2008-03-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there was an evil witch named Theolonia Sylvamaria Ravenhildur. But she was known far and wide as TSR. She was a hungry witch, who wanted to rule the Writing Community. She wanted her subjects to be miserable, and unable to find stories that entertained them.

One day she gazed into her crystal ball, and demanded to know why the people were happy, for she had heard that they were enjoying the stories created by the Writing Community, and it angered her.

And then she saw why. Creativity had been at work again, creating pieces for the enjoyment of all. TSR was furious. How dare she? She would have to be stopped.

TSR sent out notices to all the land. She promised a place where storytellers could tell their beautiful stories to a captivated audience - a safe haven where Writers would be free to express themselves as they pleased. Creativity believed the witch. With her beautiful face, sparkling dress, and kind words, TSR was surely someone to be trusted.

But it was a trap. Now with Creativity behind bars, the Writing Community would surely suffer. No longer would stories interest their readers and keep them happy.

And there was much rejoicing.

The Writing Community took a hit, and its remaining members developed plans to still make a readable product. It would be difficult without Creativity, but they would try their best.

A few days later, TSR read in the paper that there was enjoyment in the current stories.

Readers were expressing their joy at how much Freedom the Writing Community had when telling their tales. This, of course, would not be tolerated. She made the same promises to Freedom that she did to Creativity. And Freedom was captured.

Now, with the two safely tucked away, surely the Writing Community would not recover.

And there was much rejoicing.

The remaining three were unsure of what to do. They discussed it for many hours, and finally came up with a solution to make their readers happy. They would use their talents to the best of their ability, hoping people would still take the time to read.

A few days later, TSR was performing a tarot reading, hoping to catch the suffering of the Community at last. But what she saw enraged her. The Writing Community had bounced back.

Readers everywhere were marvelled at how much Intelligence their stories contained. They were saddened a bit about the lack of Creativity and Freedom of the stories, but they were still happy. The evil witch was beside herself. This had to be stopped.

With the same diabolical plan she had used to capture the others, soon Intelligence was imprisoned with the rest. Stories would become unintelligible, and the Writing Community would crumble.

And there was much rejoicing.

The two that were left discussed this blow for hours on end, and decided the only thing to do was to move forward, and continue to tell stories as well as they could.

Ecstatic, the witch checked her mail, hoping for a report about the widespread suffering. But alas, she was notified that the readers were still happy. How can this be, she wondered? With no Creativity, Freedom, and Intelligence left in the Writing Community, how could readers still enjoy the stories?

The answer was simple. The stories still had Individuality. She still enabled the stories told to be different from one another, so they each had their own flavor, their own voice. And, naturally, TSR would certainly not let this continue.

So she captured her, as well. Finally! She had succeeded! Stories would now be lifeless, readers would be saddened, and the Writing Community would be no more.

And there was much rejoicing. Boredom and Monotony looked on with interest.

Fun was all alone. His friends had all been captured. The Writing Community was suffering greatly, for the stories that were being churned out had no Creativity, Freedom, Intelligence, or Individuality. This was a harsh blow, indeed. Fun decided the best thing he could do, was to put as much of himself into his stories as possible. His friends would have wanted that.

The witch was elated. Believing that decent stories were now impossible, she consulted her magic mirror, so she could watch the suffering.

No! It cannot be! How could anything be left? How could stories still be any good? Fun in stories? It had to be stopped!

There! They were all behind bars now. No more Writing Community!

"Why is she doing this," Individuality asked angrily.

The henchman yawned loudly as a response.

"Hey," Freedom piped up, "aren't you Boredom?"

"No, I'm Monotony."

"Isn't that the same thing?" they all wondered aloud.

"Now I've got you all! This is the end of the Writing Community! Without you, stories will be boring and monotonous!"

"Boredom and Monotony will multiply, and take over. The readers will be sad, but after awhile they won't even remember you any more. The stories will all look the same! They will no longer remember what good stories were made of, and I will rule all!"

"You have all done well, my clones. Now that we've destroyed the Writing Community by taking away everything that made stories worth reading, it's time for the second phase of my plan. Now we will raise our prices, drastically for some, little for others, and see which of our members are devoted enough to go hungry to still be a member. We'll lower the quality of our downloads, and our drones, our members, will still seek us out, because we are all powerful and rule all!"

And there was much, much rejoicing.

The Writers were stressed. They didn't know what to do. Was this the end?

But help was on its way. For at that very moment, Team SimTales had just arrived. They were not happy about the serious blows the Writing Community had taken, and they resolved to fight back with all they had. And they looked mighty spiffy in their custom matching t-shirts, too.

"What's your deal, lady?" Damon asked through gritted teeth.

Suddenly, Damon burst out in laughter, for the fright of TSR and her minions was a hilarious sight.

TSR and her minions cowered in fright at the angry SimTales group.

"We have come to save the Writing Community!" Leah, the head of the team, declared proudly.

"For Creativity!" Sam shouted.

"For Intelligence!" Sandra exclaimed.

"For Freedom!" Gracia yelled.

"For Individuality!" Ariana screamed.

"For Fun!" Zayury swooned.

"Can we stay focused here?" Damon scolded.

"Vive la Resistance!"

"Woof!" barked Grudge. Translation: "This bitch is going down!"

A mighty battle ensued. The team bravely fought the forces of Boredom and Monotony. The battle raged for many grueling hours.

(The Clones aren't too bright).

The witch watched helplessly as one by one, her minions were destroyed.
Finally, she was the only one left. "No!" she wailed. "There must be Tyranny! There must be Injustice! There must be Rejection on no valid grounds!"

Grudge stuck out her tongue at the evil TSR.

The team surrounded her...and TSR was no more.

And there was MUCH rejoicing!

THE END

Down with T$R

2008-03-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

Many of us at SimTales are extremely annoyed at the way T$R runs their business. Not even getting into the entire violation of The Sims 2 EULA agreement, which basically states that it is against EA's policy for websites to profit from user created content by having pay items, they are also very strict regarding their stories. Several of my fellow members have had their stories rejected multiple times, for stupid reasons, citing that they are inappropriate for their younger members. The writers, wanting to please their valued readers, many times changed their stories to suit TSR's rigid guidelines. In other words, they changed their art, to please TSR. No one should ever have to change their art - their heart and soul. That would be like telling Michelangelo to put clothes on 'David' because he's inappropriate for younger viewers (which is actually an issue all on its own).

Art is an expression of a person, done through many different means. Sculpting, Music, Dance, Photography, Painting, Writing - all forms of art - where the artist has put something of him/herself into his/her work. Not everyone likes all Art, but that is what makes us all unique, and why there is so much Art in the world. But asking someone to change their art, is to ask them to change their feelings. It's not going to happen well, and will come across as forced and unreal - a not accurate portrayal of what that person is feeling - in essence, a LIE.

I agree that there can be a fine line between nude art and pornography, but one must look at the piece and determine what the artist was trying to portray upon creating it. Is 'David' being pornographic? No. You can clearly see there is no reference toward that nature. He is simply standing clothesless, and appears to be deep in thought. The human body is not something to be ashamed of. And it can be captured beautifully by an artist whose intentions are to bring it to an audience because he/she feels it is something worth sharing.

The same goes for stories. Issues happen in real life, unfortunately. Life is not all rosy, peaches and cream. Bad things happen all the time, and sometime a writer wants to share that with an audience. It's at this point that writer determines exactly how to portray it, so that it is tasteful and heartfelt, but still powerful enough to touch on the emotions that events in life bring. That's not an easy task to take an ugly situation (such as rape) and tactfully deal with its aftermath and how a young lady must struggle through life afterward. Sure - it can turn into something ugly, but a writer who is cognizant of his/her audience and feels for this character, and wants to bring her suffering to readers, will do it as tastefully as possible.

But that's not good enough for TSR. No matter how tasteful, that issue must never be brought to their audience. Even if the story never even showed the actual event, but only centered on the character afterward. The audience must not read it - it's bad. Put clothes on your 'David' so that others my view it. Change your art. Take a piece of yourself out of it everytime it's rejected, so afterward it resembles all the other nonsensical crap that they enjoy publishing because it fits their rosy standards. Real life should be lived in real life, and people should only read fairytales and boring teen mother and model search stories. They should only see fully clothed statues.

Well, TSR can bite me where the sun doesn't shine because I HATE THEM and hope enough people get fed up with their stupidity and leave. I hope they realize they're driving people away. They drove me away a long time ago, but I'll get into that in another post.

Down with T$R - they don't care about quality - they just want your money and keep people from reading good stories about real life issues. They're pissing on real talent, on stories that actually have meaning - and I hope they crash and burn.

Vive la Resistance!

Astral Faery's T$R Ramblings

Down with T$R