This one's fah you, B...
caitsith4, or 'B' as I often call him for his long-time term as 'Blues@Phoenix, Antagonistic Protagonist Extraordinaire and Thorn in the side of Forte' and long-time good friend, posted a little blurb about his RP life and posed an interesting question that I just couldn't resist answering in long hand. So I did. This isn't an 'Official Post From The Hive', 'Big Ant Rant' or 'Straight From The Hybrid: Review', it's merely an answer back to a friend about something we do as a pissed off pastime. Readers, if you feel like reading it, go for it. I wouldn't suggest it to you as a 'daily consumption' though. Kinda dry for my standards, I know, but I promise I'll make it up to you in a few days. I always wait until somethin' dope hits me. Or at least for something to hit me that makes me giggle incessantly until my sides hurt.
Anyway, here goes:
Roleplay . . . Huh. Funny you should even mention it. I can't remember the last time I actually enjoyed RPing. Lately it feels like such a job that I don't even bother. That might be because I did that to myself and it might be because I'm suffering permanent burnout and want to do something else. Whatever the cause, whether it be permanent or temporary, as far as your question goes, I believe I can answer that. In part or in whole, I'm not sure. Let's just see how this thing turns out, hrm?
Roleplay, to me, has always been a substitute for not having a hobby. Most people do it for enjoyment or craft or for 'friendship' and some even for 'relationships' and all that jazz. I don't. I never have. Roleplay has never been something that I looked at as even a legitimate pastime. I did it just because. Because? Because at the time the people I knew online were doing it and I just fell into it. Not to say I'm a follower or I lack motivation, but simply to say: Honestly? When you get right down to it? The Internet is worthless if not for communication. Every site you look up on a search engine is basically worthless. The days of useful websites has passed, now everyone either has one of three categories or nothing at all.
Those three categories are:
1) Fanboy nonsense bullshit. (or) Fanboy bullshit nonsense. (Depending on which side of the globe you read this from)
2) I have a scam; won't you buy into it and make me rich?
3) I have no scam; we're legitimate like that. I'll tell you what I want: Your money. Buy something and get lost!
The Internet is and always will be from this day onward, a slum. Not the bad kind of slum where you might find old cesspools still stinking in their graves or disgusting run down subway sections uprooted from the tunnels with hobos living in it, but a slum of the mind where nothing really goes on that anybody actually gives a crap about, but the people online at the moment really seem to take it seriously. A perfect example of this is Roleplay in which you crack a joke and half the players get bitchy and whine about it because you're 'ruining their play environment'. What play environment would that be, pray tell? The one in which lots and lots of 1s and 0s are zipping past in calculated binary packets or are we being literal here and you and a handful of other people are in the same room together, but instead of talking to one another directly, you do it through boxes with keypads attached to them? Am I insulting Internet users? A little bit, but lets be honest with one another, I'm one of them so there's really not a whole lot I can say. It's neither good nor bad in and of itself but it becomes a problem when people turn the crank of 'reality' too far.
Now that that's said, Roleplaying character archetypes or situations involving other people which could come to be known as 'IC Relationships' or 'In Character Relationships' for those outside of the loop. To me, this has always been a fruitless, ridiculous act that gathers neither truth nor reason and certainly not enjoyment. For me anyway; I could point out a handful of people who would disagree, but for the most part it's always seemed quite useless to me. Then again, it also depends on the character and who the other person playing said 'related character' is. I certainly wouldn't want to get into that kind of situation with a person who would take it too far. To me, Internet relationships mean absolutely nothing. I don't do the 'long distance' thing, I don't, I repeat, don't do the 'Internet hook-up' thing and I don't mix my real life with online outside of talking about it. No, I don't care to meet you at a Conference that's coming to town. No, I'm not that big a fanboy and the only reason I'm here is because of a lack of options and boredom. No, I don't care about the fact that I hurt your feelings the other day when I called sheep ridiculously stupid stock animals. No, I'm not as jaded and cynical as I make out, I do that because despite how much it pisses you off, it makes you laugh a lot more.
The real reason I bother talking to anyone online? It entertains me. The real reason I RP? It fills a space for the moment. In place of cheap dates, booze and partying (which is absolutely useless to me as I enjoy neither) I sit here and talk to the occasional intellectual and hope to God I can avoid a few wackos. By some freak chance RP ended up meaning a lot more to me than it should have, which is often why I take extended breaks from it. It puts things back into perspective; it gets me to realize what's really important and what's really not. I get to step outside of that fishbowl and look at the world without the warping of a curvature of glass. I need that distance most of the time. I find other things to do, yada yada, blah blah.
As for the internal portion of my RP existence; what I have to say about that generally isn't that entertaining, but if you care to read on, feel free. Inside of RP I find myself pissed off at it and the people I RP with. Most of the time I work my ass off and reap no benefits from it, ten, twenty months down the road when I disappear for a handful of months, I'm still just as big a criminal as before I started. People only seem to give a shit when you're in their face every day. And when you are, you're an asshole, a hero or the quiet nobody. I've been all three all at once. I've been through the highs and the lows, been around longer than most people in the game and yet despite all that, I can't venture out and joke now and again, make some depressed, suicidal teenagers smile, and not get bitched out for being a 'stupid retard' or something of that nature. I can put up with the insults, why? That shit entertains me. People calling me an idiot . . . in this place. Who's the idiot? The guy typing expletives to try and tick me off and telling me how stupid I am with his boorish lines of text or the person taking it all in, turning it into a good joke and being able to log off without crying or falling into a defensive shell of suicidal depression and negative hysteria? You be the judge, I'm not here to criticise (today anyway).
The internals of my RP are sadly disappointing. People who do less than half of what I do to make sure I give everyone a piece of my time when and where I can afford to end up getting more credit than I do or coming out looking cleaner when there's a problem or have simply garnered more popularity and respect. For what? No clue, but again I can't say that that bugs me too terribly much . . . in this place. If I was working a job in real life and something similar happened, then and only then I'd possibly be a little ticked. But here, nothing matters. So what, I work hard, I do a lot of things right (while managing to do a whole lot of things wrong in the process) and some other guy gets credit, popularity and respect for doing little more than showing up to the party with the proverbial keg of beer. So what, shit doesn't always look right. I treat it like what it is. Nonsense.
To recap, IC relationships between characters. Most of the time they're just a problem unless the person on the other end respects the fact that: No, I'm not gonna be Cyber Sexing around just because that option is available to me. No, you don't mean anything to me, nor does your character, I did this as a means of changing the scene a bit so it wasn't so 'Same Ol' Same Ol''. No, I want nothing to do with you RL, shut up, stop whining and don't go crying to your friends about how I broke your heart. I have no heart. Fuck you. Also, long-distance and Internet relationships are just a reason for two people to end up pissed at eachother in the end. Furthermore, I actually work around here, I don't do everything right but fuck you for bitching at me when so many other people are at worse fault than I.
Anyway B, hope that answers your question. Probably goes above and beyond, but you know me.
[::Duckman::] 'Ya thrust'cha pelvis, HUH! Ya thrust'cha pelvis, HUH! Ya thrust'cha pelvis, HUH!'
Hybrid: Out.
Anyway, here goes:
Roleplay . . . Huh. Funny you should even mention it. I can't remember the last time I actually enjoyed RPing. Lately it feels like such a job that I don't even bother. That might be because I did that to myself and it might be because I'm suffering permanent burnout and want to do something else. Whatever the cause, whether it be permanent or temporary, as far as your question goes, I believe I can answer that. In part or in whole, I'm not sure. Let's just see how this thing turns out, hrm?
Roleplay, to me, has always been a substitute for not having a hobby. Most people do it for enjoyment or craft or for 'friendship' and some even for 'relationships' and all that jazz. I don't. I never have. Roleplay has never been something that I looked at as even a legitimate pastime. I did it just because. Because? Because at the time the people I knew online were doing it and I just fell into it. Not to say I'm a follower or I lack motivation, but simply to say: Honestly? When you get right down to it? The Internet is worthless if not for communication. Every site you look up on a search engine is basically worthless. The days of useful websites has passed, now everyone either has one of three categories or nothing at all.
Those three categories are:
1) Fanboy nonsense bullshit. (or) Fanboy bullshit nonsense. (Depending on which side of the globe you read this from)
2) I have a scam; won't you buy into it and make me rich?
3) I have no scam; we're legitimate like that. I'll tell you what I want: Your money. Buy something and get lost!
The Internet is and always will be from this day onward, a slum. Not the bad kind of slum where you might find old cesspools still stinking in their graves or disgusting run down subway sections uprooted from the tunnels with hobos living in it, but a slum of the mind where nothing really goes on that anybody actually gives a crap about, but the people online at the moment really seem to take it seriously. A perfect example of this is Roleplay in which you crack a joke and half the players get bitchy and whine about it because you're 'ruining their play environment'. What play environment would that be, pray tell? The one in which lots and lots of 1s and 0s are zipping past in calculated binary packets or are we being literal here and you and a handful of other people are in the same room together, but instead of talking to one another directly, you do it through boxes with keypads attached to them? Am I insulting Internet users? A little bit, but lets be honest with one another, I'm one of them so there's really not a whole lot I can say. It's neither good nor bad in and of itself but it becomes a problem when people turn the crank of 'reality' too far.
Now that that's said, Roleplaying character archetypes or situations involving other people which could come to be known as 'IC Relationships' or 'In Character Relationships' for those outside of the loop. To me, this has always been a fruitless, ridiculous act that gathers neither truth nor reason and certainly not enjoyment. For me anyway; I could point out a handful of people who would disagree, but for the most part it's always seemed quite useless to me. Then again, it also depends on the character and who the other person playing said 'related character' is. I certainly wouldn't want to get into that kind of situation with a person who would take it too far. To me, Internet relationships mean absolutely nothing. I don't do the 'long distance' thing, I don't, I repeat, don't do the 'Internet hook-up' thing and I don't mix my real life with online outside of talking about it. No, I don't care to meet you at a Conference that's coming to town. No, I'm not that big a fanboy and the only reason I'm here is because of a lack of options and boredom. No, I don't care about the fact that I hurt your feelings the other day when I called sheep ridiculously stupid stock animals. No, I'm not as jaded and cynical as I make out, I do that because despite how much it pisses you off, it makes you laugh a lot more.
The real reason I bother talking to anyone online? It entertains me. The real reason I RP? It fills a space for the moment. In place of cheap dates, booze and partying (which is absolutely useless to me as I enjoy neither) I sit here and talk to the occasional intellectual and hope to God I can avoid a few wackos. By some freak chance RP ended up meaning a lot more to me than it should have, which is often why I take extended breaks from it. It puts things back into perspective; it gets me to realize what's really important and what's really not. I get to step outside of that fishbowl and look at the world without the warping of a curvature of glass. I need that distance most of the time. I find other things to do, yada yada, blah blah.
As for the internal portion of my RP existence; what I have to say about that generally isn't that entertaining, but if you care to read on, feel free. Inside of RP I find myself pissed off at it and the people I RP with. Most of the time I work my ass off and reap no benefits from it, ten, twenty months down the road when I disappear for a handful of months, I'm still just as big a criminal as before I started. People only seem to give a shit when you're in their face every day. And when you are, you're an asshole, a hero or the quiet nobody. I've been all three all at once. I've been through the highs and the lows, been around longer than most people in the game and yet despite all that, I can't venture out and joke now and again, make some depressed, suicidal teenagers smile, and not get bitched out for being a 'stupid retard' or something of that nature. I can put up with the insults, why? That shit entertains me. People calling me an idiot . . . in this place. Who's the idiot? The guy typing expletives to try and tick me off and telling me how stupid I am with his boorish lines of text or the person taking it all in, turning it into a good joke and being able to log off without crying or falling into a defensive shell of suicidal depression and negative hysteria? You be the judge, I'm not here to criticise (today anyway).
The internals of my RP are sadly disappointing. People who do less than half of what I do to make sure I give everyone a piece of my time when and where I can afford to end up getting more credit than I do or coming out looking cleaner when there's a problem or have simply garnered more popularity and respect. For what? No clue, but again I can't say that that bugs me too terribly much . . . in this place. If I was working a job in real life and something similar happened, then and only then I'd possibly be a little ticked. But here, nothing matters. So what, I work hard, I do a lot of things right (while managing to do a whole lot of things wrong in the process) and some other guy gets credit, popularity and respect for doing little more than showing up to the party with the proverbial keg of beer. So what, shit doesn't always look right. I treat it like what it is. Nonsense.
To recap, IC relationships between characters. Most of the time they're just a problem unless the person on the other end respects the fact that: No, I'm not gonna be Cyber Sexing around just because that option is available to me. No, you don't mean anything to me, nor does your character, I did this as a means of changing the scene a bit so it wasn't so 'Same Ol' Same Ol''. No, I want nothing to do with you RL, shut up, stop whining and don't go crying to your friends about how I broke your heart. I have no heart. Fuck you. Also, long-distance and Internet relationships are just a reason for two people to end up pissed at eachother in the end. Furthermore, I actually work around here, I don't do everything right but fuck you for bitching at me when so many other people are at worse fault than I.
Anyway B, hope that answers your question. Probably goes above and beyond, but you know me.
[::Duckman::] 'Ya thrust'cha pelvis, HUH! Ya thrust'cha pelvis, HUH! Ya thrust'cha pelvis, HUH!'
Hybrid: Out.