How's My Driving

[glacial_witch]

Comments? Concerns? Critiques?

If you'd like a space to discuss my character with me, here it is. I'm fine with both 'face-on' comments and anonymous. Anon-commenting is on, screening is on, IP logging is off.

Comments

[anonymous]

I've been debating whether or not to say anything, but as someone who's just been watching lately, I figured this is what an HMD is for. No offense is meant by this, and I say this as someone who really loved your character and want to be constructive rather than seem mean.

I really miss the days when Karla was a more likable person. She used to be one of my favorite characters to read and someone I really liked and wanted to play with, but lately it's gotten nearly impossible to root for her anymore. Her melodrama over the BDE- and how she seems to be completely fine again just because she got her boyfriend back without dealing with any of the issues that came up- was hard to read, but her treatment of Topher especially is making her unbearable.

I say this as someone uninvolved in the situation, but I have been reading. It's NOT OKAY to threaten to poison someone because they're socially inept, or to continually hit them because they made her mad. She's not really protecting anyone like she keeps insisting, she's just being a bully. Worse is the fact that whenever someone tries to confront her about it, they get thread dropped. It's like Karla never has to hear anything that might change her mind or convince her that she's wrong or out of line, and it makes her look even worse. I've been following the thread with Ender (and will take a moment to say that as someone who does have social and mental issues, Karla immediately deciding that means Topher is insane read as really offensive and insensitive to me, but that's besides the point), and I'm hoping that you keep up with it and actually let what he says have some sort of impact. I just miss the character you used to play and hope this is something that gets resolved rather than ignored.

[glacial_witch]

So, first of all, I want to thank you for deciding to ping me anyway. I'm glad for concrit and this didn't come off at all like a personal attack, just you sharing some legit fears. You're raising a lot of valid points and I hope you feel free to come to my HMD anytime you have concerns.

I'd like to explain a few things, but please don't see this as me making excuses or minimizing what you've said. There are just a lot of things going on ICly and OOCly that do not make everything all right, but will hopefully explain a few things.

My biggest issue has been availability, either physical or mental. I don't know if you follow me on Twitter, but between the holidays and my house deciding to have the basement flood, a mold infestation, new boilers put in, and now our roof needs replacing and possibly before the winter sets in for real...which involves a lot of work, time, and effort. I don't know how long you've been following, but you'll be able to see times when something happened with the house--end of November, middle of December, etc etc.

This has affected stuff in several ways. First and most obviously, it results in thread-drops. Honestly, it had very little to do with the content of the thread, especially the mid-December pings just stopped for awhile. I don't know if you read Sookie's Christmas gathering posts, but Karla pinged into one thread and responded to pings for one night. After that, she's nowhere. The makeup thread with Warren and the trip to Hawaii (light, happy threads both) also got dropped. It was just an incredibly draining and chaotic time. In fact, had the D&D thread not been crazy and chaotic (and a huge laugh, which I greatly needed), where pinging didn't matter, I don't think I'd've been able to play in that, either.

Furthermore, this interruption really put a damper on other things I had planned for Karla. For the most part, all that got done and posted were preplays--which meant the big and melodramatic stuff, leaving the smaller issues to fall the by wayside. There was an entire trip to Kaeleer that got discarded and several other threads with people. One thread where she is called out and has to recognize what she did was the heavily-SP'd thread between Dinah and Momoko, which you can read here (again, you can see the giant gaps of time between my pings).

Lastly, there've been times when I've had the time to ping, but just not the mental energy to do so--this is especially true for deep and emotional, intelligent threads. They take a lot of work and mental stamina that I have trouble mustering. A lot of times, I look at the pings in my inbox and just kind of sit there wide-eyed trying to figure out where to start and who's been waiting the longest for pings and oh-god-I-really-need-to-answer-that-but-I-can't-I'm-gonna-play-more-Skyrim-because-then-I-don't-have-to-think. What doesn't help that perception is the fact that I will clutch to class threads and easy pings, things don't don't require much brain to respond to, to offset the deep, heavy threads. On the one hand, not having those at all might free up some energy for the deeper threads, on the other, having only heavy threads gets damn tiring on its own. (cont.)

[glacial_witch]

Again, please don't take any of the stuff I just explained as an excuse for anything, it's not meant to be one. I just wanted to make clear that it's not a desire to avoid problematic threads that's causing me to drop threads, it's a combination of several things. I have no problem with people telling Karla that she's wrong when she is (and often doing my best to point out that I don't agree with her in narrative and tone), but the past few months have not been the best for me and RP in general.

As for being insensitive to Topher, first of all, I want to apologize for making you uncomfortable. Karla's comment was meant to convey that she has no experience at all with the autism spectrum. She doesn't understand that it's a real issue; in her mind, Topher is being insensitive because he can be, not because he doesn't understand how social interaction works. So when Ender invoked her being a Black Widow (a mind-Healer, if you don't know the canon), that's what Karla jumped to because she had no other point of reference. I absolutely SHOULD have made that clearer in the narrative and make explicit that that was a conclusion she was drawing and I didn't share it and I apologize for not doing so. I was trying to ping in between talking to roofing contractors and I made the mistake of not being as careful as I usually am.

In fact, this was a conversation and a fact that was supposed to get resolved a lot sooner than last night, but because of my availability, it got pushed back. Which, to people who are just reading, makes it look like Karla's getting off scott-free and/or like it's not something that I want to deal with.

I agree with you. It's NOT okay to threaten someone. It's not okay to punch someone in the face, either. In Karla's mind, sure, a lot of what she's doing is justified (in part because SHE doesn't get everything and in part because she's 17 and abrasive and occasionally an idiot), but there is a very big difference between what she's thinking and what I am. I'm sorry if I haven't made that as clear as it should have been.

Both of these things were meant to have been a part of a long bit of "Karla grows up a bit and becomes a better person" but it's unfortunately become elongated and right now just seems like she's being an ass with no end in sight.

So, a little bit of patience and I hope it will be worked through?

Thanks.