[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Aoren]

Hey Jen,

Here's sending my well wishes, good thoughts, positive vibes, and warm hugs your way. Those turkey's are adorable, they deserve many hugs. Hope things clear up for you soon and that we see you popping in and out around the forums.

[Radiant]

Just a couple of days and we miss you already. Come back soon, Goss.

P.S: IT IS SO FLUFFY!!

[Gossamer]

Life Doesn't Get Any Better Than This
And this is why Goss gets nothing done.

Caught a swarm in my bee yard. Hit the hot tub to read up on MIz. Life is good.

[Evalin]

Its a bit surreal to see mizahar floating in a pool enjoying the joys of nature ^.^

[Gossamer]

Cuteness Overload!
I had to seriously share this with you...

So one of our members and heavily active volunteers on here is an artist. They occasionally do 'for fun' projects and then sell stuff at events their family go to. Coming from a family of ceramicists... one would expect no less. Anyhow, she showed me a couple of pictures of what she'd sold at the last event and I went goo goo gaaa gaaa over them. She makes all different kinds... mostly nature themed. I HAD to have one so I wanted to buy one from her via Paypal and pay what it cost to ship it etc. I was so happy she agreed.

At first I asked her for a specific color... black I believe... and a specific style.. and then in the end I simply said.. "OH GOD I CANT DECIDE SURPRISE ME." I'm sure glad I did...

I wanted to show this off to you. I'm not putting her name on it because I don't know if she wants to be inundated by orders or even if shes interested in selling anymore online via the mail. If she wants you to know she did it, she'd more than welcome to step forward. But seriously isn't this about the cutest thing you've ever seen? It's a baby ocean dragon.

Its my new writing buddy.

[Gossamer]

Featured Threads
Otherwise known as who the hell cares?

When it was first suggested we run a Featured Thread that was in the hands of the players, we were all for this. It sounded like an amazing idea. Just think... players picking threads of other players to award! What could be more interactive? What could be more rewarding? There were a couple of problems though. There was a real risk of Featured Thread becoming a popularity contest . Fortunately this didn't really happen, though friend tended to pick friend out.

Another risk was that the people that were honored with the award would pick threads where the players were long gone from the site thus breaking the cycle of player picking player and putting it back into the hands of the admins. This did happen, a lot, but we rolled with it because folks at least picked something.

The other problem would be that the winners would just be so indifferent to the award and the honor of picking another thread to pass on the award too that again the administrators would have to scramble to find a thread last minute to award that merited the recognition.

I mean... you have thirty days to pick a thread once you win. Why can't you be bothered? And truthfully, over and over again its happened that the winners COULDNT be bothered. The main excuse? "I forgot." Or... "I didn't think about it." Or.... worse of the worse.... "I don't read other people's threads."

Screw you indifferent insensitive people that can't be bothered to pick threads to pass the award on. We're taking it back, as admins, and doing it ourselves now because time and time again this is absolute BS that we have to scramble at the last minute to find something worthy. We were lucky this time. A player had a great suggestion for one that we followed through with.

I'm not sure if Featured Thread is going to continue as an award. I don't know if we are going to just do it ourselves or fill that slot with something else. We might even turn it over to the Graders to do. But to all you people that couldn't be bothered to follow through on your end and in thirty long frigging days pick a thread?

You are rude. You are selfish. And worse of worse.... If I've seen you in chat day in and day out, you have zero excuse and please for the love of all things don't expect any more recognition or honors on this site on any of your accounts. And if I sound mad, yes I am. I'm pipping hot mad. We entrust you with one little thing and you can't do it. Grats. You officially suck.

[Drusilla]

I've never won the award. But, I also don't make a habit of reading other people's threads. To me my own writing is very personal, as all of my characters are a piece of me. Drusilla for instance helped me with my high school problems, she let me vent and just mope. I'm not exactly sure why the thought of someone reading my words embarrasses me so, but it does. I know people do read them and I wonder who those people are... I don't read other people's thread's because it feels like an invasion of space like when someone goes through your phone or sketchbook. Basically I have the notion that writing is super personal to everyone like I feel it is. Maybe one day I'll get over my shyness.

[Gossamer]

If you are embarrassed for others to read your writing WHY IN THE HELL are you posting on a public board? That makes exactly ZERO sense to me.

[Gossamer]

And another thing... you all are soooo busy worried about my PC word count because of some unofficial writing contest this month you should probably stop and realize today is season change, the HD is two weeks behind, and I haven't answered PMs in a week. So while I'm glad you all have time to worry about my post count, rest assured it's going to be zero for a while until I get the site caught up.

Get over yourselves. Not all of us just sit in chat and fuss about numbers.

[Kaie]

It's easy to be so caught up in our own characters and schemes, but I think it's very beneficial to read what's going on with characters that aren't interacting with our own. It's cool to see different writing styles and perceptions. No two PCs lead the same life or share the same opinions. With all Mizahar's diversity with races, deities, cities, and philosophies I can't really see how they feasibly could. I really enjoy the Featured Thread if only because it reminds me how interesting and rewarding it can be to get outside my own bubble, and take a look at what other people are working on. If you're not posting for the community as much as you are yourself, what separates what you're doing from a saved document on your computer or a journal in a drawer? Either way I genuinely hope the Featured Thread sticks around, but then again that's up to the desire of the player base as a whole, not just me.

I personally never really understood the obsession over the word count. I guess I can see where there's a madness over it during NaNo with people scrambling toward their goal, but other than that I just don't get it. You're right.They're really just numbers. They really have no true reflection on content, which is what we should really be paying attention to. What's the good in having a word count "prestige" without anything to really show for it? Then again maybe that's just me.