Soo! I just want to preface this by saying I was so, so excited to be playing with you again! It was really flattering that you guys wanted me to re-app and join the cast again, and I'd been really looking forward to the chance at CR for the first time since the poly days. I really enjoy your portrayal of Sharrkan and he seems just as fun as he is in the canon-- but I do have two main points of crit to bring up.
The first is activity-- threads are hard to poke through and find in network posts, but otherwise I've looked at both your and yamu's tags on the main and logs comms, as well as what's been provided for a/c, and it only further cements my feelings on the matter. I've been back in Z for five months now and I was at first really excited to try plotting and following up with you guys, but I quickly realized it was a bit moot after a solid two months of attempts and nothing ever getting done. Whenever things have come up on plurk after that, I've been a bit hesitant to pipe up and usually don't bother anymore because of it; it gets pretty old to try and work out plotting or get excited talking and joking around about fun things that never happen.
Besides our one log that was dropped in seven comments (and that I personally don't even consider having happened because it went nowhere), I've not seen hide nor hair of either of you. I don't mean to group Britt into this since this isn't crit for her, it's just that everything seems to come as a pair when it comes to Sharr & Yamu. I'd be fine with working out a few assumptions here and there, but our entire CR is assumptions with nothing having ever happened concretely. I'll admit that I dropped the ball when you came back from hiatus this month for December, but that still doesn't explain the four months prior-to. I've looked back on all of the a/c you guys have submitted and it's either with each other or only Judal and Ja'far, with I think two last-day-of-a/c threads with random network posts from Yamu and one log this month with Hakuei, and no one else from you. I haven't seen you participating in any of the events after the handcuff event with Yamu, and you've only been in a couple of logs since joining in July. I'm not holding you up to my activity standards by any means, but it's still falling incredibly short and I'd love to see you around more and branching out. I'd love to play with you! I know there's the LOL DON'T DO YAOIS thing but it doesn't have to be porn-- we always talk about what bros Sin and Sharr would be and how they'd be hitting up bars and brothels together and just being idiots in general, and that'd be a lot of fun and really easy to garner CR in doing so!
This ties in a bit with my second point of crit, being Sharr and Yamu's relationship and how it's been handled. I think you guys really forced it into intimacy right off the bat and threw characterization to the side just to get them banging sooner. In canon they're always fighting and all of the generals are practically family. They've largely grown up together, fought together, ate together-- they're closer than friends on many aspects. They all have a hilarious and wonderful dynamic, with an underflowing dark streak and an unseen rift between the older and newer generals, showing the divide with Sinbad's curse. I don't see them being attracted to each other so easily-- I feel it'd be something more like begrudging worship assistance after exhausting all other possibilities, or having to deal with being thrown together for events that leave little choice in the matter. It'd take a long time to work up to getting along in such a fashion, but you were already at that point after the handcuff event which I think was their first time.
There's so much that could and should be going on, even if it gets handwaved, but it just isn't happening. There's so many possibilities for Sharrkan and Sinbad to get up to mischief and really cause Ja'far and Yamuraiha some grief, going out drinking together or hitting up the hot springs or trying to pick up ladies. I know you're busy and don't have the time for a large amount of RPing, and like I said, that'd be otherwise fine. It just seems like neither of you have any real interest in the game or castmates or really, any other side of gameplay aside from each other. I don't mean to sound harsh, but I'm curious why you two don't just musebox and use game events as prompts if there's no time or interest in the aspects of actually playing in a game.
Sorry this got a little long, and that it's taken me a while to come to you with it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't overthinking anything or it wasn't a short-term problem if you were busy with finals for one or two months or something. I still have the notepad open of a/c links and who your provided threads have been with if you want to/need to see the patterns, but you're probably already aware of it. Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to expand on or if I can help with anything. :( I really do want to play with you guys, it's just that my idea of fun isn't handwaving and assuming everything. I'm always around on plurk (esp. for pps or @mentions since I get the e-mail notif) or aim if you prefer talking things out one-on-one!
First of all thanks for bringing these two points up, because they're really on the back of my mind as I'm getting back in the flow of things at Z.
On activity, I realize that I'm flaking a little on my end due to law school and whatnot, and of the five months that I've been in the game, I've been mostly on hiatus for 1.5 of those months due to finals. However, the threads I submitted to AC are not indicative of the threads that I started and followed up on -- they were just the easiest ones to submit at the time as I didn't have to go hunting down two separate threads, three separate threads, when I could just take a link and use it as AC on one go. Plus, they were the easiest ones to remember sob. I'm not saying this is a complete defense, because I do realize that my availability is a little wonkier than others and it might frustrate some. I've been tackling this little-by-little, but it will take some time because I'm mostly a slow tagger/logger, so just let me know if it hinders/worries you in any way in the near future.
On the second part, and I've discussed this very extensively with Britt, is that they've only had a serious conversation about their intimacy I think, to my knowledge, twice in their entire stay at Z, and even then they haven't really addressed the issue because they're morons and I think in both instances we assumed that it degenerated (or will degenerate) into a fight. I know we joke about them having sex all the time, but that's not really the case. This is partially our fault! Because Britt and I have been RPing with each other so long, we didn't really consider the consequences because half the time we didn't really care what we joked about (that could be misconstrued) or things left unsaid. Yamuraiha and Sharrkan are (and I know we've been kind of iffy with the activity on this end and it kind of meshes together to the same problem) still begrudgingly having sex with some sort of agreement between the two of them -- sometimes enjoying it, sometimes not, sometimes ending up in screaming and Sharrkan getting smacked in the face -- and I can see where you're getting the misconception because of the lack of proper communication. I was kind of headtilting when I heard Sinbad was moving out of the apartment because I thought that was a little odd, so this makes a lot more sense! I'll talk to her over it, and we'll try to be a little bit more clearer about the nature of their relationship. Rest assured like 75% of the time they're fighting, but we don't see a reason to RP that all the time given our limited time (me: school, britt: working). It gets old after a while, and after doing the same type of threads 5-6 times in Z, we just started dropping all the fighting which is probably why there's like a huge ratio problem in the serious and non-serious threads that you might be seeing around. cryingcat.gif
On the communication end, I will say that I am not a mindreader. I am always willing to RP things out, but half the time I don't feel comfortable reaching out and tagging Every Single Thing post there, due to my limited time. My tags come slow (and I rarely drop tags -- when I do, it's usually a three-person thread, or I have no idea how to continue the thread, or I'm waiting for someone else and haven't been pinged yet), and for me, I don't like to waste my time and tag someone only for the thread to be dropped because a one day wait is too long for the other party. This has happened to me numerous times, which is why if you have a specific idea, it's probably best just to let me know so we can actually work through it! I handwave because others handwave or drop the ball or the log never gets started etc., and I honestly don't know what's going on in the cast aside from what you guys tell me -- but as for all the ideas you put out, I didn't know that you wanted to do all of these things. I don't recall you ever telling me about them, nor do I see a Plurk addressing any plotting plans aside from the usual Z events (unless I missed it;;;) so I apologize if I came off as aloof and unapproachable, but that's not the case at all!
On that note, on me having little interest in the game -- I came here mostly for the CR and fun threads, and admittedly, I do have little interest in smutting with people I don't know well if that's what you mean (unless it wasn't; then you can ignore this and pretend it never happened screams). Again, this is a comfort-zone problem on my end, but bluntly speaking, I see no reason for me to go out and alleviate this. Additionally, I've had some bad experience playing male characters hitting on female characters in the past (even being a female RPer!! tears), hence my unwillingness and carefulness to branch out in the smut sphere of things unless I'm absolutely sure of the player I'm RPing with. I've had a similar problem with Shikamaru, where I ended up dropping whole logs because of the reasons above, so I just didn't want to put people through the same stuff again just with a different character. I hope you can understand that, and if this is a problem, I'm... actually not sure how I could handle that without compromising my comfort level as an RPer. If you have any ideas, I'm all ears! But I hope that kind sheds light as to why you might be seeing things as they are right now.
THIS RESPONSE IS A MESS and I'm just blabbing, but I hope you can make sense of it. I'm not the most organized people when it comes down to RP. cryingcat.gif
Yeah it's difficult to really gauge activity without an re:tags system and no activity tracking posts by you guys, so all I have to go on is the comm tags and whatever was submitted for A/C without digging through the network looking for threads, and I'm... so far from being that invested HAHA that's too much work just let me die. I just never see you guys around and it does get worrisome, especially when you're both really important castmates to me and I never get the chance to interact. We never seem to be on the same page with general assumptions either, which I've tried multiple times to work out between everyone.
As for the ship, I think it's handled better on Sharrkan's end than on Yamuraiha's and I am in the process of writing up some crit on that as well-- I don't really need to go into it here, I think, but just to put it down for you that I think it's all right on Sharr's end, just not so much as a whole. I did just want to let you know how I've been interpreting it and how it comes off as from a third person's perspective. ALSO FOR QUICK CLARIFICATION lmfao Sinbad isn't moving out of the apartment, so much as he'll just be staying at the brothel more often than not for security purposes and because it's easier to manage by being there. He'll still be living in the Sindria flat, which is another reason I wanted to try and get everyone on the same page wrt: IC assumptions. He just took the booze he had stashed around to start the bar at the brothel and otherwise that's about it. He has a room at each. I definitely understand not wanting to do the same things over and over again, but at least working out the assumptions would be a big help in knowing what the off hours are like. I try to keep everything clear in what Sinbad's up to but then I'm completely clueless otherwise-- you didn't even state whether Sharr was in synodic or if he was on auto when you hiatused and I assumed the latter until you said he'd been gone when you returned. It's just the little things like that adding up that bother me because by all means it would've been something obvious to know.
I know I don't bother reaching out much anymore, but in the first couple months of re-apping I had been going into everyone's plurks trying to plot things whenever Z/events were brought up. Whenever I'd try to pull it together and get a log start up, no one would reply-- even clearly stating "all right I'll get a log up, when would be convenient/let's work out an ic date" etc. It originally seemed like you were only interested in smutting instead of doing generic things around Z and Britt had expressed interest in DP and such so I tried for that with you guys, but then further thought that you were only interested in Sharr/Yamu and not much else. I gave up, plain and simple. I'm a slow tagger as well more often than not, but I do always backlog and I'm always around OOCly, more than willing to take up the initiative and get things started. Sin's been in 16 logs alone since I rejoined, so it isn't as though I'm scarce haha. When it seemed like no one was really interested I just moved on; I'd had no indication otherwise and I don't want to keep being the only person initiating when there's no expressed interest otherwise.
I did mean the lack of interest more generally, not just in porn. People are all down for handwaving the dirty bits if it's more comfortable for you, but at least he's getting out and about with IC CR in that case and branching out. I do understand, but on the same hand I also think there's plenty more to be done in Z than meets the eye. Yes, the events are pretty 50/50 on aphro and sex flavors of the week, but there's still the interesting backstory plots that pop up as well as finding IC motivations to pursue. For example, Sinbad's antsy being stuck, so he opened the brothel as a way to generate money to build a ship; he wants to sail back to Alderamin or even go elsewhere, even if it probably won't be allowed OOCly. It's a goal he's set and it gives him something to do and work on.
Plenty of people are around for generic plotting and CR, although I'll admit I do understand if it seems boring with all the small talk it takes to lead up into more substantial CR and plots. I HOPE I MADE SENSE OF IT PROPERLY, in any case, but like I said if there's anything I can help with OOCly or ICly, I'd be more than willing to help out. :( I do really want to play with you guys but it's just been disheartening. Without eventing there doesn't leave much room for me to try and jump in, but I'll poke around more often if it's still mutual. [tsun]
Hmm. The more I read into this, the more this seems like a general miscommunication problem. When I went on hiatus, I actually made a big deal out of Sharrkan going into synodic and Shikamaru being on auto, because I mulled over it for like a week and discussed with people what would be best. I didn't post up an OOC notice because those always annoyed me when it popped up on my flist, but I did mention it on plurk -- probably not the best move on my end. I'll try to be more clear next time. ;A;
I think I kind of get the gist of the problem, so I'll send you a pp so we can talk more directly. (blush)
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The first is activity-- threads are hard to poke through and find in network posts, but otherwise I've looked at both your and yamu's tags on the main and logs comms, as well as what's been provided for a/c, and it only further cements my feelings on the matter. I've been back in Z for five months now and I was at first really excited to try plotting and following up with you guys, but I quickly realized it was a bit moot after a solid two months of attempts and nothing ever getting done. Whenever things have come up on plurk after that, I've been a bit hesitant to pipe up and usually don't bother anymore because of it; it gets pretty old to try and work out plotting or get excited talking and joking around about fun things that never happen.
Besides our one log that was dropped in seven comments (and that I personally don't even consider having happened because it went nowhere), I've not seen hide nor hair of either of you. I don't mean to group Britt into this since this isn't crit for her, it's just that everything seems to come as a pair when it comes to Sharr & Yamu. I'd be fine with working out a few assumptions here and there, but our entire CR is assumptions with nothing having ever happened concretely. I'll admit that I dropped the ball when you came back from hiatus this month for December, but that still doesn't explain the four months prior-to. I've looked back on all of the a/c you guys have submitted and it's either with each other or only Judal and Ja'far, with I think two last-day-of-a/c threads with random network posts from Yamu and one log this month with Hakuei, and no one else from you. I haven't seen you participating in any of the events after the handcuff event with Yamu, and you've only been in a couple of logs since joining in July. I'm not holding you up to my activity standards by any means, but it's still falling incredibly short and I'd love to see you around more and branching out. I'd love to play with you! I know there's the LOL DON'T DO YAOIS thing but it doesn't have to be porn-- we always talk about what bros Sin and Sharr would be and how they'd be hitting up bars and brothels together and just being idiots in general, and that'd be a lot of fun and really easy to garner CR in doing so!
This ties in a bit with my second point of crit, being Sharr and Yamu's relationship and how it's been handled. I think you guys really forced it into intimacy right off the bat and threw characterization to the side just to get them banging sooner. In canon they're always fighting and all of the generals are practically family. They've largely grown up together, fought together, ate together-- they're closer than friends on many aspects. They all have a hilarious and wonderful dynamic, with an underflowing dark streak and an unseen rift between the older and newer generals, showing the divide with Sinbad's curse. I don't see them being attracted to each other so easily-- I feel it'd be something more like begrudging worship assistance after exhausting all other possibilities, or having to deal with being thrown together for events that leave little choice in the matter. It'd take a long time to work up to getting along in such a fashion, but you were already at that point after the handcuff event which I think was their first time.
There's so much that could and should be going on, even if it gets handwaved, but it just isn't happening. There's so many possibilities for Sharrkan and Sinbad to get up to mischief and really cause Ja'far and Yamuraiha some grief, going out drinking together or hitting up the hot springs or trying to pick up ladies. I know you're busy and don't have the time for a large amount of RPing, and like I said, that'd be otherwise fine. It just seems like neither of you have any real interest in the game or castmates or really, any other side of gameplay aside from each other. I don't mean to sound harsh, but I'm curious why you two don't just musebox and use game events as prompts if there's no time or interest in the aspects of actually playing in a game.
Sorry this got a little long, and that it's taken me a while to come to you with it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't overthinking anything or it wasn't a short-term problem if you were busy with finals for one or two months or something. I still have the notepad open of a/c links and who your provided threads have been with if you want to/need to see the patterns, but you're probably already aware of it. Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to expand on or if I can help with anything. :( I really do want to play with you guys, it's just that my idea of fun isn't handwaving and assuming everything. I'm always around on plurk (esp. for pps or @mentions since I get the e-mail notif) or aim if you prefer talking things out one-on-one!
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On activity, I realize that I'm flaking a little on my end due to law school and whatnot, and of the five months that I've been in the game, I've been mostly on hiatus for 1.5 of those months due to finals. However, the threads I submitted to AC are not indicative of the threads that I started and followed up on -- they were just the easiest ones to submit at the time as I didn't have to go hunting down two separate threads, three separate threads, when I could just take a link and use it as AC on one go. Plus, they were the easiest ones to remember sob. I'm not saying this is a complete defense, because I do realize that my availability is a little wonkier than others and it might frustrate some. I've been tackling this little-by-little, but it will take some time because I'm mostly a slow tagger/logger, so just let me know if it hinders/worries you in any way in the near future.
On the second part, and I've discussed this very extensively with Britt, is that they've only had a serious conversation about their intimacy I think, to my knowledge, twice in their entire stay at Z, and even then they haven't really addressed the issue because they're morons and I think in both instances we assumed that it degenerated (or will degenerate) into a fight. I know we joke about them having sex all the time, but that's not really the case. This is partially our fault! Because Britt and I have been RPing with each other so long, we didn't really consider the consequences because half the time we didn't really care what we joked about (that could be misconstrued) or things left unsaid. Yamuraiha and Sharrkan are (and I know we've been kind of iffy with the activity on this end and it kind of meshes together to the same problem) still begrudgingly having sex with some sort of agreement between the two of them -- sometimes enjoying it, sometimes not, sometimes ending up in screaming and Sharrkan getting smacked in the face -- and I can see where you're getting the misconception because of the lack of proper communication. I was kind of headtilting when I heard Sinbad was moving out of the apartment because I thought that was a little odd, so this makes a lot more sense! I'll talk to her over it, and we'll try to be a little bit more clearer about the nature of their relationship. Rest assured like 75% of the time they're fighting, but we don't see a reason to RP that all the time given our limited time (me: school, britt: working). It gets old after a while, and after doing the same type of threads 5-6 times in Z, we just started dropping all the fighting which is probably why there's like a huge ratio problem in the serious and non-serious threads that you might be seeing around. cryingcat.gif
On the communication end, I will say that I am not a mindreader. I am always willing to RP things out, but half the time I don't feel comfortable reaching out and tagging Every Single Thing post there, due to my limited time. My tags come slow (and I rarely drop tags -- when I do, it's usually a three-person thread, or I have no idea how to continue the thread, or I'm waiting for someone else and haven't been pinged yet), and for me, I don't like to waste my time and tag someone only for the thread to be dropped because a one day wait is too long for the other party. This has happened to me numerous times, which is why if you have a specific idea, it's probably best just to let me know so we can actually work through it! I handwave because others handwave or drop the ball or the log never gets started etc., and I honestly don't know what's going on in the cast aside from what you guys tell me -- but as for all the ideas you put out, I didn't know that you wanted to do all of these things. I don't recall you ever telling me about them, nor do I see a Plurk addressing any plotting plans aside from the usual Z events (unless I missed it;;;) so I apologize if I came off as aloof and unapproachable, but that's not the case at all!
On that note, on me having little interest in the game -- I came here mostly for the CR and fun threads, and admittedly, I do have little interest in smutting with people I don't know well if that's what you mean (unless it wasn't; then you can ignore this and pretend it never happened screams). Again, this is a comfort-zone problem on my end, but bluntly speaking, I see no reason for me to go out and alleviate this. Additionally, I've had some bad experience playing male characters hitting on female characters in the past (even being a female RPer!! tears), hence my unwillingness and carefulness to branch out in the smut sphere of things unless I'm absolutely sure of the player I'm RPing with. I've had a similar problem with Shikamaru, where I ended up dropping whole logs because of the reasons above, so I just didn't want to put people through the same stuff again just with a different character. I hope you can understand that, and if this is a problem, I'm... actually not sure how I could handle that without compromising my comfort level as an RPer. If you have any ideas, I'm all ears! But I hope that kind sheds light as to why you might be seeing things as they are right now.
THIS RESPONSE IS A MESS and I'm just blabbing, but I hope you can make sense of it. I'm not the most organized people when it comes down to RP. cryingcat.gif
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As for the ship, I think it's handled better on Sharrkan's end than on Yamuraiha's and I am in the process of writing up some crit on that as well-- I don't really need to go into it here, I think, but just to put it down for you that I think it's all right on Sharr's end, just not so much as a whole. I did just want to let you know how I've been interpreting it and how it comes off as from a third person's perspective. ALSO FOR QUICK CLARIFICATION lmfao Sinbad isn't moving out of the apartment, so much as he'll just be staying at the brothel more often than not for security purposes and because it's easier to manage by being there. He'll still be living in the Sindria flat, which is another reason I wanted to try and get everyone on the same page wrt: IC assumptions. He just took the booze he had stashed around to start the bar at the brothel and otherwise that's about it. He has a room at each. I definitely understand not wanting to do the same things over and over again, but at least working out the assumptions would be a big help in knowing what the off hours are like. I try to keep everything clear in what Sinbad's up to but then I'm completely clueless otherwise-- you didn't even state whether Sharr was in synodic or if he was on auto when you hiatused and I assumed the latter until you said he'd been gone when you returned. It's just the little things like that adding up that bother me because by all means it would've been something obvious to know.
I know I don't bother reaching out much anymore, but in the first couple months of re-apping I had been going into everyone's plurks trying to plot things whenever Z/events were brought up. Whenever I'd try to pull it together and get a log start up, no one would reply-- even clearly stating "all right I'll get a log up, when would be convenient/let's work out an ic date" etc. It originally seemed like you were only interested in smutting instead of doing generic things around Z and Britt had expressed interest in DP and such so I tried for that with you guys, but then further thought that you were only interested in Sharr/Yamu and not much else. I gave up, plain and simple. I'm a slow tagger as well more often than not, but I do always backlog and I'm always around OOCly, more than willing to take up the initiative and get things started. Sin's been in 16 logs alone since I rejoined, so it isn't as though I'm scarce haha. When it seemed like no one was really interested I just moved on; I'd had no indication otherwise and I don't want to keep being the only person initiating when there's no expressed interest otherwise.
I did mean the lack of interest more generally, not just in porn. People are all down for handwaving the dirty bits if it's more comfortable for you, but at least he's getting out and about with IC CR in that case and branching out. I do understand, but on the same hand I also think there's plenty more to be done in Z than meets the eye. Yes, the events are pretty 50/50 on aphro and sex flavors of the week, but there's still the interesting backstory plots that pop up as well as finding IC motivations to pursue. For example, Sinbad's antsy being stuck, so he opened the brothel as a way to generate money to build a ship; he wants to sail back to Alderamin or even go elsewhere, even if it probably won't be allowed OOCly. It's a goal he's set and it gives him something to do and work on.
Plenty of people are around for generic plotting and CR, although I'll admit I do understand if it seems boring with all the small talk it takes to lead up into more substantial CR and plots. I HOPE I MADE SENSE OF IT PROPERLY, in any case, but like I said if there's anything I can help with OOCly or ICly, I'd be more than willing to help out. :( I do really want to play with you guys but it's just been disheartening. Without eventing there doesn't leave much room for me to try and jump in, but I'll poke around more often if it's still mutual. [tsun]
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I think I kind of get the gist of the problem, so I'll send you a pp so we can talk more directly. (blush)