Best posts made by Kestrel

@wizz said in Online friends:

What factors make y'all decide to move further? Is it solely just time and trust?

Time, trust, reciprocity, loyalty, shared sense of humour, shared values. While I don't think that RL/OL friends are exactly identical, I do think that the process of becoming closer at least is sort of similar. I need to know that they value me beyond just the context of the game; if we stop playing the same game, are we still friends? Are we ride or die or is this an alliance of convenience? Are my off-colour jokes the same as their off-colour jokes, or does one of us offend/annoy the other when we do this? How relaxed do I feel talking to them? If I slip up, do they show patience or am I cancelled?

Sometimes I need to hear a set of magic words to hook me in, anything from a pop culture reference to a political joke. And then I'm like, oh cool, we have something in common beyond just this game, and now we're vibing. Although usually it starts by just admiring them from afar based on their posts, characters or writing style, on these games.

There can be certain milestones that happen even ICly which can make or break a potential friendship. For example if we just TSed, do they stay very respectful and chill OOCly or am I now getting really weird vibes from them?

It seems clear to me that a lot of people on the other thread would rather not continue discussing the derail, and I appreciate that some people don't like having things they love ruined for them. But at least some people do want to continue discussing it, so here's a new thread. This follows from a discussion on "cancel culture", JK Rowling, Lovecraft etc.

@Caggles said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

@GreenFlashlight

Do you think this separation is more difficult with writing than eg. with music?

If I enjoy a Wagner symphony, am I tacitly expressing a fondness for fascism? As music is a more abstract form, does it become easier to split artist from art, whereas with writing there are assumptions from the artist which form a baseline for everything written?

To further muddy it, is this different for fiction vs non-fiction? Does a paper on covalent bonds lose validity if written by a TERF? How about different disciplines? Social sciences vs physics?

Am interested in the debate - not sure which side I fall on the argument. Keep talking, this interests me.

I think that when art contains elements of the author's "problematic" intentions, it becomes a significantly more complicated issue regardless of the genre.

We can't separate the views of a racist from his "scientific" publications on eugenics, nor the views of a sexist from his psychological "research" on female hysteria.

I personally happen to enjoy Shostakovich in part because his music was so often an underhanded act of political rebellion, and I find beauty in his cheeky notes. I'll admit to not knowing much about Wagner, but if his music can be demonstrated to be a celebration of the Aryan race or whatever, that would probably affect my enjoyment of it.

Separating Lovecraft's work from his racism is a lie. It's a nice, white (heh) lie, but a total one. He wasn't just a horror writer who happened to be a racist; he was a racist writer who wrote about racism. His works are littered with racist tropes and are entirely about his fears that people of other ethnicities are alien species who would breed with, replace, encroach upon and overwhelm the pure white race. His works furthered a political agenda that continues to represent a serious issue in society today.

@surreality said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

@GreenFlashlight When talking about people from the past? Bluntly, it's sometimes necessary, particularly in light of the trend of damning absolutely everyone and their cousin Frank from 1700 for not having had the levels of social enlightenment we have today.

To be clear, this is a false equivalence. Lovecraft wasn't simply a man of his time; he was bad even for a man of his time, being an American who in the 1930s openly expressed his fondness for Hitler and support for his political regime in Germany.

Here's a thought exercise: let's pretend for a moment that Lovecraft wasn't a racist, but instead, was black. Do you think he would have enjoyed the same success he continues to enjoy today? I doubt it.

Do we need to keep crowning old shitty writers with laurels and laying wreaths at their statues to continue their legacy? I don't think so. There are plenty of other good authors and artists out there who are far more deserving.

I don't judge people who grew up on Lovecraft not knowing all these things about him who enjoy his works and I wouldn't dare take it away from them. I know, though, it's not a name I intend to pass on to future generations. I'd rather they read good ideas.

@sunny said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

ALSO

blinky blinky flashy flashy is super important to remind me I'm RPing.

IIRC Ares sends desktop notifications, at least on Chrome. Is there a difference here still?

I wonder if a mobile app with push notifications could make a difference, too.

@surreality said in Separating Art From Artist:

People are saying that about creators who came from very different times from our own, and it's very common. It is also culturally dangerous on several levels, not the least of which is removing 'this is an example of how the views of the time, which were damaging to people, were echoed in the creative works produced at that time, and you can better understand the hardships people faced by viewing/reading/etc. the work in question'.

I'm just going to be a stickler for this point. I think it's reductive to call Lovecraft's works products of their time. They were not. Even at that time the average American had significantly better sensibilities than did Lovecraft. He was hateful far beyond the norm for his time. He was a literal American Nazi who named his black cat a slur so grotesque I can't type it, who railed against the more progressive, cosmopolitan norms of his time, and caricaturised people of colour in his works as monsters — not even through metaphor at times, he literally described these ordinary human characters as possessed of "sin-spitting faces". He was documented to become filled with rage each time he passed people of colour in the street, and wrote letters decrying the problem of a Jewish stranglehold in New York and endorsing their genocide.

Were the times very different from our own? Hmm. I'm gonna turn on the news and get back to you on that.

@arkandel said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

But here is the thing. Why is that an issue? As far as I'm concerned the 'need' for the hobby to move to web-based clients is in order to attract new players who might find the dedicated MU* clients intimidating or off-putting.

Are there games out there which need to be played from a browser because of radical new interface elements or features telnet can't handle?

Well, I see it as a limitation. There are definitely things you can do on a web game that you can't do on standard MU* client. And while we've all learned to make do without these things and think within the box, I see no reason not to look outside it.

I'm pretty much always going to be interested in playing text-based RPGs, but I'm sitting here wondering if that necessarily has to mean a MU*.

@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Kestrel said in Separating Art From Artist:

I think it's reductive to call Lovecraft's works products of their time.

I think it's reductive to try and boil down the entire sphere of literary criticism to talking about one dude and his shitty stories.

Not the point. We should hold racists accountable for their racisms and I don't think minimising the occurrences of it has a civil place in a discussion about separating art from artists. You can advocate doing so without denying the issue, which I find disrespectful to victims of racism and antisemitism who were impacted by the influence of people who held such views, both at the time to this and day.

@mietze said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

I think probably at some point someone will make a web only thing. Had you asked me 15 years ago if I'd like something like ares I would have said no way. Said the same thing later on for real for any kind of trying to mush on mobile. But now I prefer ares specifically for the web interface that also allows me to comfortably mobile game.

So I'd like to note that there actually are a few web-only MU* systems out there. One example is Written Realms.

@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:

ETA: Like, I added that preface to the sentence because I thought to myself, "Self, someone is going to make the nonsensical accusation that I am saying OP can single-handedly rain down book-burnings and op-ed bannings, better make sure to close up that loophole." I am a failure.

Like it's not even about "can" though, it's also about "would", because that's 100% not what I said.

Concerning Lovecraft, I also said this:

@Kestrel said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

I know sweet, kind, intensely good, non-racist people who enjoy his works. I do not judge them for being able to find their own interpretations and charitable meanings in his work. I understand that many of the themes of alienation and nihilism resonate with people, and think that everyone is entitled to, even owed, the right to find art that resonates with them on some level and brings them comfort. I'm not interested in robbing people of the connection they feel with these works. Art, music and beauty are the most human things we have. It's tangible empathy.

I just don't personally connect with these particular works. It's not for me. I'm not his target audience, I'm the horror that kept him up at night while he was writing them. As long as you don't view me that way, we're kosher. I'm OK with you finding your own interpretation in his works, not that you should need my permission to like the things you like.

EDIT: lmao did I just get twitter-cancelled on my own thread

@faraday said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

@kestrel said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

So I'd like to note that there actually are a few web-only MU* systems out there. One example is Written Realms.

That looks more like a MUD? But yes, certainly there are other types of online text RP. Storium and Rollgate are also web-only and have thousands of players.

The question isn't whether anyone would play a web-only MU, but whether enough of the existing MU community would do so to achieve critical mass for a game. My research and experience tells me no.

Storium and Forum RP is nice and all, but I still prefer the MUSH-style RP, and I want to play with my friends.

It's a MUD platform, it can be used to build one. It's designed to be as user-friendly as possible for people with no experience coding etc., so the tradeoff is limitations in customisation. If you need to create custom commands and novel systems it won't suit your needs unless you can convince the person who made it to add that in, but if you're a builder who just wants to punch in your rooms, quests, combat and NPCs, it fits the bill.

I'm aware it's probably not fit for the kinds of games most people on MSB play (code-lite MUSH). My point was less 'everything we need is already out there' and more 'steps are being taken in that direction'.

@insomniac7809

I'ma reply with two semi-contradictory hot takes on this topic.

• ContraPoints on her own Twitter cancellation, for being a transphobic transwoman.
• Cody Johnston from Some More News on cancel culture not being a real thing.

@derp said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

@kestrel said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

I think people are overestimating to some degree the gulf of difference between MUDs and MUSHes.

I mean, don't get me wrong, the interface or whatever looks cool on this one. But. I think you may be underestimating that same gulf.

Especially since, as far as I can tell, on this MUD you're just -- playing with yourself, rather than actively collaborating with other people. And I think that's where the real difference lies.

On a MUD your adventures and encounters come from pre-coded situations. On a MUSH, they come directly from the minds of other people in real time, and that's a big world of difference.

Written Realms for clarification can absolutely be used to create multiplayer MUDs. MUDs by definition aren't single-player, SUDs are actually very rare. There's just an example one up there on the website to allow anyone who might want to use it to build their own game to fiddle around and understand how it all works.

Iron Realms Entertainment (IRE) MUDs like Achaea (web client of which I've posted a screenshot above) are fully multiplayer; they're basically text-based MMOs. And although I no longer play them, I'm aware of very vibrant RP communities on them, and have read/partaken in some very neat logs. Players interact both with automated NPCs and with other players.

@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:

@insomniac7809 said in Separating Art From Artist:

Bowlderizing the language isn't any different from editing the text to clarify the characters' heavy dialects, which I've also seen done in several contexts.

I will pay money for a MU client that does that.

I'm going to cop up to being in favour of censoring phonetic accent styling.

@ninjakitten said in Online friends:

most people have friends who would happily bring them soup if they lived close enough but can't, whether they originally met playing games on the playground or the internet.

Is everyone I talk to online a genuine friend? No. Do friendships drift? Yes. Is this any different than with people whose breath I can occasionally smell? No. It's just harder to give them a hug. Or a mint.

Sometimes would they is less important than can they, is my point.

I love fantasy, but I don't want it to supplant the reality of what I have and what I need.

words ain't enough

Very excited for this upcoming sassfest.

@l-b-heuschkel said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

@ninjakitten said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

@sunny Huh! I think that'd feel really odd to me. Even though I don't do a lot of grid-walking (I tend to teleport, on any kind of game that lets me) I like having a grid, and walking it at least a few times. It gives me a better feeling for how things are linked up -- that and maps, though ideally both -- which I inevitably need at some point when I have to figure out whether X is a block from Y or all the way across town, or similar. I guess I could probably work with a good, detailed map if there wasn't a grid, as long as things still had descs, but it'd still feel... just weird to me not to have a grid.

Same. I want a grid and an ascii map of the major locations. Not because I need it to navigate, but because it helps me keep an idea in my head of what this place's geography is like, and make sure that that idea is not too different from everyone else's. I suppose a hand drawn map could achieve the same, but there needs to be something, at least.

These are great points I hadn't considered. I know at least one person was thinking about some grid randomisation code a while back, where basically you'd input a command to go find a bar in some city and the game would automatically generate one which can then be referenced by anyone else in future, or they can just keep spawning new bars this city supposedly has. The idea was to combat the "small world" feel a lot of games suffer from, where they're supposed to represent something like a network of planets or a great medieval fantasy land but the scope is limited by how much patience builders have to fill in every detail. I live in my country's capital and can't imagine any game ever successfully mapping out all the bars and tunnels and secret hideaways it has to fully capture the feel of what life in this big city is like.

But if it robs people of even a basic sense of what the environment they're navigating is like, I can see how that would be a problem. Unless perhaps you give players the authority to pencil their additions into this vaguely hand-drawn (or even computer generated) map?

EDITx2: I know the coder whose idea I'm referencing up there has posted on MSB but I can't find their posts and don't remember their handle right now. I'll link it in if I figure it out. Found.

@bored said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Kestrel Maybe you want to eat and you don't have ready access to other employment options?

Then don't become an activist. Prioritise your need to eat and not your need to espouse controversial opinions.

No one is forcing anyone to join the KKK, Extinction Rebellion, nor to insist on misgendering transpeople. These are choices.

Choices have consequences. Don't want consequences? Choose differently.

Twitter is a place people go to build up their brand. You get hearts and retweets when you post things your target audience likes. You may lose that target audience if you post things they don't. Public adoration is a fickle thing, but gambling for it is also a choice.

I'm not interested in marketing myself for public approval, and therefore I don't have a twitter account. I both avoid the risk of losing out on the grounds of stupid tweets, and the potential benefit of gaining influence as a likeable tweeter. I also don't have a job that requires me to be at the mercy of the public eye because I know full well that I'd find that soul-sucking. If I did, I'd have the good sense to curate better.

The Maya Forstater controversy is relevant to the topic of people being fired for expressing political opinions which are at odds with their company's ethos.

Honestly, I am all for paragraph, even multi-paragraph RP. But I tend to prefer at least 90% of that to be action, body language and scene setting with just one or two lines of dialogue. And I prefer realism over inclusion, meaning that with people I'm comfortable with I may not respond to everyone in the room, and trust they'll know it's a matter of what makes sense in the scene right now rather than purposeful exclusion. (But like most people I'll adjust for etiquette around strangers and newcomers.)

I don't think there's a right or wrong way here, mind you. The person I mentioned in my previous post is, after all, one of my regular RP partners for a reason. I rib him about this with sporting respect and affection.

Meanwhile, reading Kurt Vonnegut fills me with a bitter sense of shame and inadequacy because it shows me a perfect example of a writing style so very different from mine which I can't at all match. He's a master of snappy dialogue and years of exercising my writing skills on MU* have taught me the opposite skill (though I feel I'm good at descriptive nonverbal writing).

I really don't see what the Forstater case has to do with freedom of speech.

If she works at a thinktank, being evaluated on how she thinks is pretty important.

If that thinktank's mission statement is ending inequality on a global scale, having thinkers who actually understand inequality and support marginalised people is, again, pretty important.

Maya Forstater wasn't prosecuted for misgendering transpeople. She sued the company she worked for because they just didn't want to renew her contract after she'd repeatedly insisted on her right to misgender people, including via work emails, and she lost that case.

This is a freedom to be an arsehole issue.

At this point, I kind of feel like I should be paid to play someone else's MU*.

@Ganymede said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Kestrel said in Separating Art From Artist:

This is a freedom to be an arsehole issue.

In the United States, this is a freedom of speech issue.

So in the US, you can say whatever you want around your colleagues, behave unprofessionally, prove yourself unsuitable for the job you were hired for and not get fired?

Hmm. I like our laws better.