Gambitting

[Victin]

Our Long John is from Muppet Treasure Island.

Canon.

Sigh. You do not get to retroactively write canon, Connor.

But you can.

*Mincinno's eyes*

Pleeeeeeeeeease?

[WackyMeetsPractical]

Our Long John is from Muppet Treasure Island.

Canon.

Sigh. You do not get to retroactively write canon, Connor.

I don't see why not. After all is said and done, canon doesn't mean that much, does it? It's like when JK Rowling decided to make Dumbledore gay after the last book was published.

[Connor Fallon]

Dana hates fun. And the Muppet's.

Canon.

[Rick Healey]

I don't see why not. After all is said and done, canon doesn't mean that much, does it? It's like when JK Rowling decided to make Dumbledore gay after the last book was published.

But it meant all those fanfic I wrote weren't AU 'fics!

I kid - I actually haven't read Harry Potter. But I have friends who did that.

[Dana]

Our Long John is from Muppet Treasure Island.

Canon.

Sigh. You do not get to retroactively write canon, Connor.

I don't see why not. After all is said and done, canon doesn't mean that much, does it? It's like when JK Rowling decided to make Dumbledore gay after the last book was published.

She had always written him as such, and merely didn't acknowledge it until after the last book was published.

[BlackWolfe]

Our Long John is from Muppet Treasure Island.

Canon.

Well, shit, man, if I'd known that...

[Mark Slabinski]

Really digging this thread.

Yes, what Connor says is true, Long John's joining the Cabal was what felt right given the players' actions. It felt right at the time, and was really something we couldn't pass up, given the opportunity. I mean, having LJS join the Cabal was just interesting, more interesting than having him wallow around in self pity and having all these adventures with no one to share them with.

I understand where there might have been differences in interpretation of the character, and I know a fair number of you saw Long John specifically as a villain, but I think out of all the characters we included in the ARG, Long John was the one given the most leeway to act however he wanted. I mean, the guy professed to having professional level web design skills in one of his first tweets. As Val said, it was a very liberal interpretation of Long John Silver, very much influenced by stuff like Muppet Treasure Island (for the theatricality) and Treasure Planet (for the level of villainousness), but his voice was very much his own, I think, and maybe that kind of led players astray. This is sort of drifting away from the point, but to get back to Qara's point, yes, things definitely would have changed, but I think her actions led to the more interesting end.

[Flitterbie]

Our Long John is from Muppet Treasure Island.

Canon.

Wait, that WASN'T canon?

In fairness, that's the only Long John I have any experience with.

[Scarab]

Our Long John is from Muppet Treasure Island.

Canon.

Wait, that WASN'T canon?

In fairness, that's the only Long John I have any experience with.

You know, in fairness this really influenced my attitude towards LJS in this game, because I just kept picturing the Muppet Treasure Island version

[Flitterbie]

Our Long John is from Muppet Treasure Island.

Canon.

Wait, that WASN'T canon?

In fairness, that's the only Long John I have any experience with.

You know, in fairness this really influenced my attitude towards LJS in this game, because I just kept picturing the Muppet Treasure Island version

And really, out of all the Long John Silvers to picture, why not go with Tim Curry?

Edit: Now I can't not imagine Tim Curry saying "Yar, desu desu kawaii indeed."

[Dryunya]

I didn't like the manipulation we did with Silver, but I didn't want to object, and since the other players were getting results by behaving that way, I wanted to object even less. I wasn't participating in the manipulation, but I did feel complicit and by not saying anything I was tacitly approving the actions.

When Qara got him to refic Gulliver for us, I felt bad about it, but I believed it would be for the best--we would reunite them in a crossover story and they'd be together, with everything Silver wanted! Then Mr. Administrator told us that crossovers weren't viable.

I BSOD'd over that. It would've been shocking and upsetting even if Silver had read the story to Gulliver knowingly and willingly, but we tricked him, and it turned out that we tricked him with false pretenses. I never bought that Silver was purely a manipulative bastard. I hadn't read the book, so I had to rely on the others' assessment somewhat, but he seemed to have genuine affection for Gulliver and I hated myself for tearing them apart. (Even though I hadn't spoken to Silver much, I still wrote the refic story, so I definitely shared in the responsibility.

When Mr. Administrator revealed that we couldn't do refic crossovers, everyone in the chat was freaking out, but nobody really seemed concerned with the moral implications, just with the "How do we convince Silver to let us refic him?" question. I was really upset, and desperately needed some emotional support, and it didn't look like I'd get it from the other metaguards.

So I poured my heart out in an email to Morgan. She was the only one I could think of who might understand. My whole relationship with that character took shape out of my moral discord that night.

I have no idea why you didn't encounter me in the middle of your BSOD, because that was my exact reaction. Except for the manipulations - I was neutral towards them, because he's a manipulator himself (and a pirate, yarr). But announcing the impossibility of the crossovers was a huge Player Punch for me, especially after I promised that he would meet Gulliver again.

Oh, and I didn't pour my heart out to Morgana. For obvious reasons.

[Scarab]

Frankly I will confess I just stayed the hell out of the LJS gambit. I didn't feel I knew the character of Gulliver enough to do a descent refic anyway, although I did start planning one for LJS after Gulliver went back, because I sort ofg wanted to help fix the mess we'd caused, I just missed the deadline (which is why, incidentally, you got one final song for ther C!refic, because Vixy and Tony had actually given me PERMISSION to use that song and be damned if I wasn't going to use it for something!)

This was the first time I actually felt we'd done something that we could honestly say was 'wrong' without having a moral justification to fall back on. But I do still think it was mostly a mistake on our parts. We assumed crossovers would be possible, and then... they weren't. Even if Silver HAD been an absolute lying jerk, you know what thery say about an eye for an eye, and everyone ending up blind. I don't think somebody BEING an asshole gives me the right to be an asshole back (something I really should have thought about when I was being an angry jerk to Romeo after the poem to Vanessa... hypocrisy, thy name is Scarab )

I know it had to be done in the end, but I wish we could've have done differently.

[narrativedilettante]

I have no idea why you didn't encounter me in the middle of your BSOD, because that was my exact reaction. Except for the manipulations - I was neutral towards them, because he's a manipulator himself (and a pirate, yarr). But announcing the impossibility of the crossovers was a huge Player Punch for me, especially after I promised that he would meet Gulliver again.

Oh man, if I'd just been able to work out my emotions by talking to you, I might never have written that email to Morgan. It would have made a huge difference if I'd been in contact with another metaguard who felt that way.

I'm kind of glad I did email Morgan, though, because despite the heartbreak it caused me, I think my relationship I built with her was valuable.

[Rick Healey]

This was the first time I actually felt we'd done something that we could honestly say was 'wrong' without having a moral justification to fall back on.

You got to return a man who desperately missed his own family to where he belonged, to the ones who cared for him. That doesn't count as a moral justification?

In some ways, the entire ordeal with LJS and Gulliver was the cruelest thing that we did to you all. But it also resulted in some of the best storytelling. There was no clean answer. Someone was always going to be hurt. And folks had to see that not everyone was going to get a happy ending, not even for the major players. Harsh as it was, this set the table for the story's climax.

[Scarab]

This was the first time I actually felt we'd done something that we could honestly say was 'wrong' without having a moral justification to fall back on.

You got to return a man who desperately missed his own family to where he belonged, to the ones who cared for him. That doesn't count as a moral justification?

In some ways, the entire ordeal with LJS and Gulliver was the cruelest thing that we did to you all. But it also resulted in some of the best storytelling. There was no clean answer. Someone was always going to be hurt. And folks had to see that not everyone was going to get a happy ending, not even for the major players. Harsh as it was, this set the table for the story's climax.

...Huh, yeah I never thought of that. Thinking on it, Silver was kinda selfish and wasn't taking Gullivers feelings into concern himself. I don't think we did the right thing tricking him, but I'm glad we sent Gulliver home where he wanted to be.

It was a harsh game, but as Mister A once said 'writing integrity is not an ethical contract with the characters' or soemthing like that. You told a good story, the only way it could be told. We just weren't used to being subject to the same moral raminifications as the characters I think

[WackyMeetsPractical]

This was the first time I actually felt we'd done something that we could honestly say was 'wrong' without having a moral justification to fall back on.

You got to return a man who desperately missed his own family to where he belonged, to the ones who cared for him. That doesn't count as a moral justification?

In some ways, the entire ordeal with LJS and Gulliver was the cruelest thing that we did to you all. But it also resulted in some of the best storytelling. There was no clean answer. Someone was always going to be hurt. And folks had to see that not everyone was going to get a happy ending, not even for the major players. Harsh as it was, this set the table for the story's climax.

...Huh, yeah I never thought of that. Thinking on it, Silver was kinda selfish and wasn't taking Gullivers feelings into concern himself. I don't think we did the right thing tricking him, but I'm glad we sent Gulliver home where he wanted to be.

This was the only reason I went along with the gambit. I played the game with a philosophy of being ethical and right in my interactions with all the characters, however Silver was really giving us a hard time, and tricking him like we did seemed like the only way of helping Gulliver. Though preferably, I would've wanted to have a real honest chat with Silver, get him to admit his feelings towards Gulliver, and then convince him that reficking Gulliver was the right thing to do.

By the way, would that have been a possible path? Had things played out differently, could we have convinced Silver to refick Gulliver himself, willingly? I know I've been trying to go down that path with Silver, and it hadn't been working, but if there hadn't been a gambit, would the honest path have worked?