Best posts made by Kestrel

@surreality said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

Insisting that someone's RP must focus exclusively on their cultural disadvantages in any given time or place is, you're essentially saying: "If you want to play a woman, a person of color, someone gay, you accept that the only RP you're going to do involves those subjects being front and center at all times, and those are the only character choices that will or can matter."

No one's actually saying that, though — especially not the part you've emphasised in italics. To insist that characters or a setting be grounded in the cultural sensitivities of the time does nothing to limit the minutiae that real people experience regardless of where, when and how they were born. If someone's created a character so two-dimensional that they can't, say, experience the awkward butterflies of a first romantic kiss outside of the context of their circumstances, that's on them, not the realism of a setting.

Ultimately, I agree with @Thenomain. Create the game you want, that you like, that you would play, and expect people who share your ideals to play it. Trying to strike a multitude of compromises is, as @Kanye-Qwest said, the worst of both worlds.

@bored said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

It's worth pointing out that the %'s are very guesswork-y and vary considerably between reporting institution, so hanging on single % changes is not particularly meaningful (apparently people were accusing my governor of conspiracy theory-esque minimizing the threat because he quoted a lower %, but it was simply from a different source). These are also likely to be higher than the actual mortality rate, because people who are mildly or non-symptomatic account for the bulk of cases yet rarely make it into the statistics at all.

They are valuable in a comparative sense because other illnesses are measured the same way, with the same flaws, and these %s are an order of magnitude higher than typical flu mortality.

The percentages also vary considerably by age group.

For people under 40, the mortality rate is around 0.2%, and the WHO has said that 80% of people who contract the disease will experience only very mild symptoms. I'm under 40, live in a crowded city, am in excellent physical health, and lately I've been sniffling a bit. For all I know I could've already contracted it and just not know it. Most of the people hoarding obsessively really don't need to, and I'm not going to. I'm pretty sure I'll be just fine; I'm more worried about the risk of infecting other people, if I do (or have) contract(ed) it.

For people over 80 however, the risk is 14.8% — 21.9% (total estimate, vs. based only on confirmed cases). It's also killing men more than women, and is significantly higher for people with preexisting health conditions like heart disease.

So while the overall mortality rate is 2% — 3.4%, that's not a useful number for anyone looking to evaluate their or their loved ones' personal risk. It's mostly just useful for estimating what chunk of the population we're likely to see wiped out by the numbers.

Keep your grandparents home safe, fam.

@Cupcake said in MU Things I Love:

You engage in romantic involvement rp.

You discreetly indulge in shippy enjoyment, eyeballing pictures, gifs, music that reminds you of the pairing, but stay quiet about it because you don't want your cool rp buddy to find out how weird you are and possibly find you stalkery or obsessive...

And then you find out they are just as loony as you are about the whole thing. YAY!

I RPed a relationship with someone who would link me Hozier songs out of the blue reflecting our characters' situations.

It was adorbs and made me feel so much better about having a few romance-specific songs in my character's playlist.

@Tinuviel Yes, by quite a bit, both in terms of contagion rate and lethality. I don't have exact numbers for comparison and I'm not a doctor. But:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html

It's also worth bearing in mind we've had generations to build up immunity to the common flu whereas COVID-19 is a "new" virus. So, long-term, this might just end up being another kind of illness we have to get used to over time and/or through vaccines. The other alternative was that the virus be successfully contained, but that seems like a bit of a lost cause now, at least where I live. It hasn't hit London hard just yet, but there are confirmed cases in multiple boroughs, including the one where I live and several adjacent to it, and going by how quickly it's spread in other countries I'd be genuinely surprised if I don't end up catching it, or haven't yet.

I'm actually not worried, but I understand why other people are. It's just that of all the bad things going on in the world right now, while I feel sympathy for those more likely to be personally affected, this particular crisis is much less likely to affect me or anyone I'm close to. I have more to fear from, for example, environmental catastrophe and fascism in the not too distant future.

@Alamias said in Covid-19 Gallows Humor:

@surreality Oh, there have been.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/04/24/birx-reaction-trump-disinfectant-vpx.cnn

At this point I think it's fair to say the president is just gaslighting the public.

I don't know what else to call this whole tactic of 'I didn't say what I literally just said, I wasn't talking to the person I was clearly talking to, and I was being sarcastic, when I clearly wasn't.'

I mean, what.

It wasn't even very good gaslighting. He can surely come up with better lies than that.

@Cupcake

If it's scary and there are people who don't believe you, just know that for every person who doesn't there are a whole bunch of people out here who do.

@Admiral said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

There is such a thing as too far left, I found out today. I got banned from r/AgainstHateSubreddits for suggesting that all catholics aren't hatemongers. Not fighting. Not screaming. Just not moving lock-step with folks on the very, very fringe of the left. Those folks are... everything the right accuses them of. They've gone off the deep end. Witch hunts. Which is ironic, I know. Considering catholics are their target now.

So there is such a thing as too much 'SJWing' and 'White Knighting'.

What you’re referring to is something I’d call “purity politics”, and I don’t think it indicates the person is too far left so much as that they’re just a bully who also happens to be left-wing.

This happens in any movement/community of any kind as soon as it starts to gain some traction. For example, above someone gave the example of gatekeeping within the Star Wars fandom. Other examples I’ve witnessed:

• You aren’t a real vegan if you’re [eating palm oil / in it for selfish reasons / a pet owner / letting your cat outdoors / pro-capitalism / pro-Israel / pro-choice because abortion is murder / a sex-positive feminist because that still exploits women’s bodies / anti-vax because that kills children / pro-vax because that contains animal products]

• You aren’t a real feminist if you’re [sex positive / sex negative / gender essentialist / gender performativist / anti-hijab / pro-hijab / radical / not radical / not vegan / pro-capitalist #girlboss / demonising gender roles / supporting gender roles]

When people follow purity politics, one strike on any count is enough to discredit an entire person of their value system, leaving many feeling politically homeless due to a lack of support from any camp. E.g., I don’t think being a liberal who’s OK with capitalism makes you right-wing. That’s nonsense. Even though I, myself, am anti-capitalist.

I could be a little shit and call this mentality “class reductionist” as many POC have been criticising lately, and therefore decry the people doing this as not left-wing enough for me either. It’s a two-way street. But I don’t believe in gatekeeping, bullying and purity politics, which has nothing to do with being left-wing, it just has to do with having your head up your arse.

“The left” is a pretty broad umbrella and people have different views. According to the political compass I’m extremely left-wing but I like to think I don’t engage in this behaviour. It also puts me right next to Noam Chomsky, whom I personally dislike and disagree with on many issues. I don’t think that invalidates his position on the spectrum, nor mine.

So, tl;dr, don’t take it to heart.

Also, the right-wing does purity politics too, and I find theirs a lot scarier. Nazi Germany had it really down to pat, and the modern right loves to call people cucks and degenerates — a term which basically means “race traitor”.

@nyctophiliac said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I saw someone peel mushrooms before. Ridiculous. The dirt cooks off.

MSB needs a sad react.

@Rinel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Kestrel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I thought it was a fun story full of action, adventure and great world-building

Having just read through Leviticus and Numbers I think you've repressed a few memories. x_x

Nah we definitely went over the genocide in school, and the part where God commands his best boi to kill his own son because ‘you’d do it if you really loved me’. (Years later my first sexual partner said this to me about anal and you know, it wasn’t cool then either.) And him fucking with Job, and killing all the Egyptian kids to prove a point.

I remember! And I always thought it was very fucked up. It was like a Grimm Fairy Tale. The appeal is similar to Dexter, You, Breaking Bad or House MD, where the protagonist is also a villain and you root for them but it’s awkward and makes you question yourself.

But it was fun and zany, you know how kids love these violent video games and stories with clandestine murder in them.

@Cupcake said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I am massively tired of having to explain to people what Zionism actually is as opposed to what people think it is, and I'm tired of having to defend it, especially when there are a lot of points where I personally agree with what some opponents are proposing.

I want to say more on this particular subject but I honestly don't trust it not to turn into a dumpster fire that would just be massively emotionally taxing for everyone involved (but I mainly care about me and other Jewish people having to deal with that tbqh), based on past, and recent experiences, so just have a gif instead and know I feel this. All of this.

@coin said in Dead Celebrities 2021 Edition:

Helen McCrory.

Wear heels for one day after slumming it up an entire pandemic and suddenly feel like a catwalk model.

I finally got around to watching the Witcher series on Netflix, which I rather enjoyed.

Then I downloaded an ebook (for free) so that I could get a better idea of whether it'd be worth splurging on a boxed set of the entire saga.

Free advice: don't read the books. Anyone who plays MU*s has access to this kind of cliche-riddled fantasy erotica on a regular basis already, and, IMO, at a much higher calibre. Don't sully the show's magic with lines about Geralt's piercing gaze and thirsty Yennefer's oohing lips.

@too-old-for-this said in Good TV:

look at the top grossing franchises for the last 40-50 years.
Star Wars
Matrix
Harry Potter
Twilight
Lord of the Rings
Hunger Games
Transformers
Top grossing movie of all time Avatar.
These are movies that were successful NOT because of the main characters, but because of the cast around them.

Excuse you.

One of these things is not like the others.

Don't come for Frodo like that.

@cobalt Honestly, although they are less instagram friendly, pictures of my dog halfway through her pocket interspace dimension of some of my favourite.

I will never get tired of watching all the gratuitous murder shenanigans on You.

I don't know whether to post this here or in the Dog Thread, but ...

Canine hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention share similar demographic risk factors and behavioural comorbidities with human ADHD

Studies suggest that 12–15% [19, 20] and 20% [20] of dogs naturally manifest high levels of hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention, respectively, making the domestic dog a highly potential animal model for ADHD [21–23]. Moreover, these traits are mediated by the same behavioural [21, 24], biological [17, 25] and genetic [24, 26] factors in both dogs and humans, and dogs also respond to medication used to treat ADHD in humans [27, 28].

There is even a study specifically on ADHD in Siberian Huskies, where they managed to locate the specific gene alleles associated with unusually high levels of hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention.

As the happy (and sometimes tired) owner of one particularly hyper husky zoomster, I am now super curious to have her genetically tested.

So is constantly entertaining way more character concepts at any given time than I could ever see into fruition an ADHD thing, or just a special kind of multiple personality disorder?

I met PhilosophyTube in person and she liked my boots.

I die happy now. My life is complete.

Gonna just share a mild funny for my experience of ADHD medication.

I took a week-long break from it during the holidays because being from a secular Jewish family, I don't celebrate Xmas so for me this part of the year is nothing but a quiet week when nothing's happening, and I can afford to relax a bit more. I love how productive, motivated and driven the medication makes me, but it's nice to set that aside for a bit and be able to just switch my brain off for a little while. I didn't do anything fancy, I just spent the week sleeping a lot, living in filth, ordering takeaways and catching up on Netflix shows.

I took it today again for the first time in a bit and my dopamine receptors seem to have "reset" (which is also always good), so the effect my normal dosage is having on me right now is:

I realise I am not making the best case right now for stimulants as ADHD meds not being "drugs" but look. Sometimes, just for a day or two, funky brain chemicals can be fun. ('Cause I also know in a day or two my brain will readjust to this dosage and I'll just go back to behaving like a normal neurotypical on these meds, lol.)