Journal kevinrants

[kevintheradioguy]

There was this one time. I was moderating an occult forum (it was both an RP one, and a connected website revolving around were-themes mythos, witchcraft and so on, with lots of wicca stuff on it). I was not into that stuff, but I like order, so moderating was a small passion thing for me. Keeping things in check. That sort of thing.

And we had a lady admin with a weird Slovak name Anijejka (not sure how to spell it), who soon became a mother, and had to call in for help in admining the website. Called for a few people, including a guy, friend of hers, owning a similar, albeit less lighthearted, more about REAL magic (or whatever the "real" thing is) whose name I cannot remember but Fel comes to mind. And he started trying to convert the website into the same thing as his - no chit-chat or shenanigans, no fun allowed, no unmoderated RPs, only serious stuff. And at this point he started getting into a conflict with Anijejka about this, which evolved onto a scandal with their beliefs.

It looked like they had different faiths or at least different understanding of wicca, one being more centred around natural balance, other being more about semi-zealous devotion. I... was neither. I was at odds with religion, and just was keeping the website running on the background. That was, before a full war started there. Fel and Anijejka formed their own user and moderation groups on the website, and started trting to bully each other out of it. Moderators were quickly moved up on the ranks to admins by them to settle their power there, and at some point I remember Fel coming over to me, asking to support him in exchange for high positions on both websites. I did say what I thought - that this is absolutely ridiculous, their stupid argument on two forums because they just didn't share A view on something, and that I'm here just to manage the site, and not take part in any drama. What Fel said was that there is no "not taking sides" there, and everyone is involved. He also swore that Anijejka was a witch and her baby was the devil's daughter, thus I should not support her.

At that point I was both laughing hysterically, and fed up. So I said to him that in this case I'll support her, just because of them two she wasn't the one to try and foulmouth the other... in fact, she never spoke to me about this at all! Naturally, I didn't do it. I just wanted Fel off my back. And it worked.

That said, one of the new admins noticed I was still a mod, although I was the second oldest member (after Anijejka) on there, and promoted me up to an admin. I assume that Fel thought I joined Anijejka team, because in an hour he demoted me back. I was promoted again that day, and demoted again. Thing was, each time a role changed you were kicked off the website and had to log in again, which infuriated me, as it was messing with my moderation routine.

So I quit. It was all fun and dandy until they got me directly involved (I know it was my fault for the choice of "get out of my face"). I was younger, and so pissed, I did write a public resignation letter. A cold and angry one, describing my thoughts on the situation, and how stupid and useless this war was. Before I logged off for the final time, I did see the comment from a fellow mod, who laughed in my face telling that I'm a coward for running away with my tail between my legs, and that I'll come back, because we always do. I never did.

Thing is, it was a nice place for a while. I don't get werewolf wannabes, I don't get any religion or any BELIEF per se, but I never let it get on the way of being friends with anyone. And we had... so many lovely moments. Few births we celebrated, some deaths. One of the sweetest members by the name of Lintu died in a motorcycle accident at the age of just fifteen, and we all mourned so much. It was a real, big community back then, and I haven't found anything alike ever since. It sucks that a drama of two stupid people ruined this for all of us.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

I have already noted in my statuses about this, but to double-up, my first comic - "test comic" as I have been calling it - is finally done in the first iteration. About two dozen pages coloured, the entire thing lined, now I can support good uploads, and only lack a schedule and a cover for it (WIP by now), and since it takes two days per page to colour, I might be good to upload and feel shame about it, because it didn't turn out that well. Not in the terms of visuals - I'd never judge a comic book based on the art myself - but the story. Anyhow, a small preview thing:

The second comic was supposed to be in another universe... and not what it is now. I did have a story for a very, very long webcomic to go, but in the end I looked at it, and realised that there was no real atmosphere there, and it needs to be worked on. What did have atmosphere, was a very old side-project I had much passion about back in the days when I was optimistic about the RP thing and thought that getting a loyal partner is easy, because that is how it started. As a RP. I've been writing it and sketching the intro chapter, when a stray thought visited my mind: but what if the MC was a woman? And that thought turned everything to shit.

I know that maybe at this point some passionate ladies already started typing out swear words my way - how dare I, after all? - but it' maybe not because of what one might think.

Was the original character a male, and am I loyal to source material? Yes.
Do I like cool badass women? Also yes.

So what do I do, I started thinking. There is a small mercantile thing in me I did not want to publicly admit, which says: if your both characters are male, you'll be supporting your previous target audience of gay men and yaoi girls (which is, true, for some reason that ended up to be my TA a few years back), and being consistent is good. Even though no real romance is planned for the MCs, but you know how it goes, don't let me prevent you from googling "Good Omens" or MCU fanart. And there is also the fact that the MC is kind of masculine, as a character. Personality-wise, not appearance-wise. It is needed for the plot. And though being masculine is quite prevalent among women as well - tbh, in real life I prefer to surround myself with such people - when it comes to media, I dislike this very much. It is as if to make a strong female charter you should whether make her physically strong, or make her masculine. Which is, again, an okay thing to do, but you know what I crave so much? I crave a character who is strong because of their femininity. Kind of stereotypical female qualities you can read about or listen to in Joseph Campbell's books and lectures. Compassion, tolerance, generosity, empathy, care. All those qualities can make for a very fresh main character, and the closest it got was (un)surpisingly a male MC in the first "Fantastic Beasts", as Newt expresses most if not all feminine qualities there, and near to none of masculine, and I cannot tell you how happy I was to see something like that. And I'd like that. I'd like to see a strong female character in media who'd be strong because of her femininity, not despite it. It seems a taboo at this point.

I won't be doing that if I'll make the MC of the next comic a lady. I don't think anything changes at all if a gender would be swapped one way or another, and do I want to despise myself for creating a lead and not taking this opportunity? E-e-eh, might get over it.

Funnily enough, the original 'big' comic was supposed to have such a compassionate, nurturing, caring leading lady. But it's put aside before I can figure out the feel and the atmosphere I want. It didn't feel... complete, so to speak. It had quite consistent backstory, lore, and rules of the universe, but at the same time, they felt torn from one another, as if, looked separately, they belonged to different media. Something I shall figure out sooner or later, I'm working on it.

But for now I am doubting myself, trying to decide: is D. going to be male or female? Wither has benefits and flaws, which do not outweigh one or the other option.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

I don't know if it even fits the subreddit, if I want to rant, be proven wrong or something. I really don't. But lately this irritation grew stronger, and I feel like I need to get it out, especially since another game is today and I do not wish to get it out to my players.

But! I really, really dislike (hate would be too strong of a word) when players jump on a bandwagon of the same actions and rolls when one of them comes up with something. Something like this: they enter a room, they find a door barred from the other side. They spend some time thinking what to do next, when the rogue says "I'm looking for secret doors!", and I happily let them roll for that, but seconds after the words escape their lips, I hear the warrior's "me too", and the barb's "and I", and the cleric's "I'll look for secret doors as well", and wizard's "and me!", and druids "oh what the hell, I'll do that as well", and this freaking waterfall of dice falling onto the table, them all tagging along with that one action a single player came up with. Which was a terrible example, as it's too ordinary, so to speak. Looking for secret doors is a routine at this point. Let's say, the wizard pays attention to what some NPC says, hears some legend and goes "hm, count Leverlinne is a very specific name that sounds like someone from the lands I come from; can I roll history to see if I read or heard about him before?", and every single one of the players jump onto this bandwagon of this very same question, even their orc with -4 intelligence modifier who spent all her life in an arena as a beast and only three days ago was bought out by the party, who doesn't even know what the word 'count' means!

I mean, yeah, I get it, you're stuck, and you want to move further, and you want for a roll to succeed and such, but god damn it, you didn't come up with this. This isn't your time to shine. This one person, this one player paid attention to what their DM was saying, they caught a clue, and they want to act upon it - let them shine, god damn it! Let them feel special, and smart, and important, and not like everybody else. I can only imagine the disappointment of someone who was paying attention to the rumours, noted to themselves that they've heard the same city name twice and what to check out any creepy stories about it, fail their roll only for some other guy who doesn't even remember the name of said city and who just jumped on a bandwagon of rolls, to get a nat20.

And yes, yes, sure, I know, I have talked about it with the players, and usually we get an understanding when things come to me sitting down with "guys, we need to talk" thing. But when it comes to this specific thing, they are consistent in their claims that their characters would totally look for traps/remember that count's name/realise they've heard about that city before and act upon it - they just weren't fast enough to ask me about it. Even if they had a whole five minutes of quite "hmm"s before jumping on top of another player's idea.

Sorry for the rant, but it can't just be me.