What are you doing right now?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Besides posting on here and replying to this thread. Original credit for this goes back to Fate and Nathan on MX.

[Contradiction]

Listening to country music that I bought a couple years back.

Oh my gods. This shit is terrible. Why did I ever like it?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Found schoolwork and a MC server to pour time into.
So, if you see little of me, that's where I am. I do intend to stop in frequently, and also intend on writing up the rest of the Deluxe Ed. Excerpt. In the meantime, I'm back on quasi-absence rules, e-mail me if something interesting happens.

[Nighthawk]

Skyrim is eating my liiife. But it's so much fun and I don't have anything else to do anyway. ^-^

[Jessie~the~Singer]

I think I have Misophonia. Everything I've read on it describes me exactly. It's nice to finally have a word for the utter revulsion I feel when confronted with my triggers. Next time my parents get upset when I get angry at hearing someone breathing/eating/scraping their silverware across their plates, I'll be able to give them more than "It makes my teeth hurt, gives me a headache, sends shivers down my back, makes me want to cry, and makes me want to flip a table over."

[Contradiction]

Mitt Romney came to my high school to speak today. It was a rally before the caucuses tomorrow, not a school event, but I went anyway.

ugh. it would be really nice if he could lay forward a comprehensive plan to reform all the shit that he claims Obama has fucked up. because seriously all he did was (aside from a minutes-long spiel on Obama's war on religion - wtf) have great soundbites on 'Obama fucked up everything in every way possible'. he spent quite a bit of time noting Obama's remarks on the Today Show, specifically his promise at the beginning of his campaign/term (I can't remember which) in 2008/2009 that he would fix the economy in 3 years. Mittens noted that although the unemployment rate decreased (significantly) to 8.3%, it hasn't gone down below 8%, which Obama claimed would happen. therefore - and I quote - "Obama is a failure". jfc, Mittens. did you even watch Congress this summer? have you been paying attention at all? you do realize that the presidency does not have control over the economy (neither does Congress or the rest of the government really, but it would help a lot if the system was even fucking functioning in a semi-normal fashion), right?

I know he knows this. I hate that the Republicans who cheered at every mention of God and booed at every mention of Obama don't know, or don't appear to. 

that was kind of long-winded and ranty and my capitalization is super inconsistent but meh.

[EndOfTheEarth]

Technically the government controls the Federal Reserve, which has some effect on the economy, they just can't act fast enough to actually solve anything, regardless of who is in office.

[Fake Fang]

Lulz.

 

Currently debating with some newb who thinks he's hot shit because he's...well, him, I guess. He also owns the site and has a band of sychophants, which I guess doesn't help.

 

His argument is that roleplays that have a post limit are inherently those of poor writers, verbatim.

 

So while he likes long replies, he doesn't like making people do that.

 

I argued that sometimes people only want to deal with long replies, and should be allowed to require whatever they want out of their roleplayers.

 

He didn't neccesarily disagree with this, but made a big deal of calling another roleplayer a braggart because he said he'd been spoiled by longer replies, quoting some writer dude who basically said, "Dudes, no purple fluff," and was talking about literature regardless, and calling me an inferiour writer who thought he was hot shit because of the incredible distance between our skills.

 

I humbly accepted this. Perhaps he was right.

 

...Basically, what I'm leading up to is that I'm going to post my response to him, and see what you lot think of it.

 

Because I'm arrogant like that.

 

I'll also post the transcript of the chat in a bit.

 

Here goes...

 

TFE, I would first like to point out that I view you as childish. By this, I have no intentions of offending, do desire to make you irate or get back at you for your rather…[i]revealing [/i] attempts at mockery and provocation. I am not angry, merely sad that, despite my initial (and perhaps not entirely incorrect) impressions of you as a respectable adult, you have turned out to be too easily provoked in my eyes; your Dr. Jekyll persona morphed into one more similar to that of Mr. Hyde, albeit less violent and more infantile than aforementioned psychopath, as soon as you got angry.

 

To this, I don’t look down on you. Rather, I have no one but myself to blame: The fact that I see you like I do now indicates to me that perhaps I’ve become  one of the things that I hate; perhaps I’ve become someone who twists their vision of the world to suit their own image. In all honesty, I’m inclined to believe otherwise, as all evidence suggests that my vision of the world is no more (And no less) twisted than it was before I met you, but that would be unfair to you, and in criticizing myself, I find comfort in knowing that I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, which, my personal opinions aside, you may very well deserve.

 

In any case, I am saddened regardless of the truth, and hope to overcome my limitations—or help you overcome yours—in the time to come. I wish you the best of luck, and hope that either you can overcome your infantile reflex or I can overcome my innate (And if it’s truly the cause of this difference of views, extreme) bias towards myself and against those who oppose me.

 

But enough with my apology. Let us move forward to the discussion, shall we?

 

To begin with, I will clarify what I mean. I have, after some consideration, changed my views on the matter—or rather, how I perceive my views. I, like most everybody else, am incapable of truly translating my primal opinions into words that I can understand, let alone anyone else. I believe it was Sartre who talked about how flawed language is as a communicative system, due to the multiple interpretations and connotations in general of words. Id est, when I say, “God,” you may—or rather, most certainly—think of something different than what I’m thinking of.  What if I’m a Muslim, and think of God as he is portrayed (Or not portrayed, as it so happens) in Islam, whereas you are a Christian, and likewise see him as he is portrayed in Christianity? And what if we’re both Muslim, but I think of him as being literally as the Qur’an portrays him, whereas you leave things more open to interpretation? And what if we both interpret it literally, but have different interpretations of what all the words mean, have different understandings of what is the literal truth? In the end, it’s almost impossible for two individuals to communicate properly with one another. While this may seem extreme enough alone to make communication difficult, one has to remember that sometimes words translate as well from the brain to the mouth as they do from the mouth to the ear. Perhaps when I think of God, I say him differently? This is almost certainly the case for me, although I’m hesitant to speak for anyone else, and it doesn’t just apply to God—it applies to everything. And thus, when I speak of how I perceive my views, I am not being unnecessarily enigmatic: I truly have difficulty comprehending my own thoughts in a way that I can interpret.

 

But that’s enough on that matter.

 

As I said, I’ve changed my views on the matter. Roleplaying, I will admit, and specifically the quality lying therein, is not determined by how long a post is. I do not contest this. To the contrary, I would even subscribe to the opinion that intentionally elongating an otherwise concise reply would be folly. And yet I write long replies. Is this a contradictory stance I have taken on roleplaying? Perhaps you might like to think so, but in truth there’s nothing contradictory about it. I write long posts because I have much to say, not so I can feel some Freudian pleasure at getting words written down on paper, as many of my English professors have warned my class. It’s true that I frequently write too much, often including unnecessary descriptions, but I always edit those descriptions down, if not remove them entirely. All of the sites I have been on have seen the different post requirements—written or unwritten—as merely a way of separating those with different writing styles, rather than force inadequate writers to write outside their comfort zone. In other words, you’re making a rather major mistake in assuming that post length requirements force the roleplayers to write beyond their limits, or beyond what is considered, “Concise.” To the contrary, you’ll find that those who write short replies are quite content with writing short replies with other likeminded writers, and that those who write large replies likewise find themselves enjoying writing with writers who write just as much as they do. As best I can tell, you’re essentially calling the writers who prefer one style of roleplay, “Elitist,” because of their preference.

 

I do not consider writer’s who write long posts, “Elitists,” or even elite—rather, I view them as practitioners of a certain style of roleplaying. Play by post roleplaying has no true standards but that which we make—there is no, “universal,” manner of roleplaying.  In other words, there is no, “Wrong,” or, “Right,” way to roleplay. Hence, one can write a few lines every few minutes from Four O’clock to Six every day, and that will be fine. Or one can alternatively write pages upon pages of prose once a week, or once every two weeks, and that will also be acceptable. I have tried both, and while I honestly prefer somewhere in the middle, leaning slightly towards longer posts, I see no issue in the other style—if that’s what you’re best at.

 

However, in terms of actual, literary talent, those who write one or two lines are honing one set of skills, whereas those who write multiple pages are honing a different set. I did not recognize this before, and mistakenly assumed that the skills I was learning were the only ones that mattered, that lengthy posts were not only superior to shorter ones, but also a great deal better suited for talented writers.  I will not condone this excessive vainglory, and in fact thank you all for helping me become aware of it and start to overcome it. You’ve helped me a great deal. ^_^

 

As for what the merits of short posts are…I cannot say. I learned the true prize that comes from long posts only after the years of practice it took to reach that point, and I can’t say I’ve done much practice with writing skillfully written short posts. I shall continue to investigate this in hopes of understanding your perspectives.

 

As for some posts requiring short replies…well, I can’t honestly say that I’ve ever experienced that on my long-post threads. This leads me to believe that the roleplaying styles that we are used to are substantially different, to say the least.

Hence, unless you choose to pursue the topic, I will let sleeping dogs lie—I am used to responses that merit long replies which, in turn, require similarly long counter-replies, and so on and so forth. Hence I’m hesitant to believe that comparing our two styles is unlike comparing apples to oranges; based on your previously mentioned examples, it seems that short responses are not only possible within your style, but also expected at times. Thus it seems that communication between us on the matter will be difficult, to say the least—as mentioned before.

 

And yes, it is true: there is some merit to concision over magnitude. That does not, however, mean that The Lord of the Rings should be a short story (Although I’m going to leave the quality of The Lord of the Rings up to the reader) or that any novel would be better off leaving out all the subtext and other such literary flairs and replace them with brevity.

[Fake Fang]

I don't focus on length. I focus on content. I'm not some master writer. I can't stuff a ton of content into three sentences. I'm sorry, but I have to use multiple paragraphs if I want to express what I want to express.

 

 TFE:  Well then you concede your inferiority, Fake, and that's fine. Just don't look down on other RPers based on length.

FakeCrowley: My inferiourity? Yes, I suppose. It's just that when I read, say, profiles, I look for developement, and room for developement. When I look at plotlines, I look for complexity. When I look at posts, I look for depth. Half the time, my superiours, as you seem to call yourselves (Referring to TFE calling me an inferiour writer, or at least admitting that) write decent and well detailed posts in one or two or three lines. Otherwise, well...

TFE:  I'm not trying to say short posts are good or long posts are good, I'm saying when you start focusing on length to begin with you've already failed. Correct and work on your writing ability overall and become an overall better writer rather than spreading out your feces in a wider pile and thinking that makes you a good RPer.

 

 TFE:  It's feces, whether you pile it on tall and short or wide and flat.

 

FE:  Anyway, regardless of you people chittering back and forth, let it be said that on Coloholics I try to maintain this superior philosophy of writing and roleplaying and never equate length to quality.

 

 TFE:  Silly internet children. *sigh*

 

 TFE:  Trying to think they're capable writers.

 

 FakeCrowley: As I said, I am not a good roleplayer. The same can be said for virtually everyone I've ever met before coming to this site. Hence, we inferiour writers have been forced to rely on writing lengthy, detailed posts. It's true that one can write quality posts in a few lines, but I have never seen that outside of professional writing (Not that professional writers openly roleplay.) Perhaps we were rude to have an unspoken rule that paragraphs were expected in the higher up forums, perhaps not. Regardless, not all of us are the geniuses that you are.

 

TFE:  That's fine Fake, and that's why I try to enforce the correct style here.  ••

 

 TFE:  Oh and I'm not a genius, I just appear to be one compared to the mediocrity out there that you represent.  ••

 

TFE:  Just because I pose as superior to people so low doesn't make me high.  ••

 

TFE:  They're just SO low that I'd have to be a 13 year old to not be better than them.  ••

 

TFE:  I've never thought of myself as some high genius, I certainly am not, I'm just better than a lot of the lower mediocrity out there (represented by 99% of RP sites). That's not much of an achievement, it's not even something I should be proud of.

 

 TFE:  At the curse where people assume I believe myself some great genius for posing myself above subpar mediocrity.

 

Et cetera, et cetera...

[EndOfTheEarth]

There is no upper or bottom length to writing, the key is in the quality.

For instance, Spencer's Faiie Queene is hundres of pages long, but every single work is packed with four levels of meaning.

At the same time, here's a very short story by Hemmingway reproduced in its entirety:

For sale: baby's shoes, never worn.

...which arguably, has an equal level of importance and intensity.

Similarly, the prose itself, flowery versus dry, can tell you about the scene; we just finished a bit by Nathaniel Hawthorne where he does this.

In sum, writing is dictated by circumstance, especially when it comes to roleplays.

So if someone asked you something in-character an appropriate response might be:

"No," I said, wiping the sweat out of my eyes as I did so, "I've never heard of that before."

It is not lengthy, but it serves the whole purpose or a short response.
At the same time, if you need exposition, as in SERIOUSLY need it to explain exactly what you did, or what your background is, then go for it for as long as you need.

The short version:
Quality of the words is more important than the presence or absence of them.

[nathan_p]

I agree with all this. And would also add that for less-practiced writers, it can be helpful to try and cut out as many unnecessary words as possible: but, to know what is necessary, you need to read a lot. 

[EndOfTheEarth]

I'm learning all kinds of new rules this year. Did you know that an exclamation point only heightens the volume of the last word in the sentence, and that if you want a character to be loud the whole sentence, then it must all be written in caps? I sure didn't.

And here, I've been story writing for a decade and a half, and there's still more to learn.

[Jessie~the~Singer]

Ugh. I have absolutely no idea what to get my boyfriend for Valentine's Day. It just so happens to be our 2 month, as well, and he's all excited about it. I'm terribly unromantic. *sigh*