Went down to the crossroads
Yes, I did it... I went back to Spindizzy. I must've said a million times I was done with it for good, but as They Say, time makes liars of us all.
So the first burning question on people's minds seems to be "Why?" The other chatty-gathering-type places I've tried since getting the boot from there - Unknown Epicentres and Chat On The Internet, Puzzlebox and Twisted Kingdoms and Archipelago - have all been disappointing. I'm a bad fit for 'em. Or they're a bad fit for me. Whichever. It comes down to the same thing in the end.
The second burning question is "Why now?" After spending a week slouching about Lake Erie and soaking up the rays, I felt refreshed. Renewed. Like everything was good and clean again; like, whoa, it was okay to be optimistic! Like I could go swingin' back into Quodlibet and it'd be just the same as ever.
Big mistake on that last one, of course.
For one thing, lots of people's lives and situations have changed. Austin, of course, is on a totally different time zone. Skyler and Findra are holed up together nowadays.
Best of all, after a bout of depression which sounded like it was getting pretty damn nasty, Spaceroo has (finally!) found someone to love and live with.
(self-indulgent junk deleted)
But more to the point, I've changed. I'm not really sure I care to deal with free-form chatty semi-roleplaying that drifts in and out of character, mostly out, anymore - and that's basically what social MUDs boil down to, whether it's taking place in present day, or the past, or the future, or some fanciful never-was never-will-be. I don't wanna have to hassle with the number-crunching that's inherent in stricter combat-based systems (not to mention, well, combat itself), but I think I'm starting to see the value in it: stricter rules means less reliance on people's individual opinions and prefences, thus less prominence of people's individual quirks, tics, obsessions, etcetera. When I play a MUD character, by golly, I want it to be about my quirks, my tics, my obsessions: cartoons, puns, silliness, absurdity. I think just about every social MUD player has a similar desire, to greater or lesser degree. And amazingly enough - I'm trying to look on the bright side, here - not all of them are as tiresome as the person playing a $SPECIES who thinks that $SPECIESes are swell, that there should be more $SPECIESes, that all the shapeshifters should have $SPECIES forms! But still there's the "I wanna do foo"/"No, I wanna do bar"/"No, I wanna do baz" conflict, which sometimes leads to fascinating and engaging combinations, but often just yields people playing against - rather than with &mdash each other; which is why I'm not sure I really want to be a MUD player anymore -
"So why're you hanging out on a MUD then, O Logorrheic One?" says Chorus.
Good question. I've got this vague idea for a comic strip bubbling around in my head. Currently my artistic 5k1LlZ are nowhere near 31337 enough to handle it, so I need to practise. Still, one way or another, it will get out. Basically I'd rather design, write, and draw my own worlds, rather than poke around in other people's conglomerations. Still, social MUDs can be good places to catch up with people and find out what's up and what's happenin'. I think that's what I'll probably stick to.
END OF BRAIN DUMP