MU Peeves Thread
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@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:
Heh. My peeve is this idea that long = good when it comes to writing.
Going to second that. Every editor I ever worked with as a writer followed the engineer’s principle – the project is finished not when there is no more to add but when there is nothing left to take away.
Any pronouns. Come to Chincoteague. We have ponies. http://keys.aresmush.com
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@L-B-Heuschkel said in MU Peeves Thread:
@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:
Heh. My peeve is this idea that long = good when it comes to writing.
Going to second that. Every editor I ever worked with as a writer followed the engineer’s principle – the project is finished not when there is no more to add but when there is nothing left to take away.
A quotation oft misattributed to Michaelangelo or John Ruskin says something akin to: “All you have to do is to take a big chunk of marble and a hammer and chisel, make up your mind what you are about to create and chip off all the marble you don’t want.”
The same is true of writing. You’ve got the big chunk of marble that is language, and you hammer and chisel at it until you’ve gotten rid of all the words you don’t want.
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Short doesn’t mean better either.
An editor probably can and probably will help you artistically, but they’re probably more concerned about clarity than beauty. In a lot of circumstances the bigger concern might be how many pages or how much space the text takes up on a page, the journal’s standards, the costs of producing a book and the fact that people won’t pay more for a doorstop of a book than they will for a middling-thick one, and (until recently at least) manufacturing-related shit about folios and signatures.
Stephen King took two pages to say, “Stu switched off the gas pumps just as a slow-moving vehicle crashed into them and trashed the whole row,” and it’s pretty great. I felt the Game of Thrones teevee show makers were terribly remiss in failing to pause the story for a few seconds to let the camera linger lovingly over a table-load of food, and am kinda happy that House of the Dragon did it.
"This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
– A. Bertram Chandler -
@Gashlycrumb Good and bad are far too subjective for us to make sweeping statements, of course. But you’re right in that there’s nothing inherently good or bad about either form. A half-dozen punchy lines are just as valid as a full page of prose, if either is used right.
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Agreed. though, when it comes to roleplayers, I find that the people who write giant poses (often purple ones) are very prone to doing it every single time, whereas people who write 3-4 liners are perfectly willing and able to write longer poses when the situation warrants it.
It’s about balance; you have to be able to keep the dynamic flow of the scene with the shoreter, quicker poses and then bust out the big guns when your character and their situation needs the weight.
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Grieving a bit over loss of RP energy. Well, loss of anything energy. I really appreciate how understanding my RP partners have been. I still fret. And I miss pick up and public scenes that are live. I figure I keep bombing impressions for anyone who isn’t familiar with my RP and storytelling capacity.
But going on now almost 2 months of pain and fatigue post covid is maddening. Luckily i think this time of year most everyone is crazy busy. I miss you.
even if RL is biting a lot of folks right now. -
@Gashlycrumb It is my contention that Wheel of Time would be shorter by half if Jordan hadn’t described every stitch of clothes people wore. And, similarly, Song of Ice and Fire, but food instead of clothing.
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T Tributary referenced this topic on
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Trying to coordinate a series of events, reached out to a bunch of different organizations in-game and most bit immediately, so I put up an anonymous form to help set up scheduling to try to keep events from overlapping.
Already have gotten anonymous feedback on my roleplaying twice on it, from people (probably person, almost identical) who have never reached out to me in game telling me I’m trying to plan their events for them.
If you want to complain to me, complain to me, don’t leave anonymous shitposts on something I’m doing to generate activity with a social character. DM me, reach out to me in game and I’ll give you my Discord, I’m happy to talk about things. Getting around game rules to anonymously attack me like this in a place I can’t even respond is not the way.
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that’s so cute of them
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@Selira what the actual fuck
This is so unhinged.
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@Tez the best part is where they say that I don’t act in good faith while anonymously and passive-aggressively claiming I’m “trying to plan or schedule their rp”
Like, if you don’t want to come, just don’t come. If you want to do something else, do something else. I’m not forcing anything here. Just trying to schedule.
But clearly I’m the one acting in bad faith right now.
The kind of discouragement people get for trying to do shit is always just stunning.
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Me: i’m gonna RP!
Cat: sits on my keyboard
Me: i … guess not. -
I tend to fall into these long periods of inactivity and I’m right back there these days.
Right now I’m sort of struggling with the fact that the only game I’m even active on has me massively disengaged, working hard to avoid one massively toxic individual (who is a known quantity to many) and their tiny cadre of people whose bigtime "pick me " energy tends to suck the air of the room by virtue of their very presence.
Note, this is just a vent post, not a name n’ shame. None of these people have really gotten in my way directly but the general level of effort it takes to avoid extremely active and connected people is fucking exhausting and it’s just one of several contributing factors to me just not wanting to log in.
Time to fire up Baldur’s Gate 3 and talk to some birds again.
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That brainweasle that’s telling me that I cannot and have nothing contribute to a game, its scenes or its plot. It makes me freeze up and want to apologize for wasting people’s time.
I know it’s brainweasles. I know no one thinks about me enough to dislike me. But damn if it doesn’t make it hard to initiate.
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@Sillylily said in MU Peeves Thread:
That brainweasle that’s telling me that I cannot and have nothing contribute to a game, its scenes or its plot. It makes me freeze up and want to apologize for wasting people’s time.
I know it’s brainweasles. I know no one thinks about me enough to dislike me. But damn if it doesn’t make it hard to initiate.
I don’t know what game you’re on, but this is the sort of thing I would hope my players would come to me about, because it’s the sort of thing I have gone through and that I like to prioritize when I run a game.
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Do I smell? Why is it so damned hard to find RP? :X
Cobalt@Under the Stars
cob.alt@Discord
Cobalt#[email protected] -
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Peeve of the day: there is a cowboy MUSH on ares central but it doesn’t look like it’s open yet!!! DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO OPEN A COWBOY GAME???
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@bear_necessities Guess you better hold your horses.
she/they
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@Tez I’ve been holding my horses for years!!! I wanna saddle up and gooooooooo
