DeadSeraphim

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]I think there point was that those are just benefits on top of the rest of it, not that they were a contributing factor. Observing signs of puberty probably just made them think of her as she grew older, and consider the problems involved with it, which would've then led to the idea of stunting her growth and removing the breasts and uterus. As for the last point... Dude, no. I'd like to think any carers the girl ever has aren't turned on by someone who is essentially 9 years old (besides, it'd be obvious anyway because of the damage an adult penis does to her 9 year old, underdeveloped vagina, if there was any suspicions.)[/font][/color][/size]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]It's a pain that can be avoided. Put her on a cushion away from harrd to flail on, or in the middle of a room where there'll be nothing for her to hit. Periods are monthly, unavoidable, predictable, and at the same time [i]unpredictable[/i] in the severity and extent that they will appear. Sure, she'll still have to deal with pain from occasionally knocking her arms or legs into something, but unless she really ****ing SMACKS IT, which is unlikely with her limited motor skills, it's not gonna compare to one week our of four being constant misery. As for the breasts thing, forget it man. The parents know her, they know she prefers being on her front over being on her back, and laying on breasts is something you've never done - and is something that sounds uncomfortable even from my male perspective. I'm not gonna argue it with you anymore.[/font][/color][/size]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]It's the line between sexual characteristics that would serve her more discomfort than not, and things which she's had for 9 years and proven to be of no consequence to her level of comfort. This isn't about useless limbs, or what ifs, its about her overall quality of life - and while periods and breasts might not affect the quality of life of a normal, fully developed woman, the toll it would have on a 3 month old would be significant, especially so as the breasts were removed largely because they would impede her favourite and most comfortable to be in lying positions.[/font][/color][/size]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]They didn't remove them cause she had no use for them. They removed them because it would've been a problem for Ashley, and affected her quality of life. Useless wasn't part of the reasoning, and your tangent about removing limbs is unnecessary. Sure, Ashley might've been able to use her reproductive organs if she ever developed past this point - but as I said earlier, we have no guarantee that such a cure is even on the horizon, especially when the origins of her condition are unknown, so the parents merely acted on the information we have [i]now[/i] to improve their daughters quality of life. Whether you believe what they did was warranted or not is irrelevant, as Ashley is happy, healthy, and is now in the best position she could be in for care and comfort. If they ever develop a cure for her condition, the parents will have a reason to feel guilty then. Until then, though, what they've done is very brave, and will affect Ashley in only positive ways.[/font][/color][/size]

[QUOTE=Adahn][size=2]If you accept the conclusion that the girl's brain will never develop more than it has now, then the parent's decision is quite practical and logical.[/size] [size=2][/size] [size=2]However, there is always the possibility of a cure. If this disorder has a name, is its cause known? Has it been studied? It seems to affect the brain, and it is difficult to get drugs past the blood-brain barrier, but that doesn't mean it will always be impossible.[/size] [size=2][/size] [size=2]Have children like this been allowed to age to adulthood? Perhaps puberty and its physiological changes would provide some way for the girl's brain to gain function.[/size] [size=2][/size] [size=2]Are you aware that the (normal) brain retains its ability to learn actively until one approaches death? There are decades of medical advancements to be made, and this girl has had irreversible procedures performed on her.[/size] [size=2][/size] [size=2]The parents have made the logical and practical decision to give up on their daughter, and if some treatment becomes available, they will see the monstrous decision they have made for what it truly is.[/size] [size=2][/size] [size=2]For all of you you have faith in the scientists' and doctors' "diagnosis" of the girl NEVER being able to develop, I hope that you understand one thing. Science always has been, is, and always will be FALLIBLE.[/size][/QUOTE] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]The girl has static encephalopathy. This basically means she has an problem with her brain, with no apparent cause (it happened in the womb), which keeps her at a 3 month old permanently. I'm sorry Adahn, but science can only create cures when they know the disease - and there is absolutely [i]no indication[/i] of what keeps Ashley trapped as a 3 month old mentally normally. All the cures in the world won't help if they don't know what's wrong.[/font][/color][/size]

[QUOTE=Mr. Maul][size=1][color=DimGray]I don't know about shits, but you can definitely giggle at it. [/color][/size][center][size=1][color=DimGray][img]http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a376/mrmaul/DSC03996.jpg[/img][/color][/size] [/center] [size=1][color=DimGray] As you can see, nowhere near as dynamic as the other. [/color][/size][/QUOTE] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]That'd have been a great pic in plain old greyscale, bro.[/font][/color][/size]

[QUOTE=Sandy]I have a further relocation suggestion, if you may. Now that Hardwired has been moved in the same place with Otaku Lounge and the like, the front page looks quite unbalanced (two forums in the first section, then six, and then three), and there really isn't anything "art-like" in the "Arts & Entertainment" section other than Art Studio, so why don't you move that to the "Creative Writing" section, renaming the sections something like "Entertainment" and "Creative Arts". How would that sound? The procedure would be even simpler than moving Hardwired, plus it would make the front page look much more organized, in my opinion.[/QUOTE] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]Yeah, Shy just said that.[/font][/color][/size]

[quote name='Shinje']I did read the article, about a week ago. This point must have slipped my mind and a re-read could have been in order.[/quote] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]Even with the edit, your point still makes no sense. So, what, they might be able to undo whatever keeps Ashley at 3-months mentally... can you guarantee when that'll happen? Can you even guarantee that she'll even be able to undergo the procedure as she gets older? I mean, ****, her brain has been static for over 8 years - just being static could cause irreparable damage, eg: development that should've happened mightn't have, connections a brain makes as it develops wouldn't exist. At such a late stage, can you really say her condition is reversible, especially with your presumably limited knowledge of the brain? There's no indication with research so far that it can be undone. The parents made an informed decision based on the capabilities science has today to stop their child's growth for her quality of life, not on a vague promise that science might one day be able to reverse damage to the least understood organ in the human body. [This is all despite the fact that if it was somehow undone, she'd still be severely disabled for life - every year her condition goes untreated is another year she would be behind her peers in age, and there's very little chance she'd ever catch up. She'd still be in the same helpless position she is now, except larger, and quite conscious of the fact.][/font][/color][/size]

[QUOTE=Shinje][color=Black]Having no way to adapt to something you can't grasp is inhumane in it's own way. I can understand that. Maybe they should have looked then, at taking these elements out specifically, rather than stunting her entire growth. The human body was designed to grow, and I don't think she will last long trapped in life as a 3 month old. Another thing to consider in this is medical advancement. Who is to say they won't find a way to repair her brain in the coming decade? We're at this point where we can take stem cells from other parts of the body and repair a damaged heart with them. The technology to allow someone like this girl to live a normal life is being pioneered as we [strike]speak[/strike] type. Stunting her growth is like playing russian roulette with her future. [/color] [/color][/QUOTE] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]She's not a 3 month old. She has the physical body of a 9 year old girl, but the [i]mind[/i] of a 3 month old. Why isn't anyone reading the actual article before posting?[/font][/color][/size]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]I used to do Warhammer, which is kind of the same thing. Goddamn it was expensive. [i]Never again[/i].[/font][/color][/size]

[QUOTE=Shinje]I'll shoot against the grain here. I don't support the decision, I disagree with it entirely. While I understand that this decision the parents have come to wasn't made lightly, I feel that the decision to stunt the growth of the child was a misguided one, in any case. The child may never understand, or comprehend life in a full-grown body, but I don't see this as giving anybody a mandate to take that away from her. You don't need to understand the rights you have to be able to have them. I disagree with like-minded people who believe that this decision was made solely for the benefit of the carers, I feel that the parents' were acting to what they believed were the childs best interests, I just don't think these are to her best interests.[/QUOTE] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]the alternative the child becoming too large to care for, experiencing menstruation when she can't even communicate pain, and dealing with apparently large breasts that would get in the way of her favourite lying positions. Show me a 3 month old who could adequately deal with those symptoms, and I'll agree it wasn't in her best interests. Otherwise I think what the parents did was very brave and very good for their daughter (brave cause it's never been attempted before). This kind of treatment has never been done before, and the ethics are still in debate, but if I had the choice of letting someone who doesn't even comprehend shapes and sounds grow into the body of an adult, or keeping them at a point where they will never have to deal with the trials and tribulations of being in an adult's body (especially for a woman) I know what I'd do for them.[/font][/color][/size]

[QUOTE=Ezekiel][SIZE=1]I know that's something I'd put heavily in earlier chapters, but in the last few I had planned there wouldn't be any mention. I know it's a testy subject but I'll be very careful, if that helps at all... I'll start working on the next part today and decide from there if I post it publicly, or I could create an LJ account for it or some such. ^_^ Thanks for the support again, all~[/SIZE][/QUOTE] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]If you insist.[/font][/color][/size]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]House and Supernatural start again soon, so I'm looking forward to that. Heroes starts here this year as well, so that'll be interesting. Time to see if it lives up to the hype yo. Apart from that, I take it as it comes.[/font][/color][/size]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]Considering I'm not longer with Hevn anymore, I would, personally, not appreciate it. The reasoning is purely emotional, of course.[/font][/color][/size]

[QUOTE=Raiyuu][FONT=Trebuchet MS]The thing with putting current Anthology threads in with the Square is that they'll drop off the first page pretty quickly, squeezed out by RPGs. Charles, those stats you pointed out about Anthology threads seem to me to suggest that those threads [i]need[/i] their own forum, to stop them being swamped by bigger threads with more (and more frequent) replies. And to balance out that bit of naysaying, I think the idea of conducting OOC discussion in the original sign-up thread for the RPG, instead of having a separate thread and a whole forum just for those threads, would tidy things up considerably.[/FONT][/QUOTE] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]That wouldn't happen often. Neither forum is ever extremely active, and I even now, combined, they don't top the 30 thread limit for a forum before it starts paginating. The risks of stories being overrun is minimal at best, and would only happen if there was a huge RP boom - something I don't see happening anytime soon.[/font][/color][/size]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]Regardless of whether it's true RP or not, my main concern is if it will be interesting for the community not involved in it. Mafia wasn't a true RP that involved a lot of teamwork and discussion and very little role playing, but it might as well have been Dutch to me (and I know a lot of others in the community would agree), and when I DID try to get into it, I just didn't get grabbed by it, cause it was more fun for the people involved than those on the outside. I know you've got plans for this thing to be almost infinitely scalable to reduce those kind of occurrences, but still, I think it's a valid concern.[/font][/color][/size]

[quote name='James][font=arial']If anyone can come up with ways to dramatically downsize and simplify the way we deal with these types of threads, I think they will find that I am going to be a lot more receptive. The ideas themselves are wonderful, but we need to really consider how these ideas can be implemented and who is actually going to invest the time to do that. [/font][/quote] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]That's pretty much what Shy and Charles' been suggesting the whole time, man... as well as the outright removal of ratings, and only tagging something as [Adult] when it gets there - something a thread participant would likely have to suggest. If you read Charles and Shys' proposals (especially later in the thread, as the ideas evolved during discussion), you'll see plenty of good concepts for shrinking the forums and rebooting the entire concept of RPing at OB.[/font][/color][/size]

[QUOTE=Aaryanna][COLOR=Teal]I?d like to voice a concern I have over Sandy?s response to Shy?s latest questions and assignments. The answer to assignment one and the questions were in my opinion excellently handled. And that's not what I'm worried about. My concern actually lies with assignment two and how it seems to be just another Survivor RPG, something that Sandy has done in the past, and closely mirrors the idea of only one making it out just like Labyrinth did. I?d like to know how this latest event he is proposing is even original. Not in the sense of it took time to modify it to work online or how it?s different from the previous Survivor games, but in that it?s already been done many times here at OB. James even specifically mentioned ideas on how we could have more variety in the events as you can see here: [URL=http://www.otakuboards.com/showpost.php?p=756817&postcount=70][B][COLOR=Teal][U]POST[/U][/COLOR][/B][/URL] So my concern really comes down to this question, [B]Can [I]either[/I] contestant come up with something a little more original[/B]? I'm not trying to mean here. >_< I think it's a valid concern, unless I'm the only one who thinks this. [/COLOR][/QUOTE] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]you know, I agree too. But that's not the reason for this post. Aaryanna, may I commend you on not forcing your poor tortured pet into a costume for your latest avi and banner. It looks much nicer when it's not being a christmas decoration. Honest.[/font][/color][/size]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]Before any retards jump in spouting Naruto or Jack Sparrow, let's examine this more fully: * The Ninjas were a secretive, and dirty assassin's order, who very rarely liked being seen. They preferred to kill people without the targets knowing they were dying, they were not on the best of terms with Japan as a whole, and they were, basically, sneaky, back-stabbing mother****ers. * Pirates were very obvious in their intentions and actions, were also dirty as ****, but liked their victims to see their face before killing them. They lived a life of pillaging other ships for the vague goal of loot, were among the most hardened criminals of their time, and were constantly being hunted by the world's different governing bodies, so they could swing from the gallows. Right. Now we've got all your stupid romantic concepts out of the way, let's ask again: Be a cowardly, sneaky assassin who basically defies all concepts of Japanese honour and were despised as a result, or be a hated criminal who is seen as a savage by most on the mainland and lives a life of constant running from authorities, with the occasional scuffle and, eventually, death at sea or by hanging? Go on, choose. Really.[/font][/color][/size]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]The worst bit is some of the comments that were highlighted "Mutilating a child is indefensible, I don't care how big you think they might grow. What if she wants to have children or sex when she is older? You have denied her the choice. What a sad, sick example of laziness, selfishness and stupidity." Did they even read? This girl can't even ROLL OVER, let alone ever consider sex. I support the parents in this, and while I don't think it should be used for all cases, I think it should be considered as an option for other parents in the same situation.[/font][/color][/size]

[QUOTE=BKstyles][font=tahoma]That's what I'm talking about when I stated the possible issues with a backroom. The people who look chiefly for M-rated RPs will flock to there and it would generally be the same as the arena now minus any non-M rated RPs. Where as the Theater will be what is being described in this thread as the ideal forum, which means it holds the RPs that can provide a great experience without the need for m-rated aspects. The sub-forum will not prevent these RPs from being made nor will it stop people from participating in them just as much as they do currently. The only thing that will most definitly happen is since the forum is being split by ratings is one will be more popular then the other. So in the end the actual change may seem more like the Theater section and not the backroom section. But I share the feeling with many others that it all seems less like a necessity for improvement then it does just a simple change of format. You describe it as rediculous but I'm afraid I do not see the same consistency in the content that you discourage. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, nor am I saying that there were not a bunch of RPs with the potential for this content in the last year. However the majority of M-rated RPs did not live up to that rating and that is what made them irrelavent. Which is where the revamping I speak of comes into play, as it is more about people knowing exacty what kind of content will be in their RP and then rate it in accordance to that, as opposed to rating it for what may or may not happen. I.E - If your story is going to be based heavily on violence, let's say for example a RP based on being military officers at war. It's obvious that violence will be included, so therefore including that it may involve sex or language should not be as consequential as including that it will involve violence. If you feel the course of the story may lead to opportunities for the player to engage in some kind of sexual acts with either other characters or NPCs, such as there being a shore leave scene later in the RP then the rating may also include sex. If this language filter is implemented then it hardly seems necessary for there to be a L rating anymore. So in other words, it will cut down the amount of wrongfully rated threads if the creator has an idea on what the story that will be told through the fingers of the people participating will definitly involve. That pertains to the breaking down of the ratings with the ones that include S for sex, L for language, and V for violence. In reference to the main ratings like PG/M etc, that's based on the degree of what it involves from the broken down sections. Violence can a feature of a PG rated thread and an M rated thread. For example, my recent Super Smash Brothers Melee RP was sure to include violence, but anybody who has played the game would realize that the kind of violence it entails is hardly worth a M rating. Where as my other RP Sinister Nation involved violence in the form of gun fights, bloody encounters, etc. This warrants it the M rating I gave it because of the degree of violence being much harsher then the cartoonish style of Smash Brothers. This is where I think the ratings could use more clarification, referring to how strongly something will be included. Using Sara's example of providing a description for something like a letter in order to create a standard: (note ETC is at the end of every example to indicate that these are just a few examples of what they would mean) A - Cartoonish Violence (Bops on the head, harmless smacks, throwing giant turnips at people, anything that doesn't draw blood or requiring a visit to a hospital, etc) B - Graphic Violence (Guns, swords, blood, torture, etc) C - Stong Sexual Themes (Sex scenes allowed, sexual harrasment, etc) D - Hints of Sexual Tensions (flirting, kissing, the furthest being maybe touching depending on where it is on the body, etc) E - Mild Language (Profanity used by the standard of around 1-2 times in a post with the exclusion of the F word, racial and sexual slurs, etc) F - Harsh Language (Profanity used at the participant's discretion, etc) So for example, if Citius Altius Fortius were recreated under this system it would read: [b][url=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=54564&highlight=Citius+Altius+Fortius]Citius Altius Fortius[/url][/b] [M - B, D, E] No More Coffee would be [b][url=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=54715]No more Coffee[/url][/b] [PG - D, E] and Sinister Nation would look like [b][url=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=55037]Sinister Nation[/url][/b] [M - B, C, F] These would help clarify whether the content really deserves an M rating or if a PG rating would be enough. It would also make sure people knew what was involved instead of going "Violence? I don't really want to kill anybody..." where as the RP would probably just include having to include a fencing match in which both participants are wearing the proper gear and winning comes with amount of points scores and not by who puts who in the hospital. [/font][/QUOTE] [center][img]http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/7484/whatgraffiticj3.jpg[/img][/center]

[quote name='SunfallE][COLOR=RoyalBlue']I'm thinking that describing what types of violence, language or sex that would be acceptable for a rating would be more effective. If we are going to change them to one that is exclusive to the boards that is. [/COLOR][/quote] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]I meant media like movies, or TV. I didn't name any threads.[/font][/color][/size]

[quote name='Desbreko][color=#4B0082']I figured it would fall to the moderators of the forums, and ultimately the category moderator, to decide what goes where, based on whatever guidelines are set up. They'd have more time to manage that, since there wouldn't be any rating-related stuff to deal with anymore, and they'd probably know what's going on in their forums better than anyone else. If something didn't belong in the mature board they could move it to the normal one and vice versa.[/color][/quote] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]It'd be best if the guidelines were really really clear, perhaps using real world examples to show what a mature RP would be compared to a normal RP. Like, for mature you could have something like "Think Kill Bill, From Dusk Till Dawn, etc..." (you know, depending on the eventual rating of 'mature'). That'd save mods some work.[/font][/color][/size]

[QUOTE=Sandy]Alright, this thread has grown so huge overnight that I really don't know where to begin... Well, everything I say here comes from the experience of nearly four years of OB roleplaying as well as having been a moderator of the respective section for half an year, thus at least skimming through each and every RPG it has gained over that time. [B]1. Profanity[/B] The way I see it, despite the fact that everybody uses M-LVS ratings, the amount of actual, offending profanity is very small. Coming from a country with very little censorship (we can actually see naked breasts in daytime shows!), my opinion that profanity is not a problem in Adventure Arena. Having said that, because the amount of it is so small, I wouldn't really mind if the automatic censoring would be re-established. Now if it would exclude the word a.s.s., I would be perfectly happy (it's not profane, honestly!). [B]2. Ratings[/B] I don't want to say "I told you so", but when the ratings were first established to give more artistic freedom to roleplayers and writers, and to preserve members who didn't want to deal with such "freedom", I among few others noted that the rating system didn't work the way it was meant to. The situation was exactly same two years ago: nearly all RPGs are M-LVS, when in fact very few of them would need that rating. After I became a mod, it stopped bothering me, because I understood why everybody used it: to give their game the opportunity to have mature content, even if the initial setting didn't apply it. Besides, the word mature is misleading, in my opinion. Of course everybody wants a "mature" RPG - who would want to play in an "immature" game anyway? It's sad that both [E] and [PG] ratings got that tag on themselves. But in my opinion the Arena has worked normally even though the ratings don't mean much - to many they are a necessary evil. I can't think of anything we moderators could've done to further inforce them, really. Lecturing about the proper use of ratings would be very iffy, because like Aaryanna_Mom said, we all have different standards of what's tasteful and what's not. [B]3. Discontinuing the ratings[/B] In my opinion this would make very little difference to the quality of the Arena. It would certainly "tidy up" the place, and make it more comforting to the eye without all those [M - GORE SEX GUNS DRUGS VIOLENCE SWEARING HERE!!!] signs (and really, usually those type of RPGs don't contain even half of what it warns about). [B]4. Adding more ratings[/B] This is something I wouldn't want to see. If the problem is that most people are using only one of three possible ratings, what's the point of changing that so that most people are using only one of [I]four to five[/I] possible ratings? [B]5. Staff should implement ratings to RPGs[/B] We just have to admit that we OBers aren't the Entertainment Software Rating Board - we're just a diverse bunch of people coming from numerous different cultures and with numerous different ideals. I know I would slap very different ratings to many games than for example Ozy would. This would also burden our unpaid behinds needlessly, if I may say so. [B]6. Let's take down the whole Arena and replace it with Games & Stories[/B] Now this is an actual, constructive suggestion. It would be a big change that probably couldn't be implemented over night, but it's definitely worth thinking about. It would certainly bring similar things to the same place, and unite people like the separated sections never could. I do have one problem with it, though. We need to think about the clogging up. Adventure Square is already one of the most active sections in this whole board, so what would happen if we added all the fanfics and games to it? It would really become a huge, [I]huge[/I] section with this amount of members. Even with the different tags in each thread, would people really find what they're looking for there? It must've worked really well back in the day OB was still comparably small place, but nowadays... I just can't say. [B]7. Closure[/B] I really can't say what we should do about the situation (perhaps because I don't see the situation very problematic in the first place, although I agree that the rating system has become void). If we were to undergo such dramatic changes as suggested, we would all really have to think about the consequences it would have on modern day OtakuBoards, and whether we would really achieve anything by it. But it's great that this issue has been taken under public attention, so that everybody can give their opinions about it. ;D[/QUOTE] [size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]I'm quietly amazed you agree.[/font][/color][/size]

[COLOR=Indigo][SIZE=1][FONT=Arial][quote name='BKstyles][FONT=Tahoma]To me the M rating should be used more so to identify a wider restriction on what the content can be. It does not necessarily [i]have[/i'] to involve profanity, graphic sex and violence, etc etc. It's there to allow for a wider choice of how your character can express himself or what situations they should find themselves in. PG aspects can be portrayed just as easily in M rated threads as M aspects. Where as it cannot work the other way, since the PG rating is restrictive.[/FONT][/quote] That's the whole problem. That's [b]not[/b] how the ratings system is meant to work. The ratings system is so readers and people going into sign ups can gauge the rough idea of what will be in the thread without entering it and possibly being offended, it's not for the benefit of RPers who might, perhaps, maybe like to say **** at one point in the RP. People using the ratings system this way are the precise reason it's so broken. Besides which, for most of the good RPs I've seen, the PG tag would do. The violence described is rarely ultra-gory, swearing is used sparingly, and sexuality is usually barely even touched on outside of implying it - all concepts allowable under the PG rating. Having a PG rating would barely hold you back at all - PG is about the equivalent of M IRL, and M is about the equivalent of R. If people read the rating guidelines there wouldn't even be a problem, but people don't, and this ignorance has pretty much ruined the whole concept of ratings at OB. Bring on the reboot. 'Mature' RPing won't die cause there is almost no RPs made these days that even fall under the M rating, and those that do really do take it to awful, [I]immature[/I] extremes. I can't say I'll miss such forays into schlock.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]