numerous reasons, including some seriously canon-breaking Gary Stu stuff and some possibly creepy implications about his doctor/patient interactions as a psychiatrist (or psychologist, he can't keep straight which the dude is and probably thinks they're the same thing) and just generally making it All About Him in the most ILLOGICAL of ways possible.
Seriously, people are getting pissed. I think one is actually planning a vent post of their own soon here, as this has become our only space in which to openly express our woes now that it's been made clear any pleas to the remaining admin or the problem player himself fall upon deaf ears. Lucky we have so much fun there with each other, or we'd blow this popsicle stand!