Best posts made by Kestrel

I posted in the MU gripes thread and I feel like I should also post here just like to balance out my karma or whatever.

So, my cat died. That's not the thing I love, obviously, it's been fucking devastating, but the people in my life have been making me smile. Grief is awful but what's less awful is realising what kind of support network you have and how much they care about you and are willing to be there for you to make you feel better.

My dad's been visiting me in my disgusting apartment every day. I feel a bit bad, like I should tidy it up, but he's been managing not to cast judgements in my current state which considering the mountains of OCD I undoubtedly inherited from him, and the fact that his Asperger's usually gives him 0 filter, is a really impressive thing that in and of itself I've been able to really appreciate.

Today he brought me a lentil soup. He doesn't cook so it's in a can, but he explained that he couldn't get me the fresh version from the chilled section because he checked the ingredients on that one and it wasn't vegan.

What he doesn't know is that I've been on a health kick for the last few years and I'm now at the point where I wouldn't touch canned soup to save my life. It's icky to me. I just think about all the processed weirdness this preserved tin must contain and it sucks my appetite right away.

I'm not upset about this though. I'm looking at this can and it's making me smile. I'm sitting here and although I don't plan to open it, it's like a little souvenir right now that this busy dude took time out of his life to visit, bring me some comfort food from the supermarket (I'm sitting Shiva so can't go myself) and rigorously check the ingredients for any milk/egg powder which isn't something he intuitively knows to do. I appreciate that. It's the thought that counts.

Little things. A can of lentil soup which I have no plans to actually eat is the RL thing I love right now.

EDIT: OK, I have more to say.

I have also been thinking a lot about love lately.

I went through a not-so-great relationship earlier this year which was really a failure from the moment it began, but that didn't make the brutal descent of it from bad to worse any easier. Losing that love was excruciating.

People have been very kind and sympathetic to me over the death of Lucky, my cat, and yes he was 'just a cat', but he was also my best friend and I didn't want him to die. I loved him more than almost anything and that fucking sucked.

But the interesting thing is, having both 'losses' in perspective, it sucked in a very different way.

I watched him be cremated yesterday. I had to drive two hours both ways because there actually aren't a lot of pet crematoriums it turns out and of the ones that are out there, fewer do individual cremations — most dump the animals in all together for 'communal cremations' which is one of the more disgusting things I've ever heard of — and even of those that do individual cremations, most don't let you watch. I insisted. It was important to me and I don't regret that decision. I needed to watch him go cold, I needed to put my hand on his fur and feel the way it had changed from soft and silky to coarse and dry, needed to see him go from being my cat to being my cat's body. And I needed to see him enter the incinerator, needed to see him catch fire. I suppose this is strange but I needed it and no one can tell me that what I needed to process what happened could be wrong. I wanted to see it through to the very end.

I cried. And I kissed him on the forehead. And I told him, tearfully, one last time, right before, that I love him so much.

The rollercoaster relationship I went through wasn't like that. It's a very different thing losing a love to the death of the one you loved, compared to losing a love to the death of the love itself.

From the moment I met him 9 years ago to the moment he died, I have not one negative memory of Lucky. There is not one moment with him that I regret, that I would trade away, except perhaps his death itself. The love I had for this cat, and that he had for me, was the purest fucking thing I've ever experienced and ever will experience. Perhaps that's sad and where loving animals has its shortcomings, because indeed part of the reason this can't exist with humans is that humans are inherently flawed — and that's part of what makes loving humans so rich; loving them in spite of flaws. But there is also a trade-off, and that's that the same love, rich though it may be, can also never compare to the purity of unconditionally loving a cat or a dog who loves you back unconditionally.

Looking back on this loss I don't have questions like, 'Why wasn't I enough?' 'Why didn't/couldn't he love me?' 'Why did he choose her over me?' 'What did I do wrong?' 'Why did he treat me so appallingly?' 'Why did he say some really terrible things to me and cross some lines I never would have crossed?' 'Why did he take my heart and then crush it?' 'Did he ever really love me or was it all a lie?'

I know exactly what went down between me and Lucky and I have no questions about it. I know I gave him the best life I possibly could. I know I loved him unconditionally. I know he loved me and that I was his mum. I know I may have saved his life from the shelter, and I know for a certainty that he saved mine.

That's something that no one and nothing can take away from me. Not even death. This pain I feel is the result of unconditional love.

That makes this grief, in many ways, a not so terrible thing after all. It is also beautiful and something to be cherished.

Play a character who's an expert on xyz.

Research xyz a bit because you want to be able to play your expert character convincingly, and will need to draw on real life facts to do it.

Become a relative expert on xyz IRL throughout the course of playing this character. Learn things. Impress your friends.

RP/Writing has legit taught me so many awesome things about the world.

If this thread has taught me anything, it’s that British people know their toast.

This has been a very encouraging thread for someone with no coding skill to read.

I want to add something to @Jeshin's advice on asking people for feedback, though.

Know when feedback is worthless. Know when someone's critique of an idea isn't an indication that your idea is bad, but that your idea isn't for them. You don't have to make a game for everyone.

I have a good friend who thinks all of my favourite shows/films/artists are rubbish. Probably because many of them are female-dominated, camp or queer-friendly. He likes John Wick, I like Atomic Blonde. He likes The Crow, I like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I decided not to take offence recently when he indicated disinterest in a nonbinary/genderfluid concept of mine. We're friends for other reasons.

Pursue an idea that you feel passionate about, first and foremost. There's no other reason to do anything IMO. Don't let general consensus water it down. Cater to the fringe you want to attract.

Having a really light-hearted, fun, casual, jokey conversation about ordinary and not even passably problematic things.

Some rando butting in: I see you are all talking about things that make you happy. Let me tell you about the sadness that plagues my life and why I myself could never experience such happiness as you are currently enjoying. It all began when I was a small child ...

@Kanye-Qwest said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

@Pandora It's a good thread, and a good thing to have a discussion about. I wish we could get a group of people who are not comfortable telling others "please don't do this/contact me/whatever boundary" and see what they would feel comfortable doing, because that's my hurdle.

Isn't any coded tool you give them to use in the moment, in scene/conversation essentially the same as saying 'hey could we not'? If the aversion is fear or wariness of conflict or insulting the other party, would throwing a card on the scene not trigger the same anxiety?

I feel like the more something is coded into the game and thus totally normalised, the less of a big deal it seems to use it. Especially if it cuts out any need for actual human interaction/communication, which can be like, hard, for some people.

There's a MUD called After Earth which has a "graphic" command which I think is a pretty neat idea:

Helpfile for Graphic

Class: Command
Syntax: graphic

Graphic is used to indicate that you are uncomfortable with the content of the RP, either due to its violent nature, sexual content, or some other reason which would justify omitting, editing, or otherwise toning the RP down to a more acceptable level.

When this command is used, all persons in the room should comply and reduce the level of detail. It should not require clarification or lapse into OOC discussion.

See also: MUDSEX, TURNS

Mudsex (TS) is also never supposed to occur without use of a "consent" command.

Helpfile for Consent

Syntax: consent list
consent give <name> [note]
consent revoke <name> [note]
consent alert <name> <reason>
consent check <name>
consent request <name> [reason]

All players are required to seek and obtain consent prior to engaging in sexually explicit roleplay.

The consent list command lists all characters that your character has provided consent to. Consent give <name> will add a character to the list, with an optional note if desired. Consent revoke <name> will remove consent at any time, also with an optional note.

All players are required to confirm that they have received consent before pursuing sexual intercourse using the consent check <name> command. Likewise, a player can OOCly declare their character's IC intentions with consent request <name> with an optional reason.

The consent system is PRIVATE. It does not report to staff unless a player uses the consent alert <name> <reason> command to tell staff that something is wrong.

See also: MUDSEX

All good stuff, IMO. Reading these help files significantly increased my immediate level of comfort and confidence in deciding to play this particular game.

Just having these kinds of policies documented, knowing there are very strict, specific systems in place that don't require me to go through the (perceived to be) taxing process of reaching out to and then negotiating with staff.

I will also say that staff reputation goes a long way. I don't play Arx; theme-wise it's just not my bag, I'm not into L&L stuff. But I've only heard good things from friends, who inexorably gossip because that's just kind of the way it goes in this community, which means that if I did decide to play Arx I would probably feel a lot more comfortable approaching its staff about any potential issues.

It's not often that I agree with @Pandora on anything and honestly it's kind of surprising that of all the possible topics on MSB, this is where the line appears to get drawn between me, the popular community consensus, and her, based on past experiences. But for example, I can't think of any situation where it would ever occur to me to reach out to the staff of Haven to express that I'd encountered an issue with another player, as they have a notoriously bad reputation when it comes to dealing with this. (Unless I specifically just wanted to raise a stink up about it without any expectation that they'd actually do anything on my behalf, for cathartic/venting purposes.)

EDIT: Although speaking of Haven, I like the difficult prisoner system.

I have to wonder if the pushback from some of the people on this thread like @faraday (hi, sorry, I'm your biggest fan but your responses here just baffle me) may also be somewhat game-culture based.

If you're exclusively active in the kinds of WoD games that get circulated and advertised on MSB, maybe you can't fathom why it can kind of seem like a big deal to reach out to someone, or to staff, and let them know there's a problem. Maybe you're used to playing exclusively with people you've known for years, and pretty much the only circumstance you'd encounter where someone might need to reach out is akin to a buddy nudging you with an elbow and giving the stink-eye to some strange newcomer who doesn't seem to be doing things the way we do things around here.

But then picture someone like me — I generally feel like more of an outsider in this community, as I don't exclusively play MUSHes and came across my first MUSH only a few years ago — it can be pretty awkward to speak up, as the newcomer, in a circumstance where I might worry that I could be perceived as stirring up trouble in an established community.

Furthermore, on a lot of non-MUSH MU* that I play, OOC communication is seen as a bit of a bigger deal, in that it generally shouldn't happen without very good reason, and may even be an opt-in system. I like this because tbqh I don't come to these games to socialise, I come for pretendy-fun-times and to do what I love most in this world (other than maybe cuddling cute animals), which is creative writing. Having to actually talk to other players via pages to set up a scene or whatever is just a hurdle that I feel obligated to surmount, not something I would actively choose to do for the hell of it, 99 times out of 10. (That is not a typo.)

The culture on MUDs etc. may often also actively stigmatise the idea that you're even allowed to be uncomfortable with a scene. Like, don't be a baby, this is a mature game, a mature community, you need to buck up and just be OK with whatever the game throws at you. Also whatever happens IC is IC and you're not allowed to try and control your game experience through OOC means. Don't want your character raped? Have your character fight back, or report the incident IC to a police character, don't just bitch about it OOCly.

Just telling people in games with these kinds of cultures that it's actually OK to not want to deal with something, and giving them a command to put on the brakes without needing to figure out how to actually express that could be kind of revolutionary.

So maybe you're thinking, OK, but I run a WoD MUSH, so this doesn't apply to my game or my game's culture, and I have that A+ open door policy etc.

That's great but if a lifelong MUD player wanders into your game — if you're intending to leave that door open as opposed to just sticking with a group you know and are super comfortable with — then they may not be used to your vastly superior culture just yet, and an easily tracked, documented system like this may be preferable for them personally based on the other kinds of game cultures they're used to.

Everyone here's misspelling "Fellowship".

Arguably I think the closest example the saga has to a "Chosen One" is Strider/Aragorn, who even gets the girl after transforming from unassuming Ranger to King of all Mankind.

But what makes LotR special is that it doesn't really have one saviour/chosen-type character; it has an ensemble cast and no character within it is really capable for independently leading the charge on every front, of solo clearing every obstacle, of beating up every bad guy in every scenario alone. Frodo's pretty useless as a character and every training montage he endures only further weakens his resolve, his bravery, his moral virtue and his physical condition to the point where he ultimately fails his final test of making a heroic sacrifice, instead choosing the temptation of power. While we understand this isn't really his fault and that he held out better than most would, I would still argue this is in direct contradiction to the standard protagonist/chosen arc. Yet true, he alone had the ability to bear the ring for so long, whereas even someone like Aragorn (especially someone like Aragorn) could not. The thing is, everyone in that Fellowship has something they alone can do, and many things they simply cannot do.

This kind of narrative is by and large sorely lacking in Western culture IMO — it represents a kind of communal heroism rather than that of a lone individual. It celebrates diversity, perhaps not in the modern sense of identity, but of skill and thought. That many people together, albeit each with their many flaws, can accomplish a task no one could accomplish alone, even when their involvement isn't immediately obvious. (Aragorn & Co. serve to distract Sauron in order to give Frodo, Sam and Gollum a better chance to get the ring to Mount Doom. The quest's glory isn't theirs directly, but they're nonetheless integral to its success behind the scenes.)

I'm not religious by any stretch, but imagine Tolkien's Catholic faith had a lot to do with this, as did his lower class upbringing and wartime experiences.

I think it's important to emphasise some policies that you feel make your game different from other games.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I tend to always think about how the things around me, even if already very good, could always be made better. If you are too then I'm sure you've played on games and thought, 'OK, this is neat, but I wish ...' Add those policies to your game; the wishlists, the divisive ones. The controversial ones.

Be Excellent To One Another is honestly a policy I don't at all care for. Not because it's a bad policy, but because it's cliche. What does excellent mean? Whose excellent are we talking here? Be specific.

When I read a game policy that makes clear they will not tolerate sexism, racism, homophobia etc., tolerate OOC harassment, sexually inappropriate behaviour, paedo shit — while some might think these things shouldn't need to be said, as far as I'm concerned they really do, because the handling of these issues historically on other games I've played hasn't been perfect.

Being specific in this way also tells me something about your values as a staffer, which will make me feel safer playing on your game and likely be a draw in and of itself. After all while your role as staff isn't to be my best friend, I think being able to actually like, approve of and respect a game's staff is always good for player morale and comfort.

You will scare some people away — but are those people you wanted to attract in the first place?

@macha said in The Dog Thread:

@kestrel So that song led me to another of their songs.. and I may fall into a hole.

Until the Ribbon Breaks are so great and so underrated. Their self-titled album and A Lesson Unlearned are just ... chef kiss.

But, on the topic of dogs, let me show off what I got to wake up to today (and every day).

Way better than other types of dog a woman might wake up next to.

This is a bit off-topic but I wanted to share some (in some cases very strange) reflections I've had on this thread and some of the comments I made on it 3 weeks ago.

@Kestrel said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

@Pandora said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

@Kestrel said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

A while ago a friend told me they got banned on Arx for sexist behaviour.

Eye twitching.

Did they mention how many times they got banned?

It's not Azazello.

I'm pretty sure it was just the once but I didn't really follow up on it. I don't know the full story, I just gave a sympathetic ear when they griped about it. Their version of events didn't sound so bad, but it's the only version I heard. I'm not in the habit of vouching for people in situations I didn't witness that I don't know anything about.

So, ironically, this guy I mentioned here, my friend who never gave me any red flags, who seemed like the most normal person ever, who's listened to me rant ad nauseam about feminism and never expressed disagreement ...

Anyway I still don't know what happened over on Arx but I heard a very troubling and convincing first-person account about him, unrelated, from someone who's known him much longer than I have, and it was much worse than just "sexist behaviour". Not stuff I care to share openly, especially as it's not my story to share, but I'm pretty mad at myself now for the fact I was defending him less than even a month ago.

Also at this point starting to turn into a bit of a misandrist, I guess they were right about the evils of feminism all along. I just don't know how much more disappointment I can take from the nice, normal, perfect seeming people around me.

But on a less cynical note, I should've given @faraday more of a benefit of the doubt because I did read her AresMUSH policies on harassment and they all seem pretty legit to me, though I still think the principal idea proposed by @Pandora on this thread is a good one — more tools can't hurt.

If anyone needs me I'll be in the kitchen, aggressively chopping up a cucumber with a shiny new pair of jade glasses.

@mietze

Huh.

The problem you're describing is one which, in almost every instance, I have encountered exclusively on the opposite end of the spectrum. Rarely do I ever meet antagonistic characters whose motivation is me-me-me. Far more often I find this to be a 'protagonist' trait.

There are some people who just cannot seem to handle the idea that other characters will think ill of their characters, even when it's abundantly clear that this is character-to-character and not player-to-player or even player-to-character. These are players who seem to play with the goal of wish-fulfillment rather than storytelling, and will go on the OOC offensive when anyone rains on their IC/OOC-bleed parade rather than just retaliating in a way that makes IC sense and moving the story forward.

I play an antagonist because it's a role that allows me to draw other characters out. It invites them to showcase the deepest layers of the personality they've designed and test their character with challenges and circumstance they would not normally face. To me, this is one of the biggest draws of a survival/new-civilisation-building setting and it's the kind of thing I enjoy. I have 0 desire to interact with anyone who doesn't enjoy it, though I won't be an OOC dick to them for it, either. It just means we have different tastes and would be better off playing with other people who suit our interests better. If it was about me-me-me though, I would play the most perfect and wonderful princess who gets along with everyone, so that I can live vicariously through how much everyone adores and exalts my character. And I wouldn't, as I do, back off the second I sense my partner isn't having fun.

@Admiral: I don't know anyone else who plays this game. I barely even know anyone who posts on MSB. I have no contact with anyone there, and I make it a point to try and have at least one small scene with every player in the game, especially if they're new. So it doesn't seem plausible that I could be part of any kind of clique, let alone the right one, and yet I manage to enjoy playing an antagonistic character just fine.

I just wanna ride a dragon and blow up fascists, and if I can do at least one of these things, I am so in.

@TiredEwok said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

@Kestrel

I know I was one of those people in the log. I am sorry I sided with him before knowing the full story. I think I was the one who said that I wouldn't avoid anyone where RP goes, but, in hindsight, that was awful of me if that was me and I apologize profusely for that. You were fully in your right to ask that RP because of how discomforted he made you feel and I should have held my textual tongue.

Thank you, I really appreciate that. And like I said (and partly why I edited the names) I don't hold you or anyone else in that log accountable for the kneejerk protective instinct, I'm just grossed out by the guy who manipulated that reaction. But it means a lot that you would apologise and does make me feel a lot more at ease about the community there because I was kind of worried about being a pariah after this. (Which I wasn't even trying to do to him until the penny dropped when someone pointed me at this thread.)

@silverfox said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

@L-B-Heuschkel said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

@Kestrel You've seen mine. 

ngl, I read this as, "I've totally sent you a dick pic!"

Before people get judgemental, I do want it clarified that I did give @L-B-Heuschkel my explicit, enthusiastic consent to send me pictures of Richard Nixon at any and every opportunity.

Things that offend me: racist stereotypes.
Things that don't offend me: white people playing white people.

Of all the things to be mad about, this ain't it.

#MU*sSoWhite is a nonsense hashtag. I assume it's referencing #OscarsSoWhite. These are not morally equivalent crimes.

The Oscars (and RL media in general) being white-dominated is a problem because non-white people don't have the same opportunities in life, nor do they receive the same/fair recognition as their white counterparts. Real people are affected when out of a diverse line-up auditioning for a role, only the white actors stand a chance, or white people are paid more, etc. And when non-white children grow up only seeing white protagonists in the media they consume, they're made to feel like they don't matter and never will have the same opportunities white people do. Similarly, when media depictions of women give the impression their sole purpose in life is to be a romantic/sexual satellite for men, that gives people of all genders the wrong idea of how to treat women -- and in women's case, how they ought to treat themselves.

No one is hurt when white MUers play white characters. You aren't paying your played-by royalties. You aren't denying starving black artists the opportunity to perform in your world. You aren't taking away representation from POC. You are representing yourself. Everyone who plays these games has the opportunity to represent themselves and live whatever gay/female/black/disabled/whatever fantasy they like. We make our own superheroes.

I have literally never looked at a mostly white, mostly male or mostly straight ensemble on a MU* and felt ostracised by that fact alone. It would be different if, out of 10 female characters and 20 male characters, all 5 leadership positions were filled by dudes. It would be different if someone called my gay/POC character a slur.

I have however frequently been disgusted by POC characters clearly played by someone who doesn't belong to that minority group, who uses the character's "exotic" skintone to base the entire concept on. For example, a weed-smoking, uneducated black criminal who spends most of his time talking about KFC, drugs, and white booty. (Yes I have run into this. MULTIPLE TIMES.) Please don't encourage these people by suggesting they're heroes for providing #representation.

What I do think played-by choices often reveal is beauty standards. Most people pick faces they think are attractive. I often cringe when I read descriptions that wax poetic about how super blonde and teutonic and alabaster-skinned some elegant specimen of Western masculinity is, or when people list their "race" on a character page as Nordic/Irish/white, especially when that's a custom field rather than a default one. Maybe if you're one of these people it's worth examining your own biases.

Do it quietly, in your head.

And direct your white guilt towards more important causes.

@egg said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@Kestrel Why shouldn't I be mad? If I spend most of my leisure hours in a place where "representing yourself" = white (and even moreso, Aryan half of the time), shouldn't I want to see change there? Is it as important as the film industry changing its racial bias? Of course not. Does that mean I shouldn't care at all? No.

Because the kinds of people who predominantly play white characters, especially in such a way that telegraphs their obsession with "white heritage", aren't the kinds of people you want playing people of colour. If their biases are apparent when playing their own ethnicity, imagine how gross it would be to see those biases apparent when they portray a different one.

I know an honest to god fascist in this hobby, and by that I don't mean 'some dude who is kinda racist', I mean, 'uses an iron cross as a forum avatar, obsessed with authoritarian and nationalistic themes, checks every item on the Ur-Fascism list.'

His characters are all, without exception, male, significantly above 6', muscular and athletic, and have descriptions that wax lyrical about how fair his hair is and how structured his strikingly white face is. Ideally, I'd kind of like him to, I don't know, catch fire or something, fall into a woodchipper, leave the hobby, whatever. But insofar as we're stuck with him (on games where he has yet to be banned), I'm just GLAD he only plays this one type of character, both because it makes him easy to identify and avoid, and because if this is his idea of white masculinity, just imagine what his idea of asian masculinity might be. (And I already know what his ideas of women are, based on a persistent pattern of harassing them.)

He's a pretty extreme example but he has little red flags I tend to notice in other people in the hobby who aren't as awful but, shall we say, mildly suck.

Researching your character is a good idea, but research can't undo biases. I know a seasoned anthropologist who will tell you this quite glibly -- many of her white male colleagues find foreign tribes entirely fascinating, and know a lot of facts about their culture, but that doesn't change the fact that they fetishise, objectify and exoticise them like they're some interesting little growth on a petri dish, a cute pet or a fashion accessory.

Should white people work to undo their biases? Of course. Are MU*s the battleground on which we can help them do that? I am doubtful.

I know plenty of people in this hobby who play characters across the full spectrum of the human experience, and do it well. These are people who, for the most part, don't actually need more encouragement -- they already take it upon themselves to read up, ask people from the culture they're roleplaying for feedback, and do it because they just want to, not because they want some kind of medal.

And then you also have people who never have and never will, and you know what, it's probably best they just stick to that, too.

@Ominous said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

@saosmash
Do they utilize jew jitsu?

We utilise Krav Maga and throwing-stars of David

I mean, the issue really isn't that it's just an overly sexual description of a normal black person.

It includes choice lines such as, 'His base cunning makes him a good household servant.'

The cringe I feel reading old posts of mine on MSB.

Part of me is glad this place will be going up in smoke simply because it will erase all my cringe post history.

The reason this isn't a "gripe" but a "thing I love", though, is that it's cathartic. I'm glad my past self is cringe-worthy to me, it's an encouraging sign that I'm in a better place now than I was 2+ years ago.

The lil bit of magic that happens when someone's style meshes so well with your own that you're both just elevating each other to a whole other level every time you get to share a scene. Separate you're OK. Together? Whoa, I actually didn't know I could write like this. Or that they could!

I've been a little insular lately on the game I play for anxiety reasons; just haven't been up to braving big social scenes. But there's one person I've had an abandoned plot thread with for so long, at this point, that the prospect of finally getting around to following up on it has somehow managed to turn into just another daunting chore I've been dreading. Well, today I finally did it, and what the hell was I so afraid of, damn?

Related MU* thing I love: chill people being chill about RL obligations. Sometimes I stress myself out trying to write fast for people, but the person I had this scene with today just let me cruise through a mutually busy day. Sometimes one/two poses per hour peppered throughout the day with regular intervals and not having to rush is actually just fine by me.