Bad Stuff Happening IC
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@MisterBoring Improv is a fantastic tool for bleed management, I agree. Your point about positive emotional stuff also being bleed isn’t something I’d considered, but it makes total sense. The question of how to use it to strengthen my RP is something I’ll keep in mind, too.
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@MisterBoring said in Bad Stuff Happening IC:
It took me a long time to realize that the positive emotional stuff I get from RP I enjoy is also bleed
I might not use the same wording, but you’re absolutely right to associate even positive emotional stuff as potentially dangerous just as much as the negative. We so often hear of, or even feel, connections that are assumed to be stronger than they actually are simply due to the positive impact someone’s RP/storytelling has had on us.
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I do kinda’ think we’ve blurred the lines between positive bleed and negative bleed at this point. If you don’t bleed, you don’t have blood, and are an emotionless robot, though I gather some folk were using the term bleed in a different way where it meant more like bleeding out ON someone, bleeding outward in a way that’s perhaps unpleasant.
I think negative bleed is less of a problem than someone just being a butt about things. Someone venting to me in DMs about their IC problems with my pals, MAYBE they’re experiencing negative bleed, but it’s manifesting in them being a butt.
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@Yam said in Bad Stuff Happening IC:
I think negative bleed is less of a problem than someone just being a butt about things.
I sort of disagree with this, but I think it’s because different people and groups handle negative bleed differently.
Some circles take negative bleed and resolve it in a healthy manner, so it’s not a big problem.
Other groups (including a few major LARP organizations I can think of) seem to delight in using negative bleed to drive perceived rivals away to make sure their characters are dominant in all situations.
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
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@MisterBoring said in Bad Stuff Happening IC:
Other groups (including a few major LARP organizations I can think of) seem to delight in using negative bleed to drive perceived rivals away to make sure their characters are dominant in all situations.
Sounds like they were being a butt about things!
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@Yam said in Bad Stuff Happening IC:
I do kinda’ think we’ve blurred the lines between positive bleed and negative bleed at this point.
Bleed is a complex topic, with a wide range of definitions depending on how deep into the research rabbit hole one goes. We should, probably, use a different term to ensure consistency but we’ve never really been about consistency…
As far as this discussion is concerned, I don’t view “having an emotional reaction” as being bleed. That’s the intended purpose. You’re supposed to have an emotional reaction to RP, that’s the whole point.
Bleed, for me, is always an extreme reaction—extreme as in sitting at the extreme ends of a spectrum, not necessarily extreme in terms of outlandishness. Too far in either direction is a problem, as extremes almost always are.
ETA: To emphasise: Bleed is the feeling and the reaction. Therefore it includes the “being a butt about things.”
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@Pavel said in Bad Stuff Happening IC:
As far as this discussion is concerned, I don’t view “having an emotional reaction” as being bleed. That’s the intended purpose. You’re supposed to have an emotional reaction to RP, that’s the whole point.
Yeah, that’s how I view it as well. Having an emotional reaction to fiction is perfectly normal. Even outsized reactions can be healthy if handled responsibly IMHO. “Bleed”, to me, is something else. It’s a crossing of boundaries that’s more than just the simple emotional response. That said, I acknowledge there is not one universal definition. But if we’re going to make proclamations about whether bleed is problematic, it’s helpful to know if we’re talking about the same thing.
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IDK, to me ‘bleed’ is letting your (the player’s) emotional read on situations to color your character’s actions. It’s not a problem if your character’s emotions bleed into you, that’s - as pointed out- the expected outcome. That’s what makes the hobby addicting.
The issue is when you are making things weird with your character reactions due to your ooc read on situations.
Look. I absolutely believe that there have been occasions where player/s decide to be mean on purpose in order to drive someone else away. I am SURE it has happened. I am also 100% sure that it doesn’t happen even half as often as people assume it is happening to them. The vast majority of people who step on your feelings are not doing it ‘on purpose’. They aren’t even thinking about you.
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@Faraday said in Bad Stuff Happening IC:
“Bleed”, to me, is something else. It’s a crossing of boundaries that’s more than just the simple emotional response.
the part I meant specifically when I originally brought up insanely uncomfortable amounts of bleed is where the boundaries between someone’s understanding of events as happening to their character and happening to them have gotten so hazy that they start taking purely IC things intensely personally, and it changes the way they make their characters behave and affects their relationships with other players.
bleed itself by the definition people have been providing here is absolutely something that happens to everyone and isn’t that extreme on its own, I think, as long as you’re being self aware enough to recognize it and manage it, as already mentioned.
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@MisterBoring said in Bad Stuff Happening IC:
@Yam said in Bad Stuff Happening IC:
I think negative bleed is less of a problem than someone just being a butt about things.
I sort of disagree with this, but I think it’s because different people and groups handle negative bleed differently.
Some circles take negative bleed and resolve it in a healthy manner, so it’s not a big problem.
Other groups (including a few major LARP organizations I can think of) seem to delight in using negative bleed to drive perceived rivals away to make sure their characters are dominant in all situations.
that’s literally what yam was saying though: the issue isn’t the feeling itself, it’s if people act like a butt because of the feeling. you could be feeling bleed like CRAZY, utterly miserable because of the stuff happening to your character, but also being self-aware enough to take a break and keep it off the game and away from the other players
“handling negative bleed differently” is the point
