The Right Brained Efforts of The Glitter Pill

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:31:09 GMT

I do believe I am having a liiiiittle bit of a depressive relapse right now. This is making RP (or, really, anything *fun*) kind of difficult. I've been doing some casual stuff that doesn't take too much thought, but can't seem to do much beyond that.

So, um, to those who are wondering why I'm not around... that would be why. Once I get my sleep schedule sorted out and maybe my meds adjusted a bit, I should be back in full swing. I hope.

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:24:56 GMT

I appear to be incapable of anything remotely creative right now.

Drat.

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 06:58:23 GMT

Note to people in games with me:

I'm kind of going through something right now. I'll either be around a lot less, or a lot more in the next few days.

Insomnia = plotting

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:18:27 GMT

Not sure if it's for RP or some sort of fic. Either way, it's a very (VERY VERY) loose X-Movieverse translation of the Wolverine & Kitty Pryde mini. But with black ops Weapon X rejects and a telepath instead of demon ninjas. Okay, so... not really that much like the mini series.

Project Ogun: Operation Iron and Shadow

The Weapon X project was a failure. The mutant known as Wolverine broke conditioning and destroyed most of his captors. But in the minds of certain people, it was simply a case of poor execution of a good concept. Why eradicate or regulate mutants when they can be used? There are greater threats to freedom than a small portion of the population, some of whom may or may not be dangerous. Mutation not simply an American phenomenon, and its only a matter of time before its enemies make use of the same resource that it has.

It starts when, somewhere else in the world, a mutant is forced against his will by a terrorist organization to carry out a suicide mission. Those certain people who were in the know about Weapon X had seen it coming for years, and decide that now is the time for action.

Enter Project Ogun, named for the Yoruba patron spirit of war, politics, fire, hunting and iron.

Using stolen records of mutant registration databases from all over the world, they pick and chose their ideal operatives. Recruitment is not voluntary, nor it it obvious abduction. Accidents are staged, deaths are faked, training begins.

These people have a telepath on their side. This telepath plants false memories, false loyalties, even brand new identities in some cases. The recruits are sent on missions normal spies or soldiers could not legally or ethically carry out.

But then there's a slip up. Someone, somewhere catches a piece of one of these missions on a cell phone video camera. The video is uploaded and circulates on the Internet. It doesn't take long before someone to see the video and realize their dearly departed friend is not so departed.

Characters Involved:

X-Men (duh)
Shadowcat (recruit)
Several other recruits (Psylocke maybe?)
Pete Wisdom? (Black Air the ones responsible, or watching the bad guys?)
Project Ogun (Smattering of military, scientific and various other experts who want to revist the idea of turning mutants in to weapons, plus at least one loyal mutant telepath)

Do not give me ideas!

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 06:52:58 GMT

So, tonight I found myself lamenting the very small number of MU*s with comparable standards to X-Men Movieverse, and aoibhail, ever the enabler said to me "you could always start your own."
And I said "I have not the knowledge nor stamina to create my own MU*"
And she said "this is why you get co-admins."

She kind of had a point, so I'm not dismissing the idea entirely.

So, now I am going to write down ideas about this ENTIRELY THEORETICAL game. This may never actually happen (in all honesty, probably won't), but it never hurts to write down ideas, right?

Warning: This will contain run on sentences and gratuitous use of brackets. May be a very disjointed read. It's Christmas Eve in the wee hours of the morning, and I think I have a flu of some sort, so forgive the inevitable spelling and grammar fuck-ups.

First thoughts

Okay, there is no shortage of Marvel comicverse games, and I do play in one comic MU that is of good quality and one LJ game of freaking phenominal quality. Also, while it may be a bit of a fault of mine, I adore crossovers (to some sane extent), as they bring about things that could never happen in the comics, for copyright reasons. ~~OMG Kitty/Oracle geek-off.~~

So I have this budding idea in my head for a Marvel/DC crossover... thing. I've never seen this idea carried out well in any RPs (I have been casually poking about one, but have been rather dissapointed by the RP there, and quite frankly, recently disturbed by some news from a former player about one of the HeadWiz types). I think that with some hard work and high standards that it can be done with some success.

I know my own weaknesses. I cannot for the life of me run things beyond ideas and app staff duties. With a little tutoring, I could likely do building and such. Desc-ing canon Marvel locations like the Sanctum Santorium, Baxter Building and the like would be damn fun.

I know Marvel (particularly X-Men) canon well enough. I would need someone with DC comics knowledge (or access to a hell of a lot of comics/comic scans) to make sure the DC side was accurate (though the thought of trying to make sense of DC's continuity makes my head hurt).

Thoughts on Characters

With the sheer number of feature characters that would be available by combining the two universes, I see no reason to limit FC alts, except maybe the "first tier" characters (Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, etc- anyone who has their name and likeness on underwear), to keep players from dominating the game. One or two Big Names per publisher per player (without having two on the same team) might be a good limit- someone could play Batman and Wolverine, for instance, but not Batman and Superman or Wolverine and Spider-Man. Exceptions may be made if players provide a damn good reason.

OCs. In comic-verse games, OCs are tricky, as I've found some players seem to view comic-verse games as sky's-the-limit in terms of power levels. They see the feats of Doctor Strange and Charles Xavier and think "if it's possible for them, it's possible for me!!"

Yeah. No. The most bad-ass FCs have decades of comic history behind them. They've earned their status as Special Snowflakes. Kitty Pryde is a ninja hacker with an alien dragon for a pet because she's collected all those things in over twenty years' worth of comics. Charles Xavier is the world's most powerful telepath because he's been written as such since the 1960's. Batman is fucking Batman.

In terms of power levels, I'm going to borrow some terms from the Serenity RPG guide, and say there are three. You've got your Greenhorns (example: Kitty Pryde on her first day at Xavier's, the Acadamy X kids in the first issues), your Veterans (example: Banshee in most every comic he's been in, Emma Frost in Gen X or Astonishing, most X-Men) and your Big Damn Heroes (examples: Dr. Strange, Captain America, Superman).
In my ideal game, OCs would be limited to apping in to the Greenhorn level for young characters and the Veteran level for older characters (mid-30s at least). FCs would be limited to how their character was portrayed at the canon cut-off point, as decided by the mods. A little unfair to OC players? Yeah, kinda, but the FCs define the world in fandom games and the setting sort of relies on them.

The Big Damn Heroes would be the cap point for power levels in their field. No one can out-magic Dr. Strange, out-detective Batman or out-telepath Charles Xavier. Period. No exceptions, unless it's for a plot approved by the admins, and any character approved for such will likely be retired upon plot completion.

Characters such as Apocolypse, Darkseid, Galactus and the other Big Collossal Bads (and similarly powered Good Guys) would be limited to admin NPCing for the sake of plots. Duh.

The admins just plain not liking a character is not reason enough to make them unappable. I've seen this happen in too many games, and it just seems petty to me. "No, you can't app Bishop/Shatterstar/Guy Gardener/whoever because I think he/she's lame!" If they're not athematic or rediculously overpowered, and the person puts in a good app, there's no good reason not to approve them. Yes, it would hurt a little to approve Sammy the Fishboy, but if the player puts in a good app, I'd just have to suck it up.

Temping.
marvelmansion has this wonderful option. Players often "temp" or NPC feature characters if they're needed for plots, provided the players do not get involved in any events that would permenantly change the character for any future appers. I love this idea. Many FCs are kind of required to make the setting true to canon. If Daredevil doesn't have a player, but something's going down in Hell's Kitchen and it would be unrealistic to assume he wouldn't show up for it? An admin, or player with admin permission could NPC him for that scene, or for the duration of a plot if he is needed for one. This also allows a player to get a taste for an FC they're considering apping, and helps them decide if they want to try taking them on permenantly or not.

Thoughts on Concept and Plot

So, what could justify two totally unrelated yet similar universes suddenly finding themselves existing together. The cheap, easy way is to say it's an AU where things have always been that way, but that just seems too... well, cheap and easy.

So instead, I go with this idea:
Something Big Happened at x point in both universe canons, and suddenly things started getting weird. Reality kinda started to overlap, and cities and places started to show up that weren't previously there, along with all the people in them. The Avengers are wondering who the hell these Justice League guys are, the X-Men are wondering what the difference between a mutant and a metahuman is, and out in space, there's a guy in KISS makeup harassing the Starjammers while the Shi'ar and Thanagarians now have to figure out where their borders go (which will... probably be decided through violence).

The first TP would obviously be what the fuck just happened and how do we fix it? Of course, the most that can be done in the end is learning to peacefully coexist and compare notes on the threats from each universe. Some repairs might have to be made to make the timeline more stable.

Lots of character development possibility as everyone tries to adjust and get to know each other.

Possible future plots almost write themselves with all the possibilities. Ideas:

The Joker and Arcade team up for some reason and trap a mix of heroes and civilians in an extra fucked up version of Murderworld. Carnival nightmares and Wacky (deadly) Fun ensue. Who makes it out alive? Who dies a gruesome yet somehow comical death?

Shadowcat and Oracle unknowlingly team up online for some e-vigilantism. Dark Secrets about some major corperation and their experiments on mutants and metahumans are unearthed. X-Men/Birds of Prey crossover fun ensues, perhaps with some mistaken identity thrown in somewhere.

Reverend William Stryker has declared this sudden merging of realities the doing of Satan. Not only are mutants of the devil, but so is anyone originating from this strange other world. The end is near! Repent and cleanse the world of this corrupting influence! With so many people scared and confused, Purity's ranks grow.

On Combining Worlds

Okay, so, how to deal with the possibility of the world's population suddenly doubling? Different ideas come to mind.

Option One: Both worlds had much smaller populations than in the real world, what with the collateral damage caused by supervillains, alien attacks and the like.

Option Two: Or maybe most of the world's mundane, NPC population just suddenly has overlapping memories of both worlds, with their alternates from each universe amalgamating (ha!) in to one person who remains more or less the same. This kind of eliminates the possibility of the Purity idea though, since most normal people would have no idea which world they were from.

Option Three: Handwave and say 'it's magic' and gloss over it in typical comic book fashion.

Option Four: Kill off a whole bunch of people from both worlds in the creation of the new one. Creates lots of angst. Or just have them dissapear, which brings us to

Option Five: Say only bits and pieces of each world combined into a new one.

Random ideas

Okay. So I love love loved the What If and Alternate Genre Weeks from XMM. I'd like to eventually do something similar- What If...? and Elseworlds weeks, mayhaps; chances to explore one-shot, non-game-continuity ideas.

Exiles plot? There's gotta be some timestream messes to clean up.

For the time being, this is all entirely theoretical. Any following through with the idea will have to wait until after I've settled in to the new place and school and all that, not to mention getting my laptop set up for RPing when it finally gets here.

RP break... maybe

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 04:22:45 GMT

Very much considering taking a break from most, if not all of the games I'm currently in. Starting school in January, and my creative energy has been pretty damn low lately- or well, I have the ideas, just not the drive to carry them out. I've found that scenes have been feeling more like chores than fun, and the fact that I've been a lot less energetic about RP has prettymuch left me on the sidelines in a plot that was my idea (I was hoping to be a lot more involved than I ended up being- or, you know, involved at all...), which has left me feeling left out, despite the fault being mostly mine.

So, yeah, not sure yet if it's necessary to take a break or not, or if I'm just having a bad couple days. I'll have to see.

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:50:38 GMT

Years roleplaying: 7, unless you count childhood make-believe games

Least Favorite Character: I love Jono, but sometimes he's a pain to play. Sean can be occasionally difficult as well.

Male or female characters? Mostly female, but some males as well

Oldest character played: Huh, good question. No idea.

Oldest IC-age-wise: I had a five hundred year old vampire, back in the day.

Newest character?: XMM-Blink, though I've been considering the Exiles' T-Bird in one comicverse game
--------

Which character of yours would be most likely to...

Jump off a bridge?: Carol does it all the time. Does it count if you can fly?

Get drunk and pass out?: Carol used to do it all the time in canon... Well, maybe not passing out so much. She threw Iron Man through a plane once, though.

Be raped?: Carol. Again with the canon.

Get lost and refuse to ask for directions?: Blink. She'd just keep 'porting til she found somewhere familiar.

Get lung cancer?: Blink. Jono, before his lungs blew up. Possibly Sean with the pipe smoking.

Star in a horror movie?: Blink and Jono.

Star in a whore movie?: TJ, if it wouldn't kill her father and likely make her mother go crazy (not that that's very difficult, mind you).

Star in a video game?: Man, I got Carol leveled up so insanely high in Ultimate Alliance (not quite as high as Spider-Woman though, since she was just so freaking useful)

Make the world a better place?: Carol stopped the sun from exploding once. That counts, right? And TJ's helped save a whole lotta worlds...

Have a torrid gay love affair?: Angela.

Relate each word to a character of yours:

Love: Sean, TJ

Hate: Carol, back in the day (anger issues!). Jono and Cessily, with the self-hating.

Money: Carbon, probably.

Seduction: TJ (she inhereted her father's flirty genes, along with her mother's skimpy costume genes)

Lies: Carol lied a lot when she was drinking.

Tragedy: Jono, Carol, Sean and TJ have all been through some serious shit in their lives. Cessily has been headed that way recently.

Violence: Carbon. Carol.

Politics: Carol

Fire: Jono, Kitty

Ice: Carbon

Would you ever...

Play a prostitute: Companion in a Firefly game, maybe. But only if all the other roles were taken. I think it'd be boring (who wants to be pretty and have sex when you can SHOOT THINGS?).

Play a musician: Jono.

Play a pilot: Carol. (Is there some stigma against pilots I don't know about? Does anyone say OMGNO! to this question?)

Play a homosexual: Angela. Played Northstar a long, long time ago.

Play a pedophile: I'd never stop throwing up.

Play a politician: If I had to, for a plot, or it was in a game where it would be interesting to me.

Create a character for the sole purpose of smut: Meh. Boring. Where's the action?

Play a character who commits incest: No.

---

In other news, I really need to steal Tanya for a while to get some scenage with Scott and Carol soonish! They're so cute when they get all jawclenchy at the same time. (And really, with all the cracked out pairings out there, how has this one never been done before? XD)

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 00:04:56 GMT

My RP Wishlist:

- A new Doug for XMM

-A Marvel comic-verse MU* game that is actually comic-verse-y, with a healthy roster of active FCs and quality players. Ideally, OCs should be introduced at the same rate as new characters to the comics, in order to accurately portray the setting. An absense of creepy cyberpaths prone to flinging food at female players and thinking they could "pwn Iron Man" while ruining David Bowie characters in my mind forever would be nice as well (at this point, I get annoyed just seeing his name on the WHO list).

-The energy to do all the scenes I have ideas for.

facepalms

Sat, 19 May 2007 17:57:24 GMT

*stares at a certain game she's in*

Okay, well-made OCs are all well and good, but... but... where have all our canons gone? We are seriously lacking some major canon characters that prettymuch define the universe we're playing in.

If it were an all-OC game set in a different city in the 'verse we've got, it'd be shiny. But it's New York Frickin' City in the 616, dudes. Has Jackass' temper tantrum driven them all away? Are we willing to let him get away with that?

Once the game's accepting applications again... and, you know, has a name; maybe the mods oughta cap any new OCs for a little while =/

I love the ones we have, but the ratio, in terms of active players needs some serious balancing out, I think =/ Admittedly, I have been less active all around with my characters (all but one of whom are canon). I suppose doing my part to remedy this would be a good start, ne?

Mon, 14 May 2007 09:42:36 GMT

I am totally in the mood for some Sean/Moira fluff. Other than the fact that my Sean muse has suddenly come back full swing, I have no other explanations as to why.

I may have to write some. But if anyone wants to write some for me, I will not object! *HINT HINT!*

Pimpin' time.

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 07:59:38 GMT

shield_marvels is kicking so much butt! You know you want to join!!

We are thawing out Captain America! And fighting bad guys! And the Black Cat just tried to get in Nick Fury's PANTS!

Cast-wise, we've got a really awesome line up so far (in no particular order, and I may be forgetting some):

Nick Fury (The agent of agents! The big cheese! The dude in the eye patch!)
Carol Danvers (Ms. Marvel/Warbird)
Steve Rogers (Captain America)
Natasha Romanova (Black Widow)
Piotr Rasputin (Colossus)
Felicia Hardy (Black Cat)
Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat)
Sean Cassidy (Banshee)
Pete Wisdom (Too cool for a codename)
Jono Starsmore (Chamber)
Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler)
Scott Summers (Cyclops)
Remy LeBeau (Gambit)
and Hank McCoy (Beast)

I'd love to get some Brotherhood types lined up, and some more villains and more agents and... yeah, just about everything. We have action, adventure and wackyfun OOC chats. What more could you want in an RP? Come on! Apply! You'll like it, or your (pretend) money back.

What the fucking fuck?

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 08:55:53 GMT

Dude.

You're an asshole.

First, you get pissy and take a "hiatus" from the game.

Then, you join the "rival" (in your mind, anyways- in reality, it's just the game with standards) game that you spent so much time badmouthing without telling those in charge who you are (though you tell everyone else, and the moderators learn within two days!)

Then, you proceed to flip the fuck out and arrange for the game to not go back online after the bi-weekly server crash (which you told me you 'didn't know' anything about when I asked you).

Then you delete the fucking LiveJournal community.

How can you honestly think you're not the bad guy in this situation. You're an asshole. The end.

PS: LEARN TO USE THE FUCKING ELIPSIS. THREE DOTS! THREE! NOT TWO! NEVER TWO! THREE!

This is not in BRPS because...

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:05:17 GMT

...I think this person is a great RPer. I like this person- I like playing with them a lot, regardless of which alt they are using. Their canon characters are flawlessly played while their OCs are clever and true to the setting without ripping off any existing characters.

However, I must admit that I was quite hurt to be called a "jerk" for something I did not intend to do! Yes, if I had purposefully posed around this person's character because I had wanted them to bring in an alt when I had not, in fact, asked them to, that would make me a colossal jerk. But i did not do this. Hell, we were all barely three poses in to the scene, and I was having trouble keeping up with the other two characters in the scene besides myself and this person.

I am very aware of my shortcomings as an RPer. I know I am far better at coming up with plot concepts and ideas than I am with actually running them and seeing them through on my own. I know I often make spelling mistakes with certain words that I have mental blocks with. I know I overuse words like "rather" "quite" and "somewhat." I try to correct these problems as best I can, though I cannot catch myself every time.

But what I pride myself on as a role-player is that I am a nice goddamn person. I do not bitch people out on public channels, I do not insult people, I do not purposefully exclude people from scenes they want to be a part of. If I have a problem with someone, I try to handle myself as tactfully as possible, or bring my concerns to a third party who can handle the situation better than I can.

If I had been called out for the bad habits that I know I have in gaming, I would have shrugged it off and admitted this person was right. But calling me a jerk and then signing off before I have a chance to explain myself, then paging me later on with an apology that basically amounted to "I have to apologize to you and I'm sorry I didn't do what you wanted me to," really freaking bothers me. I didn't want this person to do anything. The scene (which was a pointless fluff scene to be a break from all the recent angst- and it wasn't even in game continuity!) had barely started, and I had trouble keeping up with it because there was so much going on. I tried to have my character react to the most pressing events- that being the small creature affixed to her boyfriend's face and the other one covered in paint. I am sorry I gave this person the impression I wanted them to play a different character (if I had, I would have said 'hey, do you mind playing x instead of y?').

All I wanted out of that scene was for people to have fun, and I am sorry I was unable to help this person achieve that.

Maybe posting this here will just make the situation worse. Maybe not. But I had to get this out there to make it clear that I would never do what this person felt that I did, and I apologize if I gave them a different impression. It was most certainly not my intent, and I hate the idea that I upset someone that badly.

And finally, because it needs to be said;

PRETENDY. FUNTIME. GAMES.

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 04:28:14 GMT

shield_marvels is turning out to be pretty damn kick ass, if I may say so myself. We've got our first of what I'm hoping will be many big actiony threads up and running, and we've got an awesome group of players who really have a great grasp on their characters and the setting. I'm really, really pleased with this little RPG. As far as starts go, this one's got a pretty damn good one.

A Note to Writers, RPers and Other Avid (Ab)Users of the English Language

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:37:14 GMT

When starting a sentence with the word "well," PUT A FUCKING COMMA AFTER "WELL."

Do not make me BEAT YOU WITH A SOCK FULL OF COMMAS. I will make the commas out of lead, or possibly adamantium. Got that? ADAMANTIUM COMMA-BEATINGS.

Seriously, it isn't that hard to remember.

Examples:

WRONG: Well now that we know you're insane...
RIGHT: Well, now that we know you're insane...

WRONG: Well that's different.
RIGHT: Well, that's different.

In short: STOP NEGLECTING THE FUCKING COMMA! The comma has done nothing to earn your neglect.

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 01:11:02 GMT

I must share the glee that is this thread. Seriously.

Worst (or best?). Rescue. Team. EVER.

Wade is made of win.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 17:34:54 GMT

It looks like the 20's Changeling game may just be becoming a full oWoD MU*!

Kickass.

To those I RP with

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 07:45:43 GMT

I probably won't be on/available much in the next few days. I'll likely pop on AIM/MSN every so often, but not for long.

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 05:24:37 GMT

Would anyone be interested in an online Changeling: The Dreaming game set in 1920's Berlin?

I'm still in the process of setting things up, but I'd love to know if anyone wants to be a part of it.

More icons!

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:40:15 GMT

Seven icons. Scarlet Witch, Domino, Siryn, Husk, Magik, Phoenix

Preview:

1. 2. 3.
4. 5. 6.
7. 8.

1 through 3 = Scarlet Witch. Base for 3 by stacyx
4 = Domino. Base by nique
5 = Siryn
6= Husk
7= Magic (Illyana Rasputin) (Exiles)
8. Phoenix (Jean Grey)

Potential RP rules

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:32:54 GMT

No, this doesn't mean I'm necessarily starting an RP, but you never know. These are just some rules I wrote up for a game which may or may not exist at some point.
I wrote them under the pretense that said non-existant game would be an LJ-based X-Men or Marvel game, but those details could easily be changed.

Any feedback would be appreciated- suggestions, changes, different wordings for things, etc.

RP Rules

1. First and foremost: BE NICE. Roleplaying is a social hobby and mean people have no place taking part in it. Cliques, bullying and other such things belong back in Junior High, not amongst a bunch of grown ups playing make-believe. Remember: Pretendy Funtime Games (link to the wadewilson rant goes here). No one has fun when people are assholes.
I don’t care if you’re the BEST RPER EVER- if you’re an asshole, we will remove you from the game.

2. Original characters will be allowed. However, this is Marvel (or X-Men) game (it’s right in the title, see?). In order to prevent OCs from over-shadowing canons, we will only allow a certain number of “spots” for original characters. One original character spot will be made available for every five active canon characters, and any player wishing to play an OC must have at least one canon character already in play.
Should canon characters be lost/written out/go inactive, original characters will not be removed, but new ones will not be accepted until the 5-to-1 ratio is restored.
To see if we are currently accepting any original characters, please see our application page (link goes here).

Also: Original characters must be original. Their powers, personality or appearance must not be direct rip-offs of existing Marvel canons. Powers may be similar, but not identical.

3. There is no limit to the number of characters one player can have. Just be sure you can handle everything you take on.

4. Know your source material. This doesn’t mean you need to own every X-Men, Spider-Man or Avengers comic ever, but having at least a passing familiarity with the themes and setting is a good idea. Our moderators will be more than happy to help you familiarize yourself with your chosen character through scanned pages, summary links and other references.

5. Do not butcher the English language in your posts. Use a spellchecker if you have to. Language-butchering offenses range from horribly spelled one-liners to über-pretentious, thesaurus-humping purple prose.

6. For foreign characters and others with distinctive speech patterns: Do not go overboard. Not everything needs to be typed phonetically. Do not use Babelfish or similar translators for chunks of dialogue. Simply use [square brackets] around English words to represent anything beyond the occasional word in another language.

7. You may not control the actions, reactions or placement of any other player’s character. Do not start combat scenes without consent from the other players involved. Do not harm another’s character without the consent of their player.
Telepaths: No reading another character’s thoughts without player permission, and be sure to ask what you will find.

On the flip side: Our characters are superheroes. They will be expected to be in combat situations on at least a semi-regular basis. Occasionally, you will be expected to consent to action scenes, and even being injured in them on occasion. You cannot win every fight, and not everything will turn out the way you may want.

8. Again, this game is based off of comic books (or based off movies based off of comic books). There can only be so many “Bill and Bob eat a sandwich” (to borrow a phrase from a friend) type of scenes. Pretend you are writing a story or a few pages of a comic: would you be interested in reading what you are writing?

This doesn’t mean every scene has to be a plot-point-filled masterpiece, but at least keep it interesting. Snappy dialogue, funny character interaction, amusing anecdotes or even humorous reminiscing of adventures gone by can make a formerly lifeless and mundane scene fun to read and to write.

9. It may be AU, but please stick to something resembling canon. Things like family relations, race or powers cannot be changed. IE, Mystique is not suddenly Nightcrawler’s sister or third-cousin-twice-removed, nor is Kurt suddenly pink and fleshy instead of blue and fuzzy.
If you don’t want the family/powers/appearance your character has been established as having in the comics, chose a different character. (This rule may or may not apply to Lorna Dane, as even Marvel can’t decide who she is or isn’t related to.)

10. Nothing Chuck Austen wrote counts.

11. This is Marvel. The characters have been Sue’d/Stu’d/emo’d up enough as it is, there is no need to add to this. No one is perfect, no one is miserable 100% of the time and while pasts may be tragic, there is no need to linger on them.

12. PBs. They really aren’t important. Really. We should get enough of a sense of what your character looks like through their description that we won’t need to see a photo or drawing of them.
Use comics, celebrities, quotes in pretty fonts on scenic landscapes or anything else you want to use in your icons, as long as it is appropriate for the character and doesn’t break any of LJ’s rules regarding icons.
If you feel you must have a PB, make sure no one else is using the person you want and that, in the case of a canon character, they actually look like your character.

This is a text-based game. If seeing a comic book picture, a photo of an actor or no image at all distracts you from the writing in the post, you’re in the wrong damn hobby; go play video games or something.

13. Romance is nice, and can definitely add some character depth, but it really shouldn’t be the focus of everything your character is involved in.
Pairings should also make sense. If the characters have no background as being attracted to one another or romantically involved in the comics, you’re going to have to build the relationship from the ground up. Rogue is not going to wake up one morning and decide she’s in love with Daredevil. If you want to play out an unlikely pairing, you’re going to have to do a lot of writing and scening to sell it to us.

14. Slash: some people like it, some don’t. In this game, we don’t care what kind of fanfiction you read or write, but please don’t alter the established sexualities of canon characters in-game without a damn good reason beyond “it’s hot.”

Some characters have been ambiguous enough that you can go one way or another with them (Rictor and Shatterstar, for instance), but this is not true in most cases. Northstar will not sleep with a woman and Wolverine will not sleep with a man, and you really can’t portray them any differently without making them horribly out-of-character.

OC’s, should you end up playing one, can have any sexual orientation you want them to.

15. We have no specific number of posts you must make in the game, but please be active enough that we know you’re here. If you’ve been idle too long, we will issue you a warning, give you a few days to start posting again, then remove you if you do not become active again.
Repeatedly becoming idle and only posting when warned will result in being removed.

16. If you are, for any reason, removed from the game or leave on your own, we reserve the right to retcon your character as we see fit, especially if the character was canon.

17. Pregnancy: If you’re going to do it, do it right. You’re not going to pop a kid out after a three day gestation period, drop them off at kindergarten the next day and off to college the next.
If you really must have your kid grow up unreasonably fast, do it the Marvel Way: time travel or in an alternate dimension.
(We’re kidding. We’d rather people kept the spawning to a minimum here, unless you can convince us it will be a good plot point without bringing any other plots to a screeching halt).

18. And, just because it’s that important to bear repeating: do not be an asshole. We’re all here to have fun, and no one has the right to ruin that for anyone else.

So. Thoughts?

9 Marvel women icons

Sun, 31 Dec 2006 15:10:57 GMT

Icons!

Storm, Dagger, Phoenix, Jubilee and Black Widow

Teasers:

1. 2. 3. 4.
5. 6. 7. 8.
9.

1. Storm
2. Dagger
3. Phoenix
4. Phoenix w/transparent background
5. Slightly altered screencap of X2 deleted Jubilee scene
6. Storm
7. Storm
8. Black Widow (obviously)
9. Jubilee

Comments and credit are nice.

Thanks muchly to stacyx for the bases for several of these.

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 15:49:15 GMT

We still very much need/want/crave an Illyana over at X-Men Movieverse! Pre-made plot and contacts and EVERYTHING!!!

Someone's gotta want to play Magik....

Random RP thoughts

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 15:18:24 GMT

We play these make-believe games for fun, right? Yes. Fun. Role-playing is a hobby. It is not art, it is a game.

When you make believe that you're someone else- be it in a LARP, a tabletop game or an online game, you are doing it for yourself, as are the other people around you. It is a social hobby. Each player's enjoyment of the game is dependant on the attitudes, actions and consideration of the other players.

It does not improve the quality of the game or make it more enjoyable to you to make it less fun for other players. Being tactful is not difficult. Neither is being polite. Being nice only takes a tiny bit of effort and occasionally a little self-censoring.

Have a problem with someone's character/writing/plots/playing style? Providing they seem to be of a decent sort of person otherwise, talking to them privately should always be the first option. Don't just criticize, offer suggestions as to how they can improve. Especially if they're a new player. New players become great players, if properly guided by those who have been around the block a few times.

New-player mistakes are common and easy to spot. We've all made them- at least most of us have. A simple "you might want to do X in the future instead of Y" is generally all that's needed.

When someone refuses to learn or is rude about something, that's when the gloves can, in my opinion come off. There are a few things in RPing I consider to be worth removal of the player.

-Godmoding by players who know better. You can't control someone else's character without permission. End of story.
-OOC rudeness to other players
-Harassment of other players
-Outright plagiarism of another player. Copying bios, posts, etc and claiming them as your own (less of a problem in LARP and tabletop, I'd imagine).
-In tabletop and LARP, bad hygine. No bath, no gaming for you.

I'm sure I'll have more blathering in the future, but that's the end of it for now. I guess the bottom line is be nice to people- make other players feel welcome. The game is more fun for everyone if all the players actually look forward to being there or logging in.

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 07:40:59 GMT

I keep getting the feeling I'm being looked down upon OOCly in some places. Has my writing quality suddenly bottomed out or something?

This is getting annoying, and I'm getting pretty damn tired of it. If you think I'm a sucky RPer/writer/whatever, fine, a simple "no thanks" would suffice. I don't need several lines of text on a public channel telling me why my character is useless to yours.

I get it, you don't need or want any more IC allys. Forget I ever asked, I won't make that mistake again. Jebus.

Maybe I'm being oversensitive, maybe it's all in my head, but the impression that I got was a very third-grade "your dolly isn't as pretty as ours so you can't play with us" kind of vibe.