Posts made by Carex

@Meg said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

because nothing bad happened to me, definitely nothing bad ever happened because of this style of parenting, and it's definitely the right one.

That's not what I'm saying and you know it. I'm saying it's very, very, unlikely that the terrible things you are afraid of will actually happen but if you teach your children to be hyper-vigilant and afraid of everything, that IS something bad happening to them.

If you want to see what teaching your children to be afraid of the world does to people, go to a gun show some time.

@Lotherio said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

You're advocating parents shouldn't stop kids from learning what a vagina is for on-line and need to stay out of their kid's business cause, furry muck is the bastion of developmental education online?

Yes. I am arguing that teenagers going to places where sex is a theme to learn about sex is not inherently evil.
Generations before us have done this, generations after us will do it too.
We shared playboys and VHS tapes. They have Anime forums and Tick-Tock (Or whatever kids are using these days)
Young people exploring their sexuality is not the end of the world.
It is not something parents should try to put an end to.
Instead, parents should be open with their kids so when the kid has questions they will come to the parent.

Teaching young people that everywhere that there is any form of sexual idea is dangerous just teaches children to be afraid of everything. I have seen this happen IRL. My mother was a total control freak when it came to my sister. She made her wear tacky culottes shorts under her skirt and taught her to never be alone with a male adult, she wasn't allowed to go to the mall or anywhere in public without other girls or my mother with her and my mother wasn't the only one like this. Lots of parents did this to their daughters and those daughters grew up to be neurotic, paranoid, nutcases because they had been conditioned to be afraid of everything.

As a boy, I was allowed to run all over the place, play with whomever I wanted to, go hiking in the woods, exploring caves, break into old abandoned houses, whatever I wanted and no one batted an eyelash and you know what? None of us ever died or got kidnapped or had anything bad happens to us just because we were outside in the world.

Teaching kids to be afraid of everyone, all the time, is damaging those kids.
Those worst-case scenarios are exceedingly rare, but if you make your child afraid of the world, you will 100% fuck them up for the rest of their lives.

That's my argument. Parents should be there for their children but let children develop at their own pace because the worst thing that can happen probably won't happen, but if you act like it will you're probably doing almost as much harm.

@Ghost said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

have a hard time not being incredulous about believing that "finding out why your child is having fun roleplaying blood slut sexual TS with adults on the internet" may be taking a front seat to "immediately finding out if this is a case where they KNOW your child is a minor, are still doing it anyway, and your child is the subject of a predator's online behavior."

Once again: PARENTS CAN'T TELL HOW OLD THE OTHER PERSON IS, OVER THE INTERNET!!
Omg, why can't you get this? You're like having an entirely different conversation because you can't get this basic concept.

Parents can't control if some creeper is online TSing with kids and you're assuming that the adult in this situation knows the kid is, in fact, a kid. You are talking about this wildly improbable, worst-case scenario where a super-predator has target your child and used his well-honed brain-washing techniques to lure your child into some dangerous situation but that isn't happening 99.9% of the time and when it does happen it usually ends when the kid tries to go see the adult and gets caught.

I'm not talking about your paranoid, nightmare scenario. I'm talking about what really happens on a real day-to-day basis where kids go online to things like Furry MUCKs and or Anime games and someone teaches them what the vagina is for.

I'm talking about the parents that try and stop that.

No one disagrees with you on the idea that if a parent finds out an adult is knowingly creeping on their child that parent should shut that shit down and call the FBI. No one.

@Meg said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Carex holy shit, there are so many red flags in your post, mate. like honestly, don't TS with minors.

and no one is arguing with you but parents can't control adults on the other end of the internet they can only parent their kid.

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

And if you don't understand the difference between a kid getting involved in developmentally appropriate horny shit with kids their own age and getting into stuff with adults that will fuck them up

Again, parents can't control that. They have no way of knowing if the person on the other end of a chat program is an adult or not. They have no way of knowing if the person their kid is MUSHing with is 15 or 50. You can't build your parenting strategy around things you can't control or even know. Trying to is just going to hurt your relationship with your kid.

I believe, underage kids shouldn't be allowed on adult theme games like World of Darkness in the first place.

If you do allow kids on your game, you should not allow TS.
These are choices for the game creators to make not choices for the parent.

Why is it perfectly ok for a 15-year-old to be on a game about vampires murdering people for blood and vengeance right up until the point someone describes a pair of tits?

If you're a parent and you want to keep your child safe from corruption, why are you letting them play on a game about immortal murder hobos? If your kid is advanced enough to play a murder hobo why aren't they advanced enough to imagine sex?

I'll tell you why, because parents don't really think their kids are going to go out and murder someone but they are pretty sure their precious little angel will go out and suck a dick at the slightest provocation. That's what this is about. Parents want to control their kid's thoughts because they are afraid but telling your kid not to imagine things and think about things isn't going to work. It has never, ever, in the history of the world, worked.

Instead, maybe parents should talk to their kids about what they are doing and feeling, without judgment, no matter how uncomfortable it makes the parents. That's all I'm saying.

@Meg said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

Honestly I don't know what you are trying to argue now. Let children TS on the internet? Ok.

I'm arguing that if your kid is on a MUSH pretending to be a blood-slut or a hairy lupus homicidal murder machine then your kid isn't an innocent little angel in need of you saving them by you telling them they aren't allowed to do those things. It's just going to drive a wedge into your relationship because the moment you say your kid isn't allowed to do that, you are judging them. You are telling them their actions are repulsive and you love them less because of this imaginary game.

Instead, if you find out your kid is playing a blood-slut for some vampire on a MUSH or a werewolf or whatever you could show interest, ask them why they play that. Why is it fun. Hell, you could even (And I know this may be shocking to some parents) join them in their hobby! Have them teach you how to make a vampire or something.

Instead of telling them what they can't pretend to do or what they shouldn't think about, talk to them about it.
Maybe your kid is more advanced than you think? Making them feel guilty and forcing them to distance themselves from you even more is probably not the best answer.

You guys keep talking about people grooming kids, well who is more likely to protect their child, a parent who makes themselves part of their kid's lives or a parent who pressures them and drives them into hiding what they are doing?

Young people are going to be horny, stupid, idiots. No amount of scolding, rules, or restrictions is going to change that.
Hell, when I was young the internet didn't even exist and we still had playboy magazines when we were 15.

The idea that you can keep your child perfectly safe and innocent is unrealistic.
If you want to keep them safe and healthy, then be there for them, be there with them.
Don't be the punishment they fear.

That's what I'm saying.

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

That's a crime-crime.

For the adult, yes, but not the child.
We aren't talking about the adult on the other end.
The parent can't influence them.

@Meg said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

Telling them when to go to bed, when to take a shower, when to do chores, etc? That's all part of being a parent.

I'm not disagreeing with those things because those things are real things. Those are things that happen in the real world with clear, obvious, boundaries and consequences.

Grounding your kid for not taking out the trash is very different from grounding your kid because they committed a thought-crime by pretending to suck a dick on a MUSH.

The former teaching them responsibility, the later is teaching them that you, not them, get to define how they think and who they are.

@Cobaltasaurus said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Ghost It's honestly only the known troll that is Carex.

I don't know why you guys keep saying I'm trolling. I'm making a serious point. There is nothing wrong with telling your kids not to give out their information online or meet with people from the internet but micro-managing their every action online is still bad parenting.

Telling your kids they should never do or say anything you might disapprove of because you might snoop on them and catch them is just terrible.

What should be a learning experience becomes something they need to be secretive about because what they think is acceptable might not be too you.

Setting clear boundaries about RL information is fine but telling them you are going to be watching them and judging them for what they do online is creepy and stalky.

You might think that your position as a parent is perfectly reasonable because the things you do not approve of are legitimately bad but here's the problem: Children can't read your mind.

You are putting them in a situation where they have to constantly guess "Will this get me in trouble? Am I allowed to talk about this? Will someone find out? Should I take that risk?"

By policing your child's internet activities you make yourself the bad-guy they have to be afraid of instead of the teacher they can come to with questions.
That's my point.

@Roz said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

You are drawing extensive assumptions that this is what happens in Buttercup's home.

If I'm wrong, Buttercup could speak up. I'm just going with the information available.

@bear_necessities said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

Are any of you parents? I mean, letting your kid do whatever they want online to "learn about sex on their own terms" can be extremely harmful.

Let's compare the "Safe" method described by Buttercup to the "Correct" method actually recommended by experts.

It's "safe" if you pressure your child into never looking for anything sexual and purposefully avoiding anything that might make them question what their parents tell them. However, it's also unhealthy.

It's "correct" to let them discover things on their own terms and come to their parents with questions for clarifications without judgment. Instead of the parent making them feel guilty for having feelings, curiosity, and exploration, the parent acts as a pillar of support and unconditional love. This is far, far, more healthy.

Yes, it's very possible your child may see something disturbing that you will have to explain to them and it may make you uncomfortable but it's 100% guaranteed to mess up your kid if you try and police their sexual exploration with pressure to make them conform to what you think they should be allowed to feel or know.

@mietze said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

I am going to be making a locked thread in the hogpit (for now) to move the personal attack posts

Feel free to just delete them. I was just trying to explain why I didn't just agree with what, on its surface, seems like a perfectly innocuous post.

I was trying to illustrate that maybe agreeing without putting any deeper thought into it was unwise.

Kinda like this: https://youtu.be/fYOA8gXpios

@thesuntsar said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

he doesn't want his impressionable kid communicating with internet strangers behind closed doors so the computer is in a public space.

@Meg said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

in what world is like-- don't engage (AS AN UNDERAGE PERSON) in a sexual way with people you don't know who they are online an abusive stance?

It's puritanical thinking like this that messes kids up. It teaches kids that sex is dangerous and bad and they should feel bad for wanting to know about it.

"We don't do this in our house." is saying to your kid that if they engage in this behavior or even like it, there is something terribly wrong with them.

Talk to any young trans person or gay person who grew up in a religious household and they will tell you, having your parents put down laws about what is and what is not acceptable things to think about and feel will mess you up.

I know these parents think they are doing what is best for their children but history, statistics, science, and experience, all show this is not the case.

Your kid is going to learn about sex and it's going to be confusing and emotionally problematic enough without his or her number 1 source of emotional security in life making them feel like shit for having thoughts and feelings they can't control.

Policing your kid's exploration of sexuality is way more developmentally harmful than letting them go online and learn about sex on their own terms.

Parents who try and control everything just end up driving a wedge between themselves and their children. It's a bad, bad, idea.

@Cobaltasaurus said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

I realize you're a pretty big troll, but you have literally no idea what is and is not acceptable in @buttercup 's house.

Does it matter what the standard is? It's still setting conditions for parental love which is terrible for a child's development.
If her kid wants to have his imaginary lion fuck an imaginary deer or whatever furries are into these days it's still imaginary.

Telling your kid I won't love you if you feel these feelings is just bad parenting. Kids heads are full of hormones and wild non-sense when they are teenagers. Telling them they are not allowed to feel things is just asking for them to start hating themselves. They have zero control over where their hormones take them.

It's perfectly healthy to tell a kid no, you can't meet people from online but if your kid wants to wank it to Dumbo Trunk-F***ing Mikey Mouse then just leave the kid alone. They have enough problems without parents making them feel guilty for feelings they have no control over.

Micro-managing your kid's sexual impulses is the surest way to guarantee they grow up messed up in the head.
I've seen it way too many times. Just let the kid do their thing until they grow out of it.

The unconditional love of a parent should be just that unless you want your kid to grow up a neutronic mess.

@Arkandel

Figured it out. Will do in the future

@Pandora said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

'Lol, let me just do one more pose, your character will get a kick out of this.'

Actually, a good way to make that problem go away is stating that if someone requests a fade-to-black they get to do the final scene pose.

That way there is a closing pose but it's on the terms of the person uncomfortable not the person making someone uncomfortable.

@Pandora said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

Ah, that's unfortunate. This is meant to inform the other player that your IC boundaries have been violated and that you no longer wish for the scene to continue.

Wait, you are talking about your character's boundaries being violated?

No offense but... suck it up cupcake.

Unfair, and decidedly not nice things happen in life all the time. I get it if you are upset that your OOC boundaries are being pushed too far like some people feel about rape scenes or child abuse or whatever but your character shouldn't get any say in how things play out OOCly.

If bad shit is happening to your character they don't get to call a divine time-out while they process their feelings. That's not how life works for anyone.

Canceling a scene because you don't want your character to get upset is just rude. You've wasted everyone's time up until that point if you want to retcon a scene in order to keep your character in pristine, mint condition.

If you want nothing bad to ever happen to them then leave them in the box and don't play with them.

Remember how I recommended The Magicians a few days ago?
A new season is starting on Syfy Jan 15th.
We're back, baby!!

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@Auspice said in The Work Thread:

Creativity isn't always 'on tap.'

I have a trick for that.
I keep a separate file of stuff related too but unlikely to fit into the book I'm working on. Things that are not so relevant that they should be in the book or scene ideas. I'll grab one of these random tangents to flesh out and get the juices flowing knowing that one day those random tangents might end up being in a second book or needed in a later chapter.

Some times you can't power through writer's block but you can go around it.