Best posts made by Auspice

So I had a recruiter get in touch with me last week and had a Skype interview... for Atlassian. Tech types may know the name. These are the guys behind Jira. Bitbucket. Confluence. A lot of things. They're kind of a big name out there. Just getting your foot in their door is a big deal.

It'd be a 6 month contract with possibility to hire. I'm antsy about contracts, but just their name on my resume would open doors.

I had to do a tech screen... which pulled on knowledge I haven't had to use in about a decade. I was sure I'd bombed it.

Nope. They wanna interview me on Friday.

I'm scared to even begin to get hopeful here.

Back on BSU, when Ares was but a baby of a project... Faraday and I butted heads big time. You see, a player wanted to be able to report a page convo and was struggling to do so because they were on a phone client and it didn't log.

So one of the feedback/feature requests I gave Faraday (because damn, this brand new nifty scene logging thing was SUPER COOL!) was 'Why not put in a way for people to log pages?'

Fara rejected the idea. Because why can't people just log stuff themselves?

We argued. We argued big time.

I know people who are her naysayers might think I'm some big Fara fangirl (I mean, I am) who thinks she can do no wrong (she can; everyone's fallible). We've fought. And that time we fought enough that we probably didn't talk for three days.

But the thing is? She sat back down with me and talked it over again and she realized that in the interest of providing tools to help players, prevent harassment, and support the web portal she was still developing and making richer, that page logging would be a good thing.

And this is why I tell people that she doesn't just reject everything. She might reject things then and there. So what. We all do that sometimes. Unlike many people, she will frequently revisit an idea and if she finds merit in it, implement it.

That whole encounter is why I consider her a good friend, why I will support any endeavor she has, and why I respect her decisions (even if we do still butt heads sometimes). Because I know that she does respect peoples' insight.

I'm actually shaking a bit right now.

That class where I was writing/developing an IF game (for most of March) was one of -- if not the -- the hardest classes of my degree program. Most nights I got home from work and worked on classwork until I began falling asleep on my couch. My days off were a mix of housework and homework.

I was fucking exhausted. Add to that work having been insane because SxSW meant executives in town and it just was not an easy month.

I just got my final grades back. I've been waiting anxiously for these because the last few assignments I was waiting to be graded comprised 50% of my grade. I was sitting at a 100 for the class, but that means little when half your grade is still on the line. I didn't expect a 100 - I'd turned in one of my assignments (worth 20%) a day late and that knocks 5pts off automatically.

He waived that due to the amount of work I'd put in.

No, I got a 100 on everything. I came out of the single most difficult class of my degree with a 100. The amount of time and effort I put in... is actually reflected.

@insomniac7809 said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Also, in a feeble and ill-considered defense of my gender, it's not just dudes who MU* a gay member of the opposite sex as a fetishy stereotype.

I was about to post this.

I have known men who can play lesbians well. I have known women who can play gay men well.

I have also encountered just as many, if not more horrifyingly tropey, fetishized gay men in the past 15 years than I have the tropey, fetishized lesbians (but I also haven't played WoD as long as some which seems to draw the men-playing-lesbians more).

I regret clicking that link to the -- thankfully denied -- Arx character.

Pretty sure this is the sort of thing people mean when they reference (mild or overt or straight up racist) stereotypes making POC on games look bad.

Also: I doubt this is Cirno. Cirno likes to app unthemeatic (for non racial reasons) women.

To be frank, that vague whiny 'people don't like to pretend anymore' post in gripes made me think this was our usual troll because that dude likes to make posts like that to bait people into conversation. If it is, the fact that he's apping on games is a new twist. The fact that the characters in question are racist depictions would be no surprise though.

Just had a really positive phone interview for a job that'd pay really well and have good benefits.

Here's hoping I make it to the face to face. I can usually ace those.

I'm closing my GoFundMe. A friend just pointed me to a friend of his who was offering to help people and she sent me everything else I need.

I'm.... in shock, tbh. Like, completely. I've literally been praying daily (and am not religious) for a way to figure this out. To be able to pay bills, feed myself, feed my cats, etc..

So, help is out there. It may not be easy to find (and you may have to swallow anxiety, fear, pride, etc. to talk to people), but it's there.

An old MU friend makes jewelry and I recently bought a piece from her and it arrived yesterday. Its name is 'Arrakis' and it glitters so wonderfully in the sunshine:

Does it count as a double-pose when it's 5 days later?

Today was a long day. Super long. But flying cross-country will do that.

The cat handled it well. There were times she'd cry a bit, but it was quiet and never for long. On the plane, I could barely hear it over the ambient noise.

We've been home barely an hour and she is already marking everything with her scent (cheek rubs!) and is legit happy-purring. We're talking kneading motions and cuddling on me. I think she needed me as bad as I needed her.

Thank you so much to the folks here who contributed to the costs of getting her to me and for sharing it. All told, donations covered about 50% of it and it really, really helped.

So I just want to give props to the Vampire sphere on F&L. I've never been much of a vampire player in general, let alone nWoD, but I've been giving it a chance. Luxor is doing a great job and the players themselves have been really welcoming.

I dunno how anything on the rest of the game is, but Vampire's been good to me.

Open sheets are glorious for player STs. They allow those of us who do the opportunity to customize plot to players. To call for rolls that lend to a player's strength.

Isn't it more fun when you get plot and actions in a plot that are custom made to what fits your character rather than just cookie cutter bullshit?

Open sheets make it easier for players to run PRPs and take weight off of Staff.

And like others have said: just because sheets (raw system stuff) are open doesn't mean you can't have PC secrets kept hidden. That still lends to a lot of mystique. I also don't think open sheets takes away from potential PVP (if you want it) at all and in fact helps keep everything above board. How often have people been banned from games because in PVP they tried to lie about their sheet and multiple staffers had to get involved to deal with the fallout?

An open sheet would fix that.

I remember when I found the journal I kept when I began MU*ing a handful of years after the fact. In it, I found an entry I wrote.

I said something to the effects of: 'I found this thing called a MOO. It'll keep me occupied for a couple of weeks.'

ha.
ha ha.

So in my local 'geek' group's discord, we have a venting channel. It's honestly a healthy, good channel (tbh the Discord for the whole group is and I love them). And the other day I just had to.... vent about this round of depression I'm in. Today, one of the ladies reached out to me to let me know about the service she uses for therapy, in case it'd help me out.

Which, it does! I've struggled to find anything locally because, ugh, so many therapists in Austin have turned to that 'pay up front, bill your insurance yourself' method and yo, $200-300 out of pocket to then fight my insurance for reimbursement is just not viable for me. And when you have anxiety and depression: is just a huge burden to ask!

But the service she suggested is called https://openpathcollective.org and I mention it here not just to share my shit but to also share: it's available nationwide. You search your area and you also search what you need. What do you need treatment for? What type of treatment (group therapy? individual? couples? for a child? adult?)? etc etc etc. And they provide low-cost counseling and some of their counselors will even do virtual (video) visits so you don't have to leave your house.

I put in everything I need (so instead of just having to be like 'okay I guess I'll look for...... depression even tho I need help with a handful of things') and I was able to narrow down to find someone who fit everything I'd like to focus on and is accepting patients and she looks like she'd be perfect.

So, yay for me but: the resource is there in case you or anyone you know might need it.

So I hear Fallcoast is 'rebooting'

Which means it's time to unearth...

THE VIDEO

(Thank you, forever, for this, TJ.)

I'll say this first:

There's nothing wrong with writing at a '5th grade reading level.' In point of fact, that can be a good thing. I think part of why people 'get lost' in scenes or forget what happened in previous poses is that they struggled to process what those poses said. We need to write for comprehension. We're trying to write to tell a story, not to compete for who has the most florid prose.

Two big things I've taken from the various blog posts and talks that Neil Gaiman has done over the years on writing are this (I wish I could find the exact quotes/posts, but I'm a big migraine-y today, so please forgive):

• You are not going to abuse the word 'says/said'. Our eyes naturally gloss over it and it makes you rely more on show, don't tell. Why go for "Stop that," she grouched, when you can use "Stop that," she said, glowering at him? This one took me a while to really grasp onto because I thought 'No! My manuscript will be full of says/said and look repetitive as fuck!' But the more I made myself do it, the more I realized: it forces me to show, not tell, and the reader's eye really does gloss over those two words easily. Whereas the other words we'd fill in are ultimately passive and crutches.
• Write freely at a middle grade level. Revel in it. Enjoy it. Don't stress if you can't remember that 5-pt 4-syllable word. Who the fuck cares. If you're writing at a middle grade level, guess what? Your work can reach a broader audience. Now, this more applies to writing for publication, yes... But for our purposes (RP), it also means that people can absorb your poses more readily (a) and you can have greater freedom of exploration (b). I find it a lot easier to figuratively stretch my legs and play around with language when I can be casual and sprinkle in those more descriptive terms than if I'm trying to build an entire pose -- each and every round -- around being verbose and expansive.

But I also wholly agree with @Ganymede. Stage directions are good. Exploring the way people move is great. The more I dug into describing the physical stances, directions, and movement of my characters, the more I opened the door into my poses. It's the difference between just 'crosses her arms' every time and 'clutches at her elbows, all but folding in on herself' or 'crosses her arms, shoulders back' which are two very different stances and emotions being expressed!

Okay, this will not be nearly so eloquent or understandable (by mere reasoning of being written by a neuro-atypical) as the spoon theory, but let me try.

I view my brain as a set of computer processes. Most of the time, it is a multi-threaded system that is prioritized. There are a lot of threads, but they all have their own functions and even if there is a lot going on, I can make sure they are doing what they're supposed to and that things are prioritized, sorted, and functioning properly.

There is the constant steady train of thought.
There is the music and/or ear worm that helps keep everything else orderly by setting it to a soundtrack so that nothing gets too loud or out of step.
There is the on-going task list.
There is the daily cron (wake up, hygeine, eat, chores, etc.).

Everything is multi-threaded: 'dinner' is a task that is broken down into other tasks (make meal, clean kitchen as I go, eat...), but it falls under my daily needs.

Something new can get properly added into the stack where it needs to go.

Some things remain 'background noise' unless a sub-system brings them to the forefront, like driving. Driving is driving unless a sub-system says 'Shit! This asshole is about to cut you off, put everything else on hold and deal with it.' The general noises of the world (birds, office conversation, air conditioning) are background noise, but a fire alarm isn't.

For someone with ADHD, you may have more threads than most. And sometimes keeping them sorted is difficult because things like to cross-threads or miss-prioritize themselves. And sometimes those background threads don't stay background. The average person can look at their stack and go 'You belong here' while the ADHD person goes 'haha fuck the stack.'

The problem is when the 'executive function' program faults. And that's what happens to me now. The 'executive function' program is what keeps everything threaded and prioritized. When it goes into fault, everything becomes unthreaded and everything becomes priority 1. Which means nothing is prioritized. Which means the air conditioning? Is just as loud as the fire alarm.

Which means the kid on the side of the road is just as important as the person merging in on top of me.

Which means watching a YouTube video about a sport I don't give a shit about is just as important as taking a shower (which I didn't do last night).

Which means my usual cron to check the gas in my car twice a week fell out completely and I may not have enough gas to make it to the gas station (I rarely get below a third of a tank).

I have coping mechanisms. I have coping mechanisms for my coping mechanisms. Almost everyone I've ever dated and many of my friends have made fun of me, a lot, for my lists and my reminders and my calendar apps, but when the executive function program fails, none of this matters because the instant I see a reminder I go 'cool' and then my sleeve itches and you know what happens to that reminder?

It's off the stack. Only what is currently on the very top of the stack matters because there are no threads. And this, this is why atypicals get so frustrated when other people try to explain to us 'how' we should be because of some book or article they read. Because until you're in this place, you literally cannot understand it.

I was once on a medication that treated OCD. I didn't know I even had OCD (and even laughed at being diagnosed with it) until I was on the medication. I had become so used to living with it that I didn't even know a difference was possible. Doing things like holding conversations while rearranging other people's bookshelves was just so normal to me and, by my reckoning didn't impact my life that I didn't realize the severity of the impact it had until I no longer had the compulsion. Even now, some 18 years later (the medication isn't in the US anymore so sadly, I don't get to have it anymore), I can only think of those couple years in abstract. My OCD, in my mind only affects me marginally that I barely consider it an impact. But I know it DID to the point that those two years were a wonder and an amazement and like a breath of fresh air.

So please, for the love of everything that is holy, do not tell people with ADHD, depression, OCD, etc., that it's just a matter of 'thinking differently.' Because I motherfucking assure you that we already do think differently than you do.

(btw this post only managed to get written because I spent my entire commute thinking about it, nonstop, nearly missed my bus stop, then sat down to begin drafting it immediately upon getting to work... because I knew if I began thinking about ANYTHING ELSE I would forget about it. You're fucking welcome.)

The year is 2019, life has been carrying on as much as everyone knows. Elections have been won, economies have grown and fallen. The government has conducted quiet experiments through the decades that have seen successes and have seen failures. One of these failures was conducted in 1994 when an object of unknown material called a Stargate was activated successfully and a team was sent through. After three days, no contact was received and the Stargate was unable to be reactivated. A quiet memorial was held and the project was mothballed.

Twenty years later, new information has been uncovered and the project was restarted at the urging of elements within the Government. The initial attempt to establish a connection was successful and a team was sent through once again: a gateway to the universe has been opened and Earth is stepping through.

StargateMUSH is a ‘Year One’ game where characters have been recently recruited to a secret government project. Set in the universe of the movie and television shows, the game will include elements from these sources but by no means will follow their events. Will you be an Air Force Officer leading a team, a Marine Expeditionary Soldier, a civilian scientist, or a diplomat specializing in first contact? There is a universe out there to discover full of potential and danger for humanity.

Our website can be found at http://stargate.aresmush.com. Point your client to stargate.aresmush.com 1994.