Posts made by Ghost

@notsanni That's a rather generous assessment of what happened there. Was happy to see all of the "not bullies" show up to give "constructive feedback". Eyeroll.

@devrex This is one of the issues I had when I was mushing, and part of my decision to give it up.

Basically, I'd have work, home life, kids, etc. While all of that was going on I was in this constant state of FOMO (fear of missing out) to the point that I downloaded a MU client onto my phone and would sneak in logins while at work. I'd also do google doc writing where we used Google Docs as the space during the day when I couldn't login.

Basically, the 24/7 "something's always going on and you're missing it" state was a FOMO nightmare.

What worked best for me was just to take the "when I'm here, I'm here" approach, sign up for events when I was able, and do my best to stay relevant. Regardless, the "all the time" crowd are usually the big movers and shakers, and due to that they tend to get the most RP. I would have liked to see a MU or two in my day that was "only active during specific hours". I think that would have resonated with me. Something that was like "We open our doors at 1pm PDT and close our doors at 11pm PDT" where people login at the same time, RP, and then log out to sleep.

@selira I 100% do not intend to look at myself critically, come to the expectations/revelations that you have, and then submit my adherences to those expectations for review to you and your friends....who would inevitably either decide that despite my efforts I'm still (as you put it) a slimy piece of shit or happily place me on some kind of regular probation where I'll suffer ridicule again if I don't continue to agree with their assessment on everything.

I find it silly that you would assume that failure to do so means I only care about my own opinion about myself. In truth, I only care about the opinions about me of the people who behave with respect and dignity whose constructive and respectful opinions have worth.

Sometimes, the right person thinking you're a slimy piece of shit actually means you're probably a good person, depending on the source.

@zombiegenesis I think that's an excellently worded summary, to be honest.

Even right now, the people who are still banned (some who are coming back to start trouble) are just gathering and saying nasty things about pretty much anyone who ever told them no or disagreed with them. It's super toxic and it's really not constructive to any sort of rationally comfortable environment that reasonable people would want to be a part of. It's just NOT OK.

I'd originally intended to hang back even if my ban was lifted, but seeing that an attempt is being made to course correct from "unmitigated personal attacks" to "trying to be more positive and foster an environment of respect"? I'm hanging around to see what's up. I'm glad to keep communicating with a vast number of you.

I think the major issue in the end is the concept of "reputational income" and what happens if you have a bad reputation being in this constant "eye of the beholder" state with some very disrespectful, very demanding, and very unfair people. You see a lot of posts from them with the "you need to change your behavior or else..." verbiage from them, and I recently likened it to someone like the mafia asking you "are you sure this is what you want?" after an extortion attempt.

Maybe people can just be regular people, right? With flaws, who make mistakes, who aren't perfect, and who don't need to live up to the demands and expectations of the same 15 or so blowhards with superiority complexes that demand everyone meet their standards or face ridicule/belittlement?

@selira You should know that it appears that you care more about me than I do your opinion about me. How about you stop carrying this around and move on with your life? Alas, clapping back at bullies is different from preying on innocent people with self-esteem issues who weren't looking for a fight, and you're clearly looking for conflict.

Be nice to me and others and I'll be cool with you. It's that simple. Let it go and gabble for updates with your make-believe assumptions about who I am with people who will pat you on the back for it elsewhere.

Hey gang, just wanted to share something that might interest people who are into podcasts. A friend of mine is a part of "THE REDACTED REPORTS", which is an "actual play" (where they play the Delta Green RPG and record it) podcast. For those not in the know, Delta Green takes place in the "Call of Cthulhu" universe where a team (delta green!) of investigators is sent out to track cults, murderers, and the threats of the Old Gods.

It's a fun time, so give it a listen!
TRR on Spotify
TRR Facebook
Patreon

Also, since I've been made aware just how much people from another forum are watching this forum (eyeroll. Totally not bullies!), I think I should say:

I don't deny that I haven't always been positive. HOWEVER, I'd like to point out that it's been a long, long, long, long time (I can't remember an instance, but will never say never) since I came out to bully or belittle someone to be mean or punch down on them. I have, however, regularly punched back at bullies and mean people (especially since I quit the hobby and was no longer able to be retaliated against) because there were and are a number of disrespectful, pushy bullies who like to belittle and punch down on people for sport. It was in my opinion that some of those people deserved to get clapped back for those behaviors. Sometimes mean people need to be pushed back.

I'd like to see a community in the hobby where those elements (or the urges to clap back because people are being mean) aren't necessary where I can make friends and swap ideas.

@testament said in Positivity Going Forward...:

@hella said in Positivity Going Forward...:

@ghost it's self selection and hopefully a necessary evil of the evolution of MSB that will dwindle with time.

Kind of like when you said you were leaving mushing/MSB, right? If you want to come back, fine. But there isn't really a need to hide it.

Eh, being constructive? I've never seen this forum to be entirely about "currently being in the hobby". There are/were plenty of highly vocal Hog Pitters who didn't play or quit ages ago who had opinions on the hobby and what goes on it in that weren't bullied for it. All of that "you said you quit why are you still here?" stuff is just a bullying tactic.

Reality is that if you spend 10 years or more (or any quantity that has meaning) in your life within a certain hobby and still have friends who are in the hobby, hanging around to hear the news and keep tabs is just fine. No one should be bullied for that.

Yikes.

Also I should note: I'm not saying everyone needs to agree with my views on TS/Romance in some cases being treated like "pseudo-dating". If you disagree? COOL. I just feel this way and thus (up until my end of mushing) marked it as something to be very very very very careful about.

@hella Agreed.

@bloodangel I can see clearly that you view yourself as "the little man", with your big behaviors designed to misbehave and be held accountable for it, and then claim they were fascist for acting on rules you chose to agree to when you chose to stick around!

My powers of observation are detecting a "I'm going to break the forum rules on behavior and personal attacks purposefully to get banned, and then when I am banned for it will use it as some kind of proof that the bannings are unfair...despite the fact that I purposefully chose to be rude to -get- banned...which makes little sense" tactic.

@ganymede You were fucking GREAT. We laughed, had good times, you were never WEIRD and it was just fun! 10/10 one of the cases where it was really just chill and perfect. Thanks for our RP being a great memory. 100% of the time it was all about fun and just writing fun shit, and when I needed to take a break you were "hope to see you again!" and not "MOTHERFUCKER YOU BEST SPLAIN THIS".

Also one of the last, if not my last foray, into writing that kind of stuff. When things went "BAD" I just felt....responsible. Like...I dont know who they were or what led things to get that level of weird, but clearly there was more going on in their RL/OOC side of things and I felt bad that I helped insert emotional issues into their RL. I felt weirdly responsible, so I kept away from that stuff a lot.

@saosmash said in Review of Recent Bans:

since more than ten years had passed your behavior might have changed and that you might have grown out of some of your patterns.

Macha is not required, nor responsible for, your opinions on their "behaviors", which are doubtlessly filed under do what I want and behave what I want or I will publicly show concern about how everyone thinks you need to do what I want and behave how I want.

Alas, this contretemps is demonstrative of a disinclination to find a conclusion bound in mutuality.

@bloodangel I fail to understand the humor behind one failing to properly drink their drink.

Though if someone WERE posting a gif to be insulting and rude (and thus were unwilling to use their own words to speak their mind out of fear of repercussions for being rude/disrespectful), I would say that they were fitting the exact profile of the kind of people I was referring to in my OP, and would then be a part of the problem rather than the solution.

But I am unable to extrapolate any of that from that poor lady spilling what is probably a good portion of a $5 latte.

@devrex Fair enough! I don't think your stance is incorrect. I will say, however, that the number of instances where I was able to RP a "romance" and have it "just be writing" is far outnumbered by the times that it made me uncomfortable for a number of reasons. Off the top of my head I've...

• Ended up chatting OOC/RL via texts/phone calls with someone I had an IC relationship with who sent inappropriate things to my phone. When I asked to take a break, they asked "don't I get a say in this?" and "angry about always being chosen second" (in this case, to my RL wife) and then proceeded to belittle me as a "user" and "manipulative person" to a large group of fellow MUers
• Got angry at me for bringing something up via RP that was a trigger for their personal marriage issues
• Husband would text me to get online to TS with his wife, who I later found out was a cuckold guy, and then when I tried to exit the IC relationship they banned me from the game
• Once got VERY personal with me via pages and when I tried to escape the situation messaged me that "they identify with their character, and thus when I hurt their character (by ending the IC romance) I have hurt them, and therefore would be using IC means to hurt me.
• Was harassed multiple times via pages about my kinks, wanting to see pictures of me, asking me personal details, all so that they could be included in RP
• Pages being asked "what they did that was wrong" to not be taken as an IC romance, and then followed-up with pages about how they're lonely
• Pages about how hot a scene was, touching themselves, etc. In many of these cases I'd then take a step back from the RP and it would then turn into some kind of OOC blowup
• Pages angry about RPing with other players who they suspected to be "sluts" oocly via pages
• Constant interrogations about who I am, who I've RPed with, who I played at which game, "NEEDING TO FEEL SAFE", not being observed, making sure scenes weren't logged, etc.

All in all, I think there's a certain population of people who are truly able to compartmentalize the difference between "simply writing an IC romance" and it being some sort of pseudonym for personal fantasy fulfillment. The end result felt more to me like a "pseudo-dating" environment where TS was called "simply writing" but often seemed much more personal and OOC-desire driven more than anything. I've met a LOT of bored husbands/wives whose home lives weren't fulfilling, and have dealt with a lot of uncomfortable attachment issues.

How I think it would look like if it were, in fact, simply "just writing".

• Safety, jealousy, personal information, and needing to know a lot about the OOC writers involved wouldn't be nearly as important as "simple writing ability"
• Privacy wouldn't be a concern at all, because it would be written FOR WRITING'S SAKE and thus okay for anyone to view. In fact, the logs would be posted where others could read for enjoyment's sake
• People would discuss an outline for the scene idea, write it, then post it as a project, and not a multi-hour, repeated delve into kinks and emotional commitments
• If a writing partner needed to cut out or their "character" cheated with another "character", there would be no anger. It would be taken as a literary direction and not as an attack on the player (or result in attacks on the player whose character strayed).

Anyway. It's just....interesting to me.

@macha Hey you dont gotta explain yourself. I think you're going to find that that pressure to "capitulate with our collective stance" is just a pain in the ass, and once you start negotiating it it'll never ever end.

Counter-opinion:

There were different themes in behavior that I saw leading up to the bannings, with some people being far more disrespectful and venomous in their approach than others. Heck, I was even DM'ed to be informed what a slimy piece of shit I was, though in jest I was doing a little tongue-in-cheek trolling of the situation, myself.

If the focus of the forum going forward is to try to be respectful and positive, then some of those entitled personalities are best left off at that new forum they made (where when I was linked to it already saw personal attacks, fuck-marry-kill lists with actual people being listed as kill, etc). This forum isn't a paid-for service where users are entitled to getting what they want, nor is it required to maintain a level of "trust" even when "trust" is often mistaken for "doing what we say we want or else".

I recommend people who don't like it to let it go and glomp about it at that other place that's going to return to the same toxic behavior patterns.

@bloodangel

...if I didn't know better I'd accidentally assume that response was meant to be an insult of some kind, but was done so under the guise of a gif to avoid using one's actual words...and thus potentially be held responsible for those words.

I think this is pretty necro'd and if you look back you can see some of my previous responses, but I still feel the same.

IC Romance/TS is often approached on an OOC level as "dating and cybersex", and I find the duality of it all to be very...interesting. Sure, some treat it just like "writing" but the desire for privacy, need to know OOC/RL details about the fellow writer, the number of personal explosions related to IC romance and/or "breakups", etc are all quite telling on a psychoanalysis level. It's very messy terrain and people can talk as big a game as they want that it's "just writing fiction" but I feel the actual truth is something southeast of that simple quote.