It's a dark night. Well, it's always a dark night in space. You can hear the creaks and groans of metal under strain as you creep along the darkened corridor, hoping not to be noticed by whatever it ws you saw crashing around earlier in one of the destroyed labs. Before that, you found bodies, and after that, all you found were bloodstains, and you have a feeling this could mean your end if you don't get to safety in the next few minutes.
And very little, on this ship, is safe.
You dodge the expected loops of live wires, sparking through the dim air. It seems more of the ship is breaking down every day, almost as if it were...alive, and in the process of...dying. You do not go down the darker corridors that seem to breathe temptation as you creep past them. You have a goal, and you are trying to reach it intact. But it takes everything in you not to flee in abject horror as you creep closer to your destination--because what you see is so far out of your expected experience it makes your flesh crawl and your internal warning system go on full alert.
You have dealt with strange mutations. You have dealt with possessed souls. You've dealt with mad doctors, cruel sadists and giant insects. And also panicked military, flailing alien appendages, and predatory passengers and crew. But this...this tiny terror...It cannot be borne.
It is small, this horrific thing. It is dressed in colors that sear across your vision. It is bearing a pack shaped like a lumpy, slain animal, shackled to it, one might say, with large, somehow bloated straps that look genuinely uncomfortable.
It is dressed in pastel tones, some strange pierced-cloth construction of ruffles, and small wraps for its smaller feet made of only slightly stiffened cloth and lacing. They appear to have no magnetic functions in the least, and they are not reinforced at any point. In fact, what it wears appears to have no protective abilities for deep-space work.
There is no recognizeable consortium identification anywhere along its perplexing uniform. And it appears to be...smiling.
You creep closer still, delicately unsnapping your stun pistol from its holster, in case you'll need to draw it soon. And you hear the words that drip from its small, pink lips:
[18:32] [smallroyalty]: but this one is soo cool for kids
If readers are gathering that I'm mentioning the Doomed ship more often these days, it's because, for whatever reason, it seems to be emerging as the testing ground for Adult activities on the grid. And I don't mean that in terms of sexual innovation, though there's a fair amount of that going on.
No, I mean things like yesterday's Cow Woman, or today's small child wandering the corridors of Doomed because it was "fun for children". Hells, I'll even take Cow Woman off the table, because even if what she did didn't fit, it was a definite presentation that required work, and devotion to craft, and a strong vision of what, exactly, she wanted to be in Second Life. Even more pointed, she was a character that radiated sensual energy; that avatar was an adult damn it, and no mistaking her for anything else. More power to her bovine self; moove along.
But...children? On Doomed? This is where the processors melt down.
Now let me speak this, and speak this plainly: to the best of my knowledge, there is no child on Second Life that is actually owned and operated by a real, honest-to-goodness child. In terms of age, at least. Outlook and education we have zero control over.
Let me say this again, since I believe it's vaguely important: No child on Second Life is a child in real life. Because children don't want to be kids in Second Life. They want to be adults, with adult bodies, and occasionally adult interests. They want to interact with people and be accepted as older than the thirteen, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen-year-olds they might be in reality. Okay?
But even saying that, this goes back to the McCann Problem--namely, if your gig is to play a child in Second Life, then play a child. Don't port into Adult-rated sims--even if you have age-verified to do so--and wander around playing a goddamned child.
(And seriously, if you're playing a child in SL anyway, unless we're talking pedophilia, you don't have any reason to be in the Adult-rated areas! And if we're talking pedophilia, that--even in the virtual sense, when both participants are consenting adults--is highly frowned upon by the Labs, to the point that it's a Terms of Service violation! Just don't do it!)
[Insert from the Editrix: I am informed by a reliable participant that the Doomed ship isn't in an Adult sim anymore. They and Necronomm decided jointly to change their rating to Adult; noticed a deliberate drop in participation; and switched back to Moderate. So okay, they're Moderate now...but you can still RP sex and graphic horror there, and aren't both of those activities generally child-free?
[Barring, you know, the kids from The Ring, The Bad Seed, The Grudge, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, F.E.A.R., Pet Sematary, Children of the Corn, The Exorcist, Village of the Damned, 30 Days of Night, REC, The Sixth Sense, The Orphanage (as well as Orphan, Salem's Lot, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Omen, Dark Water, The Shining, Firestarter...okay, okay, fine, kids have a well-established place in horror.
[Just not when sex is thrown in. Unless you're talking, you know, all those films and games that do...but the sex featured in those works is...disturbed, usually on more than one level. Which again, fine, survival horror...but remember that Terms of Service violation mentioned? Yeah.]
Or at the least, in places like Doomed, which allows children if there is no entry into areas in which sexual activity can take place (which, as I seem to recall, excludes most of the ship), and then be all wide-eyed and innocent and ask "What's RP? What's OOC?"
In short: [smallroyalty], I know you're new at this. Your profile says 34 days old, and okay, fine, if you're not an alt, you've barely got a month of SLife under your tiny belt.
It should be noted that [smallroyalty] wasn't bounced from Doomed because she was a child avatar. She was bounced for pretending she had no concept of OOC/RP. If you don't have any clue what those two terms mean--especially since there's a rules card when you port into the sim--there's no excuse for not knowing. Get your ass home.
But then, with the Doomed ship being on the Destinations page, maybe it's not surprising that they're getting lots of idiots and kids skipping around the place. Just ask Siggy Romulus how well that works.
[20:32] Emilly Orr gets around to reading the notecard while waiting and watches her brain fall out and bounce for a bit.
[20:32] [EXXXXX]: What notecard?
[20:32] Emilly Orr: "This all seemed like someone's idea of a piratical joke"?
[20:32] [EXXXXX]: Oh.
[20:33] [EXXXXX]: I do love that typo, though.
[20:33] [EXXXXX]: What exactly is a Piractical joke?
[20:33] [EXXXXX]: Does it involve a plank?
[20:33] Emilly Orr: ARRR, me hearties, we be takin' yer jests now! Hand 'em over, an' all japes and pretensions, an' be quick about it, arrrr!
[20:35] [EXXXXX]: And don' be thinking we know not a knock-knock when we a'hear one! First man to try will get a plankover! "What's a Plankover?" Shark-infested water you blasted scallywags.
This was the passage in question:
[20:56] [DXXXXX]: grew tired of the charade that was going on. This all seemed like someone's idea of a piratical joke and she wasn't going to take any of it seriously. "Hmph!" she said outloud, turning and heading towards the elevator.
WHEN ROLEPLAYING:
- Please spell as close to accurately as you can. If at all possible. If not, keep a dictionary next to your keyboard.
- Please understand your terms. If at all possible. If not, keep a dictionary next to your keyboard.
- Please accept that when you make baffling and hysterical typos like the one above, people well may call you on it. You'll just have to deal with that.
[Actually, not quite. The names in the above passages were changed by request from the avatars involved. Yes, I will do this if asked. You just have to ask. :p ]
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