roleplayreport | Episode ★ 01 ★

TONIGHT on the Report...

[ O STEPHEN, WHERE ART THOU? ]

My triumphant return to the world of Roleplaying. What have I been up to? How of my opinions changed? I can answer the last one right now: they've only gotten stronger.

[ Я не знаю что письменный ]

I have no idea what that says, I don't speak Russian. And neither should you!

I'm back, Nation, with your weekly recommended dose of the Truth. This is The Colbert Roleplay Report.

Welcome back, Nation. And welcome me. It's been a while, but I know that you know, that I knew I could never be held prisoner in the grips of communist LiveJournal for long. Now, you have your all access pass to my opinions. This is non-refundable and one-way only. You don't need to read the fine print on this ticket: you're here to stay.

And by here, I mean Dreamwidth. The new sanctuary for journal-based roleplays and the fertile ground for me to plant the seeds of truth. My truth. It's a little floofy for my tastes. But, hey, I'm a man who's not afraid to get in touch with my feminine side, as long as that feminine side knows that she can't come to work with me, has to stay within the budget of her weekly allowance, and has to let me wear the suit and tie.

★ O STEPHEN, WHERE ART THOU?

It was no surprise to me that I was going to be a target of the new communist regime. I knew that it had to be Me, Myself, and I that would take on

igrick face to face, but the man spurned my invitations to come onto the Report. In fact, I don't think they reached him at all. Which either showed a servere incompetancy of his interns, or a servere lack of incompetancy if they know how to protect him from very real threats: the threat of being put to the test, ideology to ideology. And we all know who's is right.

I was locked away, Nation. This was a battle of psychological warfare that I like to call "Silent Treatment". That is, we both cover ourselves in denial and pretend that the other person doesn't exist. I guess his pretending worked pretty well, because I disappeared from the public eye of LiveJournal. But not without a fight.

The battle started with the ending of my AppleCare plan. Of course it's only when my extended coverage is done that my MacBook needs to get worked on. I knew it couldn't just be a coincidence or a cruel twist of fate; I have excellent karma, and if the Hindus are right, my next stop is Nirvana. No, this had to be

igrick breaking our mind battle of silence and striking out to the easiest way I could attack him: my access to the internet through seamless modern technology. That and my MacBook had recently been plated with gold and the little light up Apple symbol was encrusted with diamonds. Only the best for my baby.

Naturally, I wasn't ready to send in my laptop for repair. I called the local Apple Store and let me tell you, those geniuses make me question their title. While you all know I have a healthy skepticism of accredited universities and any sort of organization that endorses free thought, I do appreciate the fact that they basically get the title just for working there. But you're no genius in my book if you're
not able to see the benefits of taking on house calls. I don't need some beanie-wearing hispter running off with my $25,000 laptop so they can buy tight jeans and tweet about capitalism on their iPhones.

It was time to take it to the big man. Unfortunately, Steve Jobs died, and being part of the 1%, he was the only one I was going to trust with my investment. That left me Tech Support. I knew this wasn't going to be easy. I wasn't ready for my Bollywood debut, but they were paid to accommodate me, the common man. And by common man, I mean the American man. It turns out that there's a city in India that sounds a lot like "Lexington". Their English was passable, though I still question the necessity to outsource our jobs to this "Kentucky" region. Taking jobs from hard-working Americans is wrong and should never be supported. Unless these people are getting paid in peanuts. Some Americans are allergic to those.

Whatever devices they like to plant in our computers to try and read our browser history apparently doesn't work when you actually need it to help you. They left me with no options other than to take my computer in for repair. I wasn't just going to ship it off to some unknown center, though. I carried it to the Apple Store myself and had it locked in an 8 combination briefcase, handcuffed to one of my interns. Julio stuck with it the whole time. Good man.

It was a good twelve weeks before I got it back. It turns out that whatever Russian virus

igrick had sent me was undetectable by our American Geniuses, but the touchpad had apparently become unresponsive to clicks or swipes. A very clever tactic. Subtle yet effective. And that brings us to tonight's THREAT DOWN.

★ THREAT DOWN

✗ Threat number FIVE: IGRICK
	The leader of the Russian take over of LiveJournal. Now, don't get me wrong: while our heated rivalry was mostly unseen to the journaling masses, there is a very strong veiled level of respect between us. I am me, of course, so he really had no chance. But what I like about him is his ruthless disregard for anyone's opinion other than his own. He sticks to his guns, no matter how wrong and overtly anti-American they are. Even when confronted with a 99% rate of opposition, he flips his consumers the bird and does whatever he wants. That takes a big pair of cojones.
✗ Threat number FOUR: BEARS
	These ruthless beasts are never under the Colbert Radar. No matter what is happening in your roleplay life, bears are always out there. Waiting. Watching. Biding their time for the moment that you finally have to turn your computer off and venture out into the vast, barren wasteland known as the "real world". And look at this one: he's stolen the tire off a car! We know what happened to the Henderson's. We don't need to ask. They will find the car, but they won't find the rest.
✗ Threat number THREE: DORITOS LOCOS TACO
	For being a deliciously cheesy blend of Taco Bell's already difficult to digest beef, wrapped up in a perfect shell of doritos? Shame on you, Taco Bell! The lard that's collecting in my colon from eating so many of you while I reacquaint myself with the roleplaying world is slowing me down when I scroll the anonymous communities. And I have had to take more trips to the bathroom than from your five layer burrito. Though, Chipotle will always have the upper-hand.
✗ Threat number TWO: COMMUNISM
	This has always been on my Threat Down, because I saw this new Russian Revolution coming a century ago. Even before computers. It's the communist agenda that destroyed LiveJournal for all of us good, American roleplayers who just want to pay ridiculous amounts of money for 100x100 pixelated pictures of celebrities and My Little Pony. But you know what? Communism doesn't like it when people pay for things. They just want to give away freebies, and only expect your soul and undying loyalty in return. It's like a secret society that's not so secret and doesn't even have a catchy and archaic oath you have to memorize. Sorry, Igrick, but Karl Marx got there first, and I slept through the whole audiobook.
✗ Threat number ONE: LIVEJOURNAL
	It's really simple, folks: if you're supporting LiveJournal now, you're supporting communism. And this community is decidedly anti-communist and pro-freedom. The freedom that I have bestowed upon you by joining this new blogging service that relies on invite codes. It's like a gated community, and that's just the way I like it.

This would normally be the time I would announce of my Sponsers, but moving to a new website has left me devoid of any. You can change this, though. Follow my plurk

coloneloftruth for updates on this community, as well as whatever other thoughts come to mind. If you can't get enough of me here, which I'm sure you can't, then you know what you have to do.

★ Я не знаю что письменный

What was that? I don't know. Something weird in Russian, and it's going to stay that way. Nation, I regained ownership of my MacBook right when LiveJournal hit ground zero, and the mushroom cloud that followed was one of the most fantastic and awful sights I have ever behold. And by that, I mean scrolled through thousands of comments on Saturday mornings in my underwear.

Do you remember this picture? I used it in my first Report back on LiveJournal. I believed in it then, and I believe in it now: Frank the Goat had abandoned us for the frozen fields of Siberia long before we were willing to let him go.

A large part of the company had been exported overseas years ago, but it was in the Winter of 2011 that things boiled over. The Release 88 sneak peek stirred a rebellion not seen since the Wall Street protests a few months before. "Why fix something that isn't broken?" was the cry of the day, but it was falling on deaf ears. That is mainly because of the ear piece all LJ Russia employees are required to wear so that the Motherland can send them quick messages on how to further attempt and brainwash our delicate American minds. There were a few comments I found to strike a certain chord with me...

"I think [info]igrick should be looking for a new job. The way he handled the criticism of his design was immature, hostile and even passive aggressive because he believed we couldn't read what he was saying in Russian.

.... But don't ignore your userbase's comments. The "I'm a paying user" argument is bullshit (guess what guys, there are plenty of paying users who don't want subject lines and don't hate the new style), what the rest of things people have been saying are true..."
~ zaoku

This "Zaoku" brings up a good point of contention: why should a user that pays have more of a say than a user that doesn't pay? It's exactly that: if I'm paying for a premium service, I expect breakfast in bed, and my coffee hot and ready for me. While I don't need to flaunt my copious amounts of wealth to show everyone what kind of amazing person I am, I will indulge on occasion, but only because I'm asked to. I'll say what I've always said: no free rides.

igrick has made it quite clear that your opinion won't matter to him no matter what sort of money, or lack there of, you put in.

But I'm different, Nation. And that's why I'm giving you all the opportunity to make my opinion matter more by getting me a paid account here on Dreamwidth. Now, that way it's not me proudly displaying the large amounts of cash that I can gamble with, it's you showing your support for what matters most: me.

Now, here is something I really appreciated about the LiveJournal support team. They were able to keep face by pretending to care about what the users actually had to say, while simultaneously responding to every email in the same, secretive manner and sticking to exactly what they wanted to do, even though it was the complete opposite of the majority of the user base and customers. This shows us that LiveJournal had the potential to be a real American corporation: a ceaseless disregard for anyone but the people that run it. Now, if only Russia would sell us their half of the company, we might consider taking it back in addition to a hefty display of groveling. I know it would have my vote, though Frank would have to lose the hat.

The users would not sit back and take this idly. While I'm not a fan of freebies, it was LiveJournals own free gift that got used against them. Users turned there noses up to the changes in the wind by sending over 300 snowman cookies to Igrick's account. Different versions of "you suck balls" and "were you dropped as a child" in varying colorful language were the norm, but I think my favorite had to be the bad report card and the solicitation for some sort of relationship.

In light of the avalanche of cookies, most games have made the move over here to Dreamwidth. Scientists have found, one would assume, that the ones that decided to stay ate too many of the snowman sugar cookies. So while they're in their food coma and probably debating one of those Doritos Locos Tacos at the same time, we will be looking at our old friends who escaped the clutches of Communist LiveJournal, and the new games who have sprouted in this land.

Our land. My land.

Welcome to the new Colbertnation. Let me know how much you agree with what I've had to say, and stay tuned for another edition of the Colbert Roleplay Report.