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An anniversary, MUCKs and RolePlaying, poking and "poking"
13 years ago
General
I know that Journals don't get read all that much (unless you're a popular artist or giving something away) and so I don't really make very many of them, but hopefully I'll get some useful advice here.
How long do you think is reasonable between 'pokes' at an artist who has been sitting on a commission for a while? I try and not do it more than every two weeks or so. I don't generally bother the ones who post regularly but take a while on their work, but others I have less of a read on. I am also feeling pretty jaded about getting on board with "emergency" anything. I hopped on a couple of "emergency commission" spots back in June and felt good about helping out, but haven't gotten any of them two months later. :S
Continuing along those thoughts but extending to a more general sense of popularity I've had some interesting experiences in the field of RP fucking. =P On one hand I often feel kinda sheepish when I approach someone who is popular or an artist even if my intent is simply because I find them interesting as a potential playmate since I know in the back of their mind lurks the thought "what does this person want from me?" On the other hand, I've had a variety of well written individuals express this same sort of apprehension to me about me! This sort of thing always surprises me, but I guess it's just a variation on the artistic self-doubt of "all my work sucks because there are people better than me". Or maybe it stems from the generalized traits from the desire to learn and improve: I can do better than this; this is not my best work.
Tomorrow, August 11th, is my birthday and also marks having lived in California for a full year now. I actually arrived and completed my move on the 9th of last year but it's close enough to my birthday I think I'm going to employ creative license and declare the 11th to be my symbolic anniversary.
I've been mucking around on Taps for about a week and change now and it's kinda fun and interesting. I've met a few fun furs over there, but there seems to be an annoying amount of elves around the Herm Haven at times. Drows and other humanoid but not quite human species like Draenei are interesting enough in their own right and visually appealing too, but the traditional light and smooth skinned nature elf just seems so bland to me these days. I also wandered around the world for a while and spent time reading the descriptions of all the places and things like that which lead me to notice quite a lot of misspellings and typos leaving me to wonder if the place is ever maintained any more or if it's just been on zombie auto-pilot for years.
edit:
<Lyndane> Taps...! Now we will never see you again!
* Lyndane waves bye-bye to the tigress as shi's sucked into the ebon abyss of Tapestries!
<Azazial> :3!
<Azazial> I am not so sure about that, really.
<Azazial> I went there expecting it to be like some sort of secret furry haven for amazing RPers where you couldn't so much as move with out smacking into paragraphs of beautifully crafted prose because, you know, who else would use something as ancient as a MUSH to RP on otherwise?
<Azazial> (Says the IRC addict tigress)
<Azazial> I found that to be... not quite the case at all. :S
How long do you think is reasonable between 'pokes' at an artist who has been sitting on a commission for a while? I try and not do it more than every two weeks or so. I don't generally bother the ones who post regularly but take a while on their work, but others I have less of a read on. I am also feeling pretty jaded about getting on board with "emergency" anything. I hopped on a couple of "emergency commission" spots back in June and felt good about helping out, but haven't gotten any of them two months later. :S
Continuing along those thoughts but extending to a more general sense of popularity I've had some interesting experiences in the field of RP fucking. =P On one hand I often feel kinda sheepish when I approach someone who is popular or an artist even if my intent is simply because I find them interesting as a potential playmate since I know in the back of their mind lurks the thought "what does this person want from me?" On the other hand, I've had a variety of well written individuals express this same sort of apprehension to me about me! This sort of thing always surprises me, but I guess it's just a variation on the artistic self-doubt of "all my work sucks because there are people better than me". Or maybe it stems from the generalized traits from the desire to learn and improve: I can do better than this; this is not my best work.
Tomorrow, August 11th, is my birthday and also marks having lived in California for a full year now. I actually arrived and completed my move on the 9th of last year but it's close enough to my birthday I think I'm going to employ creative license and declare the 11th to be my symbolic anniversary.
I've been mucking around on Taps for about a week and change now and it's kinda fun and interesting. I've met a few fun furs over there, but there seems to be an annoying amount of elves around the Herm Haven at times. Drows and other humanoid but not quite human species like Draenei are interesting enough in their own right and visually appealing too, but the traditional light and smooth skinned nature elf just seems so bland to me these days. I also wandered around the world for a while and spent time reading the descriptions of all the places and things like that which lead me to notice quite a lot of misspellings and typos leaving me to wonder if the place is ever maintained any more or if it's just been on zombie auto-pilot for years.
edit:
<Lyndane> Taps...! Now we will never see you again!
* Lyndane waves bye-bye to the tigress as shi's sucked into the ebon abyss of Tapestries!
<Azazial> :3!
<Azazial> I am not so sure about that, really.
<Azazial> I went there expecting it to be like some sort of secret furry haven for amazing RPers where you couldn't so much as move with out smacking into paragraphs of beautifully crafted prose because, you know, who else would use something as ancient as a MUSH to RP on otherwise?
<Azazial> (Says the IRC addict tigress)
<Azazial> I found that to be... not quite the case at all. :S
And Taps...man. I used to wander around Taps every now and then when I was bored out of my mind and had not much better to do, but for at least the past four or five years it's been getting really, really cliquey. Nowadays when I do pop on it just feels like everyone's idling around with people they know and just keeping to themselves. And the number of abandoned areas and broken descriptions...hooboy!
You're correct on every assumption you've made of it. The Wizards overseeing it don't really play there anymore, they've all got lives and families. No new building permits have been issued, and everything is pretty much a museum. The cliquism can get overwhelming depending where you go, and there are more than one people who have a million alts that find people to stalk.
Word to the wise, though: It's taboo and against MUCK policy to ever, ever, ever cut&paste transcripts from Tapestries without the consent of the parties involved and load them onto other sites. So make sure you get the permission of everyone involved, and/or edit out the text of the people that don't give it. Because if it's reported or the wizards learn of it themselves, that's grounds for toading/banning.
I don't exactly know the courtesy rules of engagement when it comes to artists, so while I don't have good first-hand knowledge or advice, I would recommend asking Kyr or Accello what they think. With one as an established artist and nice dude, and the other as someone that just seems to exude knowledge and experience, they would be my suspects for best advice giving peoples.
I found your thoughts on popularity pretty interesting. I feel like esteem in the furry world is completely relative to your company. My experience on SL is so completely bipolar in the sense that I hang out at a place were I feel like I'm nothing, just a supporting character to the big name popufurs at the nightclub I work at. Nights will go by where I am literally having a bad time because I can't seem to get the time of day out of anyone, while other nights nice people that finally work up the nerve to talk to me can't stop talking about how incredibly popular I must be and how THEY are dogshit in comparison. I think it boils down to people just always having that nagging insecurity, whether it be in comparitive terms of their art to others, or as a companion to others. It must be awesome to be one of those blissfully unaware people that barge into RP environments and totally take the place over, and badly, or to be an artist cranking out frankly poor work in colored pencil on lined notebook paper and stuff. Why can't any of that self esteem to to people like you and me that could use it?
Bottom line sweetheart....I'm glad to have met you, I'm glad that we're friends, and here's to your next year and many more to follow are wonderful.
One week would probably be fine.
I would love a poke a week :C
Also I haven't been on IRC in ages D: I bet no one will remember me :C
Too bad you weren't showered in buckets of kinky things and cum in those places you were poking your nose around. Maybe you should've let drop that today was a special day~
As for poking artists. Ask some, they'll say once in a while, others all the time. Me, I tend to be patient, but I also have very bad luck. I'll commission an artist that posts regularly. They will get all the stuff done in front of mine, then just as they start to work on mine they die for 2-6 months for no reason. Even if they are paid in full. Then after fighting with them to just get it done I am -normally- very happy with the outcome, weather I can ever commission that artist again is a different story.
As for those other RP-ing areas, I have no clue. I don't even use Mirc anymore. All of my ranks are gone, my nick is unregistered and damn near no one remembers me when I do pop my head in. I'll just stick to Skype. To many...weird things have changed in the IRC channels I once knew and loved. As others have changed owners or the owners have not been on in months/years leaving the admins to do crazy shit.