Best posts made by EmmahSue

Every player is a ST. If I could beat that into the heads of the entire community, I would. That means if you show up for bar-play and things get boring, someone (anyone. everyone.) should pose a jittery mf'er coming in to steal the cash out of the register. If you don't want to go dangerous, then a bunch of con-artists come in, two of them pretend to get engaged, and the third guy is stealing wallets while everyone watches the lovey-dovey duo. Something!

We are all STs, not just players, every single time we're playing. The world is full of things going on. Describe them in your pose and when someone reacts, keep it going.

ES

Crisis Text Line (www.crisistextline.org) is an all-ages welcome text-only anonymous crisis counseling line, stretching across the US and recently branching out into Canada as well. With the second season of 13 Reasons Why, and the various tragedies in schools going down recently, we're expecting an influx of younger texters. Crises stretch from someone worried about a break-up, to suicide, to wondering if running away from home is the right step, and everything in between.

If you're interested in volunteering -- training is free and takes roughly a month and a half to complete online -- from the comfort of your own home for 2-4 hours a week, give me a pm to discuss. CTL can always use people who know how to communicate through text already, and MUSHers can do that like magic.

ES

And if you need to talk to someone because you're feeling shaky, text HOME to 741741. A counselor will help you find a bit of breathing room.

I try to upvote all the Playlists because I believe transparency is important no matter who it is.

Also, that was years ago. I may not want to interact with you on a regular, personal sort of basis, but that doesn't mean I'm holding a bitter grudge or the like. Life goes on.

ES

Most of the time I consider it a Feature, not a Bug, that our community, our games, and our gaming, move in such cyclical ways. The fact that I'm not on a MU right now, and haven't been regularly in quite some time, doesn't mean I'll never play on one again. It just means I'm not playing on one right now. I'm not in the right place for it, no harm no foul.

The same goes here. If generic-you decides that MSB isn't the right place for you right now, that's okay. (If it's still here) in a few days, weeks, months, years, whathaveyou, then you get to glance in again. Maybe you'll be in a different space, maybe the forum will be; if you're still not jigsaw properly together, that's still okay. If you are, hurray! If you're not, please check in again in the future!

So if you're upset at Auspice, or Gany, or Ark: that's okay. They're not evil monsters. You're not one either. If you want them to improve, that's amazing, please keep trying. If you're done trying for improvement for a while, please come back later to see if it's still needed, when you're able. Almost no decision made here is permanent, the cycle will come 'round again.

The amount of emotion invested in improving this community is amazing. That doesn't mean it's always comfortable or pretty. That doesn't mean it's always going to change in a way you think is the right direction. You won't know if it's right for you until it is, and even then it'll take a while to be sure. If you have the energy to try to make it better, do it. If you don't, wait and see later.

This thread is definitely not comfortable, and certainly not pretty. But it shows people are trying, and as far as a burnt-out MUsher like myself is concerned, that's also a Feature.

ES

In order (with steps skipped if someone I don't want to play with happens to register early) and with the caveat that sometimes I get tired of it before I complete the full set:

• Do I have something scheduled?
• Do I have any ongoing plots to continue?
• Do I see a buddy I've wanted to play with who isn't already busy?
  ** Is this buddy someone I can ask to scene-set? Sometimes I'm not in the mood to do the heavy-lifting, but I'm only comfortable asking a friend to do it in my stead. I don't know strangers well enough to ask them for support.
• Is there a 'want RP' function on the game? If so, is anyone using it?
• Group channel requests at large
• Public channel requests at large
• OOC Room requests at large

Usually this is when I'd call it a night and go away to read a book instead. If I'm truly jonesing for the RP, I'll add in:

• Random +where scan, page someone who isn't idle to ask: "You look cool, I pretend to be cool, how about we RP?" Then I scene-set because I'm the imposition.

ES

Rick Sanchez has been banned. If you have any questions regarding this, please feel free to ask.

ES

I'll add to the list!

No surprises.

That is to say, very few of us handle change with nearly the amount of grace we ought. If you're going to change something on your game that has been established in the past, give warning and explain why. You're going to get grumbles, that's a given. But the grumbles about warning are significantly less of a heartburn than the explosions of HATE and FEAR that happen when the sky is suddenly orange instead of blue.

Leave yourself room to change your mind.

You aren't going to be perfect. If you make a decision that turns out wrong, then for fuck's sake, reverse the damn thing. Acknowledge you made the mistake, figure out how to avoid it in the future (if possible), and follow through on explaining the situation to the game as a whole. A mistake is only a Problem if you make it a second time out of carelessness and lack of attention to fixing it the first.

Be the change you want to see in the world (tm).

You're the only one you can control, natch. The atmosphere, levels of adaptability, agreeableness, and general tone of your game start with you. It doesn't end there, of course. There are a bunch of people involved. But if the core doesn't hold, the rest of it will falter in due time. Be the player that you want other players to be; expect it of yourself and of everyone around you, even and especially the friends you'd normally give a pass. Even if you're upset, even if someone else is treating you shabbily, you're the center. Own it and it'll ripple outwards from you.

Recognize that you're not on the game to be or make friends.

That's not to say you shouldn't be friendly, or that you have to give up the relationships that you've built over the years. On a scale of -1 (hatred and loathing) to +10 (besties 4 eva), it means you need to treat the players on your game at a +3 minimum (courteous distance). You don't get to have extremely negative scale interactions, and the moment you do, you need to consider asking them to leave. You also don't get to have extremely positive scale interactions with a select few, because the moment you do, you're playing favorites and the other players will feel it and react with resentment. Headwizzing requires a certain level of detachment. I don't personally think that's a bad thing. If your friends can't handle the fact that talking to you as Headwiz is potentially different than talking to you as their buddy, then that friendship isn't nearly as true as one hopes.

Find your peers.

We are none of us great in a void. We are none of us great without feedback. Find the people who aren't afraid to tell you when you're screwing up. Find the people who aren't invested to a creepy degree in their character, who are willing to look at the game from a proverbially global perspective and give you opinions you can consider. You might go your own route anyway, but you do need to listen and consider first. Yours may be the final say, but that doesn't mean making decisions in a vacuum is a good idea.

ES

As of this morning at 10a, I am now an Augmented Human Being. @HelloRaptor says I can't call myself a cyborg because the pump is not actually installed in place of my useless pancreas, but I'll accept auggie instead.

ES

It's okay when I share it myself. It's not okay when others do (whether for their own use or telling to others). All else is questions about whether the painting is oil or watercolor.

ES

Ew.
Do not like.
ES

ETA:

MOD VOICE: I forked this topic because it shouldn't have been in Announcements. That's my bad! I started it off and I ought-not. Announcements go in Announcements, not conversations.

• They sailed easily from the past into the present, but now they can't get back. - LeGuin
• The clown cries when the balloon pops.
• If you're ever sad, just remember: the world is 4,543 billion years old, and you still somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.

Thread rez!

That is to say, I am ST'ing and NPC'ing at DarkWater these days, as I have the time and energy.

ES

@WTFE

Well, when a mommy sphere and a daddy tube love each other very much, sometimes they invite a motor to the party and then the fun really gets started. And then the stork brought you!!

MOD VOICE:

Heya folks! If you want to discuss the television show, please find or start up a thread for that purpose. This one is an advert for the Game of Bones MU*, so it's not really a good fit for the convo.

ES

Making PC actions matter is a huuuuge-mongous deal. I certainly plan on saying over and over again (until folks are sick of it) that I'll run with anything done in-game. If you want to take a knife to the local faction leader and stand over his body shouting about how you're the king of the mountain, let's play that out! If you want to create a kraken mid-air and drop it on a nephandi's head in broad daylight, we'll play that out too!

We're playing make believe together. I want to get back to that feeling.

ES

MOOC: Ethical Leadership says that ethical leaders are shaped by narratives, particularly their own in conjunction with the background of the world physically, culturally, politically, economically. Those narratives shape the leader-to-be and how she presents herself outwards.

MOOC: Science of Every Day Thinking tells us that memories aren't etched in stone, that they change every time they come up. That we're not lying deliberately if we remember something incorrectly, but truly remembering with all the strength of our brain's inability to store objective truth.

How do these two lessons interact? Does reinvention of self (however unconscious it may be for the purposes of this question) remove the necessary authenticity of a Leader? If we're constantly rewriting our own stories for ourselves, whether to make ourselves more the hero or less, are we also turning a true narrative false? As far as slippery slopes go, it feels a little shaky underfoot to say it's okay for this to happen. But if it's not okay, how on earth do we fight our own internal mechanisms to keep it from happening?

EL (Tony Morrison quote) goes on to state that memory is a form of willed creation. It's not the search for the way it really was: that's research. Instead, the point is to dwell on the way it appeared and why it appeared in that particular way.

Does acknowledging the potential falseness of the memory make it less abhorrent to be false? Where does the need for honesty (to self, if not to others) as a facet of honorable behavior, fit into that concept?

To twist it to MU-focus: We save logs, both on our own and on wiki, to remember what happened as if that were the whole of the situation. But reading a log doesn't tell us what mood we were in, whether our friend was being friendly or snippy in those paged asides. Every time we go back and re-read, we do so as if the situation were happening new, with that moment's emotional weight on the text. Is there a way to use that to our benefit as a community?

ES

Due to confusion since @Glitch, @Thenomain, and I are all posters as well as mods, we've agreed to institute MOD VOICE. That is to say, if we're speaking as moderators and board-tidy-uppers, we'll mark the comment or post to indicate as much. If there's no tag of that sort, you may disagree, argue, spit at, roll your eyes towards so hard they rattle and/or backtalk^ to your heart's content.

ES

^ Note: equally available are agree, chime-in, smile-at, flutter lashes and/or coo.

Inasmuch as I haven't posed in a minute, I try v. hard to keep all 5 senses in mind at all times. We live in a layered 4D world, yo!

Also, just because I-the-writer have complete control over what text goes on the screen doesn't mean I-the-PC has complete control over what's happening in the scene; that is to say, include things that your PC might be doing to betray hidden or unconscious thoughts and motives.

OOC insertions in poses are only okay if you're making fun of yourself.

And whoever said above that telepathy (if you don't actually have the power) is lazy is correct. Write better poses that allow for interpretation and don't shove your character's thoughts at me in a way I can't respond-to. I don't have telepathy, so I can't hear that shit, and if I can't hear it, I don't want to read it. It's superfluous and becomes more about some external third-party view of the scene, rather than the interplay between people involved in it.

There are exceptions to every rule.

ES

If you played with someone named Miss Betty Spanks Spanks on Shang who claimed they were me, they were lyin' through their teeth. I had a bit on Shang, but she was for playing with one person a good long while ago; I've forgotten the name and never interacted with the game itself.

ES

Ten, fifteen years ago when WORA was first created, it was meant to be the wild west, where outlaws rode in on their shining steeds and spewed truth along with every other curse word. At least that's what I imagine was in the head of JadedGamer, way back when. It probably wasn't and he's looking up from his morning coffee wondering why he got chills just now.

That said, we're all older now. Maybe hopefully a little wiser. Everyone here has been around the proverbial block enough to know that the wild west isn't always the best choice. It has its uses and I'm not suggesting we do away with it, but it isn't the only mode we have to operate-in.

So: I'd like to know what, if any, community standards the community thinks should apply here. @Glitch, @Thenomain and I aren't particularly inclined to be anyone's online parents. I certainly have no desire to walk up and down the threads smacking fingers with a ruler. But if there are 'rules' aka 'guidelines' aka 'shit folks should not do', then I'd like to hear what you think they are. I make no promises that we'll definitely take up every suggestion, but we can't discuss them if a) we didn't think of it; and b) we didn't ask you to think of it.

====
The only one rattling around in my head at the moment is malicious sharing of RL information. I'm not even sure there's a way to draw a line between malicious and not -- it might be like any number of iffy things, "I know it when I see it."

ES