Self Help

[Bluemouse]

Sorry in advance. So here goes...

I get told all the time that people hate everything I do here. The only feedback I get is negative, about me and my characters, and it's frequent. People tell me that I'm a ball of drama and that I build my characters at the expense of others and that I use people and am not respectful. It comes up a lot, but it's almost always he said she said stuff. People never just tell me to my face.

I've been really struggling for a long time now, with various things. I'm really trying to get help and get better, and it would really help me to do that if you guys would tell me stuff. Like if you have a problem with me or a thread, please tell me. I just ask that you be nice about it, because I really don't want to just get beat up all the time.

Is it really like what people say though? Does everybody hate what I do here?

I'm really sorry to put this up, and I feel really silly doing it, but there isn't much else I can do. Sorry. I promise I won't be so pathetic all the time.

[TheRacker]

Hey, i don't really know you, but getting negative feedback can be good think; you just need to be prepared to change yourself according to it.

Being honest and admiting your mistakes is best thing you can do in my opinion. Don't run away from people talking bad about you, but talk to them instead. Apologize and ask them if they're prepared that you together find a way how you can improve yourself.

So to sum up: be willing to listen and change yourself.


And stay strong, don't give up :)



That's all that came in my mind, hope it will help.

[Harrier]

First of all, I wish you no harm. I am sure you are a decent person to your friends and have lots of stuff on your mind that shapes you the way you are. You´re a keen observer and you know what to do most of the time, pretty rare qualities I find admirable.
Maybe our tastes of humor are simply not compatible or the medium of a PC is not that good for sarcasm, I don´t know. From my perspective, you have a great rhetoric hook, but your defense is lousy. So I mostly keep my mouth shut about you if I am not talking to people that already know that we don´t get along, but if you´re asking for concrete feedback, so be it.

*I had a lot of problems too when our match was on. I hate to let people hanging, but I did. No questions asked, and I apologized for it too. The last thing I needed then was someone who told me how this and that was wrong from her perspective, and I asked you pretty soon to just get over with it and end the match. That would and could have been the end of the story for me, but no, you could not resist to smear it in my face whenever we were together in a thread in the next few months.
*Next time we met was per PM where you corrected me for your victory record for the R&D thread I had, and we talked a little bit about how the record set was in the US instead of europe(WLD instead of WDL) and how you only liked combat sports instead of ball games. That went pretty smooth, and I considered every grudge between us over then.
*Months went by. I sometimes cringed when reading one of your discussion answers(as you surely did too with some of my answers), but kept my mouth shut to avoid drama.
*Next thing was when you and an here unnamed buddy of yours (which I have taken from my matchlist too since then) argued with hamish1024 about some random trolling shit. I was surely not further debating with someone who found it "discrete" that her buddy had to alter his degrading message. Maybe because he read what he typed and felt bad, or because he had fear that he would be warned by the mods for it, I don´t know. Granted, my fighting against windmills commentary was not as nice as well, but it surely did not invoke what came out of it.

TL:DR I accept your opinion is different, but would wish for more politeness in arguments from an adult person.

[FlameofHope]

So, for starters, I think you're a good writer. Scratch that, you're a great writer. I could never hope to write as good as you do.

Now that that's out of the way...I don't know about you being a ball of drama, but from my years of analyzing text on the internet, I'd say that you always seem a bit, I dunno, stressed when you're writing in discussion. I'm sure that's just because you have a lot going on in your life, but I think if you found something that would help you relax a little more it might help. Of course I could just be talking my ass off and not knowing how you're actually feeling.

Also, and I don't know if this intentional or not, but you tend to try and only make match or backstage threads with people on or near your writing level. I'm not saying you should try making threads with people that post replies like...

"AMy felt hurted when she took da punch. but she is fighterer and she keeps fighting. She try to punch taylor with super might!!?!!!??!!11"

But maybe opening yourself up to a few more people every now and again wouldn't hurt.

[Lobo]

I think we're all just a little overly sensitive on AFW.

[Gwyndolin]

For starters, I really doubt that everybody hates what you do here, although I am still relatively new to the site and can't be sure. Like I told you one time in PM, your writing is some of the best on this site, and I often enjoy reading the threads that you're involved in. The Dark Angel Saga in particular is a good example of how dedicated you and others have been to some good, if very dark storytelling. I recommend the read to anyone else wanting to have their bones chilled.

As far as suggestions for self-improvement are concerned, I'll keep this as nice and impersonal as I can, but here goes...

From the relatively little time I've spent exchanging private messages with you on this site, I have noticed that you can be a bit abrasive when you talk to people. On a couple occasions, you passive-aggressively sniped some of the things I said instead of explaining why you disagreed with them. You were quick to shoot down RP ideas (both mine and your own) instead of suggesting changes, and a few of the ideas I posed to you got ignored entirely, without so much as a “no thank you” to confirm for me that you weren't interested. You were quick to harshly and bluntly criticize some of my characters and ideas, yet became offended when I did the same to you. All of these things make it very difficult to approach you, and frankly, they make me worry that the process of writing a story with you would be too stressful for both of us to be worthwhile. I would love to be proven wrong on all of this, however.

It may also be true that you build up your characters at the expense of others, but I want to point out that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, there are roleplayers and characters on this site who prefer to be the ones getting beaten by stronger wrestlers. They are the submissives, the jobbers, who like to get creatively tormented. I include myself in this, as I often prefer to be on the losing end of my matches (but not always). Other roleplayers who fill out this niche include wrestleryu and Clobber Jobber.

My only request is that you keep your roleplay partner's interests in mind, as you would for any RP. If someone is agreeing to have their character's ass get kicked by one of yours, you should do whatever you can to make the experience fun for them as well as yourself. My willingness to job for someone is dependent on how interesting their character is to me; to use two of your characters as examples, I like Allison Watson, but don't really like Syd. The former has a more interesting personality than the latter, in my opinion, so I have higher hopes for what you can do with her, and would be more willing to let her smack my characters around in a fight. Another suggestion is that, if the person who is jobbing for you has a favorite move, technique, or hold, be sure to have your character use it against theirs. Finally, if someone is taking the time to help you with your character's storyline, be open to returning the favor at some point in the future.

That's all I've got. Thanks for being open about your troubles, Blue. Though some harsh words have been said in this thread, I hope some of it can help you out.

[LARIATO]

I try to avoid gossipy stuff as much as possible. Still, I’ll admit I’ve heard a small handful of people here say some of the stuff you’re talking about, particularly when it comes to the drama side of it. I can’t really say I’d hold any of that against you though, especially considering I haven’t been around nearly long enough to know everything that’s gone on in AFW’s 10-year history.

But here’s what I do know.
Your writing and character portrayal here are absolutely excellent. We were talking the other day about Jamie Valentine, and I meant everything I said when I was telling you how awesome I think she is. I haven’t read stuff for ALL your characters, but what I have read has all been enjoyable, especially the whole feud with Taylor and Kelly. We’ve talked some about that too, and you’ve mentioned how chaotic that’s been at times to keep organized, especially with so many characters being involved. Stressful as I’m sure that’s been, I do appreciate the fact that you’ve made efforts to give other people chances to have their characters involved in that storyline.

We’ve only done a few threads together, and all of them have also involved other people too, but I’ve enjoyed all of them. There was one incident when I gave a kinda bitchy reply in a post in one of our threads, though looking back at it, it really wasn’t warranted. I was just in a shitty mood that day and probably shouldn’t have been by a keyboard at that moment. I’m not really even sure if that came across in the RP or not, but either way, sorry about that. Point is, you’re a great writer and I’ve had fun RPing with you.

I do agree with Gwyndolin that you can come off as a tad abrasive at times, but like Harrier said I feel like a good portion of that is due to the simple fact that things like tone, sarcasm and stuff can sometimes be hard to convey or interpret through text, especially considering not everyone likes using things like emojis or “lol”s and so on. And Lobo also makes a pretty good point. People can be overly sensitive, and I know I’ve been guilty of that at times too. But I do think if people have something about you really worth saying, they should be willing to say it to you personally.

Everyone has their struggles to deal with, and I do hope things change for the better for you. Obviously everyone should try to be considerate of each other, but I hope you don’t take what people say to mean that you have to change who you are just to make other people happy. Just keep being you. I certainly don’t hate what you do here, and I hope we have more opportunities to have fun RPs in the future.

[Bluemouse]

@Theracker: Howdy, newbie. Welcome to the board, buddy. One thing I think a lot of people know about me is that I don't shy away from confrontation. It's part of what's made me so goddamn popular.

Also, vis a vis the next one, I'll point out that that's sarcasm.

Anyway, the existence of this thread I think is proof enough of that. I certainly don't think that you need to gut yourself for everyone who doesn't like you, but talking about things and hearing them out helps everyone.


@Harrier: I'll be honest, my heart sank a little when I saw that you had replied. I had expected you to mercilessly eviscerate me, but I must say that I'm pleasantly surprised. I suppose I just prepare for the worst, but thank you for being fair and respectful with me.

It's true that I have a hard time talking like myself on the board with most people due to the lack of tone and nonverbals. IRL I don't come off anything like this. My job involves my ability to be charming and put people at ease and make them feel welcome and connected and whatever else, and I often do it my own way. Kind of an edge, if you want.

I know that I can be abrasive and all that. I know that the culture of the people on this board just doesn't appreciate the way I communicate a lot of the time, and I struggle a lot to slow down enough to be gentle enough. It is something that I have genuinely worked on over the years, and I hope I'm doing better now.

And holy crap, you have a memory like an elephant! I guess I'll say that in our match, I didn't sell a move the way you intended, which might be because you wanted the pro wrestling sell whereas I was thinking in terms of an irl fight, dunno. But then you started to link video examples of everything, which rubbed me the wrong way and felt very condescending. It was what it was, I wish it had gone better, but all we can do is our best, and to put it behind us and do better in the future.

Thanks for replying.

(I'll keep going in a new post).

[Bluemouse]

@FlameofHope: Thanks for the praise. With this stuff, I find myself extremely resistant to compliments, but I'll try to be cool about it and just let it be.

It's fair to say that in the time that you've been here, I've been stressed. Life really threw me, again, a couple years ago, and whereas I was doing so well at the time, I've been really struggling since, and getting worse. I don't expect sympathy or understanding from strangers on the internet, and I'll do my best to not let that stuff creep into my communication here.

I don't know about writing level or anything, I just write with who i think would be fun and who i like. I can't rp with everyone; there just aren't enough hours in the day. I don't have the energy, I work a lot. I have gone out of my way to involve people wherever I can, but lately I've been turning everyone away because I haven't wanted to add new stuff, both because I can't keep up, and because I have been unsure whether I should have a place on this site or not.

But I have done threads somewhat recently with Rei and Toph and Lariato and whatever, new people for me. I've tried to set up a couple others. It's really not a matter of YOURE NOT GOOD ENOUGH, it's just that I don't do the same thing that some other people do. I wouldn't want to rope someone into stuff that they, or I, wouldn't enjoy. There are people that I rp with who really aren't world class writers, but I love them to death and will always be willing to rp with them.

Thanks.


@Lobo: I think so too. I think AFW is filled with people who aren't comfortable around people and lack social skills and confidence, so it's hard for them to be at ease with people like me, or people in general. I have never been able to communicate adequately the ways in which I care about people, and often times it gets thrown back in my face.


tbc

[vhamelin]

Honestly, I've been very weary about my responses since I've had issues in the past about my choice in sentences and piecing words together. It tends to come out the wrong way, or confusing others. >.>; Honestly, it can be a double edged sword at times.

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