[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Ball]

I like the featured thread award it reminds me that we are a community and it gives me more threads to read (i do read other people but there aren't many lately) this medal allows me at least to see fresh threads and unique style i won't lie i feel amazed and envious at the skill if writing in those selected thread. to the people that don't pick O.o wtfomgbbq seriously?

[Annalisa Marin]

Sometimes the more time one has to do something the worse it gets really, in terms of pushing things off. If you give someone a month to do something they might very well fall into the mindset that it can always be worried about 'tomorrow'. Then when you are near or at the end of the timeframe you realize there is no more tomorrow, because tomorrow is today. A lazy kind of mindset I've seen prevalent usually when I look around. That's what happened with me when I was awarded the honor, not excusing that kind of behavior of course just providing a possible explanation to a possible contributing factor to the problem.

I tend to enjoy reading other threads on and off, looking around to see the adventures of those elsewhere on the site. Sometimes it might be in depth, other times a skim, but I try to take time to read other threads. It also seems like you would actively need to avoid reading other threads lol, since other threads are always in your face wherever you turn on the site. Besides I figure that if you know of at least a few threads with active people in them, then if you are ever awarded the honor you'll have some to pick through like I did. Honestly it felt kind of rewarding to select a thread I thought deserved to be recognized.

EDIT: On the matter of word count, I'm a firm believer of the following. A person can beautifully capture a scene in a few hundred words while a thousand word post might well have no substance or character. The words matter little if the meaning behind them is lost. During NaNo last year the competitiveness made me lose sight of that, it affected my writing which was unacceptable to me. So now I just remind myself that what I write here is not to prove anything to anyone, its for me and maybe the enjoyment of others that might read it or write with me. If you keep that in mind, you can't go too far wrong.

[Twister]

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I got the Featured Thread award once upon a time. I was also one of those who didn't pick another thread (because I was in the middle of moving at the time), though I really should've been more forthcoming back then and said right away that I didn't think I would be able to pick one because it was hard enough to sit down and read at the time.

That said, there really aren't many excuses in cases like these. When you have a month to do something, the least you can do is try and if you know you won't have time (you usually know that way ahead of time) then... say it right away or ask your buddies for thread recommendations around the site. Reading's a part of this game and if you are an aspiring writer or just someone who likes to write, you should remember that the best way to improve your own writing is to read what others write. The Featured Thread award is a really good motivator for that purpose.

I do hope you can continue with the Featured Thread awards, despite this setback. I remember that it made me feel like I was drifting on clouds for days when the PM dropped by my inbox unexpectedly. It's just a teeny tiny bit of recognition that can brighten someone's day or make or break their confidence in their writing, in my case. Knowing that others like what I write makes me like it some more, which makes the experience so much more fun.

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[Nemesis]

I've never won the Featured Thread Award, but I believe that it's somehting nice to strive for, just like all the other ones. This award is unique in that it's purely down to the writing - whether it be that the actual content was beautifully written, or whether something ground-breaking occurred, or anything. I'd look upon it as a great honour to receive that award because it shows recognition for something that truly stands out for some reason or another. The awards are called "Featured" for that very reason.

I can't say that I have read a million threads, and possibly well miss out on some truly great ones, but I've read my fair share, and the thing that I love about reading other people's threads is that I it is a great way of finding new thread partners... I've often read things and gone "oh, awesome, such-and-such PC would be a great match for this PC of mine, or even suggesting to other people that their PC would be a good match for another PC.

The beauty of forum-based RPs is that the RPs will last forever (Gods allowing) and we can always come back to them, and others can find them. Having been on places where writings get deleted because they "time out" was actually disappointing; all you had were memories, unless you took the pain-staking time to Copy & Paste each post. I like people reading my threads, and critiquing and commenting on what was good about it, or what they thought was cool... whatever.

As to your word count... it actually wasn't until recently that I even realised who your PC was (I only know of one). And I can't say that I particularly care (I mean, I do... but I don't if you know what I mean), because I would want to judge your writing on just that - your writing, rather than have it coloured by my respect for you as one of the Founders here. To be honest, I have no idea how you are able to get such a high word count, but I think that it's incredible that you do. If you can, then go for it, and I challenge you to beat your own word count from the November NaNo.. because NaNo is about personal challenges and nothing more. I don't know what people are gossiping about, but if they're trying to "beat" you, then screw 'em. NaNo is personal, it's not a competition between people, and that's where everyone might be going wrong.

[Gossamer]

This isn't a 'setback'. Its a goddamn mindset that's pathetic. And that goes for either the selfishness of not picking a Featured Thread for next month if you win or obsessing over someone else's thread count. I used to really LOVE this community. But you know what? A lot of people here are hugely self absorbed, greedy, competitive with no reason to be, and frankly love to kick people when they are down. It reminds me of chicken yard drama, where one hen gets a wound and all the other hens tend to pick at her until she is a frightened bundle of nerves or dies.

If you win an award like Featured Thread, have the godamn balls to pass it forward and give the award to someone else deserving too. Don't just strut in your five minutes of glory and then say SCREW IT until the first of the month comes along and you justify your unwillingness to pick a successor with the screwed up notion you were BUSY. I'm sorry.. I don't care how busy you are... thirty days is thirty days and you can't tell me you didn't have a free ten minutes to come on, look around, and then pick something stellar. No? Then how did you have all that chat time to bullshit with other people or posting time to get your personal pc's skills up to where your goal was that month?

You can lie to yourselves all you want. But don't shove that BS down my throat.

As for the word count situation.... it's just sad. YOU ARE BEING SAD IF YOU ARE THAT COMPETITIVE. Try joining the staff as an AS. Then run a city as a DS. Then run a region as an RS. Then run an entire site. Then match the word count of someone who does what's on par to what you do.... to make word count comparisons. Then you're talking sanity. Anything else is just unrealistic delusional BS. So you live at home with your parents, don't have to pay a mortgage, don't have a steady job, and you beat someone else's word count that does? I wouldn't feel like a winner. No no... winning is something utterly different in my book.

But oh... you beat someone's word count that has more responsibility and is far involved with life than you are? *sarcasm* Really? Wow. You win.

The point is keeping up with the Jones' is never a good idea. Keep up with yourself and your own goals and you can claim a victory every time.

[Radiant]

Truer words has never been spoken, Goss...

As a DS of one of the most active cities. I felt how busy it is, I am about to graduate from College, gain my degree, and delve into the 'real' world. I can't imagine how overwhelming it would be when I already have a family and more responsibility.

[Gossamer]

OOC Problems

Well, you know how I shoot straight from the hip and don't beat around the bush right? Well, folks are once again talking about people getting banned for "ANNOYING" me. If that were the case, recently all the past slacker Featured Thread people would be gone. Heh. I don't ban people that annoy me. I ban people that annoy the entire pbase and staff until they ask me to ban them. These are usually little shits with a lot of mental problems that carry them into chat or threads and cause a ton of drama with the staff.

This includes those people that claim they are going to suicide. I'm sorry, but I'm about as unsympathetic as you can get with troubled people, especially adults. I don't do crys for attention and I don't do people who routinely try to save those crying for attention. If you are so fucked up that you are going to kill yourself... ie... your life is THAT BAD then you really need a wakeup call because odds are you are mental or super selfish. Killing yourself leaves your family devistated your friends scarred and odds are you don't have it THAT FUCKING BAD. There are 7 billion people in the world. Do you realize how many folks that is? Half the third world countries out there don't have enough to eat and have no life expectancy past their infancy. They don't eat but once every few days. They don't have clean water, shelter, or a chance for schooling. There are third world countries where people can dress up like soliders and march off two hundred grade school girls and put them into slavery and prostitution at ages 10+ and no one does anything about it. There are lots of countries where eating meat is a luxury.

It's all about perspective. And believe me I see some things here in the logs and hear about things UNINTENTIONALLY. I've tried to help these folks in the past, but the truth is you just can't help them. You can't. They need to get someplace where they can get help and they need to get off this site which does no good for people like that. When your fantasy life is just plain better than your real life it is not helping you out. Because what happens is when your fantasy life takes a nose dive - which RP lives tend to do cyclically - then it pushes you over the edge in your real life and your more apt to off yourself.

A player was recently banned because he was one screwed up little shit that claimed he was depressed and was going to kill himself. The staff ASKED me to ban him after his repeated drama in chat. When h is PC was killed in game he insisted his PC not be dead (but not be a ghost) and we forget the whole thing, ie the thread where his PC died. He insisted with a rabid passion that disrupted the whole game. When you do stupid, stupid happens... you have to deal with the consequences.

Now moving on to recent bans that are being talked about. I'm not going to mention names but you know who they are if you are one of the ones talking about it.

I recently got a PM from a player talking about how messed up his life was and how he was going to kill himself and how he got attached to another player OOC who was involved in his life and his sounding board. When the other player had enough of his BS, they cut him out of their lives and he went kinda crazy. The other player claimed innocence, but when I did a bunch of digging, I found out that along the way that player encouraged and enabled the insanity to the point where I believe they were at least half to blame. Fantasy lives should not be real lives. The other player claimed they never involved me, but I suspect its because they volunteered for a whole lot of things then followed through on nothing and got deleted as a staffer because of it. I never got an explanation or an apology from them which pointed again to a lot of selfishness. They just pretended nothing was ever wrong, vanished, and nothing ever happened and they didn't dick over an entire region by volunteering then not following through.

So again, my policy is that when IRL drama spills over onto the site... the dramatic folks get the boot. Because this is NOT what we want in this community. So the said suicidal person who sent me the PM got the boot. They were very gracious when I explained why they weren't welcome and left. The second player was not. So I watched them. And lo and behold I saw them being incredibly needy and vulnerable and clingy to other people in chat, which was the exact set up for what happened previously to the suicidal person. The poor person the secondary person was attempting to latch onto has no idea how lucky they are. I gave the second person involved the boot too. They wanted a chance to defend themselves, to plead their case, but I gave them none. There is no excuse for being.... that thing. You know the thing I mean. Put your fucking big girl pants on and play, don't go cling to one person, throw them away, cling to another, throw them away when they bore you, then go cling to a third. We've seen it time and time again. Again, its fine to do this IC, but holy hell doing it OOC where it ends up affecting the whole community is not the right way to do it. Go get a goddamn grip on yourself and get the attention and support you need IRL not here.

Here we write. Here we tell stories. Here we don't find replacements for huge gaps in our lives we can't manage to patch IRL.

So... if you know who was recently booted and are still wondering why, that's all your getting from me. That should be enough of an explanation. And if you have no fucking clue what I'm talking about, hang about the net about ten more years until you gain a clearer understanding if its that important to you. And if your all that good of friends, talk to the people yourselves. I'm sure their stories of innocence will be epic.

But remember, I don't ban people that annoy me. If I did, half the people in this site wouldn't be here and the ST's would have a whole lot less of a workload. Instead, I ban people that let their IRL shit spill over in game and otherwise break the ToU.

[Traverse]

From the writers that brought you Diary of a Dire Kelvic and The Dek Trials comes a whole new mystery adventure, filled to the brim with friendship, romance, and world jumping drama. If you don't like it to the Void with you because nothing beats the epic tale of: Coming soon to a single print shop thousands of miles from your location!

[Gossamer]

A Tribute To Death

We lost a 17 year old young man in our local community last week. His name was Andrew and he loved Jeeps. His father made a really touching request to the locals of our county to turn out to remember his son with their jeeps parked along Hwy 12. I live on this Highway. When I say I live in a fantastic community, this is just a tiny slice of how fantastic it is. May someone love you enough, when you leave this world, to remember you in such a way. The community figured a few would turn out. This is who showed up.

[Ball]

Wow that's amazingly touching