Posts made by Ghost

@Bessarion In Buddhism there is a concept of "attachments and aversions", and the only way to achieve peace is to understand them. I generally think this concept could be good for everyone, but particularly the MU community.

Like all things in life, attachments can seem negative and aversions positive, right? Not exactly. An attachment (a thing you love or feel you NEED) can be enjoyable or a source of negativity based on the attachment to the thing you feel you need. Aversion can be healthy (probably best to avoid walking past the neo-Nazi rally) but can also become a festering impulse in your life (your NEED to avoid bad days has made it near impossible to enjoy ANY day).

A while back I realized that being on the games had become a sort of attachment/aversion minefield for me. I loved the writing and some people, but ultimately the drama felt unavoidable, the Hog Pit was exactly the kind of "attachment" to something negative that I felt made positivity near-impossible, and I simply wasn't happy. I couldn't MAKE myself happy enjoying my ATTACHMENT because my AVERSIONS were so under my skin. So I quit playing under the belief I still hold today, which is that there is simply too much difficulty in the games/community that it would likely never be the kind of relaxation I am seeking. Sure, I had ups and downs with communicating with people here (it's natural) but ultimately think that the split in the forums presented what could be a positive opportunity.

Ultimately, the people who dislike me on BMD did themselves a favor by creating a place where I do not exist, and I, in turn, return that favor by not disrupting their space. It feels mutually beneficial and healthy, but (attachments and aversions, again) peace will never be achieved so long as those attach/avers are still in play at either forum.

So I think the more people think about this concept the more they'll find happiness. Hope it helps someone.

@Bessarion said in Ruiz:

One of the big problems with our community is that we have opted for identifiability with handles, but still operate with a Web 1.0 culture of anonymity when it comes to our actual identities.

I fucking LOVE that you said that. Thank you. Maybe you understand then the little joke in my head that came with choosing "Ghost" as a handle and the reason why every now and then I make jokes like "I quit playing MUs...OR DID I?"

There are both positives and negatives with solidifying histories and identities, and pos/negs with reinforcing anonymity. The trick is understanding that for some the anonymity protects them from bullying, where for others the lack of anonymity has now created potentially decades of identifiable harm and bitterness.

The people I like in the community are equally "strangers" to me as the people I don't. There's a probability that some of my least favorite people in the hobby could be a great friend in RL, were it not for the lens of the community's drama and the inevitable dysfunction and lack of empathy that comes from text-based communication.

@Bessarion I'll throw my hat in with that concept. That's got my vote. A little chill and reflection does people good.

@Bessarion said in Ruiz:

@Ghost I was being reactive and I wasn't being kind.

But what if other people here are getting snippy because they are being reactive?

@Bessarion said in Ruiz:

And I'm done giving your dysfunctional ass attention

"I don't think macha's a bad person but..."

Fuckin c'mon, Senator. There's nothing wrong with owning it.

True (and topical) story:

I started playing guitar when I was 9, and around the time I was 14 and started being all hormonal, my little brother (11) started playing guitar. Hindsight being 20/20 I identified myself as the "guitar son" of the house and felt like my little brother (who got everything he wanted MarshaMarshaMarsha etc) was going to make me less special because he, too, played guitar.

So I made fun of him, bothered him, and every time he played I made it so difficult for him that he eventually gave up and I resumed being the special guitar son of the house.

I couldn't let him have a good thing, because if I let him get comfortable with it and flourish then it made me feel like I was the loser in the equation.

Shame I did that, too. Who knows, we could have ended up in a metal or punk band together. I do regret it to this day.

Also, to add:

Of course, I joke up above with gifts of champagne bottles because the truth, tongue in cheek, is that despite the insistence of many that everyone here (including myself) is toxic, there sure are a lot of forays away from that safe space where we arent to interface with us and subject themselves to this so-called unbearable toxicity.

It's kind of the unspoken truth of the situation altogether

@hobos and that's a fair stance. People like Macha deserve to have a place where they can defend themselves without constant ridicule. Really, everyone in the community does.

Being above board, I don't personally agree with everyone else's assessment on the Cobalt situation (I literally just wanted to rule out retaliation before coming to a judgment, myself), but allow me to offer you a different perspective:

There is so much pent-up toxicity across the entire community that (since the days of WORA-on-forward) I think it's pretty obvious that there are two kinds of places: places where the toxicity is encouraged and places where the toxicity is attempted to be kept in check. MSB isn't perfect by any means and people can make what they want of it. It's a communal effort. We could chat about football, the newest season of Mandalorian, and have meditation circles.

Attempted being the key word.

I think that whenever anyone posts anything here trying to defend themselves or be constructive and the angry BMD crowd comes over to ridicule (or keep it going) you're going to see some of that old stuff ignite. For some of these people it's muscle memory, and it's hard to let go of (apparently).

My advice is to keep being faithful to your beliefs and don't be afraid to call out when you think this place isn't acting like it wanted to be. We're all humans here and it may help to have a cricket on the shoulder chime in when old reflexes are kicking.

In short: I think your respectful opinions and perspectives are fair and welcome

Can I just say that I think it's great that despite a split in the community, the number of people monitoring or reserving the right to come back to post proves THAT MSB IS ALIVE AND KICKIN BABY WOOOO

...and to think someone I don't remember or give a shit about earlier was like (sour voice) msb has only 5 active users waaah

On a personal note, it means a lot to me because I am literally an undead phantasm that would cease to exist if no one remembered (or cared for) who I was, so a huge THANK YOU to both forums for all of the attention. It is literally sustaining my life-force and allowing me to haunt my ex-wife and her new Chad husband while I watch little Kevin grow into an impressive point guard at his YMCA kids league. Without all of this I would be sucked into the bright, glowing vortex of ecclesiastical light I've been avoiding since I became a ghost.

@Macha said in Ruiz:

And yet you are basically slut shaming me, calling me a creeper and worse, for a log that didn't have any TS in it.

This is an entirely fair statement.

If we can all agree that slut-shaming is wrong, then taking 3rd party details of a scene between two consenting writers and releasing log, personal details on who the player is, and kicking off a campaign to label them as a sexual predator...is slut shaming.

And may I say if there are levels of slut shaming ranging from 1 to 10, taking a romance/intense scene log and turning into a sexual predator campaign lands somewhere between "9" and "I asked Danny Masterson to tweet a link to it."

@Cobalt said in Ruiz:

No. I didn’t TS Isaac. I RP’d all of once with him where I was acting as GM and was busy having a vampire spray other characters in the scene with pepper spray

Also! Cool! That wasn't so hard now, was it? Now I understand/believe that there was no attached retaliatory motive in the whole thing and anyone who suggests otherwise after the fact is being an asshole.

Do I feel this warranted the level of attack that it did? No. But you do you. It's your game. Whatevs. Shut it down, nuke it, whatever, ban whoever you want.

I could care less who does TS and don't give a fuck who you RP with. I don't slut-shame. This was simply (as I have stated multiple times) that the level of response from you (banning multiple people, closing the game, accusing SA) seemed to be a nuclear response and have seen responses like this more often when some kind of triangle shit explodes. Given that this Isaac player was demanding so much secrecy, it stood to wonder if that was because they were keeping other people in a harem compartmentalized.

So since the answer is no? Boom. Case closed. Still doesn't make sense to me but at least it wasn't retaliatory for that reason.

Super bizarre social scene here.

@Cobalt said in Ruiz:

Just so we’re clear, @reimesu @Ghost @Derp @Ganymede Do me a favor, and don’t come around to any game I run in the future. Because you won’t be welcome.

How much do you value a promise from me?

@hobos said in Ruiz:

Also maybe so. I would prefer to think that nobody here is on any "side" except the truth, though. And I would love to see people on this forum acting that way.

Ditto. SA, being a sex creeper, etc is a HUUUGE accusation and I don't give a fuck whether or not Macha is popular. I'm loathe to see posters and pitchforks marched out before anyone knows what the actual truth is, and feel even less comfortable when people won't answer questions about having skin in the game surrounding the accusation.

I guess it doesn't matter in the end though because it seems that the necessity of truth is pretty much secular.

@Bessarion said in Ruiz:

One is based on logs. The other is fanfiction. Can you spot the difference between these two pictures?

Uhm. duh-doy. Logs and fan-fiction are words and not pictures. There is no difference between those pictures. They aren't pictures at all.

Let me turn this around on you.

What is different between one person reading a non-sex filled 3rd party log between two consenting writers and determining that it is sexual assault to the degree of needing to spread it around to everyone that so-and-so is a sexual creeper...and one person speculating that the reason that this person did so is out of an undisclosed personal motive related to a question theyre refusing to answer?

The difference is that one group of people actually give a fuck about the truth, and another group of people are day 3 into the congratulatory kegger party into not giving a fuck about the truth and getting on with the fun stuff.

@hobos yeah I'm not into this court of mushers shit. Look a few posts back and I explained why I just want the answer to that y/n question. My angle here is simply that my gut tells me that there's a side of this not being disclosed and that this "court of mushers" shit is about as unbiased as a court date on the surface of Unicron.

The amount of pageantry involved in trying to get a pound of flesh out of a personal attack and come out of it looking justified, if anything, is the community side game. I just wish people were fuckin honest about it so it wouldn't look so much like weaponized insecurity.

@Bessarion No, she doesn't owe me anything. I just think it's easier to accuse other people of being into sexual assault and being disgusting people than admitting your own stake in the situation.

Everyone else gets their character marched on display. Very satisfying stuff.

Then again, someone could just confirm "yes" or fuckin "no" and everyone who speculated looks stupid, but instead the focus is on the definitive differences between accusation, speculation, inference, fracas, ruckus, etc.

This whole situation is dumb and dishonest, and as far as I'm concerned at this point the missing link between everything is okay and sudden uninvolved 3rd party accusations of SA, a Ruiz spotting, and the game being quickly shut down lies in whatever reason the accuser won't answer that question.

None of us are new to drama like this and this would probably be the 600th iteration of "got pissed and burned everything down."

@Misadventure Yeah, Zavala(sp?). Wonderful voice actor.

@Cobalt said in Ruiz:

@reimesu said in Ruiz:

@Bessarion said in Ruiz:

And I'm done giving your dysfunctional ass attention. Just stop.

(Bold is mine) That's a personal attack. Please stop.

Lol.

But spinning a story about how I banned Macha because I wanted Isaac for myself wasn’t? Y’all some on some hypocritical stuff here.

I don't think this is the case, but I find it rather curious that you won't disclose whether or not you had a personal stake in the situation.

It's a simple yes or no question, and if the answer were 'no' the whole thing would be null and void. Anyone who would have suspected otherwise would be wrong and look stupid.

Personally, I'm sensing you have more skin in the game than you're admitting and won't answer because not doing so controls whether or not any of this is considered to be retaliatory.

I could be wrong, but that would require a 'no'. It doesn't really matter asking anymore at this point; I don't expect an answer. To be fair, I never really did.

@Bessarion FYI they don't have to stop anything for you to stop giving then attention. You could, at any time, muster up the self control and stop responding.