I thought Spartans were tougher than that...

~~~

SL continues to be filled with different kinds of learning opportunities, even with the serious issues educators are facing. Some are very informal. I would like to offer up the following as an excellent example of an informal learning situation in-world:

Allow me to set the stage--Elegia the tavern mistress and I are in Alsium, relaxing in the central pool of the public baths. Along comes a "noblewoman," whom we shall call XXXX LADY, and a musclebound male attendant, whom we shall refer to as XYZ MAN. We greeted them pleasantly, with the standard chorus of "Aves"

[17:02] XXXX LADY looks to the women in the water - "ave, I am XXXX, a visitor to the city"
[17:03] Diogenes Kuhr: welcome XXXX
[17:03] XXXX LADY: Gratitude. This is my thane, XYZ
[17:03] Diogenes Kuhr: I am Dio, widow of the wine merchant Sinuhe of Alexandria
[17:04] Diogenes Kuhr: and this lovely one is Elegia, tavern mistress
[17:04] Elegia Icenia bows her head at Dio's introduction.
[17:04] Diogenes Kuhr: you would be quite welcome to join us, should you wish
[17:04] Elegia Icenia nods at the newcomers.
[17:04] XYZ MAN: χαίρομαι που σας γνωρίζω
[17:04] Diogenes Kuhr: ah, you are greeks?
[17:05] XYZ MAN: you can say greek but i rather be called by my birth place
[17:05] XYZ MAN: i am a spartan
[17:06] Diogenes Kuhr: ah....you, my lady XXXX, do you also come from there?
[17:07] XXXX LADY: I am Roman
[17:07] Elegia Icenia is fascinated by the colour & cut of the new woman's hair. She stares unabashedly.
[17:07] Diogenes Kuhr: ah...I see
[17:07] XXXX LADY removes her robes to enter the water
[17:07] XXXX LADY: help me, XYZ?
[17:07] Diogenes Kuhr: is this your first visit to the this pleasant resort town of Alsium?
[17:08] XYZ MAN smiles and helps her removes her clothes starting from her top
[17:08] XXXX LADY: it is
[17:08] Diogenes Kuhr: we pray that you may find it agreeable
[17:08] XYZ MAN smiles my hands running down her body to her silk bottem and slowly remove it along with her panties
[17:08] Diogenes Kuhr: it is much more informal here than in the Mother City
[17:09] XXXX LADY: Indeed
[17:09] Diogenes Kuhr: not all "traditional" Romans find it to their liking....
[17:09] XXXX LADY leans into XYZ MAN and kisses his neck softly - Gratitude"
[17:09] Elegia Icenia lifts an eyebrow at the man's gestures, smiling to herself.
[17:09] Diogenes Kuhr: but in turn there are many who find it a suitable place to escape from the demands of life in the capitol
[17:09] XYZ MAN smiles as i remove my outfit
[17:10] XXXX LADY: I do enjoy getting away from Rome
[17:10] Diogenes Kuhr: the well loved Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself has a villa not far from Alsium...
[17:10] Diogenes Kuhr: though I fear he has not had time to visit in a great while..busy as he is in the wars on the northern borders
[17:11] XXXX LADY: ah, I did not know that
[17:11] XYZ MAN lays my kilt off to the side and strechs
[17:11] Elegia Icenia looks at the man as he disrobes.
[17:11] XXXX LADY looks upon XYZ MAN with great admiration

the man and the lady have now undressed and are in the bathing pool with me and Elegia

[17:12] XYZ MAN: nice and cool water
[17:12] XXXX LADY: indeed it is XYZ
[17:12] XXXX LADY: Have you resided in the city for long, Diogenes?
[17:13] Diogenes Kuhr: I have been here for nearly half a year....
[17:13] Diogenes Kuhr: I found myself somewhat stranded when my husband was taken by a fever
[17:13] XXXX LADY moves back to stand between XYZ MAN's legs
[17:13] Diogenes Kuhr: we were traveling for his business, which is the buying and selling of wine
[17:14] XXXX LADY: ah
[17:14] XXXX LADY: I do enjoy good wine
[17:14] Diogenes Kuhr: and I found it necessary to take over direction of his enterprise
[17:14] Diogenes Kuhr: ..*smiles* I have found that I enjoy the trade..
[17:14] Diogenes Kuhr: and I enjoy Alsium and so have made this my second home
[17:14] XXXX LADY: That is good to hear
[17:15] Diogenes Kuhr: if you have cause to stay in Alsium and perhaps take a villa here, I will be happy to send you samples of our better varieties
[17:16] Diogenes Kuhr: I do not deal in cheap mulsum or the sour wine of the plebs--it is only the finer pressings I offer
[17:16] XXXX LADY: I would enjoy that
[17:16] XXXX LADY: I am considering looking around Alsium and see what she has available
[17:16] XXXX LADY: The Champion and Zak wee showing me around earlier
[17:17] XYZ MAN feels her between my legs her ass rubs on my cock and it grows even larger
[17:17] Diogenes Kuhr: *sighs* that is good of them, but I wish Crito would rest and not be running up and down the hills
[17:17] Diogenes Kuhr: he was dreadfully injured and it was only the other night I tended to his wounds...
[17:18] Diogenes Kuhr: but that is so like him to be showing kindness to guests
[17:18] XXXX LADY: he told me of his horrible tale
[17:18] XXXX LADY: i do hope he will be okay
[17:19] Elegia Icenia watches the newcomers, a slight smile on her face. It would be difficult to say what sort of smile it was. She dabbles her feet as Dio speaks.
[17:19] Diogenes Kuhr: *laughs* he will be well I am sure...he has a will of iron and his gods look kindly upon him
[17:20] Elegia Icenia murmurs, "May they continue to do so," as if it were a chant.
[17:21] XXXX LADY: The city is quite beautiful
[17:21] XXXX LADY: from what I have seen
[17:21] Diogenes Kuhr: I know there are some fine villas that are to be had...residents come and go from this place with regularity, depending on their fortunes in politics war and love
[17:21] Diogenes Kuhr: it is indeed quite beautiful
[17:21] XXXX LADY: that is understandable
[17:22] Diogenes Kuhr: in following my husband, traveling with him all around the empire and even beyond as he sought the best wines and the best places to sell them...I have been in many places...
[17:22] Diogenes Kuhr: a few have been wondrous, including my own home city of Alexandria...but no place I have found is as beautiful as this
[17:23] Elegia Icenia: Alsium is most pleasing... like a glade amongst the woods of heaven.
[17:24] XYZ MAN slowly adjusts himself a little my cock wobbles around in the air
[17:24] XXXX LADY nods
[17:24] Diogenes Kuhr: and you my lady...do you have a large household that will require much space?
[17:25] Elegia Icenia snorts & then covers her mouth, looking down.
[17:25] XXXX LADY: no, i would be looking for a get away from Rome, not a permanent migration. WHile Rome does become too much at times, she is my home and I do love here
[17:25] Elegia Icenia mumbles, "Forgive me, I think I swallowed a bug."
[17:26] XXXX LADY: I would love to have a place to get away and not be bothered with Roman matters
[17:26] XXXX LADY smiles
[17:26] Diogenes Kuhr: of course
[17:26] Diogenes Kuhr: that is why this place exists
[17:27] XXXX LADY: indeed
[17:27] Elegia Icenia smiles amiably. "I believe that Alsium is a haven for many of its inhabitants."
[17:28] Diogenes Kuhr: you will no doubt find that many of the handsome young men are here where..as I said it is not so formal a place as Rome...they may freely exercise their affections...with someone other than a wife
[17:29] Elegia Icenia snickers & then looks ingenuously up to the heavens, begging forgiveness from Jupiter.
[17:29] Diogenes Kuhr: may I be so bold to ask if there is a husband who will accompany you when you come to spend time in Alsium?
[17:30] XXXX LADY: yes, I am hoping so
[17:30] XXXX LADY: He is greek as well
[17:31] Diogenes Kuhr: indeed
[17:31] XXXX LADY whispers: I have a thing for greek men
[17:31] XXXX LADY smiles
[17:31] XYZ MAN smirks
[17:31] Diogenes Kuhr: I shall have to brush up on my skills with that language
[17:32] Diogenes Kuhr: it has been a while since I spoke greek, even though my family in Alexandria was formed from a melding of greek and egyptian blood
[17:32] XXXX LADY nods - "Interesting"
[17:33] Diogenes Kuhr: on my father's side, we are descended from one of Great Alexander's soldiers who took Egypt from the Persians long ago
[17:33] Elegia Icenia: May I ask a question, my lady?
[17:33] Elegia Icenia: When you arrived, you said that your companion was 'your thane'. That is a word of the northern barbarians, I believe. May I ask the nature of your relationship? Are you, then, 'enthralled' to him? *grins* Other than in the obvious way?
[17:35] XXXX LADY: He is my personal bodyguard
[17:36] XXXX LADY: My husband wants me to be protected so XYZ is charged with protecting me
[17:36] Elegia Icenia blinks once & smiles. "It appears then that he is a bit like the fox among the hens, neh?" She giggles but her eyes show that she means no harm. She merely teases.
[17:37] Diogenes Kuhr: *smiles, impressed* a spartan for a bodyguard--well chosen...the men of that city are still well known for their skills and fierce loyalty
[17:38] XYZ MAN smiles
[17:38] XXXX LADY: indeed and XYZ is both
[17:38] XXXX LADY: among other things
[17:38] XXXX LADY smiles
[17:39] XYZ MAN smirks
[17:39] Elegia Icenia nods. "I would feel fortunate if I were able to find a guard of such worth, though... " She hesitates, then chuckles & shakes her head, obviously stifling what she was going to say.
[17:39] Diogenes Kuhr: in my household I am blessed to include a Scythian...
[17:39] Diogenes Kuhr: he was betrayed and sold into slavery by his enemies...my husband bought him long ago, and he not only served well in the wine business. but has made an admirable body guard..as he still does today for me
[17:40] Diogenes Kuhr: it is a reassuring thing to have one who you know would gladly give his life for you
[17:40] Diogenes Kuhr: as I assume would be the case with your XYZ
[17:41] XYZ MAN: would give my life for my lady if needed, but i rather live in the process so thinking comes first on how to live and keep her alive
[17:41] XYZ smiles
[17:41] Diogenes Kuhr: well said Spartan
[17:42] XXXX LADY leans back and kisses XYZ on the neck - "gratitude, XYZ"
[17:42] Elegia Icenia quirks her head, also smiling. "But of course... a dead bodyguard is no bodyguard at all, if he cannot bring his charge to the safety of others before he expires."
[17:42] XYZ MAN grins feeling my ladys lips my hands go down her body at the time she does
[17:43] Diogenes Kuhr: *grins* that is why it is well considered to have TWO bodyguards...and the second one not so obvious as the first
[17:43] XXXX LADY: He is a fierce warrior, chosen by my husband for just those qualities
[17:43] Elegia Icenia nods. "So it is! I must consider that when I seek guards from the lanista."
[17:43] Diogenes Kuhr: *frowns* in fact, I really do need to find another...Aldo , my Scythian, is advancing in age
[17:44] Diogenes Kuhr: I wish to manumit him before he is too advanced in years that he cannot return to his homeland and wash his sandals in the blood of those who betrayed him
[17:44] Elegia Icenia: That is good of you, amica. It is hard to be born free & die a slave, unavenged.
[17:44] Diogenes Kuhr: he has served us well, and I would not wish to keep him from going back to kill his enemies
[17:45] XXXX LADY: I am fortunate that XYZ is ofo nibble age, both on the field of battle and off
[17:45] XXX MAN smiles
[17:47] XXXX LADY: excuse us - i wish to take a dip in the lake
[17:47] Diogenes Kuhr: of course
[17:47] XYZ: see you soon ladies

the man and the lady climb out of the bathing pool and slip into the adjoining lake--but they remain well within chat range of us

[17:47] Elegia Icenia stares into the water. "Ideally, one of my guards would be a eunuch, so as not to ... spoil my reputation." She winks at Dio & turns to smile warmly at the others.
[17:47] Diogenes Kuhr: *rolls her eyes at her friend* if you were to find a eunuch, I would think he would make a poor bodyguard...with no stones would he have the wherewithal to defend you well?
[17:47] Elegia Icenia shrugs. "I have heard that some, their stones removed after they had reached manhood, make excellent guards." ...
[17:48] Elegia Icenia: It has always been difficult for me regarding guards. If I have one who is large & manly & obviously well equipped... as is XYZ here... then my clients complain. And the idea of exclusivity is tainted.
[17:48] Diogenes Kuhr: But what sufficiently prideful man would deal well with having his eggs clipped after he has reached maturity? Would that not break his spirit?
[17:49] Diogenes Kuhr: why not take one as a guard one of these men who has the passion and will to live and die well, but has no desire for sheathing his gladius in a lady's flowering?
[17:49] Elegia Icenia nods. "Yes, that would be acceptable... if I could find one who would settle to guarding me in such ways. So many of the cinaedi & lovers of cinaedi... they like... " She shrugs helplessly.
[17:50] Elegia Icenia: You are right. I will look among the lovers of men. Surely my clients would settle for that, if the guard were known for that fact.
[17:50] XXXX LADY leans in and kisses XYZ softly on the lips as the cool water splashes against our bodies
[17:50] XYZ grins i kiss back, our bodys close in the water and our lips locked
[17:50] Diogenes Kuhr: Alas poor eunuchs *sighs* I am curious..what do they do with the family jewels once the treasury has been robbed?
[17:50] Diogenes Kuhr: do they bury them?
[17:50] Diogenes Kuhr: offer them up at a temple?
[17:51] Elegia Icenia: I am sure that must depend on the context, neh? If they mean to demean the man, then they might be crushed & fed to the vultures.
[17:51] Diogenes Kuhr: it would be far worse to simply toss them to the pigs
[17:52] Diogenes Kuhr: that would be insult added to the injury
[17:53] Elegia Icenia shakes her head. "There were many such in the palaces of the rich where I received my training. Their stones were removed when they were very young. Some dried them & wore them all their lives in a pouch around their necks, so that they might have them when they passed into the afterlife."
[17:53] Diogenes Kuhr: the honorable thing to do would be to offer them at a temple...probably to be burnt
[17:54] Diogenes Kuhr: that is what the Egyptians do with the piece that is taken when the men are circumcised
[17:54] Diogenes Kuhr: the skin from the member that has been cut off is taken to the temple and burned in a ceremony
[17:54] Elegia Icenia: But it seems to make sense, neh? If possible, one should pass into the other world with all one's bits.
[17:54] Elegia Icenia chuckles.
[17:54] Diogenes Kuhr: I am not sure what the Judeans do with their foreskins when they have cut them off...
[17:55] XYZ MAN: ill see you all later, gonna log feel sick )
[17:55] Diogenes Kuhr: Vale, Spartan!

the man and the lady have both disappeared -- they did not rp taking their clothing with them and we briefly consider rp'ing that we are stealing the clothes and other items they left behind....but we ultimately reject this notion for a number of reasons

[17:57] Diogenes Kuhr: well I think you should look for a bodyguard who has all his parts intact
[17:57] Diogenes Kuhr: I hope that Zak will remember to ask at the ludus on your behalf

Yes, even if the educators all leave, learning will go on....

~~~

Is there such a thing as "good" roleplaying? -- differing styles of rp in SL

~~~
Marrant Vita's funeral--a nice example
of real time interactive rp that worked

My friend Marrant Vita is cranking out posts like crazy on her excellent new blog--it strikes me that bless her heart, she 's been storing up some things and mulling them over, and by golly, now she's overflowing with interesting stuff that she has got to say.

One of her recent discussions was about "what makes a good roleplayer?" It's a very thoughtful piece, based on her long-term, on-going experience with roleplaying in SL. And it really got me thinking about something that had been eating at me for a while, and I figured it was time to say something.

I can be pretty judgmental sometimes.

*waits for the gasps of shock and surprise to die down*

Yeah. I know.

But seriously, I tend to be that way about a lot of things, including roleplaying and roleplayers. Like a lot of folks, I have a tendnecy to think--and sometimes to say--things like "that's really good rp there," or "you're a great rp'er," or "that's some bad rp," or occasionally, "your hopelessly self-absorbed approach to roleplaying has produced such spectacularly indifferent results that it will take me a while to find the proper term to describe it since "wholesale shit-sucking waste of time and effort" is far too generous.

But for the most part, that's not really being fair. I realized this the other day when I was given a notecard about a situation that happened in Hogwarts. Judging by the chat that was copied in the notecard, one of the roleplayers descended into a screaming, obnoxious shit-fit because the other people he was interacting with didn't adapt their style of roleplaying to his style.

Before being banned, he stated in no uncertain terms that he felt that all the other people in the sim were terrible roleplayers, that he was the only one present who knew how to roleplay, and that he was in fact, just about the greatest roleplayer, ever.

Totally aside from the fact that, yes, this particular individual as a person (distinct from their qualities as a roleplayer) is clearly a bilious, narcissistic, crap-spewing pecker-faced baboon, as a roleplayer they should not be accused of doing bad rp (other than going out of character and turning into a flaming asshole in open chat). The reality of the situation was that no one involved should be painted as "bad" roleplayers--but neither should anyone claim to be "great" or even "good" at the art form. Why? Because the conflict was essentially over style.

There are different kinds of roleplaying you can find in SL and other venues. In this case in Hogwarts, the conflict seems to have been initiated by this one individual who prefers to do an extreme form of "paragraph" rp.

"Paragraph" roleplaying is a style that I assume has its origins in purely text-based rp. In this form of rp the players not only write lines of dialogue--as well as some short "emotes" such as "smiles," or "frowns" or "scratches crotch with considerable enthusiasm"--they actually write out an entire paragraph or paragraphs detailing their inner thoughts along with their facial expressions and extended dialogue. Practitioners of this style also tend to include elements of physical action combined with extensive descriptive passages such as "casually brushes away the loose strand of golden blond hair that the gentle breeze had pulled out of place on her otherwise perfectly coiffed hair," or "walks purposefully across the floor, the staccato clacking of his boot heels on the rough planks mingling with the sparkling noise of the silver jingle-bobs on his large-roweled, Spanish-style spurs."

Logically, in a text-based rp you have to include all this Bulwer-Lyttonesque type prose in order to compensate for the lack of actual visual evidence of what is going on or how the player-writers are imagining the scene. In text-based rp, if you don't tell the other players that someone has a huge rack of epic proportions or is pointing a large blued-steel revolver of a foreign pattern at you, how the fuck are you gonna know?

Now of course, in a 3-D environment like SL, you don't have to put everything into words in the same way. You can simply look at your screen and see that the gal over yonder has temptation bumps that make the Sierra Nevadas look like molehills, and that, yep, she has got a really big fucking gun out and is about to blow your punkin' head into applesauce. Unless, of course, you're still waiting for everything to rez, in which case, you're just boned. And you also might as well say fuck trying to type out paragraphs at that point, because chat is probably lagging as well.

Seriously though, paragraph style of rp in SL is a choice, not a necessity. But it can enhance the experience for some people, and if you enjoy doing it, then hey, knocketh thyself out.

It's not bad or good, it's just a certain way to play the game.

Similarly, there is a style of rp that some folks call "RP Lite." This version of roleplaying is the kind where, yeah you sort of have a character, and maybe you thought about a back story and maybe you didn't, but usually you have taken on some kind of "role" like sheriff or old-west pole-dancer. People in this form of rp typically are somewhat flexible about staying "in character" and are more casual in their approach to speech patterns and vocabulary, including the use of LOL's and other internet-speech abbreviations.

Again, I would argue it's not good or bad--it is just what individual players are comfortable with. However, there are places where this style of rp is not accepted, as it can distract others who are playing in a different style. Most places where it is not acceptable will make that clear in their rules, which is why players looking into a new sim should, by gawd, read the fucking rules. If there are none, or they don't mention things like "must stay in character" or "no OOC in open chat," then you may have hit on a place where RP Lite is going to work.

Finally there is the style of roleplaying that I call "real-time interactive" rp. This form of rp has really just recently evolved in virtual worlds, though I think stylistically it owes a great deal to the traditions of theater (particularly improv), and first-person interpretation in museums and history sites. In this style you the players perform more as an ensemble, interacting and playing off each other and developing situations in almost real time (obviously real time interaction is not completely possible due to the fact that most of us don't type as fast as we speak--plus you add in lag and a convo can take forfuckingever). But it is as close to real-time as we can get.

The players using this style concentrate mostly on short, quickly written pieces of dialogue that sounds like natural conversation as much as possible. As Marrant points out, spelling is not always as important as getting an idea across quickly. There is give and take, and if you wait too long, or take a while trying to generate a long paragraph, you often will get left behind.

Yes, there is a time and place for longer soliloquies, but they are the exception. And the emphasis is on the speech itself, not added descriptive elements. Mind you, players in this style do utilize some necessary and useful "emotes" such as "smiles slightly" or "grins like an idiot." Sometimes the emotes being used may be downright poetic, such "tries to smile bravely, even as a single tear etches its way down her face." But for the most part, the players only write out what is needed to compensate for the limitations that still remain as to what visual clues and actions are possible in SL. Furthermore, inner thoughts are eschewed (since nobody should be able to read your goddam thoughts anyhow).

I will freely admit this is my favorite style. But does that mean this is good rp, or that it is better than other styles? No. It's just what I happen to enjoy, which, considering that my background includes some theater and living history stuff, should come as no surprise.

Now I will tell you I firmly believe that the different styles are not mutually exclusive. Someone can come into a sim where real-time interactive rp predominates, and adapt their own personal form of rp to what is there. The only thing is, you have to be willing to make some adjustments--maybe break your writing into shorter segments and pay attention to what is going on around you so that you don't get too far behind. I have known some paragraph people who are real fun to rp with, but when they are wrapped up in cranking out a long segment of text, the interaction can kinda break down. Especially if they have their typing anim turned off, you have no idea if they are busy writing, have fallen asleep or are frozen up from lag. Other players tend to wander off and then the paragraph style player gets pissed off because no one stayed to hear what they had to say.

Likewise if a real-time interactive rp'er goes into a place where they like to do a lot of paragraph style, you need to slow down, wait for people to finish writing, and maybe go ahead and expand your own writing as well. I know I try to do a better job with controlling my typos when I'm around paragraph rp'ers, because what the hell, everything is going to take longer anyway, so why not try to fix shit?

So instead of saying something is "good" or "bad," or it's "great" or it "sucks huge purple-veined donkey schwanstuckers," let's ask if a particular bit of roleplaying "feels comfortable, or "fun." We can also ask, "was it successful?"

That's a topic for another conversation another time. But for right now, let me leave you with a snippet of some rp that I thought was successful.

This was from the time when Dr. Brooklyn Alcott, 9 months pregnant, is in a buggy accident and goes into labor:

[18:39] JanMae Jun: The head is crowning some more
[18:39] Brooklyn Alcott *throws her head back down, her hair soaked in blood and tears*
[18:39] Diogenes Kuhr: baby's head is showin Brook, yer doin it
[18:39] Silver85 Koba *cuts down a piece of the curtains and places them next to JanMae and takes some of the bloody pieces of cloth and throws them away*
[18:40] JanMae Jun: Push again, Brook *presses firmly but carefully on Brook's upper belly*
[18:40] Brooklyn Alcott *closes her eyes and prays for strength*
[18:40] JanMae Jun *gasps* Brook! Come on, you can do it.
[18:40] Diogenes Kuhr: dammit this would be easier on her if she warn't on her back, but we can't do much with them broke legs
[18:40] Brooklyn Alcott *musters up all her courage and strength...for her baby......*
[18:41] JanMae Jun: Dio, oh, lord, the baby's head is out
[18:41] Silver85 Koba: Want me to hold her up?
[18:41] JanMae Jun: Brook - a little more -- you can do it
[18:41] Diogenes Kuhr: the cord ain't round the neck is it?
[18:41] JanMae Jun: Dio, we need to clear the baby's mouth - check the cord
[18:41] Brooklyn Alcott *falls back on the table....exhausted and scared*
[18:41] JanMae Jun: Seth - please hold her head and shoulders so she doesn't fall off the bed.
[18:42] JanMae Jun: she's still very woozy
[18:42] Diogenes Kuhr: *peers at the little head and scoops in the mouth with her finger*
[18:42] Brooklyn Alcott *blinks at the man*
[18:42] Diogenes Kuhr: nope cord is fine *gently supports the head*
[18:42] Silver85 Koba *gently leans in behind Brook and grabs a hold of her*
[18:42] Brooklyn Alcott *body shakes uncontrollably*
[18:42] JanMae Jun *feels another contraction mounting* Push, brook! Push!
[18:43] Silver85 Koba: Remember me? *winks at Brook, trying to have a happy expression*
[18:43] JanMae Jun *reaches down to guide the baby's shoulder out*
[18:43] Diogenes Kuhr: here comes the shoulders, Brook!
[18:43] JanMae Jun: come on, come on now
[18:43] Diogenes Kuhr: Hon this is the big part, yer doin fine!
[18:43] JanMae Jun: Push, Brook! Stay with us! Push ---
[18:43] Brooklyn Alcott *screams as loud as she can, which is just under a whisper but pushes against the man's hands*
[18:43] JanMae Jun *tugs and pulls the other shoulder out*
[18:44] Diogenes Kuhr: *cups her hands under the head and and keeps supporting the baby as it starts to slide*
[18:44] Brooklyn Alcott *tears flowing like a waterfall, her body battered and bloody and in excruciating pain she pushesssssssssssss*
[18:44] Silver85 Koba *grits his teeth as he fight to keep Brook in place*
[18:44] JanMae Jun: *helps the baby as it slips out fully*
[18:44] Janmae Jun: Dio - do you still have that razor?
[18:44] Brooklyn Alcott *gasps and groans*
[18:44] JanMae Jun clears the baby's mouth area again*
[18:44] Silver85 Koba: In my back pocket
[18:44] Diogenes Kuhr: *places the baby head down slightly to allow it drain out some, over Brooks leg*
[18:45] JanMae Jun gasps: It's a girl, Brook! A girl!
[18:45] Brooklyn Alcott *musters up a slight smile and cries harder*
[18:45] JanMae Jun: *smiles as the baby cries out, a welcome sound to everyone*
[18:45] Diogenes Kuhr: ok Brook, gonna need to push out yer placenta in a bit don' take a goddam nap jus yet
[18:45] Silver85 Koba smiles "i'll be dammed"
[18:46] Brooklyn Alcott *spits up blood*
[18:46] Diogenes Kuhr: Jan mae let me get some thread fer tyin off the cord
[18:46] JanMae Jun: Seth - I need that razor
[18:46] Brooklyn Alcott *lifts her head a bit more to see her beautiful lil bundle*
[18:46] Silver85 Koba *looks down on Brook seeing the blood* "Something is wrong"
[18:46] JanMae Jun: * grabs a bolt of string from the shelf behind her*
[18:46] Silver85 Koba: reach for it . it is in my back pocket
[18:46] Diogenes Kuhr: * looks through the medical kit for sinew or suture thread*
[18:47] JanMae Jun *reaches filthy hands into Seth's pocket*
[18:47] JanMae Jun *hands Dio some string* - this will do, if you can't find any other
[18:47] Diogenes Kuhr: nah I got proper suture thread here
[18:47] Brooklyn Alcott *eyes roll around and she tries to whisper*
[18:47] Brooklyn Alcott: mmmmmmisssssss
[18:47] Diogenes Kuhr: I kin feel her crampin' agin...
[18:47] JanMae Jun: Dio, if you'll take care of the cord, I'll help her push
[18:47] Silver85 Koba *looks down on Brook, sees her lips move*
[18:48] Diogenes Kuhr: time to push the placenta out ain't it?
[18:48] JanMae Jun: Brook? Come on, hon, you're almost finished.
[18:48] Brooklyn Alcott: myyyyyyyy
[18:48] Silver85 Koba: What did you say Brook?
[18:48] Brooklyn Alcott *bubbles of blood form in her mouth as she speaks*
[18:48] Diogenes Kuhr: *steadies the baby lying across Brooks belly and guides the cord*
[18:48] JanMae Jun *notices Brook has suddenly gone very pale*
[18:48] JanMae Jun *reaches for Brook's arm to feel her pulse*.
[18:48] Silver85 Koba wipes the blood away from Brook's mouth with his sleeve*
[18:48] JanMae Jun: Dio, her pulse is very faint -- she's still losing a lot of blood from the inside.
[18:49] Brooklyn Alcott * talks soo low its hard to hear her*
[18:49] Brooklyn Alcott: baaaby
[18:49] Brooklyn Alcott *gasps for air*
[18:49] Diogenes Kuhr: just a minute Hon give us another push here
[18:49] Brooklyn Alcott: seeeeeeeeeeee
[18:49] JanMae Jun *wipes her eyes with her shirtsleeve*
[18:49] Brooklyn Alcott *shakes head*
[18:49] Silver85 Koba leans down to hear Brook better
[18:49] JanMae Jun: Brook?
[18:49] Brooklyn Alcott nnnnnnooooooooo
[18:49] JanMae Jun: Hold on, Brook!
[18:50] Brooklyn Alcott:* shakes head and cries harder*
[18:50] Brooklyn Alcott: babyyyyyyyyyyy
[18:50] JanMae Jun* lays the baby on Brook's tummy and reassures her *
[18:50] Diogenes Kuhr: Jan Mae that after birthing out yet?
[18:50] JanMae Jun: Brook? Stay with us! Look - here's your baby ...
[18:50] Brooklyn Alcott *blinks at the pinkness laying on her belly*
[18:50] JanMae Jun: oh, god, Dio - there's so much blood.
[18:51] Brooklyn Alcott *tries to raise her hands but they won't move*
[18:51] Brooklyn Alcott *blinks through the tears*
[18:51] JanMae Jun *reaches to pull the rest of the sac out, guiding it since Brook can't push*
[18:51] Diogenes Kuhr: allright here it comes *ties one piece of thread on the umbilical near the child's stomach*
[18:51] Diogenes Kuhr: gimme yer razor agin Seth
[18:51] Brooklyn Alcott *looking down at her newborn as she feels soo light and weak*
[18:51] Silver85 Koba: JanMae got it
[18:52] JanMae Jun: *hands Dio the bloody razor*
[18:52] Diogenes Kuhr: I jus gotta trim that thread off there so I can tie another piece on
[18:52] Brooklyn Alcott:* looks up at the man*
[18:52] JanMae Jun: Brook?
[18:52] Brooklyn Alcott: pleeeeeeeezeeeeeeeee
[18:52] Silver85 Koba *looks down on brook trying to smile*
[18:52] JanMae Jun *reaches to feel her pulse again*
[18:52] Diogenes Kuhr: allright *cuts the thread and puts the razor in her teeth to hold it while she ties the second knot a short way from the the first one*
[18:52] Brooklyn Alcott: baaaabyyyyyyy
[18:52] Brooklyn Alcott: mahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
[18:53] Diogenes Kuhr: Seth hand me that whiskey bottle behind ye
[18:53] JanMae Jun: Her breathing is so shallow ...
[18:53] Janmae Jun: Brook, look at me, Brook --
[18:53] Brooklyn Alcott * gasps*
[18:53] Brooklyn Alcott naaaaaaaammmmmmmmmeeeee
[18:53] JanMae Jun: Mah isn't here, hon - Look at me -- stay with me!
[18:53] Brooklyn Alcott: dahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
[18:53] Brooklyn Alcott: liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
[18:53] Brooklyn Alcott: llaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
[18:53] Silver85 Koba *pulls out his own whiskey flask and hands it over* "This is stronger stuff. will work better I think"
[18:53] Diogenes Kuhr: *takes the bottle from Seth pulls the cork and splashes whiskey on the blade*
[18:54] Brooklyn Alcott: dahhhhhhhhhh
[18:54] Brooklyn Alcott: liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
[18:54] Diogenes Kuhr: allright Hon hold the cord out there fer me
[18:54] Brooklyn Alcott: lllllllllllllllllllllaahhhhhhhhhhhh
[18:54] JanMae Jun *holds the cord with one hand*
[18:54] Diogenes Kuhr: ready?
[18:54] Diogenes Kuhr: *cuts the cord in between the two knots with Seth's razor*
[18:54] JanMae Jun: *checks Brook's heartbeat on her chest with the other*
[18:54] You: Brook?
[18:54] Brooklyn Alcott *tears streaming down...feeling woozey and lightheaded....trying to get them to hear her baby's name...........*
[18:55] Brooklyn Alcott: dahhhhhhhh
[18:55] Silver85 Koba * tries to make sense of what brook is saying*
[18:55] Brooklyn Alcott: liiiiiiiiiilahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
[18:55] Brooklyn Alcott: mahhhhhhhhhhhhh
[18:55] Brooklyn Alcott *sputters more blood*
[18:55] JanMae Jun: Brook - you stay with me now, you hear?
[18:55] Diogenes Kuhr: *wipes the cutthroat razor on the sheet and closes it with one hand and hands it back to Seth smiling*
[18:55] Silver85 Koba: I think she is trying to tell us a name
[18:55] Brooklyn Alcott dahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
[18:55] JanMae Jun *leans over closely to Brook's face*
[18:55] JanMae Jun: Dahlia?
[18:55] Brooklyn Alcott weakly smiles at the man*
[18:55] JanMae Jun: I think she said Dahlia.
[18:56] JanMae Jun: Brook? *looks at Brook's blank stare*
[18:56] Silver85 Koba *takes back the razor, smiling back at Dio*
[18:56] Brooklyn Alcott *uses her last bit of strength to nod*
[18:56] Diogenes Kuhr: *Folds up the placenta and mess in towel and places it beneath the cot out of the way*
[18:56] Brooklyn Alcott: give
[18:56] Brooklyn Alcott: Mah
[18:56] Brooklyn Alcott: Mahhhhhhh
[18:56] JanMae Jun: oh, sweet Jesus - Brook?
[18:56] Brooklyn Alcott: give
[18:56] Silver85 Koba *looks down* "Dahlia? is that it?"
[18:56] Diogenes Kuhr: Brook? think ye kin nurse any?
[18:56] JanMae Jun *strokes Brook's forehead*-
[18:56] JanMae Jun: Dio -- she's fading again'
[18:56] Silver85 Koba: Give Mah what Brook?
[18:56] JanMae Jun: her pulse - I can barely feel it.
[18:57] Diogenes Kuhr: *softly * goddammit
[18:57] JanMae Jun *wipes Brook's pale face and tries to listen to what she is trying to say.*
[18:57] Brooklyn Alcott *head falls back....her eyes roll back...she gasps her last breath.....and lies there motionless, no air escaping her lungs ......as she fades away quietly*
[18:57] JanMae Jun: *speaks softly* Please, Brook - Don't leave us.
[18:57] Diogenes Kuhr: *wraps another clean towel around the baby and tries to hold it where Brook can see it*
[18:57] JanMae Jun gasps: No ... Brook!
[18:58] Silver85 Koba *feels Brook's body go limp*
[18:58] Diogenes Kuhr: *gently lifts Brook's hand and softly places it against the baby's head*
[18:58] JanMae Jun *checks her neck, her chest, her wrist ...*
[18:58] Silver85 Koba: Come on Brook *start to shake her slightly*
[18:58] JanMae Jun *weeps and keeps checking for a pulse that isn't there*.
[18:58] JanMae Jun: No...
[18:58] JanMae Jun: *the baby cries*
[18:58] Silver85 Koba *looks up* "Anything?"
[18:59] Diogenes Kuhr: Seth...would ye oblige me by closin' her eyes?
[18:59] JanMae Jun *wipes her face on her sleeve and shakes her head*
[18:59] JanMae Jun: oh, Dio -- how can this be?
[18:59] Silver85 Koba * nods and slowly drags his hand over Brook's face closing her eyes and gently easing her back down on the pillow*
[18:59] Diogenes Kuhr: *softly almost a whisper* sonofabitch...dammit, where we gonna find someone to nurse this tadpole?
[19:00] Silver85 Koba: Maybe that was what she was trying to tell us
[19:00] Silver85 Koba: She said something about Mah?
[19:00] Diogenes Kuhr: *cradles the newborn*
[19:00] JanMae Jun: Mah is her cousin, but Mah is no nursemaid.
[19:00] Diogenes Kuhr: I think she knew she was goin...an she wants Mah to raise the babe
[19:01] Silver85 Koba *nods* "Yeah I think so to"
[19:02] JanMae Jun: surely there is a new mother in town who will nurse her
[19:02] Silver85 Koba *takes off his hat, holding it against his chest while looking down on Brook*
[19:02] Diogenes Kuhr: *Cradles the baby swaying gently, tears welling up in her eyes*
[19:02] JanMae Jun *looks at Brook's body in disbelief.*
[19:02] Silver85 Koba: Damn shame!
[19:02] JanMae Jun *covers Brook's body with the rest of the sheet that Seth ripped up earlier.
[19:03] JanMae Jun: Dio -- can you find Mah? Oh, gracious, me, she will be dumbfounded.
[19:04] Diogenes Kuhr: *looks up distracted briefly*
[19:04] Diogenes Kuhr: huh? oh..my word, yes
[19:04] JanMae Jun *turns to Seth* Thank you for helping.
[19:04] JanMae Jun *feels tears welling up again*
[19:04] Silver85 Koba: Don't mention it.
[19:04] Diogenes Kuhr: here Hon will you take the chile?
[19:04] Brooklyn Alcott is Offline
[19:04] JanMae Jun: *takes the infant carefully and holds her close*
[19:05] Diogenes Kuhr: *Looks at the pale, now peaceful face of Brooklyn Fargis*
[19:05] JanMae Jun: Seth - could you notify Mr. Deerhunter or whomever can arrange a funeral *feels out of sorts and doesn't know what to do with Brook gone so suddenly*
[19:05] Diogenes Kuhr: see ye in the happy huntin' ground Hon...*smiles sadly*
[19:06] Silver85 Koba: Of course. I'll see to it that she gets a proper burial
[19:06] Diogenes Kuhr: ye lived well and dammit ye died well too
[19:06] JanMae Jun *looks at Brook again and squeezes her hand softly: Thank you, Brook. You were like a big sister to me.
[19:07] Diogenes Kuhr: *shakes her head slightly and then gets a determined hard look on her face* right
[19:07] Diogenes Kuhr: well
[19:07] Diogenes Kuhr: life does goddam well go on

~~~

A Deadwood story -- is that any way to raise a child? part 2

~~~

Please note that the following storyline and dialogue did not originate with me. It is the work of Carrie Anne Dubrona, Claytanic Kungler and Marrant Vita (Elizabeth). I just edited the material, rewrote some of it, and fleshed it out to fit in with the other segments of this story.

These three people have been some of my favorite folks to roleplay with in Deadwood. They epitomize what I mean when I talk about good ensemble rp, where the actors creatively play off each other with natural give-and-take dialogue. No one feels compelled to be the center of attention and bog down the narrative flow with long Bulwer-Lytton style multi-paragraph emotes, or screaming, scenery chewing mega-drama.

What they do is always shot through with subtle nuance, humor and humanity. Sometimes the dialogue they generate is so startlingly real, and the emotions are so genuine, it can be very affecting. This is also a good example of rp with people playing children that works and is not creepy. There are some folks who have real issues with child avatars in any context, and I think examples like this show how people playing children can contribute to good rp and storytelling.

Hey, creepy-ass motherfuckers are creepy-ass motherfuckers, whether they are wearing an adult avatar or a child one. Likewise, good decent folks are good decent folks, regardless of the appearance of the avatar they choose to wear. It's what is in the heart and mind of the typist and how they behave that makes the difference. I refer you to a very excellent post related to this subject by Marrant, posted at her newly established and highly readable blog.

***

So anyhow...I was gonna tell you about the time when Carrie Anne, along with her friend Elizabeth, damned near drowned this inexpressibly annoying lil’ boy named Alonzo...this all happened after Carrie Anne had been living with Miss Dio for a while, and thing had been going quite well. In fact, Dio had gotten a pony for CarrieAnnie to go along with her ridin’ lessons. And dammit, I don’t mean one o’ them foofy-ass lil’ rich girl’s ponies that are bred to be small and almost toy-like: I mean a proper pony, like ones the injuns ride. it was, a sturdy, good-natured and tough critter, though of a rather compact build. Somethin’ you can actually ride, and I mean ride--without the miserable thing dropping dead from under you--but still of a stature that was suitable for a young’un.

Well, shit, there I go digressin’ again...back to the story...now, as time went on quite a few people got to know Carrie Anne and took quite a likin’ to her, but she had some particular friends. For example, there wer the folks at the gem. You see, by this point, Clay Kungler had left Dio’s employ, a parting that was amicable and mutually-agreed upon, as Dio came to feel she really didn’t need two security people for the No. 10. Clay had gone on to take over management of the Gem Saloon for Miss Lil, (and in fact he ultimately later on came to own the place, but that’s another story for another time).

Carrie Anne would come down and sit on the porch outside the Gem--in the same place Dio had originally found her--and as she wasn’t allowed inside that big ol’ barn of inequity, folks from the Gem would come out and chat with her on the boardwalk. Among these were of course, Clay himself, but also one of Clay’s dancing girls, a very sweet young lady called Sparrow. And there was also Sparrow’s friend, a real fine old-style cowhand named Silver, who was workin’ as one of Clay’s security men for the saloon.

I think you probably would have liked Sparrow and Silver--they were both just straight-up good people, and Silver...well, he was what the boys used to call a “true gentleman.” Carrie Anne simply adored the both of ‘em.

She also had gotten real attached to a lil’ girl about her own age by the name of Elizabeth. Mind you, Elizabeth was not your average garden variety girl-child who likes frilly dresses in pretty colors, and is given to shallow and silly thoughts. Her family back east had all died suddenly from some curious unknown affliction, with only Elizabeth bein’ spared. This experience seemed to have inclined the girl to a melancholy disposition, expressed by the wearin’ of black and no other color, the reading of books by that Poe fella, and a habit of pondering the issue of human mortality with great regularity and enthusiasm.

Elizabeth, who had come out west to live with her Aunt Marrant, was just about the most happily morose creature you could have imagined.

At any rate, she and Carrie Anne found each other’s company quite agreeable, and they became fast friends. Generally speaking, the two of ‘em got on well enough with the other children in town, but not all of the young'uns, by any means. There was this one boy in particular, named Alonzo. He was just a tad younger than the two girls, and he pretty much irritated ‘em to the point of distraction. Though to be honest, he did that to pretty much everyone. The child was just strangely off-putting. But he was a real burr under the saddle for Elizabeth and Carrie Anne. The whiny, lil’ snot-drippin’ clodpoll, was always followin’ the girls around clutchin’ this pet rat he kept, and prattlin’ on, askin’ pointless questions and tryin’ to get a rise out of ‘em.

Matter o’ fact, I do believe he was trying his utmost to irritate them, and if so, he succeeded in a cosmically spectacular fashion. One day, when he was pesterin' them down by the Whitewood Creek, he made the mistake of turning his back on the two of ‘em, and without much apparent thought or consultation, Elizabeth and Carrie Anne. availed themselves of the opportunity to give him a tiny shove, propellin’ him into the stream.

Now, this wouldn’t have been too awful of a course o’ action, except that at the time, the water was rather cold, reasonably high, and truth be told, movin’ pretty goddamn fast. Alonzo quickly disappeared from their view, floating downstream with an expression of feckless befuddlement plastered on his face. The girls were convinced that they had succeeded in doing him in, and that, quite honestly, got them into a bit of a panic.

To make matters worse, along came Sheriff JF Kanto. Seeing that Elizabeth and Carrie Anne were visibly agitated, JF quickly elicited from them the sad intelligence regarding their having sent Alonzo for an unexpected swim. Sheriff Kanto sternly ordered the two girls go wait for him at the schoolhouse while he set off to see if he could locate the boy and rescue him.

Instead of following his instructions, however, Carrie Anne and Elizabeth, decided that under the circumstances, a much better course of action would be to run the hell away.

Needing advice and a loan to facilitate the execution of this plan, Carrie Anne suggested they go talk to Clay. In their experience, Clay Kungler was always good for advice and counsel when it came to anything of a questionable nature. The children always knew he could be counted to on discuss the most outrageous of topics in the most matter-of-fact manner possible. This instance would prove to be no exception, though just to be safe, the girls decided that before they sought his advice, it would be prudent to find out out if Clay was likely to be upset that they had “murdered” Alonzo:

They stood outside the door of the Gem, and Carrie Anne, her heart pounding, rapped on the doorjamb to attract Clay’s attention.

“Mr Clay?”

Clay came out, his usual sardonic smile on his face. "What can I do for ya?"

Carrie Anne gulped and then asked, “Mr Clay, do you like Alonzo?”

Elizabeth tried to look calm, but her palms were sweating, and as she wiped them on her skirt, she sort of felt like she was going to throw up. Carrie Anne was fighting the urge to cry.

Clay arched an eyebrow and replied, “Ya mean the weird little fella?”

Carrie Anne nodded her head "Yes sir"

Clay laughed, "Well, I'll say he's an odd lad..."

“Yes,” agreed Elizabeth, “but did you like him?...um, ah..I mean, DO you like him?”

Clay shrugged. “I don't reckon I've got any feelin’s about him, one way or t’other, really...”

Encouraged by this, the two girls looked at each other and finally Carrie Anne blurted out, “Me and Elizabeth sort of...kind of...pushed him in the creek and he might be dead...and Mr Kanto knows, and he went to rescue him. But then he is going to MURDER us for killin' Alonzo. We're gonna get hanged so we’re runnin' away...and we need some money...”

“And whiskey to trade with the Indians,” added Elizabeth nodding her head vigorously

Clay sighed. "Alright, alright. Well...first, calm down...I ain't seen a child hung for murder yet..."

“Carrie has a little money but we need a loan cause otherwise we have to blow up the bank to get it,” said Elizabeth.

Clay did not seem particularly fazed by any of this. “So, just outta mild curiosity, I gotta ask, why did ya’s push him in the creek?”

Carrie Anne answered quickly, “We pushed him...because he was just STARIN' at us like a maniac, and then he turned, and was just standing there and wouldn’t go away...and..well...”

“He kinda fell in after we pushed him,” concluded Elizabeth in a small voice. “He...just... is.. a...dumb boy,” she muttered.

Clay nodded as if this all seemed perfectly reasonable. “So what happened with Mr. Kanto... did he find the lad?”

“We don't know, we ran away,” answered Elizabeth. “And now Mister Kanto is gone, and Alonzo is not where we left him in the creek...maybe Mister Kanto pulled him out and is burying him up on the hilltop...”

“Well, maybe the Whitewood got both of them,” suggested Clay in a theatrically mater-of-fact tone.

“Oh NO!” wailed Carrie Anne.

Elizabeth's eyes widened. “Oh...no...that would be our fault...”

“We're gonna hang for sure!” added Carrie Anne.

Elizabeth nodded, “It’s not like Alonzo...people LIKE Mister Kanto...we WILL hang if we kilt him!”

Carrie Anne had tears running in streaky rivulets down her now puffy face. “I liked Mr Kanto,” she said quietly.

Elizabeth stared out into the distance, “The outlaws and bandits will be happy, but Mrs. Kanto will KILL me...”

Clay held up his hand and reassured them, “No, no... it's alright... I don't think Mr Kanto would go that easy...I was kiddin’ya. So now you kids are gonna run off, eh?”

Elizabeth nodded and wiped her nose with her sleeve. “We have no choice. We just need money and a pillow and blanket and my doll...oh and the whisky to trade...”

Carrie Anne put her arm around Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Yes sir. Otherwise we're going to hang or at least get a beating.” She wondered to herself, if Dio or Silver hit her, would it be as hard or maybe even harder than when her father had done so.

Clay looked thoughtful for a moment and then pronounced with great solemnity. “Ok. well, if that is what ya gotta do, then that is what ya gotta do. First off, ya need supplies and certain gear... which one of ya has a shotgun?”

Carrie Anne looked at Elizabeth and shrugged. “We have sling shots,” she offered.

Clay shook his head. “Just won’t do. Ya need a scatter gun when yer gonna be tradin’ whiskey with the Indians or renegades... if they think yer defenseless they'll scalp ya...

Carrie Anne’s eyes went wide with fear. Elizabeth thought for a bit and then suggested, “We could cut our hair real short and just give ‘em the hair we cut off if they wanted it.

Carrie Anne frowned. She hated to disagree with her friend, but she had a pretty good idea that was not going to work. “I think they want the skin, too, Elizabeth.”

Clay nodded in agreement, "Oh yes.. the skin holds it together... keeps it like the top of yer head. It's not the hair they are after... it's proof they killed ya..."

Carrie Anne gasped in horror but Elizabeth was still inclined to figure out a rational answer to this problem. “Ohhh...how about...we could...we could sign a paper that says we're dead?”

“I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t suit their needs,” Clay laughed.

“Oh Elizabeth, we're doomed, moaned Carrie Anne. “We stay here, we'll hang, and if we runaway, we'll be murdered.”

Clay smiled slightly. “Well, don’t give up hope just yet...maybe we can work something out. Like if ya had a good reason to push that little idiot in the water...remember, this is Deadwood: ya can pretty much kill anyone, so long as ya have reason...”

Elizabeth was seeing a glimmer of hope. “Well, um.. cause he's a boy and he's a...”

She tried to remember what term Miss Dio would use in the circumstances.

“Feckless goddam idiot,” offered Carrie Anne.

Elizabeth nodded and looked questioningly at Clay, “Yeah...like that?

He's always chasin' after us, showin' us his pet rat, and he's always in trouble,” explained Carrie Anne.

"So ya were just standin’ up for yourselves, right?" asked Clay.

“Yessir,” said Elizabeth.

“That's...right, we were," agreed Carrie Anne, still not entirely convinced.

Clay seemed satisfied by this. “Well then, they can't hang ya's... ya might get a spankin’... but they can't hang ya for that...”

Carrie Anne was beginning to feel somewhat reassured, but something still bothered her. “How hard does Dio hit?" she asked Elizabeth.

Elizabeth looked at her friend and shrugged. “I don't know, she never hit me.”

“Well, Dio once beat up Sparrow in a ladies boxing match,” offered Clay helpfully.

Elizabeth frowned. “She's pretty strong, then.”

Carrie Anne pondered the possibilities for a moment and then finally put into words what she actually feared deep down inside. “She probably won't hit me, she'll just get rid of me."

For first time in the course of the entire conversation, a hint of irritation crept into Clay’s voice. “Now why would Dio get rid of ya?”

Carrie Anne looked up at him with expressionless eyes. “She ain't my ma. She can just kick me out into the street...”

“Did she ever say anything to make ya think she'd do that?” asked Clay sharply.

“No sir.” Carrie Anne replied. “She said we'd buy a ranch when Mr Sepp comes home from the army, and we’d all go live on it.”

Clay folded his arms over his chest and smiled slightly. “Well then, if that’s what she said, then I think that's what she'll do... I mean if anyone would understand what ya did today, it's Miss Dio. She knows what it's like to deal with us stupid menfolk.”

“She'll prob'ly just spank you...you can wear a pillow,” added Elizabeth in a reassuring tone.

A tiny smile crept across Carrie Anne’s features. “So, we should stay, and we won't hang, and it'll all work out?”

Clay nodded. “It'll be just fine... besides, they went and made me deputy mayor, I wouldn't let anyone hang ya’s." Clay muttered quietly under his breath, "Might give ya a reward for gettin’ rid of that kid."

"Mr Clay wouldn't trick us," Carrie Anne whispered to Elizabeth, who nodded in agreement.

“Alright then...okay...we'll stay,” Carrie Anne announced. “But if you see Mr Kanto, tell him we're dead."

“Oooh, that's a good idea!” agreed Elizabeth. “At least until he isn't so mad.”

“Once he calms down, you can tell him we're alive,” suggested Carrie Anne.

Clay laughed. "Ok, but ya can't let him see ya's then. Ya gotta hide when he is around."

“We will. We have LOTS of hiding spots,” said Carrie Anne with considerable enthusiasm.

“Hmmph,” snorted Clay, "now ya got me lyin for ya's...”

“We can pay you off if you want,” suggested Carrie Anne, like a true daughter of Deadwood.

“Except first, you have to loan us the money to do it,” added Elizabeth.

"Naw, I don't need no payments... ya just keep yer eyes open and if ya’s ever see anything weird from now on, ya gotta come tell me...Now go on..time to git, I have things I need to look after.”

The girls thanked him and dashed off down the street. As he watched them go, Clay was pretty much pleased with the outcome of the entire episode so far. Not only had he got the two young’uns to not be runnin’ off, now he had two small, inconspicuous spies keepin’ an eye on things around town for him. It never ceased to astonish him what people would say and do in front of kids, as though the lil’ critters weren’t even there, or like they couldn't understand.

And Clay was a pragmatist. Any and all information was eventually useful in some way. But that ain’t essential to this story. You’re probably wonderin’ if this boy Alonzo actually wound up being fish bait. We’ll get to that next.

~~~

Social ebb and flow -- reflections on the dynamics of a virtual community

~~~

Communities, even virtual ones, are organic things that ebb and flow, going through cycles where there may be population growth that is followed by a contraction, or in which "teh drama" builds and subsides, or individual friends and colleagues come and go--and then all these processes repeat themselves. In SL--which my friend Aldo Stern has long described as "a social pressure cooker in which social cycles are intensified and accelerated" (and emotions and social tensions are often likewise sharply focused and intensified)--these cyclic processes can happen very rapidly. Dear old Deadwood goes through these cycles like any place on the grid, and sometimes that is a frustrating and scary thing, and other times it is a delight.

Lately, life in Deadwood has fit both of these descriptions: there have been some of those inevitable "drama" cycles (the kind that make you wish you were a social scientist or a shrink, because you would be wallowing in fodder for some really cool articles); and more personal cycles of the sort that just make you tickled to death that you got be a part of something so unique and human and humane.

I'll skip the drama stuff. Hey, it comes, it goes and every place has it. And don't you be giving me that shit about you have somehow found a little corner of virtual heaven where it does not happen. I think it's like politics--it's just the inevitable, inherently untidy way that people sort things out in a situation where they are pretty much having to make things up as they go along. Yes, for some people drama is a form of recreation. But for most of us, I think SL drama is essentially conflict resolution executed within an anarchical context. At this point we really needn't say more about it.

But that ebb and flow of humanity in and out of our communities--that is something interesting and as I said, to me...ultimately delightful. I have met a lot of really wonderful people in SL, a great many of them in Deadwood, where just like any meatspace community, we have had our fights and fun, we build and tear apart social organizations and personal connections, and we generate shared hopes, and ideas, and stories. A lot of people who I have connected with at some point in Deadwood have come and gone from the community, and lately, quite of few of these folks have been coming back. In some cases, these are people who disappeared completely, or who went off to play in other communities. In other cases it's been people who really didn't leave, or who sort of left, but who just weren't able to be around very much. And recently, a surprising number of these people have come back into the community and become a more regular part of it again, and that's just been a high point of life on the grid for me during the last month or so.

Tonight was one of those really nice occasions. I was able to sit down in the dining room of my hotel and spend quality time with two residents who have gone through their own cycles of being very involved in the community and then having to be less involved or away from Deadwood for one reason or another. Deacon Dryke is actually one of the owners of the sim, and was very engaged in the community in its first year, playing the younger brother of Percy Dryke, the provisioner. You may recall having heard Deac's name before, in the first episode of the "Consequences" story. For much of the last year, however, Deac was unable to spend as much time with us. His in-character role-playing explanation for not being around much was that his brother had sent him off to Denver to get some serious schooling. But tonight he was "back in town" and came to visit me at the hotel.

Deac Dryke

Another player who had been around a great deal early on, then went away and just recently started spending some time with us again is Tim Hax, a resident who plays an orphan boy, just a little younger than Deac. In the past when they were both around more, Tim and Deac had built a nice friendship (both IC and OOC, I think) and had some pretty cool Deadwood adventures together. Tim was explaining his absence from Deadwood for many months with the rp scenario that he had gone off to live and work with a farm family. When he showed up in town again not too long ago (the social ebb and flow process in action), Tim explained that the arrangement with the farm family just hadn't worked out and so he had hiked back to Deadwood (the only place he felt like he had ever had a home). There, Dio had immediately given him a job at the hotel and little cubbyhole-like room under the stairs for him to live in. So, when Tim happened to sign on while I was visiting with his old friend Deac, I immediately IM'ed him and asked him to come on over to Deadwood and get together with us to rp a little reunion.

Tim did so, and I had the best time sitting and chatting with these two young men while they were catching up on what each of them had been doing (among other things, Dio's been teaching Tim to shoot), and laughing about old times and their past adventures. It was that best kind of rp: all improv, very natural, spontaneous and down-to-earth, and based on some very real feelings about friendship and shared good times. It felt very real and genuine, and left me with a big ol' smile on my face all evening.

Visiting with Deac and Tim

Sometimes, the people who come back are not always this congenial. There have also been some old troublemakers coming back (though I haven't seen them for a while). These are guys who were banned long ago for various moronic behavior, but they make alts and return, usually trying to upset people with some kind of variation on the old race-baiting gambit (presented through some really mediocre rp). This is a cycle that has its own benefits: comic relief (their tired old shtick is so very 2006); a common enemy that the town can have fun banding together against; and moving targets that everyone gets to have fun punching or shooting (they're really bad at combat), before finally they've broken enough of the rules for the new alt to be banned like their previous manifestations. Oh yeah, and they get AR'ed too, so maybe LL finally did something about them...

So anyhow, even a virtual roleplaying community has its cycles--it has good days and bad days, days that are fun and days that just kinda fucking weird. The population goes up sometimes, often very rapidly, and then it goes back down again just as quickly. And ultimately, like any organic entity, these communities have life spans. They mature, they age, and eventually they die. But after a good night like tonight, I am hoping not just yet.

A Deadwood Story -- consequences, part 1

~~~

There's one rule that pretty much always holds true for boomtowns: things are always changing, including the factors that caused the boom in the first place. That was certainly true with Deadwood. In the early days of the town, every small operator had a chance at hitting it big. At first there was plenty of surface gold, wealth that could be found in gravel banks or those natural traps you find in a creek or stream--the places where the water slows, and heavier material--such as flakes and small nuggets of gold--will settle into a crack or under a big rock.

The first stage of a gold rush: placer mining by the "little guys."

This was what drew so many argonauts in the initial months of the Black Hills Gold Rush: the possibility that a man on his own, or with just a couple of his pards, could stake a claim and work it with pick and shovel and pan, or maybe build a little sluice with riffles to catch the gold. These simple tools, a little bit of good fortune, and a lot of backbreaking work could make a down-on-his-luck mechanic or laborer into a big-spending dandy. But of course, that didn’t last long. Those placer deposits dried up pretty fast. There still was a prodigious amount of the yellow metal to be extracted, but more and more it couldn’t be done by a few men using their picks and pans. It took bigger operators, running underground mines with steam engines driving the machinery, a big investment in equipment and workers, and dynamite (known as Giant powder) and timbers for shoring up the tunnels.

Yes, the gold rush continued, and many of the small time boys grimly held on to their claims trying to make it worth the work...but the real winners now were the big boys--large companies, like the fellows who ran the Father DeSmet mine, or George Hearst and his cronies with the Homestake. Middling sized operators tried to break into the action as well...one company that struggled to do so was Gold Star Mining Company, a firm whose Black Hills operations were overseen by a large bearded man, a mining engineer named Al Husar. Dio didn’t care for any of these big operators. She was mostly indifferent to the gents at the Father de Smet, but she sincerely disliked Al Husar...and she downright loathed George Hearst and his various “lapdogs” as she called them. The idea that the small-time argonauts were being squeezed out, that they were losing their dreams...well, it just sorta pissed her off.

She also didn't like the fact that the competition between these bigger operators was turning into a full-blown conflict. And she wasn’t the only one who felt this way: many of the townspeople were beginning to fear the possibility of a war between some of the firms. Hearst and Gold Star seemed to be particularly close to the precipice. They appeared to be very close to falling into a violent confrontation and most Deadwood folks, Dio included, figured that would be “right bad fer bizness.” When things seemed to be coming to the boiling point, Mayor Silverspar (yes, the same gent who had been shot in the leg by Hawk while working as a bartender at the Bella) had tried to head things off by issuing a decree that none of the mine company security men from either side were allowed within the town limits. This decision put Gold Star at a distinct disadvantage, and in fact, there proved to be severe consequences... as Dio was to find out one chilly fall morning at the California restaurant.

It was early--just past sunrise--but Dio was up, of course. She was already having her breakfast at the California. Estwee, the proprietor of the restaurant--widely regarded by old hands as the best place to eat in town for the money--was having one of her shy days. Estwee had gotten worse about it lately. Sometimes she would just stay in her kitchen, only bringing out big plates of food now and then for her customers to serve themselves from. The regulars always just tossed the coins for payment into a large coffee tin behind the counter, and if any greenhorn tried to get away with not paying or putting his hand in the till, the regulars would take care of him or her in some artistically violent fashion. The boys all loved Miz Estwee and weren’t about to let any worthless drifter or bowlegged chippie skip out on a meal at the California without paying.

Anyhow, this was one of those mornings. Dio had helped herself to a pile of flapjacks and had shouted a “How do, Estwee” back into the kitchen without expecting or receiving any reply.

As she ate, Al Husar ambled in. Dio looked up from her breakfast, scowled slightly, but still nodded and mumbled “good day to you, sir” through her face-full of flapjacks.

Al pulled up a stool right next to Dio, even though the place was deserted except for her, and he could have sat wherever he liked.

“Good morning, Mrs. Kuhr,” he smiled as he seated himself, tipping his bowler hat.

Dio’s scowl got a little more severe, but after a pause she spoke. “I hear tell that you have closed yer office in town..might I ask what's going on?

Al reached over and pulled a biscuit from the basket on the counter. He stared at it thoughtfully as he replied, “Well Ma’am, the new mayor gave me an ultimatum...he wants me to be ending this conflict with Hearst.”

Dio arched an eyebrow. There recently had been an open letter in the paper from Al addressed to Hearst, calling on him to meet with the Gold Star representative and hash things out in a peaceful way.

Finally she commented drily, “Well sir, judging by that letter o’ your’n in the paper, you was already trying to do that...”

Al Husar sighed. “Yes...and not very successfully. Hearst hasn't responded at all...not even a go-fuck-yourself.”

“So I reckon we're gonna have a mine war then?” asked Dio.

“Well Ma’am,” Al shrugged, “I believe the mayor’s intention was to avoid that very situation. He thought he could force us to sit down...work things out. But he told me I wouldn't be able to bring security guards into town until we did so.”

It suddenly dawned on Dio that the security man who usually accompanied Al everywhere he went was not to be seen. She was pretty sure that this was not a good thing.

Al Husar continued, “I can’t get by without that security. You know we just bought the Grubstake mine: I need to protect that, but it’s entrance is in the town limits. Plus we had the office here in town, and the people who work for me...if I am not allowed to protect them, I can't do business here....not with a bastard like Hearst in the mix.”

Dio took a sip of coffee. “I was starting to think you might actually care about this goddam town, Al. Not long ago you had tol’ me you was tryin to fend Hearst off and keep the mine war from happnin’ ‘cuz ye had the interests o’ the town at heart..”

“I do,” answered Al. “This town is my home now....but these people have elected a megalomaniacal fool for a mayor...”

“A what?”

Al smiled. “A feckless turd,” he explained.

“Oh.”

Al went on, “I have to protect my people and the company's interests. The mayor gave me no choice. I have to give my people a fighting chance, so I had to pull them out of town...”

Dio blinked. “So you in town without no security right now?”

“Yes”

Dio was increasingly having a feeling that this was not a good thing.

“I had to come in and finish up some business,” said Al. “But shortly, I'll be out at our mines in the countryside...out in the hills. Those are a going concern and I gotta look after ‘em. So I won’t be too far away...if you need me.”

Dio looked offended. “Why in the name o’ Beelzebub's bunghole would I... or we need you?

Al Husar laughed. “You still don't like me, do you Mrs. Kuhr?”

“Well,” Dio answered, “the fact that you was opposing Hearst made me reconsider a spell, but no, with this latest development, I reckon yer jus like every other goddam selfish big bug from some large company who's gonna drive out the small operators sooner or later... and I still don't think yer very goddam smart comin’ to town without yer security shadow...”

Al Husar smiled and shrugged. “Well, Mrs. Kuhr, as my half-uncle used to say, life is dangerous."

Dio suddenly looked at the man with a expression of surprise. That particular phrase had rung a bell deep within her memory.

“Yer half-uncle?” she asked.

Al grinned. “Yes Ma’am. My half-uncle indeed. John Husar.”

“I am suddenly thinkin’ we are speakin’ o’ the same gent...the man what m’ fool of a husband accidentally won in a poker game an’ wound up manumittin’....John...I recollect him saying that purty regular, about life is dangerous...an smilin’ as he said it."

Al nodded. “Yes my father's half-brother was quite the philosopher.”

“Yer pa was ol’ John's half-brother?”

“Yes..funny world isn't it?”

Dio thought that was the understatement of the year.

“You see,” said Al, “on our side of the family...well, my father was the offspring of a union between my grandmother and the master.”

Dio suddenly felt the warm light of comprehension flooding the still sleepy recesses of her brain. “So most of y'all further down the line could pass for white...or creole anyway?”

Al nodded with with an ironic little smile.

“Well, I'll be dammed,” said Dio.

“I doubt it,” answered Al.

Any evidence of dislike had faded from her expression. Dio now had a look of genuine concern. “Dammit I shoulda figgered somethin’ was up here...tain’t a common name at all, Husar. So what ye gonna do now, Al? Just gonna hunker down up in the hills and wait them rascals out?”

Al shook his head. “No, I will keep trying to get a hold of George...I keep sending him messages by different means...different mutual acquaintances.”

As Al Husar made this statement, a young man with long sideburns and wearing an old army sack coat walked into the restaurant.

Both Dio and Al looked up at him. Al nodded to the young man, “Mornin’, sir.”

Dio likewise greeted him, “How do, pard.” She had seen this young man, a former soldier, around town before, though she had not spoken to him much.

The young man touched his hat brim in reply to their greeting and walked up to Al. “Excuse me sir, by any chance are you Mr. Al Husar?” he asked.

Al looked him over a moment and then replied, “Yes...yes I am... what can I do for you?”

The young man looked very serious and announced gravely, “I have an answer to your message....”

“Oh?” replied Al. And as he said this, he turned to take another biscuit from the basket.

While he did so, the young man pulled a Colt Navy from under his sack coat and fired, just inches from the back of Al’s head. As Al slumped forward onto Estwee’s counter, Dio--who had been sitting on the far side of Al from the shooter--was already rolling off her stool and clawing out the big Walker Colt from its holster. The young man re-cocked the Navy and fired a round at the woman in buckskins.

In a flash, he turned and was out the door. He had been told to get in, kill Husar quickly--preferably with one shot at close range--then take care of any witnesses and get the hell out of there as rapidly as was possible.

As he untied his horse from the railing of Miz Estwee’s porch and climbed on to gallop up Main Street, he was thinking he had done a pretty good job of following his employer’s instructions.

to be continued...

~~~

Hogwarts United: well organized immersion

~~~

Newly hired assistant librarian Diogenes Penthesileia Kuhr and Head Librarian Siorai Timeless in the library at Hogwarts castle.

Mind you, my heart will always belong to Deadwood, but I do like to go exploring. And do you remember how I was telling you about being intrigued by the application and orientation system being used at Hogwarts United, a Harry Potter-themed immersion rp environment? And I told you how I had gone through the process, applying to be a staff member, and I would let you know how it turned out?

Well, boys and girls, I got hired!

I am an assistant librarian working in the school library, with a special emphasis on looking after the restricted and "dangerous" collections, although I also have been called on to take the front reference desk and help students with their research needs. This was my first week and it's been a blast, as well as an interesting and enlightening experience.

I have been switching back and forth between Deadwood and Hogwarts, and so far it's worked out pretty well. I'm pretty much just wearing my formal Victorian ensemble, but without the over-skirt and bustle, so the changeover doesn't involve a lot of extra effort to switch wardrobes. Fortunately, wizards and witches being sort of eccentric folks to start with, this look seems to fit in pretty well. But I'll say a bit more about costuming later on.

First, back to the admission process. You may recall that I had to do a lengthy written application that included a well developed backstory (retired Auror with PTSD, looking for something useful to do). Then I went to an Out of Character (OOC) interview with one of the admissions people (a charming young lady who mostly focused on asking questions designed to determine if I had a clue about the canon or not). After that I went to an OOC orientation class with a group of other new folks, and we got a good review of how things work in this community.

Then I had to wait for my face-to-face interview.

After a few days I heard from Deputy Headmisstress Anastasja Barbasz, who set up and conducted the meeting in her lovely office in the castle. The interview was done in character, and was a fascinating melding of roleplaying and a serious examination of me, the candidate. With us both in character, Deputy Headmisstress Barbasz was fun to interact with: I assume part of the exercise here was to make sure that (A.) I can actually roleplay effectively, and (B.) I'm not some kind of mega tap-dancing douche. But I genuinely enjoyed it.

I seemed to have managed to convince Ms. Barbasz about the mega tap-dancing douche issue, because lo and behold, a week or so later (Headmaster was on vacation and so the process was a bit slower than it most likely usually is) I was informed I had been hired and was told to report to the Head Librarian.

This brought me into contact with Head Librarian Siorai Timeless, who was just an absolute delight as she got me squared away on how the library functions, and what would be expected of me. In this process, there were a couple of surprises, the most interesting of which was being informed that I would be working the front desk and helping the students. This shows that these folks had a lot of faith in me, thinking that I am in any way of a temperament or otherwise appropriately suited to work with impressionable young people. Either that, or there is a serious flaw in their interview system that let me slip through.

But one of the key things I learned from Sio is that if there is no actual notecard or flip-style"book" available from the library's shelves covering the topic that a student is studying, then I would get to roleplay finding them the book. AND if I so chose, I could make up some plausible title and related details about the imaginary volume.

WOOHOO! This was real fun as I chattered away at the students about books I invented such as "The Idiot's Guide to Quidditch," "Treasures of Transfiguration." and "Great Duels I Witnessed: or How in Baal's name did he do that?" I got a bit carried away on the dueling book, explaining in detail about how it had been written by a man named McKromsky who had been Europe's best known referee of magical duels in the last century. However, being as he was pretty thoroughly drunk at almost every wizards' duel he ever refereed, there were holes in his memory and a lot of what was in the book was simply shit that he had made up. I did however, tell the students that it was really fun to read. At first I just rp'd giving the kids a book to sign out, but then I found an old freebie volume with a reading anim in the inventory, so I started giving them that.

After a few days of this kind of book duty and just observing and reacting, I began to initiate a few minor situations, and soon had some pretty full blown rp conversations of a philosophical and dramatic nature going. I had a lot of fun with some students (including my old friends from Deadwood, Tallulah and Guru) and several of the staff, including Professor Diesel (one of the charms instructors) and Nyx Carnell, the arithmancy and transfiguration professor. Nyx was a really good sport, putting up with my rambling and pontificating long after he should have gone to bed, and he is, like many of the folks in this environment, really damn good at the art of rp.

One of the most interesting interactions I had was with the guy in charge, Headmaster Nikolaidis. Now, be honest: when you think headmaster of a wizard school, you think some old Goodgulf Grayteeth character, right? A benevolent, grandfatherly old sod with twinkling eyes, a beard the size of Honduras, and shuffling around in a grubby old bathrobe with stars glued to it, right?

This ain't that kind of headmaster.

He's younger than me, slim and all dressed in leather, sporting a neatly trimmed goatee, and dude! ...about as benevolent and jolly as Genghis Khan. This man is serious, hard as nails, and ready for any shit that might come down the pike. He had combat blades strapped to his legs and an attitude that was...well....let me put it this way: when I offered that I had heard that he had something of a sense of humor (not sure where I got THAT from) he stared at me for a minute and then said flatly that he "was not aware of having anything like that."

Damn. If Dio wasn't a tough ol' kakootza herself, I think she'd have crawled under a rock and waited for dark to fall so she could escape unnoticed.

But don't get me wrong -- I thought this was really appealing and engaging. You have to keep in mind that this version of Hogwarts is set about 10 years after the last of the Harry Potter books ends. It is a new world, and still certainly dangerous. I have heard from several people, including the headmaster, that there have been bad things happening, people getting attacked, and that many of the students--being the children of the deatheater generation--have some pretty intolerant tendencies going. It really struck me that this was a headmaster who would NOT put up with any nonsense or folderol, and who would kick asses and take names if he had to.

And yet, at the same time, he told me his main goal was to encourage "the students to learn from one another."

Fucking fascinating...

Canon is there, it is respected--but it is just a starting point. What is being done here feels like "Potter: The Next Generation." Hell, I seem to be oldest person in the goddam castle, at least so far as I can tell (though I am still meeting folks). Most of the staff are in their 20's and 30's. Look at the picture of Sio, the head Librarian: she's a very attractive young lady, dressed in a sleek but practical pants suit, nicely coiffed and with cool glasses. Lots of the other folks are a bit more traditional in gowns and pointy hats, but damn...it's not your granddaddy's Hogwarts. The castle itself has the elements you would expect--great hall, towers, moving staircase, cloisters, dungeon like classrooms--but it also has a clean and slightly modernized feel to it. It's not all dark and cluttered, which in reality is probably a function of keeping prims under control, but mentally, it's easy to think that it's all an aspect of this "new Hogwarts" way of doing things. You can also imagine it is perhaps the result of the general clean-up and repairs that had to be done after the big battle that happens in the last book and which undoubtedly did a good deal of damage to the castle.

The approach that is taken by the players is admirable. There are classes that the students attend, uniforms are worn, and points given and taken from the various houses. Intrigue and rivalries abound. The teachers have to make syllabi, recommend books, and present lectures and demonstrations. The students are given homework, and come into the library complaining about it. The school administration clearly has planned out what they need and what they can manage from a practical standpoint, and when they had all their staff slots filled, they sent out an announcement saying that no more new staff would be hired until next term.

This is really well thought out and people have made a commitment that is impressive.

Is this for everyone?

No, of course not. It is rather demanding of time and energy. I imagine a lot of people burn out pretty quickly. Casual guests cannot wander in and ramble about the castle (though they can in the adjoining Hogsmeade village). And it takes awhile to get into this. I think of myself as a pretty experienced and adaptable roleplayer, but when I first got in, I felt constrained to quietly go about my assigned tasks and at most, give or respond to polite greetings. I observed and listened, and people pretty much left me alone until I was ready to begin getting to know them a bit and engaging them a little. It all felt very very real in terms of how people adjust to new situations.

My guess is that you need to be one of those in-between personalities. If you're really shy, you might get into this and go for weeks or months without talking to anyone very much. Or if you're a rampaging psychotic attention whore, you're probably going to bump up against the wall of the existing community culture, and burst into a mass of flaming farts, after which you'll go back to your usual haunts and whine about how insular and "cliquish" those people in Hogwarts are.

But hey, that's life on the grid, right? Me, I'm going to keep at this and see where it goes. Like I said, I love exploring, but sometimes, you really can't learn much by just visiting a culture for an hour or two, and then hope to come away saying you understand it. When it is this complex, you have to live in it and try to be a part of it. And so far, I am really enjoying living in this environment, and I am grateful to the Hogwarts United folks for opportunity to try to be a small part of it and understand their rp community a little better.

~~~

A story from Deadwood -- one warm afternoon in the Gem

This is one of my favorite stories from the early days of the Deadwood sim, re-posted from the Road to Deadwood Forum. It didn't start out as a story, it was actually an impromptu bit of roleplaying that happened between myself and my friend Sepp. We did this scene, pretty much as you read it here, with both of us making it up as we went along. Sadly I did not save an actual chat transcript (we didn't have the forum at the time, and there seemed to be no reason to do so), so I had to reconstruct it from memory. It 's a bit cleaner and a bit more polished than what actually transpired, and some of the descritpoive elements have been fleshed out to give it some depth. But the spirit of what you are going to read here is as true to the real encounter as I could make it. And yes, Foxy and Lil were eavesdropping, thank you girls. And thank you Sepp.

The Gem saloon in the Deadwood sim, ca. late 1876.
Photo courtesy of Mr. Rod Eun

Dio was back in the corner at the end of the bar, drinking her coffee and trying to not pay much attention to the usual Gem noises. Willie the bartender was breakin' wind like a buffalo with bad digestion, Foxy was yelling at someone about something or other, and a couple of drunks were arguing and threatening each other in that vaguely hilarious way that only dimwitted inebriates are capable of. Lil was, as usual, in the back "medicating" herself.

All in all, it was just another normal afternoon at the Gem Saloon, Deadwood City, the Dakota Territory.

Dio's ears, attuned to picking up new noises from the usual din, noted the sound of boots moving towards her across the broad uneven planking of the Gem's floor. Instinctively she turned, expecting to see good ol' Lefty or Daz, or one of the other boys that made the Gem more than just another booze parlor.

Instead, it was a figure that was not one of the usual cast of characters--yet at the same time it was strangely familiar...not too tall, slightly stocky....and dressed in a manner that set the wearer apart from the usual run of cowpokes and miners, trail trash, drifters, confidence men, dandified grifters, and pointlessly arrogant pistoleros that seemed to make up the bulk of the male population in this wretched little tin-plated piss-pot town.

He had on a blue army shell jacket of an obsolete pattern, decorated with faded yellow cavalry piping; a battered old-style forage cap; yellow-striped blue breeches, stuffed into riding boots; and a heavy revolver--a venerable cap and ball model that had been converted to cartridge, she noted--and he had it worn butt-forward, set at the perfect angle to be efficiently drawn while fighting from horseback.

Her eyes traveled up to the face...sun and wind burnt, rough features with a small, neatly trimmed beard..and a eyepatch...the surviving eye, looked straight into hers, and she knew him, then and there. Even with all the changes that can be wrought by the passing of 16 years, by traveling thousands of miles on bad coffee and worse food, by taking the impact of yankee shell fragments and prison camps and witnessing the deaths of friends and enemies at close hand, living out an endless life in the saddle and carrying out orders that may or may not have made any sense to a man who loved reason and logic and human decency...through all the damage that had been done over time and distance to the young man she had once known...she recognized him.

He stopped next to the bar, a good eight feet or so away from her. Not all that far, really. But it felt to her like a great chasm still stood between them, and he seemed to understand and respect that. After a pause, a voice, soft but deep, spoke to her, quietly, but at the same time cutting through the surrounding din, like the light of a hand lamp piercing the dark of night.

"Hello Diogenes. Some gentleman told me I could find you here."

She could still only look at him blankly.

Another pause followed, but he never took his one-eyed gaze away from hers.

His voice was still quiet. "I am sorry about Jack. For what it is worth, I wanted to let you know that I did my best to keep him alive. I am desperately, truly sorry."

Finally she spoke. "Hello Sepp."

Then the words came out like a small flood, "Cap Johnson's boys come to see me after they got sent home. They tol' me he din't suffer none. An they give me his ol' forage cap. An' they needed them some money..but wouldn't accept a gift nor a loan from me, so the eldest, Mo, he done give me his calvry sack coat an let me give him some money fer it..an...well shit...please, tell me the truth, Sepp...and goddam you to hell for ever if'n yer lying to me...was it quick? Did he really feel nothin'? did..."

The old horse soldier did not flinch, his expression was like stone: impassive, grim, but still looking straight into her eyes. "On my honor, Dio, it was as quick as a soul can depart this world...one minute we were all sitting there on our mounts under some trees, waiting to move out. And all of a sudden there was a woosh and a bang, like a huge clap o' thunder, and we all went down..and Jack was gone. Same shell killed his horse, and my old bay, Ceasar, and took my eye, and few other less noticeable pieces of me, and it hurt one o' the other boys something dreadful..."

Sepp dropped his gaze to the floor for a moment and then looked up into her eyes once more. "Dio, if I thought there actually was a God, I would swear to you on his Holy Book that Jack felt no pain in his passing."

"I...well...the boys told me that...but you know how fellers'll tell a widder just about goddam anythin' tryin' to spare her feelin's. I'm right glad twas the truth. I believe you Sepp. Funny...I still got Mo's gray woolens, but damn me if'n I din't lose Jack's cap somewhere..." Her voice trailed off.

Silently the soldier reached into a haversack he carried, and pulled out a very battered old gray military cap. It had dark brown stains around jagged holes..the kind of holes that no moth can make.

He gently set it on the bar, in the gap in between them. She stared at it as if it was some strange creature...

"I found it on your kitchen table at the ranch Dio," he said. "I got there just as the foreclosure auction was ending. You were gone...no one knew where...but I saw the cap and I picked it up, I thought maybe you might want it some day."

She continued to stare at it. Her face was impassive, set with a determination that would have held a world of meaning for Sepp's Apache and Tonkawa rangers from before the war..those men would have understood what her face meant, and would have appreciated it. A single tear slowly etched it's lonely path down her cheek.

"He loved you very much Dio," Sepp continued. "Jack was not a man of many words, he didn't have much to say a lot of the time, but there wasn't a day that didn't go by that he didn't think about you and miss you terribly."

For the first time he took his single eyed gaze away from hers. He looked at the floor. "I had something I wanted to give you...to make sure you knew how much he loved you...that locket with your picture...when I came to, I ... I got it from Jack's..well Jack's mortal remains...I had it with me all these years...I was determined I was going to give it to you..show you how much he loved you..that locket, that picture that when he thought no one was looking, he would pull out and gaze at it, and, well...he loved you more than can rightly be put into words."

He again raised his one eye to meet hers. "But damn if I didn't lose it..just a few weeks ago..must have been a careless damn fool and lost it on the trail somewhere..."

Now it was his voice that trailed off.

For the first time she smiled. A tight, wry, ironic smile.

"It's allright, Sepp. Someone I know..well..by god, they, um... sort of found it." She pulled it out of the pocket in her buckskin skirt.

For the first time since he had walked into that barn-like shithole of a saloon, he smiled.

Suddenly her expression changed.

"Sepp?"

"Yes?"

"That note you left for me..with Mr. Bu..."

"The old Chinese gent, your neighbor?"

"Yes."

"What about it?"

"In it..well...you told me to stop hunting for you up in the hills, to wait down here in town..."

"Yes. It was too dangerous for you to be doing that, Dio."

"In it..you said...you said you din't want nothin' to happen to me...cuz you loved me."

"Yes."

"That true?"

"Yes it is. Dio, I've always loved you."

She regarded him in silence for a moment and then slowly, quietly asked, "Even back then...when we was young an just bein' foolish?"

"Yes. And if your next question is did I love you just like a sister...or a right good friend...No. I loved you the other way. But Jack was my best friend. I was always happy for you two. You two being married...well, it was the best a fellow could hope for under the circumstances."

"That how come you never got hitched?"

"Well, it wasn't all of it, but yes, by God it was a big part of it. No woman ever seemed to quite measure up to you, Diogenes."

Suddenly, without a word she moved closer to him. She slowly put her arms around him and pressed her head against his shoulder and began crying. Huge heaving sobs, as years of pain and loss and emptiness poured out in a wave that wracked her slight body. He gently put his big paw-like hands around her and held her... even as she began hitting him on the chest.

"Goddamit" she hissed. "Goddamit to hell and back, you lousy ol' good fer nuthin' feckless saddle-tramp sonofabitch! And you know somethin' else? You look like a goddam idjit in that blue monkey suit."

For the first time in years, the old soldier laughed. He laughed so hard tears came to his eyes.

They kissed...gently, tentatively at first, and then the kiss lengthened and became more intense. And then, arm in arm, they walked out of the Gem and down the street towards her new home in the back of the laundry at the end of China Row, in that very good location right next to Mr. Bu's popular opium house.

Neither noticed that they had left something behind on the bar: an old gray military cap. Later the next day, she would remember it was still there and would go retrieve it. But life, as it does, seemed to have moved on...

~~~