MU Peeves Thread

[Snackness]

@Pavel I can’t do either of these things. Maybe I’m in the wrong hobby.

[helvetica]

I’m wayy more comfortable writing descs of places than I am writing them of people.

[IoleRae]

@Pavel

I think for me it might just be lazy. Anything that smells like homework, I don’t wanna do it for fun. I have far more limited time than I used to for mush pursuits (to be fair, I could make more time), so I want to spend that time doing active things. Some of the stuff I need to do (most of it, really) doesn’t really need sustained effort, so it can be done and I don’t feel like I wasted too much precious “brain on” time on it. Generating new backgrounds / descriptions…it’s not a lot of work, but it SEEMS like a lot of work.

There’s also the possible-rejection=paralysis thing, with descs being your first impression on people. I’m sure that factors in, too.

[Pavel]

@IoleRae Oooh. All very good points, something I shall need to consider more thoughtfully - and not at six am after a dozen cups of coffee.

[Tez]

I get self-conscious writing my own descs, so I like writing descs for other friends. I feel way more comfortable getting loose and writing about how hot someone else obviously is (because this is a MU*, obviously everyone’s hot, even the blob people, and yes, that decaying vampire is hot, too).

[Testament]

@Tez Either ridiculously hot, or ridiculously scarred and/or disfigured, which in of itself is also hot.

[Roz]

@Tez said in MU Peeves Thread:

I get self-conscious writing my own descs, so I like writing descs for other friends.

me. i’m the friend.

[GF]

@Tez said in MU Peeves Thread:

(because this is a MU*, obviously everyone’s hot, even the blob people, and yes, that decaying vampire is hot, too)

“You could be forgiven for not noticing the nauseating smell like rotting pork that wafts off her in your amazement at noticing her boobs are each the size of that exercise ball your one health nut coworker sits on instead of an office chair. She’s probably pretty or something but you can’t tell because you can’t even see the lower half of her face, swallowed in the Mariana Trench of her cleavage. It’s anyone’s guess how she can get her mouth on someone to bite them.”

[mietze]

I think i’m just weird.

I’ve never been offended by descs either way (though i do like the unintentionally funny ones an awful lot I admit).

I don’t really look at descs or honestly at pbs. I don’t keep up with tv or movies enough to even recognize a lot of actors except for the ones from the time that I did (which has led to some embarassing choices sometimes because i just wasn’t aware of where the picture was from). I enjoy finding pbs as part of my character development process (not as important as music but up there) but even when I find one it’s not that I think my character looks like that person, it’s…i don’t really know how to describe it. A mood, or something about them grips me (same thing with the music). I assume the same for most other people. (even though yes i find it also funny when someone picks a pb that I think really is the opposite of the description but again I assume it’s because that person had SOMETHING grab them about that actor in a role or that particular picture. It doesn’t stop the giggles sometimes though)

I do often worry about people are going to be irritated with me no matter what. If I choose an art based or an actor pb, well, gee what a lame ass person. If I put in clothing descs on the object that’s too spammy and lame. If I state anything about how my pc looks in the scene because I don’t have clothing objects or set it in the pc object description, then i’m annoying. But then I realize probably that a LOT of other people in the scene don’t really give a shit, or they’re worrying the same thing too and it’s a minor thing that people will just get over and RP with me or they won’t. Most people push past their minor irritant peeves that we all have, so it’s probably fine. I do like it now that many games seem to have a little bit of everything (basic desc, wiki desc, opportunity for pb, or changing character object descs) because this latest discussion kind of solidified for me that really setting all this stuff up is to give other players a taste of your PC, and so having several forms might be beneficial because people utilize different things to do that. maybe it will help me feel less grumbly about having to do the things that don’t really do it for me in that regard in the future.

[Ashkuri]

The only thing I hate in a desc is when the desc tells me that the person is so hot and attractive, or that everyone finds them hot and attractive. Don’t tell me what I think! I’m not even attracted to that gender! wah

[Testament]

@imstillhere Don’t touch Tracy’s ass.

[Ashkuri]

@Testament i will die if i touch it

[mietze]

Also, I wish that I had the moral and artistic chops to want to play a normal looking PC.

But if I wanted to play a plain, boring, dumpy person, I mean I get that opportunity in RL. I got scars but even those are boring, one from cracking my chin open rollerscating and then a c-section scar. I pass out with needles so i can’t even get cool tattoos unless they’re the lick and stick kind. I don’t really get the hate on for wanting to have a PC that stands out in a crowd.

PB attractiveness though is kind of weird. I remember a discussion on a channel one time where someone was critiquing someone’s Striking Looks character for having Jennifer Gray as a PB because she was “ugly”. Which honestly just boggled my damn mind. I get that people get frustrated with actors being used because the truth is especially for female pcs, there’s just realities of who gets work in the industry. It’s even hard to find “strong” female pcs in the fitness department in actors and I think there’s a certain comfort in using actors who are paid to do many roles, vs. people like mma and other athletes where their fame is due to /them/ not an acting role that makes people a little less comfortable with pulling them. (I’ve used an mma fighter who started to branch off into other acting roles for one of my TR characters but it was because I saw a picture of her searching for something else and she looked like she really could rip someone’s arm off, and I had an ogre. But even she was not what I would term ‘ugly’ either).

I guess i’m also weird in that i really haven’t seen that many what I would term ugly people or even plain people in my life. I personally easily find attractive features in almost every human. So again, when I see someone using a picture, after i RP with them awhile usually I can figure out what it is about that that grabbed the player. Sometimes it really is “I want to have a PC that is conventionally attractive and seductive for people interested in that gender and body type”. Most of the time though there’s something else. And that can be fun to figure out, if you like or don’t mind their RP.

[GF]

looks up Jennifer Gray

Wait, what? People think she’s ugly? I’d sell my soul, and probably yours too, to be as pretty as she is!

[Artemis]

@mietze I agree with everything you said! I enjoy playing attractive PCs and would struggle to write a completely unremarkable character, because even when I try they end up interesting or multifaceted in some way. I think the interesting parts of them are what cause them to be appealing, also.
Anyway, liking PBs and ascii art or simply disliking descriptions is all well and good. I think the point of my original post was just to express how their widespread use can be a slight annoyance to me and presumably any other VI player in an otherwise fully accessible hobby. On Arx I can’t read a majority of people’s clothing descs because of the lack of regulation with no_ascii tags, and on Ares I have to literally skip a step on chargen because I can’t see pictures. Could be something to think about, possibly, idk.

[Testament]

If I wanted to play an unattractive character, I’d just play myself.

[mietze]

@Artemis i get it! I do think that’s important to think about especially the barrier in CG! I feel like I’ve been shifted now more to a “desc for my pc is more a tool for other players rather than for me” due to this discussion and its interesting to think of things with that reframing.

[catzilla]

This brings up a WoD/CofD peeve of mine. It’s STRIKING Looks. Not sexy looks. The character stands out in some way, not necessarily because they’re hot/pretty/etc. Yes, in 1E they describe it as attractive, but even before 2E, I saw people use it for characters that weren’t “hawt” but had something distinctive about them. Example: Grotesque, which didn’t give them Persuasion type advantages but Intimidation instead.

I’m very glad in 2E they changed it to reflect that.

[sao]

I have definitely played people who weren’t hot, but they were definitely dynamic and attractive.

Especially the quarian, who routinely advised people how handsome he was.

[crawfish]

@sao the magnetism and charisma you are capable of emoting with a single written sentence has both always impressed me and confused me. Like what is this black magic stoppit also wait come back-