[damycles]

I've read some stuff. I've seen some stuff. Many of you are aware of the shit I've witnessed. But regardless.

Yeah, first off, I gotta admit. This ain't ever gonna be Space Station 13. I don't even blame the man. Dev, I understand your pain. As a CS major, as someone who has looked into the abyss that is Byond's coding language, I get it. I get some of the reasons why you do the things you do, and I am impressed. The specific circumstances that made Space Station 13 the way it is today are so goddamn unlikely and fantastical that there is no chance it is ever happening again on this platform, so let's kill that dream quickly before any of you get some funny ideas and think you can somehow try to do it yourself and expand the scope the same time.

Another thing, I'm not saying Dev ain't completely blameless here. There is genuinely one thing I want from you man. Literally one thing. Sometimes people, very occasionally, once in a blue moon if they can help it, set stuff up that is pretty cool and might actually change the status quote of the world in either a physical sense or societal sense. My one request, my dude, is that on occasion, you look at these poor little puppies put on your doorstep and decide to take 'em in and raise 'em like you would a son. You know if players at least got the occasional nod that yeah, I can change shit- sometimes I feel like it'd raise the motivation bar at least a little bit more. Not sayin' you gotta be Spires, I've been there, I've seen that shit, I don't want it coming here either, but you know.

Aside from that, I do feel there is a sort of dichotomy in the community in terms of what people seem to actually want from this game and its setting. Some folks, just wanna be big damn heroes. The ones you see on the TV-Tropes page. The kinds of heroes that make Zack Snyder get a big ol' stiffy. The types that go in, blow shit up, walk out looking cool as fuck and don't have to pay for the property damages. Then there are other folks, who think about the property damages. The folks who are no so into the whole shonen aesthetic and are maybe looking for something more along the lines of a telenovela with superpowers. I'm not saying either want is inherently wrong, however... I have noticed that when these sides clash by virtue of being in the same area doing the same thing, whether it be an event or otherwise, neither one's really looking to give.

So the question is, what happens when an unstoppable pvp Chad meets an immovable slice of life Stacy. A big damn mess happens, that's for sure. There are honestly two solutions to this. One that's gonna make it worse, and one that's gonna feel shitty for the first few months. Either, we can part the red sea, let the Chads chad it up in a corner where nobody's bothering them, and let the Stacys go and fuck each other's wives husbands where nobody's bothering them... or... we can learn to compromise. Compromise is a scary word. It's this thing, that people do, as adults, in society. I get it guys, I think it's a scary word too. Talk to me like, three years ago, and I'd call you fucking Zarathustra cause you just killed god and I'm afraid of you.

Perhaps, the Chads do have a point, and that the Stacys should learn to get out of their house a bit more and be more conducive to aggravated assault and getting rescued by a caricature of Arnold Schwarzeneggar in an anime twink's body. It's a fun time, I get it. We all want to be big Saiyan Uchiha King of the Pirates. We all want to get that Winrey Sakura Saber Faced Waifu. And honestly, when them Stacys just sit on their asses in their houses with their Stacy friends and just refuse to allow the big bad to even maim them a little bit, it gets annoying. I get that. I feel for you. However...

Perhaps, the Stacys also have a point, and that maybe the Chads should learn to have a little bit more restraint with the aggravated assault thing. I get it, you just want to sit down and have a cup of tea with your girl, who is a friend, but also not, and not have to worry about Conan the barbarian bustin' down your door and taking you to their sex dungeon. Or having a creepy vampire dude waltz into your camp while you're havin' a gay old time and try to suck you drier than last night's cock. Honestly, it can get annoying when people just... try to beat the shit out of you for no goddamn reason. And I hear you Chads bustin' down my door right now, and while many of you might think you have a reason, I would like to point out that having a character who is just crazy cause they crazy or an absolute psychopath that can't control what they're doing or even just... being a loose cannon... doesn't exactly feel satisfying to the person whose skull you're caving in.

To you PVP Chads in the chat, I would like to extend the Shonen Jump Olive branch. Remember, fights are great in Jump, but they're even better when they actually matter for a narrative reason. Cool anime shit doesn't just hit different cause it looks cool. Cool anime shit hits different cause the author took the time and care to work the story into a point where that cool anime shit mattered for the characters. You know what happened to series that forgot that? They got axed. Early on. Nearly always early on. Don't be a canceled series on Jump. Make your fights truly hype by saving the violence for when it actually matters enough for other people to give a shit. Don't blow your load early. A true PVP Chad... knows that your hype anime moves should only be used sparingly, and that really... fighting in general, is just another narrative tool. I know when you make your hype build that is able to body around 90% of the population, there is a specific subset of this community that will applaud you and it will make you feel good. But genuinely, for the rest of us... we don't give a shit. I'm not trying to be mean either it's just... This is a game. Like honestly you know it's like bragging about your optimized DnD build to literally anyone outside of your party. And even then, like... come on, do you really want to be that guy in the party? Be real here.

Now, a few words for both parties involved. Yeah, I'm talkin' to you Chad and Stacy, you're both in motherfucking couple's counseling right now, and I've got some words to make this paycheck. I get, that you want to be hyped, or sought after... Perhaps, maybe being a little bit less high key about trying to present yourself as the next coming of Christ would make it easier to swallow that hype. Some folks, they got a tendency to showboat. And, I'm not saying your character can't showboat. I'm saying showboating is for assholes, and some people seem to want to do that while still pretending that they ain't the asshole. The only real exception to this rule I can think of... is if someone is literally going around as a costumed superhero because that entire premise is just showboating, but it's fun kind because there's cool colors and highly marketable aesthetics going on. Still, all this talk about showboating actually very nicely connects to another point.

Y'all gotta be more fine with your characters getting shit on. SL2 rp, especially the Shonen experience, has a lot it can learn from the world of professional wrestling. I think the most important concepts to take from professional wrestling is the heel and the jobber. The heel, for those of you who aren't aware is the character whose main job is to be a hateable fuck so that the protag looks cooler when they beat them. But they can't be a weak ass bitch either cause only the protag should be able to beat them. The jobber is an equally important role in wrestling tradition where for whatever reason, for the sake of the narrative, they must eat shit so the plot can advance. I think, deep down, you're all aware of these roles. What you're not aware of is when you happen to be the ones playing them.

Some folks gotta take the time to really evaluate their characters, their actions, what exactly the things they do happen to mean to people on a wider scale and start to realize... a shit, I am the jobber or in more rare cases ah shit, I am the heel. Now, accepting either of these things means that you are essentially fated to be shit on. Not OOCLY, but most certainly ICLY. And I get it, being shit on doesn't sound fun at all. I mean, who wants to lose am I right people? But that's the price you have to pay if you really want to play a murderhoboing asshole. Like, if even after all of this, even after I tried to appeal to you the spirit of Jump you still want to join the league of villains, fine, cool. I'm just saying be more cool about it when folks give you shit for talking shit. If you go to jail, take that shit like a man. Don't try to use your connections to finnegal your way out of there early. If you've crossed the lines and someone was so pissed off that they went out of their way to try and kill you and succeeded in beating your ass, let 'em do it. I don't hate heels. Actually, I quite like them. They're a very valuable part of any story or RP community. Because honestly, nobody gets to look good if everyone's a fucking saint. Even a telenovela needs a person you can unironically shit on. And telenovelas are the master of getting absolutely nothing done plot-wise and just watching a bunch of dramatic scenes that look like they're going anywhere but don't.

Finally, to cap this off... on New Players. For the love of god, give 'em a chance. I get it, I understand. The blank profiles. The one face icon. The poorly compressed JPEGs, we've all been there before. Some of us are still in there actually, but those are different. You know, New Players, they're like lambs lost in the woods. They deserve a Shepard. A good one. Unfortunately, the new player experience doesn't really normally give them one so all of us folks who've been here for more than a hot minute gotta learn sheep herding real quick. In the event, you're doing a thing right, and it's supposed to be a private thing and this poor noob runs in without a care in the world because honestly... why would they care, they just get here... Please, do not send them away. Do not doom them to wander the empty streets of yonder chosen city. Do the responsible thing. Adapt. shield this child from the storm of literally having nothing to do. Try and see if you can fit them, no matter how awkward it may be. Even if you're OOC, or intended to just be with your buddies specifically, calling you out there Stacys, like come on. Throw 'em a bone. Let 'em have something to chew on. And even then, you know... you can't honestly tell me that staying in a house all day and interact with the same six people is gonna be interesting forever right? Surely, suuuurely, even you can acknowledge the need to spice shit up but accepting change... right? And speaking of change, another thing that we could probably do to allow the new player experience to be less shit... is to switch up where we're at.

SL2 has, and for the time being,  continues to be, a place that revolves around a set of commonly used RP hubs. Nobody asked for this. Dev didn't specifically code in behavior that forces us to go to the same six goddamn places every single day. Nah, this shit's all on us. For new players who don't know the unofficial rules or know where exactly everyone else is hanging out in, that's fucking hellish and unfair. Honestly, this game has a decent amount of setting to use these days. I think a lot of new players might... you know... want to explore some of that shit. Maybe a new player doesn't just want to hang out in Cellsvich or Dormeho, or you know any of the other common spots that we know exist because we're in the know. Honestly, we gotta spread ourselves out. We gotta be more willing to make some of these other RP spots that shouldn't be dead less dead. And for those people who are worried about standing for hours in a dead RP zone like say... Karaten, which shouldn't be dead, it's a good map, Jesus Christ... If we we're talking six months ago you might have had somewhat of a point. However, these days we have this useful tool called... L.F.G. Ain't those letters magical right? You gotta learn to use that shit more. If you don't wanna go somewhere where people don't normally go to, you gotta fucking tell folks about it. I don't mean Discord DMs, I mean the public shit. The real shit. We have a system in place for it so use it more often. It is especially helpful to the most vulnerable, that being, the noobs, because at least that throws them a bone. 

Ultimately, I'm asking all of you to do various things that for various reasons are probably going to be outside of your comfort zone. Well here's the thing, we're an MMO. The kind of game where no matter what, you have to deal with people that you might not usually play with, and that involves getting used to working outside of your comfort zone. Roleplay is a collaborative experience, and because of that we all gotta learn how to get along in Byond's shitty netcode for better or for worse. Keeping yourselves in tight-knit groups in your goddamn houses all-day with the same five folks cause you're too afraid of the actual consequences of roleplaying with randos who might actually be your friends if you gave 'em a chance... that shit's easy. Doing whatever the fuck you want without giving a damn about the consequences because you want your shonen power fantasy but you're not willing to let other people have a taste of the spotlight and shit on their parades, that shit is also easy. But that's the kind of shit that makes this whole damn thing feel like a fucking waste of time to most people. So if we want this train to survive, and we want it to live... thrive even more than the most direct competitor we have, which is spires, which I will remind you is run by some real fucking class acts... we gotta do better. We have to be more willing to give each other a shot. And maybe, if we get comfortable adapting to other people and actually making the conscious effort to try and get more folks involved in what we deem private rp or our big goddamn hero moments then perhaps we'd even be able to grow this goddamn nearly stagnant audience.