Best posts made by Auspice

So, someone has lent me car while out of town for a week and a half.

On top of it being amazing having a window of time being free from relying on people for rides or standing around waiting for a rideshare to arrive... I had something happen tonight I've never had happen before. Not once. In my entire time as a driver.

There was only a quarter tank left (I got it with about a third before I went to work today and I went to see a movie after work because hey, I don't have long left on my first free month with MoviePass and I should take advantage!) and I figured I'd put some gas in.

I authorized $30 because I remembered the last I was driving, $20 never seemed to go far.

It cut off at $26.

That has never... ever happened to me. I actually briefly froze because I had no idea what to do in that situation. Obviously I realized a second later: oh, yeah, it only charges however much gets used.

But I've never actually been able to... authorize more than I need. It was super surreal, but it's also really nice to have this brief period of time of being... free.

I don't mind long- or short-posers, but I have a very specific requirement for both:

Make it interesting.

If 90% of your 10-sentence-each 3-paragraph pose intro into the room is just reposing the room's description, I am probably going to very quickly find a way to leave.

No one gives a shit if you can rewrite what the room looks like in florid prose in your pose. We want to know what your character is doing. No one, no one is judging you on whether you have the bulkiest poses in all the land.

I have played with some people who pack a fantastic punch into short, single paragraph poses because they pick precise, impactful words. And it's great. I love it. I know exactly what they mean, what they intend, and I never find myself wondering what's going on.

After all my screenwriting classes, my own poses have become shorter (word economy is huge in the screenplay world; it's what I'd lose grade points on the most, my scene descriptions and actions being too long). But have I lost any RP? Newp.

But seriously. Just tell us what your character is doing and saying. Don't retell us what other people are doing and saying or repose room descriptions. I have seen this over the years as pose padding and it drives me fucking insane.

And on the short-pose side of the coin: if you don't give me anything to play off of, you are no better than set dressing and I will run away if we are in a one-on-one scene.

While I hate that I spent the last month-ish working 6-7 days a week, tons of OT... It paid off.

I had enough left over after rent and car insurance (my 'first of the month' bills) to get a proper vacuum cleaner (been using one of those $20 dirt devil ones and they're sort of useless when you have a cat who is the messiest eater ever I swear) and...

...

A DESK. (One of the cheapest ones I could find, so I'm sure I'll be putting L-brackets and shit to hold it together within 6 months, but wtfever)

I WILL FINALLY BE ABLE TO GAME AGAIN.

Also to work from the desk during my morning at-home work hours. Which my back will thank me for. I've been sitting at this sofa for far too long. Lower back pain has been my bane for a few weeks.

@ominous

I might not shoot you in the next story but I will totally go up and smack you in the face in the facility. >.>

Plz play.
I am sad with so much of the W-Y crew being idle.

Like man, why aren't people chomping at the bit to get some Evil Company play in?!

@Aria said in RL things I love:

MY WEDDING DRESS HAS POCKETS.

They're for snacks.

@a-meowley said in Do you read the book(s)?:

I think anyone who doesn't read the rulebooks can fuck off.

This is probably due to hand-holding assholes who refuse to read the rule books.

Read them. Read the rules. This is a text-based hobby. If we're using a specific system to run a game, there will be rules to the system. Read the rules. Bend them, change them, decide some of the theme or mechanics aren't right for you and make it known, but know what the original rules fucking are.

Jesus. I hate when people refuse to read the rules. It's rude, it's boring, it's lame. You're not going to retain everything, or even fully understand it - but that doesn't matter. Make the token effort to try.

Well, I think it's more: people who refuse to look things up.

I will always, during an event, have the books open and look stuff up. Or try to. I can't always find what I'm looking for, but I will do my best!

Because like I said, if I read it all up front, it's too much and I can't retain everything. It all becomes a jumbled, nonsensical mess. But I will read everything that is relevant to my PC. And if something comes up that is also relevant? I will read it.

If I can't find it? Or if I hit a snag? I'll ask! But I will def. try.

But yes, the people who just flat out refuse to ever read, ever learn, etc.... drive me up the wall. I have known a few of them over the years and I generally refuse to even go into plot scenes with them. Because I know the whole event will be 'teehee can someone look at my sheet and tell me what I should do???'

MSB discussions in a nutshell.

@jibberthehut said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Rinel You know, that was my complaint too about an otherwise good movie. I was like REALLY, we need to go there? To pointedly have all the females gather in one section and be like "It's cool, we got this, GIRL POWER"

:sighs:

***=Using this since, well, people might be bothered by any tidbit of spoiler!***

I never managed to 'feel feminine' until probably... the last couple of years.

I was definitely lectured and berated for not being a 'proper woman' by family growing up. Given all those religious-based books on how to be a 'godly woman' or whatever, primary gifts during Christmas and birthdays of dresses, told I needed to lose weight (from a v young age), dress nicer, yadda yadda...

There was pretty much absolutely nothing that I would call a positive/strong female role model in my life growing up. Just a lot of 'god put men on earth to guide us' and that sort of crap. And my rebelling against it and preferring to wear pants and sneakers and enjoying science and sports often made me feel like I was 'wrong' and 'broken' (because I never felt like I wasn't a girl... but I was always told I was 'doing it wrong').

But in more recent years I've realized that the women in my life growing up just fucking sucked.

@surreality said in Intersectional MU* Community - Discussion:

@Thenomain said in Intersectional MU* Community - Discussion:

I can see, like Surreality and others, that the rules of the community can stop the administration from maintaining it, but we also forget the #1 rule of any private group: My group, my rules.

Which is why Tempest got a million upvotes for questioning Kestrel's personality.

Because no matter the rules, this hobby has proven over and over and over and over again that the rules don't matter compared to the administration enforcing them.

Bingo.

I have little doubt Kestrel wants to create a positive safe space for the folks she allows into it.

I have absolutely zero doubt that the nanosecond Kestrel's ego comes into conflict with maintaining that safe space, that safe space is going to lose the battle at mind-rending speed.

Well, I mean, I tried to ask a question in good faith as to how they'll judge whether or not someone is a good enough staffer to be able to 'run' their game channel on the Discord and I was wholly ignored.

Because I fear it would be based on personal feelings/opinions and clash of personalities as opposed to 'this person did actually treat people of minorities poorly.' And it'd be shitty if someone who has stood up for those who are marginalized was barred just because they turned down someone's app once or denied a +job. And ignoring the query makes me think that's... exactly how it'd go. Judgement based on personal opinion rather than fact. And the hope that staffers will give people in their community special treatment/benefits to gain favor with their community.

Ryan Reynolds leaked Detective Pikachu on YT.

I'm another 'grew up around it' sort. My father was a nerd (he's a developer), but he's also hyper religious, so what I was allowed to read / be exposed to was sort of weird. Fantasy-wise, it was only Tolkien and CS Lewis (Tolkien being Catholic and CS Lewis being ultra-religious in his own ways), but sci-fi was 'anything goes' sort of deal (book-wise: TV/movies it had to be kid-appropriate). So I saw Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr. Who, etc. all growing up. I had this gorgeous illustrated edition of The Hobbit and my dad's first edition copies of Narnia........ until my brother destroyed them in a fit of jealous rage (and I got the 'shrug, sibling rivalry, ha ha!' talk and never got any replacements: things I'm still really bummed out over being a book lover). I devoured books. Even a lot of fantasy because my parents....... kind of gave zero shits about me. It was this mix of their old school 'give kids freedom' and a sort of focus on my brother(s) in this 'we wish we'd had a son first' mentality. Even at the age of 7, they let me go wherever I wanted in the neighborhood and the only time there was ever a panic was the day that a neighbor found me just hanging out after dark and got concerned and brought me in and my mom actually had a 'wait, oh god, uh-' and started going door to door and found me just having dinner.

...then I got the 'be home by dark' curfew.

I didn't find out my mom was also kind of a nerd until I was a teenager. She's hugely into horror films and even loves sci-fi horror. She is not as wildly religious (tho she was homophobic until I was going through my own self-discovery and had a rather big upset at her as a teenager) as my father and I think he probably forced her to keep that under her hat for a long time. But she and I definitely share that and once I was old enough, it was something we began experiencing together. It is one of my favorite things about my mom, I admit. She is not the sort of woman you'd expect to love horror films, but she does!

I did still, until I was like, 17, have to continue the 'hide away any interest in fantasy' tho. There was a really fun 'sit down and be lectured' experience when my parents discovered my MUing wherein I was told (super cereal y'all) that if I ever saw the word 'chaos' online, I needed to come find them right away so they could have an exorcism done because the word 'chaos' summoned demons into our home.

ULTRA RELIGIOUS CHILDHOODS ARE FUN.
(not)

I will eat lamb on y'alls behalf. That is a bullet I will take for you.

It's weirdly heartwarming that Jill the Guest is still out there.

Just had a run-in on Notion.

Interview lined up for tomorrow and one for Friday.

I doubt either will pan out but at least it's some momentum.

I'd have just as much issue with BobStaffer exclusively taking Nick out to the gun range three days a week on his NPC for plot RP and denying that route of play to anyone else as I would if he was TSing Jane three days a week for plot and denying that route to anyone else.

It's basically elevating those people to a level no one else can ever have or hope to have and giving them access no one else can achieve. Giving them a window into plot that no one else can get to.

It just so happens that nine times out of ten, exclusive plot opportunities like this occur in relation to relationships. Other examples might be some esteemed leader taking on a protégé under their wing. That'd also get the side eye and cries of favoritism and the 'Why do they get this inner path to plot that the rest of us don't?! What did they do that's so special to make them an A-lister on the game while we're all just B-listers to look on while they take center stage?'

And part of it, too, lies in how the players handle it.

How often do we see those players stop RPing with the rest of the player base? How often do they start RPing more and more exclusively with Staff NPCs or just their BFFs where before they might have been more social? Sure it might be intended to 'okay you got the plot from me, Staff NPC, now go share it...' but then they go RP with other NPC, then three others,and only two weeks later do they RP with their besties who RP in a big circle for the next four months and outside of that little group the player base doesn't get that plot thread that the super special scene 'handed out' until nearly half a year later.

That is why people chafe at the idea. Because by the time they, the not-center-cast get to it, it's been picked over, investigated, maybe even solved and everyone is on to the next.

So IMO players who get these lauded spots should maybe feel some of that obligation to get out there beyond their usual circles and share and Staff should make sure they find other venues to share the plot to make sure it gets out, too, rather than just hand it to one singular person (even if they intend / hope that person spreads it because usually that spread takes many months and is what leads to people feeling really left out).