15 May 2002

So, yesterday's journal entry was actually longer than what you saw. I was still writing it when Matt logged in, and I shared with him a tiny bit from the original opening anecdote that I thought was amusing.

Matt was... not amused.

We eventually got it straightened out, but not before I'd removed the anecdote. If you want to read it, go back to yesterday's entry and take a look at the source; it's in there, in comments.

The bit I showed Matt was, Climbing back up the stairs with an irritable knee, I grumbled to myself, "If he rolls over and tries to cuddle with me, I'm going to elbow him right in the face." That's not funny? Of course it's funny! We all know I'd never really elbow him in the face, right?

I was ready for a really sweet, touching session last night - Loria was going to tell Kevil that she was pregnant. In fact, she did. Kevil was just moving from stunned to deliriously happy when off on the main channel, fresh from another session, Jeff smacked us all in the face.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't intending to piss us off. I'm pretty sure that he was just frustrated because it seemed like we were deliberately blocking him from doing something he thought was altogether reasonable for his character, and so he relieved the frustration by doing something else that was also technically entirely reasonable for his character.

The problem was that the something else was a heavily implicated threat against our Scum characters, which violates the only inviolable rule we have: You don't mess with other peoples' characters without their permission. And given how disgustingly powerful his character is (she was designed as an HM, and they have to be rather disgustingly powerful) then it was eventually - and probably sooner rather than later - going to be a conflict that degenerated into Jeff and the rest of us yelling at each other like five-year-olds playing hide and seek: "She finds you!" "No she doesn't!" "Yes she does!" "No she doesn't!"

Once it was made clear to Jeff that he was violating the Rule, he withdrew the threat. And we're working on a way to accomplish what he originally wanted to accomplish without stepping on anyone's toes. And really, it shouldn't be that hard, and if we can get the finer details smoothed out, I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. Jeff's character has an innate arrogance that makes the rest of my characters absolutely crazy, but which should fit in just fine with the Scum.

But by the time we got it all worked out, K.T. and I had both lost the happy warm fuzzy mood we'd established for Kevil and Loria. Alas.

--Liz