Kevin's Watch

I still do not see how Caelyn is creepy in any way.
She is precocious, yes.
And exposed to some things due to living in a primitive society as I see how the society works.

But nothing is perverted.
Least of all what she herself causes.
It is the reader who chooses to read such in to her actions, not my intent.

As far as her comments being IC...
They are no more IC than general comments made in the Pantheon thread in regards to things happening in game. They are simply presented from a Narian's perspective and have no game effect. View them similarly to when The Numen were helping Madadeva with the idea of skinning Raucous alive in the Pantheon comments thread then.

Menolly wrote:I still do not see how Caelyn is creepy in any way... It is the reader who chooses to read such in to her actions, not my intent.

I'm sure you don't see how. That is, in a way, my point.

Menolly wrote:As far as her comments being IC...
They are no more IC than general comments made in the Pantheon thread in regards to things happening in game. They are simply presented from a Narian's perspective and have no game effect. View them similarly to when The Numen were helping Madadeva with the idea of skinning Raucous alive in the Pantheon comments thread then.

You still miss the point. I don't care that you were IC vs. OOC. You being IC (which in this case means more that you were using the first person from the character's point of view, since none of what you said could be called canonical) doesn't, as I said previously, change how creepy the character is. That you don't notice how she's creepy shows how disturbed you are. I only brought up the IC nature to point out that that itself was also a missing of the point.

Well...
at least my character is not de-penga-ficated...

SomeFather banished
This discussion from Comments
But it rages on...

Caelyn's NOT creepy
Nor is her player disturbed
Just misunderstood

Syl did have a point
That from certain perspectives
“Chafing” post was weird

Kid's response to Erd
May have been less than prudent
“Ewwwww” factor was high

Still, this character
Child of Agapé’s prophet
Did some other posts

A fresh perspective
Interesting experiment
…But unpopular

Since they're all female... I would question that assertion.

In short: You had an 18 month old child make a joke about sex and somehow failed to realise this was a bad idea.

That's all it was, a misjudgement - until, instead of acknowledging the mistake, you tried to justify it, and started digging yourself a hole where you portray yourself as a person who thinks it's perfectly alright for two year olds to make jokes about sex.

If there was even the barest hint that the comment was a deliberate attempt to disturb modern sensibilities by showing something from a less civilised perspective then you might have gotten away with it, but instead you come across as unnervingly earnest on the issue.

Murrin wrote:In short: You had an 18 month old child make a joke about sex and somehow failed to realise this was a bad idea.

That's all it was, a misjudgement - until, instead of acknowledging the mistake, you tried to justify it, and started digging yourself a hole where you portray yourself as a person who thinks it's perfectly alright for two year olds to make jokes about sex.

If there was even the barest hint that the comment was a deliberate attempt to disturb modern sensibilities by showing something from a less civilised perspective then you might have gotten away with it, but instead you come across as unnervingly earnest on the issue.

Thank you for being forthright, Murrin.
The thing is, I am earnest regarding this.

Caelyn giggled, but her response was not a joke.
Sex as I see it is a beautiful thing, and in many primitive societies is dealt that way. The children are exposed to it occurring around them at a young age. Not that they partake in it, but that it is something done between adults who love each other and mean neither one harm.

Usually as a child attains adulthood, there are rituals to celebrate that. I am following Auel's example for my society, so sex is not taboo in anyway. It just is not practiced on the young, unless a character is disturbed. But that is not the case in Agapé's society as I am portraying it.

And yes, I do believe a precocious child would have observed and questioned her mother regarding it, should she have awoken and seen activity under her parents blankets.

How on Narie was her comment regarding this taken as a joke?

She was participating in the use of a pun. It's along the same lines. The fact that it takes a sophisticated grasp of language to understand such a pun suggests that either the child is freakishly mature intellectually or the joke had been explained to her, which seems a little far to go even if you're open about sex in a general sense.

OK, now that I can accept as strange.

But she did guess at the meaning from the context of Erd's statement. Precocious she is, although that may have been a bit much. I can see how what DPJ says may apply here.

I'm so chaffing happy I split this!!!

"Chafing" is no pun
It is a euphemism
There's a distinction

Puns are my passion
And wordplay my stock-in-trade
So lets clear this up

Erd used a word that
Was unfamiliar to her
But she knew context

That precocious child
Made neither a joke nor pun
She just answered Erd

Menolly wrote:I still do not see how Caelyn is creepy in any way.
She is precocious, yes.
And exposed to some things due to living in a primitive society as I see how the society works.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I would agree with Odin that the character probably isn't creepy... in game. OOC/OOG (intra-game??), though is a different story. Keep in mind that most of us probably look at registered, posting characters as sock puppets (a reason you'll likely never see me playing as a female character or chaotic-evil, including my WoW toons). We still see your lips saying the words, so to speak. And as someone who's been on the internet since before it was the internet, that kind of thing can be weird (guys pretending to be chicks in my experience and the creepy and quite real extrapolation of guys pretending to be kids for more nefarious purposes). So when there is a disconnect between what we would expect and what is presented, especially when it involves a child-figure... hackles can be raised. I think this is what Goat's saying.

But nothing is perverted.
Least of all what she herself causes.
It is the reader who chooses to read such in to her actions, not my intent.

Just because that is what you intend does not mean that's what it is. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader-response_criticism

However, I don't want you or anyone else to think I am seriously condemning you. Yes, I think it's weird. Yes, I'm willing to vigorously defend my position ('Tanker, hello). But no, I don't think it's a big deal.

DPJ, nice posts. I disagree in part, however. Chafing can be seen as a euphemism, sure, but it has a history here of being a double entendre (which Agape/Menolly started, as far as I can tell).

Derailing the product of thread derailment:

I don't think I'd agree with you on the issue of portraying characters that aren't like yourself (obviously). They are just that, characters, and you're portraying them in this role not much differently than an author might write a character that is not the same gender or race as themselves, and holds wildly different views. (I'm not female, I'm not a small fastidious (but remarkably tough) alien bureaucrat, and I'm not a megalomaniac convinced that he sees the only true way to exist and commited to destroying utterly anything that differs from that).

I know others don't see it the same way. It's just my personal preference. One of the biggest reasons I didn't like playing Hedra. However, I would argue that what I said about how it is perceived is still valid. Anything less would imply to me a level of suspension of disbelief that is either beyond our ability or the hallmark of the insane.

For instance, I hope nobody believes I'm a guy who really goes by the name of Syl or holds his gun in front of his face in stoic concentration. To quote Mr. Nemoy, I am not Syl. But to again quote Mr. Nemoy, I am Syl. The various names, images, and quotes say something about me. What I have said through this medium says even more. I highly doubt I'm anything like most people here imagine 'in real life,' but that does not mean Syl is not representative of [insert real name here]. I believe this holds true for all sock puppets/accounts/avatars/toons/etc. to some degree.

Syl wrote:

Menolly wrote:But nothing is perverted.
Least of all what she herself causes.
It is the reader who chooses to read such in to her actions, not my intent.

Just because that is what you intend does not mean that's what it is. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader-response_criticism

...oy vey...
And I'm one who vigorously defends SRD's statements that the reader should determine their own interpretation of his tales.

syl wrote:However, I don't want you or anyone else to think I am seriously condemning you. Yes, I think it's weird. Yes, I'm willing to vigorously defend my position ('Tanker, hello). But no, I don't think it's a big deal.

Still, Caelyn is not perverted. Her comments were not perverted. I think even with "reader-response," that way more was read in to her response to Erd than was there.

And now you see why I don't frequent the 'tank...

Syl wrote:DPJ, nice posts. I disagree in part, however. Chafing can be seen as a euphemism, sure, but it has a history here of being a double entendre (which Agape/Menolly started, as far as I can tell).

I drew upon it from my results from Odin. But I still think it's funny in a double-entendre way.

Murrin wrote:Derailing the product of thread derailment:

I don't think I'd agree with you on the issue of portraying characters that aren't like yourself (obviously). They are just that, characters, and you're portraying them in this role not much differently than an author might write a character that is not the same gender or race as themselves, and holds wildly different views. (I'm not female, I'm not a small fastidious (but remarkably tough) alien bureaucrat, and I'm not a megalomaniac convinced that he sees the only true way to exist and commited to destroying utterly anything that differs from that).

hmm...

Maybe some of that is the problem here, though?
I'll admit all of my characters are very similar to each other and very similar to how I view myself. Perhaps the openess in the society I am portraying doesn't fit with how others see me, Menolly?

Double post (will collapse if nothing else between the two), because I forgot something.

Yes, it is similar to authors. I just find (again, this is a personal choice) a distinction is made between presenting the character and representing the character. Yes, the character Thomas Covenant says something about the author. If he started posting under the name Thomas Covenant, though, it would say something quite different.

Menolly wrote:

syl wrote:However, I don't want you or anyone else to think I am seriously condemning you. Yes, I think it's weird. Yes, I'm willing to vigorously defend my position ('Tanker, hello). But no, I don't think it's a big deal.

Still, Caelyn is not perverted. Her comments were not perverted. I think even with "reader-response," that way more was read in to her response to Erd than was there.

And now you see why I don't frequent the 'tank...

You'd fit right in. I didn't say she was perverted (which could have a host of meanings I did not intend). I said she was creepy and weird. More to the point, I said why I thought she was creepy and weird. And just repeating that something is what you say it is and placing the perception of what is said on the shoulders of the respondent are de rigueur these days. So is inviting opinions about something and then dismissing them because it doesn't match your own way of thinking about it.

As for reader response, that doesn't hold. Reading into things is precisely the point. Ambiguities are more in the New Criticism field (ironically enough, New Criticism is out of fashion these days).

Posting under the name of the character can be seen as an extension of writing dialogue for that character. It can be a character building exercise, as well, placing yourself in the position of the character and attempting to respond to things in the way the character would, trying to work out how the character thinks.

We have a remarkable ability to consider what another person's point of view may be, how they might think, and how they would respond even if they are different to ourselves. It's just making use of that.

I try to do this with my characters, and respond from their perspective even if it goes against potential gains as a player (I've ruined potentially beneficial diplomatic efforts, for example, by deliberately being unreasonable because I was approached in a way I did not think a character would respond well to). On the flip side, some people keep their in character personalities so close to how they come across the rest of the time that you can't really consider them seperately.

All that may be true. I just think it has more in common with method acting* and improv (which is rarely dramatic, and then, still less free-form than what we are doing... though that may explain why these games so often dip into melodrama and farce ... and this may in turn help explain why I run Acropolis under different operating parameters) than it does with literary tradition. There are similarities, not the least of which is the medium of words, but the largest difference is that we are all interacting. All fine and good, but that does not mean we all share the same set of assumptions in this interaction.

Myself, I've never been much of an actor (and I've tried). I hope I can present personalities different than myself in writing, but I have little hope of presenting myself believably in similar situations. That's why I stick to characters that are largely like myself (draw from that what you will ). I use the games more as a way to stretch my facility with mythological and fantastical tropes than to work on characterization (as you Acropolites may realize by the few characters I have introduced. Libidinal was a serious stretch for me ) *shrug*

*LOL. Just realized that a comparison to Robert Downey's character in Tropic Thunder may be more fitting than Children of the Corn.

Syl wrote:*LOL. Just realized that a comparison to Robert Downey's character in Tropic Thunder may be more fitting than Children of the Corn.

I haven't seen that one either...