pixels and pronouns

We are posting some of our RP events as they occur, not because we think we are underpaid professional fiction writers expecting to make our big break, but more for our own future nostalgia, to be able to look back on some of this stuff and smile.

[22:15] Aubrey Tisane couldnt be more grateful when she bus squeeled towards the corner, its breaks squealing in desperation as it rolled to a stop. She all but flung herself out the double doors when they parted, sucking in a lung full of air which smelled as fresh as daisies compared to the cigar smoke and body odor she'd been swimming in for the last hour. Smoothing her palms over her skirts she paused a moment to let her eyes adjust to the bleak darkness of the near empty corner.

[22:17] Shephard Ansar: "well well. If it isn't Ms. Public Transit. Someone's a high roller. What, to good to walk like the rest of us peasants?" he said in jest from his perch next to Jimmie's chicken shack. "where do we think we're going?"

[22:20] Aubrey Tisane spun to face him, the skirts of her little gauze dress swirling about her this. "doing what most high rollers do, you know, being sandwiched between beefy men who smell like shame and farts. Making it rain with bus tokens.....and its entirely possible I was up town on a group" she lifted her hands, purse and all, doing air quotes with her finger tips "date, platonic thing, which ended up in me not having a ride home..."

[22:25] Shephard Ansar: "date platonic things huh. Well you look stunning by the way. Way too good for a date platonic thing. I'm sorry it didn't go well." he said, his expression betraying nothing of his true thoughts on the matter, it could be sarcasm, jealousy, who knows.

[22:27] Aubrey Tisane wasnt really sure why she tossed in the platonic thing, why did it matter? she jabbed her tongue into her cheek, making it bulge in the process. And then it came, the word vomit she'd tried to hold back. Playing it cool just wasnt in aubrey's play book. "My friend wanted me to meet up with her, so she wasnt flying solo on a blind date. She got wasted and went back to her hotel, I got bored, and being the good friend that I am" she said letting her hands fall to her side. "I let her get laid and took the classiest way home I could think of, bus fair comes with complimentary rape whistle."

[22:32] Shephard Ansar raises his hands as if he were defending himself. "I'm not judging you." he said with a smile, pushing out a chair with his foot. "have a seat then if there's nowhere else you need to be." he added, those legs still driving him crazy. "Kinda sucks, the timing we've had the past few days..." he says, his tone changing a bit.

[22:36] Aubrey Tisane dropped into the seat, her long legs crossing in front of her. Both hands fell into her lap, her slender digits tugging and pulling at the gauze fabric. Her nerves suddenly felt raw, she felt exposed sitting in front of him there on the desolate counter, and it wasnt until the silence settled around them that she truelly noticed the butterflies of anticipation fluttering in her belly "Yeah I've wanted to call. Its just, all of this.." she said lifting a hand to gesture around her at absolutely nothing.."its juts happened so fast...its not me. I mean...Ive never...not like that"

[22:44] Shephard Ansar smiled, watching her squirm. It was cute. She existed on such an uncomplicated level. She had no idea how the world really worked. How people worked. It meant a life full of surprises, of unexpected outcomes that really weren't unexpected at all. He reached for her hand, his own sitting open with fingers outstretched atop the table. She seemed to radiate with frustrated energy. The frustrated part was unimportant. The energy part however, that was what drew him in. Somehow she had managed to get this far while still retaining that innocence. It was intoxicating. He knew he could abuse it if he wanted but once he got past the primal, physical appetites he was a good person, and he wanted to protect her, to preserve that rare aspect.

[22:47] Aubrey Tisane 's looked almost confused for a moment, she hadn't been able to make heads or tales of the feelings that tugged at her. It was more than attraction, she followed him like a lost puppy, she'd have begged for his attention there on the dirty concrete of the street corner with only a glance, and that scared her. She wasn't sure where it had come from, how it had snuck up on her, how he'd just snatched the power from her grasp and left her feeling lost. "You scare the shit out of me..because every time I see you. I want more." her tone lifted, irritation lingering in each word, but her cheeks burned as bright as his sneakers. "I cant fucking think. I cant, god i cant sleep" she sounded exasperated " I just, don't feel in control of myself. I don't understand this.."she had been one way all her life, always in control, always level headed, and then he came in, grasped the rug and pulled it from under her. "That guy tonight? I think he was an orthodontist, or a pediatrist, something with a trist at the end.

[22:47] Aubrey Tisane:  You know what I thought about while he was blathering on about his life achievements and molars? How your fingers felt.." she said leaning in but her hands remained, clutching the loose gauze of her skirt " wrapped around my throat..and your voice...soft like a growl rumbling in my ear. Thats why i took the bus."

[22:51] Shephard Ansar frowned for a moment, then flashed his trademark disarming grin. He retracted his hand, running it through his hair, then leaning back with his fingers laced behind his head. "that was a crazy night..." he said, his voice strained as he stretched. "I guess you brought something out in me."
[22:54] Aubrey Tisane caught the flash of a frown and heart suddenly climbed into her throat. "I want more of whatever this is....I dont think I want to feel like Im in control anymore.."her tone dropped, it was almost a whisper when the words tumbled past her lips. tearing her hand free of her skirt, she reached out across the table to rest it infront of him.. "I dont think I can go back to whatever I was before you..I dont think I want to.."

[23:00] Shephard Ansar closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He wanted to reach for her with every cell of his body but he squeezed his fingers together, locking them in place behind his head. "you don't..." he coughed, the only hint that the words weren't coming so easily "you don't know me." Her words bounced around in his head, her voice repeating them again and again, his heart swelling in his chest. "you don't know what you want." It stung him to say it but it was what he felt. "you want to relive a moment, but moments don't last. You need to learn the difference."

[23:04] Aubrey Tisane had always been in control, it might as well been part of her job listing, chicago had been a life changer and she played the game like any pro. Men were for cash, gifts, perks, and all for the price of a smile and a little skin. Not once had she let her heart get mixed into it. But that sudden untethered feeling, as if she was floating in space with nothing to hold on to was as frightening as free falling. "I want to know you. I need, to know you. Every nuance....I want to know what makes you tick. This is about more than a night" her hand lay unmoving in front of him, her fingertips curling against the rough grain of the table top. "I would do anything, to know you."

[23:07] Shephard Ansar let his chair fall forward, standing up all in one motion, his athletic frame suddenly towering over her. He laughed nonchalantly. "Wanna get a drink? I know a place..." he said, obviously implying Lou's.

[23:10] Aubrey Tisane stood as he did, her hip bumping the chair awkwardly, she seemed a little rattled as her nerves seemed to be spilling over. "yes, I'd love a drink.."was all she said.

So it's saturday! And we thought it might be fun to bring you a bit of a location and review mash up of a sim we're currently playing on. The sim is called Crack Den, and the city is called Hathian. Once you've arrived, gotten your guest tag or apped you'll land smack dab in the middle of urbanized hell.

So far we've been playing there for about a month, and my feelings right now are about 50/50 towards the sim.

The positives:
-The world is beautiful, they did a fantastic job of really building up the city around you to feel like any home town at its absolute worst. Walking through the city you'll find a lot of really amazing detail, even down to like the tiniest nooks and crannies with oil drums stuffed in them, and areas for people to sit and play. Every prim has a use to make the city more colorful and it doesn't seem like they let any go to waste.

-The RP is as colorful as the landscape. You can sit and "listen" (read?) to people as they write and the stories are usually as lengthy as their posts. Everyone seems to do varying levels of paragraph rp, and they paint pretty amazing pictures as they do. If you get lucky enough to sit in on or around a good scene, it can be as good of a read as a novel. Well with a few punctuation and spelling errors mixed in (if it's me typing)

- The jobs, almost every open building has an available job for new members and old members alike, to help people get more into the story of the sim and get involved with other people. Jobs like radar record store clerk, lou's bar back, comique clerk, baker, just to name a few. You can also get the regular jobs you'll find on most sims like doctor, police offer and EMT. Basically you can find any position imaginable to add to the depth and color of your character, as well as background scenes for your stories, whether you are mugging a little old lady, or just wanting to get in a good eye fall at the titty bar, this sim has everything you'll need.

- The people, have been nice! While I do wish more often than not they would approach IC, I have received quite a few IMs in the past few days that are very welcoming and very friendly. The whole getting to know you process has been great and extremely welcoming. Im not sure what I expected going in, because other sims had seemed very closed off when it came to new people. While finding lengthy RP seems to still be a bit of an issue (see below) this is the silver lining!


The negatives:
-while the world is beautiful it can be kind of hard on the machine. I have a fairly decent card (gtx 670) that has no problem anywhere else in sl on ultra. But the moment I tp to CD it weeps, I think a large part of that is just the sheer amount of textures that need to be loaded. So I find myself turning my settings down to get an "okay" frame rate just to play. On top of that, and maybe it's only me, I'm finding this sim does something pretty terrible to firestorm resulting in memory leaks, graphic tears and "texture" loss when textures have hit their maximum with the viewer. So if you come here expect to either need a pretty grand machine to run at the highest settings, OR prepare to turn it down and watch for possible tears.

-The RP, as mentioned above the RP is fantastic! But It can be hard to get involved. I dont want to use the word clique, because I feel like thats an unfair judgement. I do feel like the sim is so old that many of its original players might be slightly wary to welcome in new, because I am fairly sure, often, new end up leaving. But thats kind of the story for most RP sims, and why many, unlike CD don't stick around long. RP sims, tend to become very exclusive clubs. Though I will say some of the RP I've found has been fantastic, and the people have been entirely more welcoming than most RP sims. But if you come here do expect to strong arm your way into scenes, or it just won't happen. Dont expect it to fall into your lap! You will have to put in more effort, for the pay out.

- The jobs, I feel like I'm just listing the downsides to the above points, but this is another big problem on sim. The jobs are just so diverse and grand, that, most of the shops, stores and clubs barely have the traffic to sustain them. While they work for small stories and character building, you wont find much by way of play, unless of course you bring in the business yourself (which in some cases you should!). If you are looking for a more busy job for your character I'd suggest some where like Geins, Lou's, The grind, or even possibly become an EMT/Police Officer because someone is always getting mugged. While it's our jobs to get people into our place of work, I think lack of traffic largely has to do with placement of many of the jobs. People tend to linger around the center of the sim, and less often do they wander to the outer edges. So old mainstays like TT's, and the surrounding buildings, and even further back  towards the diner tend to be empty or near empty on any given day. Also, management, seems to be MIA from most jobs, I checked the records for my own job and my manager has put in little to no time on sim in the past 10 days, while lou's has like 20 different note cards to peek at. But don't let this turn you off! Because luckily you don't NEED them to get hired, though it'd be nice to have some career rp here and there.