Revelations and Resurrections

[active_apathy]

I have an assortment of comms. One got to be reasonably popular, but most of them showed early promise only to die a premature death.

This, apparently, is going to send me to hell.

The reason this happens - in my estimation - is that there's things I'm good at. I'm good at making some stuff up. I'm good at coming up with links between things. I'm good at strange ideas that Just Might Work. I'm good at overcommitting myself. This means that the one thing I have the most limited supply of - ie, me - can't really do all the things I want to be able to do.

And I want for things to work. So, here I'm going to go through those comms, one at a time, and talk about what I think probably needs to happen. So, in no particular order (ie, alphabetically by comm name), here they are:

adjectinventive

It's a comm for new words on LJ. NeoLJisms, as it were. It mostly came about as a result of comments in a post by lesslikeyou, and then failed to grow into a fun place for posting new LJwords.

I'm undecided as to the fate of this comm. On one hand, I'd like to keep it - if it could grow into a viable comm, it'd be Quite Fun Indeed. On the other hand, it's been about for over a year now, and hasn't done much of anything.

If people are interested in keeping this comm, then I'd like a person or two to make co-maintainer(s) of¹, an influx of new members², and (hopefully) some new posts. Maintainer responsibilities would probably include keeping peace, enforcing rules and keeping things tidy-ish.

apathy_books

This comm was based on the idea of a kind of fandom exchange - I would read HP, and other people would read some Garth Nix. Problem is, nowI've read HP up to and including HBP, so the premise of the comm has fallen apart some.

Oops.

Originally, I'd planned on keeping the comm afterwards as a kind of geographically dislocated asynchronous book group - ie, a comm for people to talk about books they like. I imagine these already exist elsewhere, but the difference is that this one would be mine. Which really just means that it'd be run by a library science student with overblown ideas on information access.

I'd still like to keep this comm, but I'll take the slash-and-burn approach of removing all the existing entries, rewriting the comm info, and adding some kind of standard format for describing the books that keeps me happy without the need to teach everyone to be cataloguers.

Again, a co-maintainer or two would be shiny¹ - and the job would probably be one of keeping the peace and helping with (a) entry tags and (b) the community memories. The memories would index entries under the name of the book's author³, while the tags would provide access for author(s), subject⁴, genre⁵, series and anything else deemed important for finding related items.

New members would be good, too², and please don't let me scare you.

apathy_games

This was a comm I had high hopes for, and was quite excited about. While I probably did quite poorly from the start - it was my first ever attempt at a journal RPG, my first shot at running a Serenity game, and then it was brutally interrupted by my newfound attempt at schooling - I'd have liked for it to work.

To all those who signed up, I have this to say: Sorry. No, really. Unfortunately, I don't think that game can be saved; not after the eight months it's been left.

I'll start cleaning the comm out in about 48 hours (posts and member list both). If you want to keep bits of the posts there, and it'll take longer than that to do it, please comment here to tell me so that I don't delete it before you get a copy.

palmer_kun has suggested a new pulp game, run using Spirit of the Century, a new FATE v3 RPG from Evil Hat. It's utterly fantastic, much like FATE before it, and I think it'd make for a fun game. This game would need two things: a GM⁶, and some players⁷. For those not yet familiar with SotC, there's a two-chapter .pdf preview here.

comms_anon

Intended as a community for community addicts to share communities they like, it, um, never really happened. I'm open to all suggestions for this one.

drama_review

This one sprang out of an AIM conversation with nyctanessa, andthen didn't really go anywhere. nyctanessa, if you want it, it's all yours. Otherwise, if someone else wants it, you're welcome to it. If no-one wants it, it'll probably be unexisted.

Lastly,

metaicons

has been vaguely successful. It's largely self-managing, and doesn't need much in the way of attention - except to prod those who make material fit for metaicons go and post it there. All I'm really looking at here is a co-maintainer or two; interested parties would mostly just poke people toward the comm and, um, be there in case something bad ever happens there. Again, ¹.


And that's this list pretty much done. There's one comm that didn't make the list and was summarily unexisted, but that was from when I still played NationStates, and that was Quite Some Time Ago. So, now for the footnotes!

1. If you'd like to put your virtual hand up for this, comment here, and tell me which comm you're interested in doing stuff for.
2. If you'd like to join, just go and do it. And do feel free to post.
3. Which is to say, first author, mostly. And by 'mostly', I mean that the memories entry would correspond with main entry in cataloguing except in cases where main entry would be under title, because that would make a silly memories list.
4. For non-fiction items, because people read those too. This would involve coming up with some kind of scheme for subject tags, which I'd like to keep reasonably simple because it's meant to be a book group, not a catalogue.
   
5. For fiction. Tagging makes hybrid genres easier to deal with, too, because you can just add each as a new tag.
6. If you're interested, comment here. If more than one person is interested, then you can talk it over in the comments and decide who'll do it. I'm not going to do it - my schedule really can't fit the responsibilities of GMing, and I don't want another promising game to die. The eventual GM will get maintainer access to the comm, so that they can actually Do Stuff to make their game work.
   
7. Spirit will comfortably take up to about six players, according to the book. Feel free to comment here with expressions of interest, but choice of players will ultimately be up to whoever will be GM.
   

Comments

[eighthcloud.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in helping with [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com].

Oh, and also [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]. To be honest, I never really understood what that one was for, but now that I know, I think it'll be awesome! A little promotion goes a long way for that sort of thing.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Shiny. Also, thanks. You've been recruited for both. :)

[shaysdays.livejournal.com]

I'd offer to help, but MQ has eaten my children and parts of my brain already. I feel you pain. Not as much as before the partial lobotomy, but I do feel some vestiges somewhere.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

*nods some* MQ is Quite Enough for you to look after, I think.

[deepfishy.livejournal.com]

It's a real shame about the Serenity game. :(

To whoever wants to be GM at apathy_games (and I hope you're out there), I'd love to join in Spirit of the Century. For great justice Science!

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

I've already what gone and volunteered

I'm smelling a mad scientist in the making already...

[herekittykitty.livejournal.com]

Shiny. If no one's called adjectinventive, I'm totally up for it. :D

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Done. Rule with a gently caressing iron hand, or something.

[herekittykitty.livejournal.com]

Iron fist of doom?

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Iron fist, velvet glove

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

I could watch over metaicons. I already read MQ religiously, and I already manage a very busy comm over at ask_me_anything.

I have a feeling that if I want shiny apathy_games fun, I'm gonna have to do it myself.

As I was already thinking of running a game for lady_zip on teh intarwebbinz, this wouldn't be much of an extension on my part to do so.

Plus, well, I know almost the whole game inside out-like.

And for those who care... the settings IS very friendly to Firefly-style characters (except for the whole spaceships part. And, depending on who plays what... that may not matter)

[lady-zip.livejournal.com]

*jumps in with both fecking feet since Transcendence has gotten pretty dead*

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're one. I most likely have canadianevil on board as well... that's 2. You and deepfishy make 4. Already enough to work with, certainly...

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Shiny. *grants powers*

Knowing the game inside-out is good. Some of it's Very New, and some of it's based on very familiar design decisions, and it's much with the shiny.

If it's not already assumed, *signs up*

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

The real question is... whatcha gonna play?

Or are you going to sit back and wait to see what people do first?

Hrmm... the eager part of me wants to start cleaning house already, but you said 48 hours... I suppose I can wait

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I'm undecided thus far.

My tentative concept between going 'oooh, pulp' and reading the book was something along the lines of the pulp!vampire kind of character, but that isn't workable for Spirit.

So, now I'm thinking an all-too-pretty assassin or spy or thief type, or similar, but that's not set in any kind of stone. Really, if nothing leaps out at me in the next couple of days, I'll probably just wait to see what the other concepts look like.

And, about the cleaning: I've taken out a lot of my own posts already, either because they were administrative things or because they were things I really shouldn't let folk keep. And, really, it's not that long to wait to clean everything out.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

What kind of vampire exactly, and why isn't it workable?

One of the locals had an idea for playing a British Mummy.

Yeah, you read that right. A British Gentleman. Who happened to be mummified in Egypt. And revives shortly before the game starts.

It was absolutely ludicrous... but workable. Although admittedly, it tends to be easier and better when you stick to the mainline.

Also note that characters are expected to be clearly and unabashedly good, trying to make the world a better place. Gentleman criminals are one thing... cold-blooded assassins are another.

Er... lady_zip is probably doing a gun nut, and canadianevil idea she's been playing with is a robin hoodesque thiefly type. deepfishy sounds like he wants mad science. maggiebloome is undecided, but may do a mechanic again, or a reporter.

I know it's not that long. I just get impatient easily :) 26 more hours. Hee!

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

That was just a vage not-yet-a-concept. There's a couple of things I kind of have in mind, but nothing firm yet. It's probably easiest if you pick an IM from my userinfo and message me, if you've the time to do so.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the shiny new icon.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

It's quite a fun comm, when people post stuff there.

[maggiebloome.livejournal.com]

I'd love to play. The more I read about it the cooler Pulp sounds - I've never really come into contact with it before. I might even resurrect the mechanic, although I'd probably be better off inventing a new character.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Shiny. You might want to wander up a little further in the comments and poke palmer_kun about it, too.

[palmer-kun.livejournal.com]

Pulp is the essence of fun! Action, adventure and excitement are the watchwords.

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

I'd like to help with apathy_books, and with metaicons.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I was hoping you'd say that. *goes to add powers*

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

POWER! FAME! FORTUNE! ICONS! MAKING PEOPLE READ!

Muahahahaha.

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

The maintainers are going off their nut?

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

:-D

It's not unlikely.