I will reply tomorrow.

I have to reply tomorrow, after hours of small talk and discussions of fishing, people I do not know and what they have been up to or how tragic it is that someone I do not know have a relative who I also do not know who have dementia and what this old man do or do not remember my energy is all gone for today, gone all gone so I will reply after a good night's sleep.

Urk, unwanted socializing.

Sleep well.

What, you don't like stories about people you don't know spending time with people who are dead doing things you don't care about? What's wrong with you? *smirks*

Well, why do you think I've worked for the last three Christmases?

As for taking the message to PMs... it's simply because I didn't want to clog up the IC thread with OOC.

I am awake, watching a stupid horror movie and have posted. Soon it is time for my daily meditation and ritual work and then coffee.

Yeah no I have a rather limited tolerance for just small talk. I mean when I meet up with someone with similar interests I can talk for hours but just small talk is hard and tiring.

As for taking things to PM the problem is I have very limited time while visiting my mother and I would rather spend that time making IC posts and also I am not sure there is that much to discuss for we do not seam to understand one another. Also I do not really see where the problem is I have always thought Nicole was meant to be a rebel who often get into trouble with authority figures and often are misunderstood I thought that was part of the point.

For me, the 'daily medication and ritual work' and 'coffee' is the same thing... *smirks*

And I get your point exactly; in fact I share them. We [well, I at least] expect/desire social interaction to be interesting/informative/empathetic, and small talk just doesn't cut it on any of these. In fact, sometimes these kinds of things can be torture; like others of my ilk I crave activity and stimulation.

As with Nick... trouble, hey it's fine. Just that the 'mood music' was basically that she's on the fast track to being axed [or ending up leaving]. Having thought about it further, I think I've hit the problem; much of what you're seeing as 'rebelliousness' or 'rudeness' is actually 'cross-cultural misunderstandings'; Nicole's being penalised for basically, not being middle class in demeanour, speech etc.

It's not that Nicole's being penalised for not being middle class in demeanour and speech, it's that she's being penalised for addressing her seniors as though they were her peers at most.

The Traditions are not as strictly feudal as the Camarilla, but we're still strictly hierarchial, and unless Nick figures out that lowering her hackles just a teensy bit in front of seniors and Mystics can make things go more smoothly, she's not going to have much of a shot at promotion to the rank she technically deserves.

Basically, it's like in the military; if you're a soldier, you don't salute the face of senior officers, you salute the uniform. You don't have to know the man you're facing to recognize that his insignia marks him as a colonel, and that he vastly outranks you, even if he's not in your chain of command.

This is basically what Nicole keeps running afoul of - disrespecting senior officers outside her chain of command.

Nah, cross-cultural again; Nicole doesn't expect her superiors to strut around in their uniform 24/7. Excluding Flavian, she's not actually disobeyed an order etc yet; the only 'arguments' have been personal in nature. Which she feels has absolutely nothing to do with rank.

She salutes the rank, but she feels no need to agree with the rank's view on their choices of food, music, art or mundane politics. Quite literally, it's outside of the remit of said rank.

Plus, she's only done this with characters who are only a bit higher than her. Nicole's dealings with the likes of the Chief etc have been more formal; the only time they weren't was when she felt he'd crossed a line. In this case, it's more situations where a private is cheeking a sergeant 'off hours' than doing it to a colonel.

No Nicole is not being penalized for not being middle class. I know allot who is not middle class, I am nto so sure I would be considered middle class myself as I live on an disability pension and so do my husband and we do not own a house. I was raised by a single mother who worked as a nurse until my teens when she started a small healing business working as a alternative therapist.

Most of my friends are on disability and definitively do not have allot of money. And it is not just Norway, of my friends from other nations very few have allot of money they do not behave like Nicole, being rude and crude every time someone disagree with her, that just do not have to do with class. However I know a few in the Punk community and they sometimes have that kind of demeanor.

Also she is not about to be tossed out of the Chantry she is about to get a reprimand, which Colin also got when he disrespected Vittoria D'Angelo.

As for social interactions yes I enjoy talking with those who have similar interests or discuss something interesting but just small talk is not my thing.

Yeah usually I get up, I write up my dream, feed the cat, and start my occult work, when I get tired and can't focus I check the forum and reply if there are new posts, and have breakfast while watching a movie or anime, then I make myself a cup of coffee and continue with my occcult work until done.

'Middle class' isn't just income, but also a state of mind and culture; it's perfectly possible to be culturally middle class but working-class in income. The likes of Norway etc also have significant welfare states which 'cushion' somewhat. Lastly, Nicole's not just 'working class' but the underclass; the segment which also includes, for example the Kinfolk living at the junkyard [by becoming 'skilled blue-collar' she's actually bettered herself by quite a margin]. Lastly, this is the World of Darkness.

With all respect, she is being punished by not being middle class. This is simply because 'middle-class' is the societal norm [in cultural terms], and therefore people who do not share the 'values' of it are outsiders. What you see as 'rude and crude' is in her mind simply being 'honest and forthright'. Something which for one is seen as a negative attribute in one group is viewed as a positive in another.

I'm perfectly fine with this situation. But quite a lot of this is in fact nothing more than 'cultural conflict' which surely a few NPCs would spot for what it is [for example, anybody remotely schooled in sociology].

Oh, and for the record, if any senior ever 'pulls a Crabtree' ['sit down and shut up!'] on Nicole when they're talking about something personal, it won't happen again. For she won't talk to them personally again.

I am not saying Nicole is wrong to be bitter, or that you play the character wrong to be a bit crude. What I am protesting is that she is somehow, seen from OOC eyes treated wrong by those who react to her behavior.

My grandfather was a factory worker he was a tool maker for a glass factory. He was also a Communist, now he was not a little bit Communist he was super duper Communist as in he was a eager part of the Communist party and when to the Soviet Union for meetings. He worked his whole life for workers rights, but he was never crude and rude he could present his views without such behavior.

Is she being punished for not behaving after cultural norms, yes, but that is sort of a given when one choose to play a character that do not fit with said norms. And often she is quite crude and rude it is not about not sharing the same views it is how those views are presented. Most members of Steelhaven do not agree with Nicole's politics, but they do not care what her politics are either they are up to her to decide on. It is how she present those politics when someone disagree that are the issue many have with her.

We've already had this discussion before so I'm not rehashing the culture stuff from RI and everything else has pretty much also already been said. But I want to put in I'm actually /from/ the town that Nicole hails from, and know her attitude because I have been in her position save for enjoying learning (but not school) enough not to drop out. I've been the poorest kid in the entire town. I hated nearly everyone, everything, except the damn library and was an angry, asshole of a kid and worse teenager, a cynical person that was highly self-deprecating and thought everything sucked. This was not even an uncommon attitude for RI and especially not for a dilapidated old milltown with a failing economy.

But Nicole doesn't have any tact, and seems to think having diplomatic skills are a sign of being the gentry and has a persecution complex. But you can have manners and not money. It's fine she doesn't but it means that ranting and lambasting, making analogies that swiftly hit the Hitler singularity or that someone is 'out to get them' over a disagreement or that she was going to be thrown under the bus, etc are just not going to go over well with a bunch of 500 year old mages who she thinks are part of the system/problem. Even the progressive ones aren't going to want to listen when she earmarks them as an enemy and insinuates that not getting their heads chopped off over everything instead of deciding what they can do at each point they can means they're just as bad as Hitler.

Because this is a political game, and part of the game is allies, friendships, and overlording power structures that are old and entrenched, full of entropy and corrupted, much of which is outdated, this attitude comes into play for roleplaying. On the ground, on earth, newer chantries tend to be more progressive but they still have to play nice with the older ones or they lose important resources they need and Horizon is still an important part of the setting. So, if Nicole wants to be an anarchistic lone wolf, she is going to find it difficult because she's alienating a lot of people or finding trouble for herself or her cabal.

Re:tone argument - tone argument is a real tactic but also leaning only on that limits the scope of debate. While Nic may feel like she's being tone policed (even if she's not aware of the term) and that debate is a waste of time when used against those with social privileged status the other side of it is that she deploys the fbomb with the enthusiasm of most people in RI and tends to rant. By telling someone that they have a right to express themselves as angrily as they want to without objection is simultaneously also inherently telling them that the others involved don’t have a right to be angry about the way they are addressing them. Sometimes it is an (obvious) ploy to shut them up by appealing to the need for civility over truth and order over justice, but in other cases they don't want to be lambasted or ranted at irrationally, or the least orderly will end up dictating the standards of justice. That's the social intersection of this and keeping it IC is interesting, but it's not happening in a vaccuum either IC or OOC - as we've all agreed, some of what she has said is valid, but her methodology is not viable when it comes to successful opinion-shifting, it just entrenches both sides further into their own set worldviews, much like arguing on the internet

I agree with what Strife wrote.

Let me take a real life example. I am bisexual and whole I do not really talk much about it I am sort of on the non binary spectrum when it comes to gender identity. Now I go to a psychiatric day center and one of the other members are this super duper Christian woman who sat there complaining that the air host who had served her on her recent flight probably was gay because he was so feminine. This is what I wanted to say:

Listen up you bigoted bitch who this man want relationships with is none of your business and do not affect his ability to serve as a air host. Now you can be as Christian as you will and you are free not to act on any gay feeling if you should have them, but stop talking shit about others for not following your limited, narrow minded belief.

What I said however was.

"I am bisexual and I do not think it is right that you talk about this man just doing his job in this way. There is nothing wrong with being gay and he is not beholden to your religious beliefs. Do you think I am disgusting? For I do find woman to be romantically and sexually desirable.

Now I have the full right to go with option A and not B. I have the right to react with anger at such bigotry, but I also would have had to expect others to react to me speaking so crassly at this woman but when I was sharp but polite everyone else in the room took my side.