Fear is the mind killer. Anybody remember that from Dune? The Credo of the Bene Gesserit Witches who ruled the Dune Universe from behind the seats of power. Over all the length of those books, that phrase echoed over and over through almost every major theme, almost like the mortar that held all the bricks together. I want to roleplay now. A year ago, I was sitting in an empty lair, thinking "I want to roleplay now." Trying to build something over the long term, a Home to fit my vision of a Panther Lair - that was a good thing. But I wanted to roleplay. We only have so much free time, and we want to use it productively. We want to have fun, not sit around as bored as a bad day at work. I want to roleplay now. So we need people in our Homes. So that when our M/members have an hour or 3 of free time, they can roleplay. This simple issue shapes our Homes and our roleplay in so many different ways. Reflecting back on this year, I see the Credo reflected in many different ways. My point here is to reflect on what happened to me this year, and what meaning I take from it. These reflections are, by definition, MY perceptions of what happened. Others may have seen events differently, or disagree with my perception of WHY things happened. My purpose is not to pick at scabs, or restart old fights, but to share my recollections and preceptions in support of my conclusions, for readers to consider for themselves. So there I was, a year ago, sitting in the empty Lair, wanting to roleplay, but knowing I needed to be there in case any of the M/members showed up. So I started looking at the Boards. There was an argument between Vaerdeth and my husband, and I posted. I was trying to create some distance between my new character and my dead previous character, so I wasn't posting much. Without insult, I made what I thought was an airtight case that my husband was right in the dispute. In the broad view, this is the same dispute that we have had over and over again. What applies, room rules or established rules of Gor? The specifics of the dispute are not important anymore, the result of the roleplay is not important anymore, none of these characters are even alive on Gor anymore. What is important, in retrospect, is how important we came to think it was then. A year later, a Board War is always going to seem really ####ing stupid. How come we can't get that perspective on it then? The upshot of this was that Vaerdeth became determined to get me. To his view, I had crossed lines that women are not supposed to cross. You were allowed to be a Panther, only as long as you were respectful and deferential to the men who really ran Gor. I'm sure that all kinds of off-Gor Qconspiracy went on behind the scenes to arrange Gisele's downfall in roleplay. Again, there was alot of BS, Board Wars, mudslinging - and even some good roleplay involved. But it left me starting over again, about 11 months ago. But, I have to say that Gisele's escape from Lara was the kind of fabulous roleplay, for me at least, that shines through the dark like a full moon. Although short lived, I experienced the kind of triumph that you don't get to experience often enough, in RT or VT. For every winner, there has to be a loser. Maybe we need to create a better environment for triumph, by becoming more gracious losers. I started a new character, and joined a new Panther band. It looked like a new Panther band, but it was really a group that had been together on and off for a long while. It was nice, for a while, that whenever I went into the Lair, there were people there. I want to roleplay now. But, what do you have to do to maintain that environment, what compromises? I got another chance to have my Lair, the way I envisioned it, and I left that group. Not just for my vision, but also because being inside a traditional type Lair made me realize more clearly what my vision was, by contrast. My vision then was just of the Lair, the roleplay elements, the rules. I didn't really understand the people part of the equation, at the time. Maybe I still don't. But I did learn that the people matter more than the environment. Looking back, I don't regret events - I just miss people. I had captured a kajira, and I had decided to try and create a new character, so I abandoned her. But she found me. We developed an odd relationship, particularly close. For her own reasons, after 9 months, she decided to slip away. She said she was going on vacation, but it was pretty clear to me that it was a cover story. She doesn't read these Boards, but she was incredibly loyal as the M/membership waxed and waned. By some standards, she gamed - but she was truly MORE loyal than I have any reasonable expectation that a person should be. During the summer, we had all kinds of crazy fun, running around the Forest naked and near-naked. We had some regular Panthers and slaves, and a variety of people coming through with (what I figured were) disposable characters. But MC did not have a whochat, and I felt this really hurt recruiting and M/membership. A dynamic started to develop. We would invest time and roleplay in new slaves, and they would poof. They wanted to roleplay the process of being enslaved, and when it was complete, I presume, they wanted to do it again. So we began to mistrust new people, thinking they were likely to be people who had already gamed out. So we tended not to pay attention to new people until they had been around for a while, which lack of attention tended to make them decide not to stay around very long. There were a couple of men from this period that stand out in my memory. One played the only credible thrall of the year. I enjoyed his roleplay, by I kept him on a carrot/stick, and never furred him. It might have been realistic roleplay, what my character genuinely might have done - but it could hardly have been expected to keep him around. I want to roleplay now. The other guy kept me up all night one night, giving what could only be called a confession. Somebody who roleplays as a dominant man, to compensate for and overcome, an innate desire to be forced to submit to a strong woman. After that night, he never came back. At least not as that character. At one point, I thought we were over the hump. We had a core group of 4 reliable and competent Panthers, each of whom had her own slaves. As had happened before, one of the Panthers left to be a Ubara. But this threw the interpersonal relationship between the 3 remaining Panthers into disarray, and as quick as that, the Lair was empty again. Part of it was the Hurricane. There was alot of good roleplay, but it was a great deal of work, and too much OOC hassle. And the time detracted from the time I had to spend in the Lair. I want to roleplay now. My best friend came back a few times, briefly, after that. But more than anybody, she needs to roleplay NOW, and can't wait for the Home to build. I suppose she thinks I would blame her for this, or she has her own reasons for her silence now - but I miss her. Some people say that there is no homsexuality on Gor, and that Panthers would not have sex with other Panthers or kajirae. Personally, I think that it was the publishing market in 1976, that would not have allowed relations between women to be explicit - and I think that such relations among Panthers are implied, as much as was pragmatic at the time. I also would point out that the first Panther chat room was on IRC, and the room name was Bi-fem Gor, so, if nothing else, this element of our roleplay is in a long tradition of such. So I'm not trying to open up a can of worms by mentioning my Lovers. If they are reading this, I want them to know that they made the rest of it special. There were crises and controversies. The fireplace, hamstringing a man, the conditional roleplay of deflowering the gamed-out captive. But, what really remains, in the memory, is the good roleplay. We really worked out some good roleplay. Particularly initiations and joinings, but also training and hunting. I've seen other Panthers erasing their trails, but we worked hard at being realistic about it. We found new roleplay lines, getting out of the ruts in the road - in the way we dealt with people coming in, finding constant new ways to vary the formula, not just stick with the same tried and true things. So I suppose this leads me to the conclusion (because I didn't know that I was going here when I started this) that this is the real thing I have learned in this last year. In this Gor, what you do wrong matters a whole lot more than what you do right. Becase my reputation (at least with the vocal majority) is as somebody who is not realistic and is not Gorean and does not know what it means to be a Panther. Which is essentially the opposite of what I set out to accomplish with PClaw Lair. This seemingly happened because the majority of Gor doesn't know about the good roleplay, they only hear about the problems and disputes. If SportsCenter showed all the strikeouts and turnovers and fumbles and clumsyness, and none of the homers, dunks, touchdowns or athleticism - the majority of people would think athletes were total yutzes too. So, this Culture of Criticism is screwing up Gor. This, and the explosion of rooms. It's hard for anyone to build up critical mass for a successful room. I want to roleplay now. No, I mean it. There is somebody in the room and I could keep this up for days. But I want to roleplay now.
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