Best posts made by Kestrel

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

*— except for @faraday's concerns based on extensive experience/research about how to avoid alienating the core community/playerbase these games draw from. Which I'll address in a separate post to avoid getting too convoluted. Please standby for Chapter II.

So as someone who's played and staffed a lot of text-based RPGs over the years in a variety of mediums, my experience has been that, be it a crunchy MUD with extensive quest/combat code or a lightweight MUSH, what keeps people logging in is two things: the community and (by extension) the story. It sounds condescending to say but I feel like even MUD players often don't seem to grasp this, and will chase numbers to their own detriment before burning out and realising the real treasure was always the friends we made along the way.

A lot of people have been asking elsewhere on MSB why people don't leave HavenRPG when they seem so terribly unhappy there. The reason for that is everything mentioned in the above paragraph; the game's been around for a full decade, and for better or worse its community has morphed into a kind of dysfunctional family. It reinvents itself every few years, wiping the slate clean with an apocalyptic story event and then launching a new iteration with some updated code, the chance for new characters to establish themselves from the ground up, while keeping mostly the same familiar lore and faces people have grown accustomed to. During this time a lot of former players tend to return from absentia to give the new version a shot, and a lot of new players come with them to start on mostly even footing with the established community. I'll note that while I've chosen to quit Haven (said the heroin addict), I remain good friends with a lot of people in the community who've known me for years and genuinely aren't garbage people.

Some time ago Tyr, Haven's creator, launched two new games (not at the same time obviously, with intervals). These were CyberRun and Ravencroft, both wholly web-based RP MUDs built on (AFAIK) ground-up custom code. The concepts of both of these games were pretty far out, to my tastes, and I spoke to a lot of other players from the community who shared the same opinion. Yet despite that, neither game had a shortage of interested players at all, most of them drawn from the pool of HavenRPG's established community — even the ones who'd expressed disinterest in the settings/concept still felt curious to give it a try with their friends. For a random gamerunner this would've been a much more difficult, maybe even impossible task, and a waste of a lot of effort to put themselves out there coding something entirely new for no payoff. But for an established game dev with an active fanbase and enmeshed community, drumming up interest is a good deal easier. I've asked people who played these games what eventually caused them to fold, and none of them said it was due to a gradual population drift — everyone said it was solely due a cessation of staff-run metaplot. So interest from the players, assuming they're regularly spoon-fed plot, was not a factor.

To frame this in a context MSB users are more likely to relate to — I can personally say that I'd probably give any game run by @GirlCalledBlu and @Seraphim73 a go based on that information alone, maybe regardless of setting. And I have a feeling that if Arx shut down today and relaunched as an entirely different beast, purely browser-based, most of its current playerbase would go along with that transition and gladly try new things, even if it meant losing their established characters to start from scratch, and even if they wouldn't have been interested in its final form had they stumbled on it as-is, without prior investment in what it had been before.

So, a coder cohort and I have reflected on our options and settled on taking a similar approach. (This thread really helped, by the way, thanks everyone for your thoughtful replies.) We have a story in mind that we want to tell, and we're interested in the idea of exploring platforms other than a telnet client, but his experience as a coder is with Evennia and Python, while mine is largely nonexistent. While I'm willing to learn, that takes time, and learning multiple languages for web development is asking a whole lot more than just learning Python for Evennia. So, we're starting small. If the game actually becomes something in the standard MU* format and develops anything resembling a lasting community, then we'll look at the next step of how to transition our stories and systems onto a more modern platform.

And, if not, then we had fun fucking around with a creative writing project and learning how to code. I can use those skills for professional purposes regardless.

The daily struggle of 'is this worth my time' vs 'you said something really awful and I really want to take a minute to address that real quick'.

Social desires:

I want to be respected. @Ganymede phrased this as 'I hope to entertain' and that resonates but I'll go a step further and admit that I have a certain need to be admired and appreciated. I rarely do things with intention to harm other people, but this is partly because if others feel bad because of me, I feel bad about myself; I want my contributions to add positive value.

I want healthy separation. Despite the above, what I want from the community is to feel wanted, not needed. If I start to feel like people are making demands of me or that my contributions are no longer seen as voluntary but an expectation I have to meet, I peace. I want the freedom to come and go as I please, RP with others outside of my usual circle, and choose what I participate in without being judged for what I choose not to. I never want to have to explain why I do or don't want to do something.

I want a "professional" relationship, with fellow members of the community being more akin to colleagues than friends. This is a controversial one, I'm aware. This relates especially to displays of affection and familiarity and especially one-to-one. My interest in engaging with someone communally or for RP purposes doesn't necessarily mean I want to engage with them individually for OOC purposes, and expressions of admiration on my part are not an offer of lower social/sexual/romantic boundaries between us. I take care not to invite the assumption that it should, and will avoid people who show signs of misinterpretation/desperation.

Personal desires:

I want to pursue omniscience in a world full of mystery. To find out what makes every character tick, what the relationships are between them and the overarching story. For this reason I tend to play spies, scientists, hackers and detective types — people who have an excuse to go digging or interrogate people one-to-one. When I get into romantic storylines, it's likely to be with a character I find complex and interesting to try and figure out, who throws me a lot of curveballs and maybe even starts out as a rival, so there's initial resistance to tease out curiosity. I avoid characters who come across as very flat or don't give me a lot to work with, and I avoid settings that feel too predictable.

I want social commentary. (I think this is also a controversial one.) The setting has to provide some room for ideological conflict that goes beyond just light vs. dark, good vs. evil, nice vs. bully. My characters aren't often a reflection of my RL values, in fact they'll often be the opposite specifically because I want to act as a foil, make people think and give people something to criticise.

I want shock, horror, awe, action, adventure, impossible choices and exceptional circumstances. Take me outside the confines of RL humdrum, I'm here for a thrill-ride. If I engage in bar RP it's to set up the connections/investment for when things go awry or to decompress/commiserate/celebrate whatever cool big thing we just survived. But I want what really drives and holds our IC relationships together to be those major events, not day-to-day or smalltalk.

I want tension tolerance. It's fine if our characters don't get along. It's fine if things don't always go our way. It's fine if our lovebirds won't get their happily ever after. It's fine (good actually) if the stakes feel high. It's fine if I can't cleanly put your character into a box of friend or enemy. I like it when things aren't straightforward and am comfortable with uncertainty, changing dynamics and unexpected roadblocks. Don't make things too easy for my character; it'll bore me and the story I'm pursuing is more often about the challenge they face than the finish line.

These are not all needs, some of these are just wants. And if other people communicate their needs, I will often be happy to accommodate as long as I'm likewise having fun. I'll adjust my playstyle to the setting, community, and my current RP partner and can slow-roll things until I understand their comfort levels. (I will default to the assumption that you don't want an epic rivalry, for instance, and keep things ICly cordial and fluffy until I get the go-ahead to assume otherwise.)

I like Disenchantment way more than I ever expected to.

So I've watched the Simpsons and Futurama too. They were funny. I was down for a new Matt Groening show as a meaningless distraction.

But it actually has really good story, too. That pleasantly surprised me. Season 3 even has a tastefully done, respectful queer storyline, although romance isn't generally at the centre of the show. Solid female lead, adult humour, lighthearted while still being emotionally impactful. I didn't feel the need to binge it, I savoured it over a period of weeks whenever I had half an hour to spare and sweeten up my day. I recommend.

Finding an underused played-by you just know you're gonna use one day.

No character for them yet, but already excited for when you eventually end up with a perfect fit.

Hello yes this is my daughter Andromeda.

@Arkandel said in Tips on Güd TS:

[You should] ask. "Hey, my character's RP with yours was funny, I kinda see them becoming an item, what do you think about that?". It's that clear, and if they say no it's okay.

The key in both cases though is be prepared to take 'no' for an answer, and that means paying the other person the courtesy of asking them so they get to answer. What is distasteful is shadowing some guy/girl around, showing up in every scene or paging constantly asking for RP then nagging them IC for a relationship. That just isn't cool. Sometimes - hell, often-times - it can work organically without an OOC conversation first but given the sensitive material at hand having a chat early on saves a lot of headache down the line.

Whatever you do, no matter what, for the love of $deity do not spring coercion on people unless it's been discussed in advance. That's the only real no-no in any of this. Your mileage concerning such things can vary wildly; some people figure IC is IC so anything goes, other people only tolerate IC consensual relationships, that's up to you... but no matter what do not try to IC coerce a relationship or sex without discussing it OOC first, ever. Ever.

That means no blackmail going into a kinky direction, no spilling vitae into the cheerleader's mouth to make her love your character, no using Awe or Mind 4 to alter their perceptions, no forcefully accidentally whoopsie tearing clothes off during a fight... nothing. It's an instant trip to the creepy side even if it turns out afterwards they were okay with it. You were still a creeper, you just got lucky (no pun intended ).

Just ask first!

So, funnily enough, I find the exact opposite of what you're describing to be 'creepy behaviour'. I say this as a female who's been pestered for her number, address and nudes on MUDs by people I made the horrendous mistake of engaging in IC relationships, even ones which were strictly fade-sex only, even with the knowledge that I was in a committed RL relationship and was discussing everything that happened in-game with my partner to make sure she was cool with it. Even during a time when I was underage, as I've been MUDing for over half my lifespan.

I don't know you, so for all I know you're the most pristine fellow on the internet, with an impeccable degree of respect for your fellow humans and the social acumen to never make anyone uncomfortable. (Based on your comments on the Haven thread, I don't have a negative opinion of you.) I do know though that while I agree that 'communication is key' in most contexts, an excess of OOC communication with someone I'm TSing or co-writing a fictional relationship with is going to make me run for the hills. I suspect that partially, this is a cultural discrepancy between MUDers and MUSHers — most MSBers seem to be of the latter, and I've only started dabbling in that genre in the last couple weeks; the level of OOC communication that's expected/allowed there is taking some getting used to.

I find it much, much worse if someone is trying to OOCly coerce a relationship or sex without roleplaying the approach IC first and do not deem the reverse coercion at all. To me, IC is IC. If it makes sense for your character to spike my cheerleader's drink, as much as I reserve the right to request a fade if I get squicked, then by all means, go ahead. Unless you're incredibly cheesy about it, I will probably laugh quite a bit if whoopsie clothes-tearing occurs during a fight in the style of this scene. The minute some fucker starts messaging me OOC to say 'nngh, your character is hot', sending winkyfaces or asking me how I feel about our characters entering a relationship — holy fuck, I'm gone. The answer to that question, by the way, is usually I don't. I don't feel anything about our characters entering a relationship, at least not before it's happened; I go with the flow, and if it happens, it happens, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. What ever happened to good old-fashioned 'roleplay it out' and 'find out IC'?

I certainly have some criteria for whom I will and won't RP a relationship with. Does the player have IC/OOC separation issues? Do they write well? Does their character draw me in, and can I see myself writing with them without getting bored for extended periods of time, on a regular basis? (And as mentioned above, minimal OOC communication is a plus, for me.) But ultimately, it's about our characters' feelings for each other, not the players' feelings for each other, not the players' feelings for the characters, or anything else. I don't seek to enter IC relationships with characters I deem 'hot', but rather with characters whom I deem to have interesting stories which will mesh well, organically and realistically with the story I'm telling on mine. On the whole, I'd say that the more likely I am to find a character attractive IRL, the less likely I am to want to RP a relationship with them IC; give me flaws, wrinkles and quirks for a story that has depth and meaning, not a cookie-cutter happily-ever-after that I'd rather pursue IRL. I respect everyone's right to pursue whatever it is they're looking for when they RP, but wish-fulfilment doesn't appeal to or impress me. I almost always play characters whom I feel in some degree superior to.

If a character hits on mine, my character will either say 'yes' or 'no' based on what makes sense. If it makes sense for my character to say 'yes' but I want to say 'no', I will find some IC excuse, like 'whoops, got no condoms', 'wink wink maybe next time but gotta dash', or 'you're cute but my wife died last year and I'm still in mourning'. Conversely if IC rejection happens, then that ought to make for just as good a story as sparks flying would. I wouldn't want someone to ask me if I can see our characters ending up together in order to decide whether or not their character should be interested in mine in the first place. If it makes sense for your character to be interested, my character's interest or lack thereof shouldn't affect that, at least not initially. I'd have been spared a lot of heartache from unrequited love if that was how desire worked, and spared an equal amount of delight from shared desire were it so meaningless a realisation. These are the stories I want, but if you're only pursuing perfection, I suppose we wouldn't work out, anyway.

The only kind of communication I want is when things are on the verge of getting graphic or intense. I will always send out a tell/page saying, 'Hey, let me know if at any point you're uncomfortable with the scene, and we can stop, skim or ease up,' and I expect the same from a roleplay partner if they're initiating (or heck, even if they're not). I don't appreciate people springing penises and upskirt-dives on me unsolicited, and if it happens after I've made my boundaries clear, then so help me, so help them, so help everyone. I'm baffled though by the notion that people should ask first before they even proposition someone IC; how is that less off-putting than propositioning someone OOC? I've never been called creepy based on my sexual/romantic roleplay styles, though granted, I'm willing to accept that maybe no one's just ever had the guts to tell me. Nonetheless, I think I'm pretty good at inferring whether someone enjoys my RP based on how often they seek me out for it, based on the effort they put into their emotes when interacting with me, based on whether they'll stick around in a scene for hours and based on whether they greet me enthusiastically on OOC channels. If my character hits on them and any of these things change, I back off. My policy of 'roleplay it out' does not apply to harassing people who've expressed/implied disinterest in interacting with you altogether.

On the topic of perfection and my disinterest in it as a storyteller: let me just add that the absolute worst TS I've had in recent memory, barring a two-sentence fade with someone who was stalking me on multiple alts and used mind-control to eventually corner one, was the worst by virtue of the fact that if it happened IRL, it would have been the best I've ever had. It had me staring at the screen thinking, 'Who is this chick? What the fuck is happening here?' Amid all the ecstatic moaning, back-arching, eyelash-fluttering and orgasmic gasps, I ended up just having my (male) character finish early and fall asleep. Scenes which started with yelling matches, awkward fumbling and ended with brooding, confusion or dissatisfaction were hotter by far. Someone suggested talking OOC about likes or dislikes? You're missing out. I once ended a sex scene when my character's partner pulled out a knife and told her it would turn him on if she'd cut him in the midst of it. Her response was 'wtf', she fell off in confusion without finishing, and instead we RPed the couple talking out their differences and limitations IC.

P.S.: Great thread. I lol'd mucho. Thanks for making my Saturday, @Auspice.

@macha said in For anyone who might be struggling with the hallmark holiday too:

And oh hey. My sister just posted a picture of her, my stepmom, and my other sister all together and posing this morning.

Fuck.

My family likes to act like I'm crazy because I decline to pretend that an abusive family member wasn't abusive, and that I'm unreasonable for wanting nothing to do with them now that I'm no longer obligated.

So that's most of my family photos, but I am much happier and healthier opting out.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

What? No. What?

I have in no way, shape or form reacted to the incident brought up by @ixokai surrounding the Village Centre 'can I join' page IC.

You said 'well the villagers shunned us'.

It would, however, give H and I something to work with in terms of, 'oh, I guess the villagers here don't like us', and RP is still RP.

This is making IC reason for OOC reason from those players.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

As is assuming you couldn't join the scene for IC reasons alone, when they have no IC reason to not like you. You made the IC narrative on your own, you actually powered for the other players in this case. You made that you were ICly shunned, when they just couldn't manage a large scene.

What? No. What?

I have in no way, shape or form reacted to the incident brought up by @ixokai surrounding the Village Centre 'can I join' page IC. I wouldn't, because the request was OOC, and because this is a MUSH. I am not treating a MUSH as though it were a MUD. If that was my intention, why would I make this thread? I explained, at @Thenomain's request, how the incident would have gone down had it been a MUD.

Because it bears repeating, apparently:

I explained, at @Thenomain's request, how the incident would have gone down had it been a MUD.**

had it been a MUD.

You may want to reread my posts in the relevant context. I don't really know how to make my intentions here clearer to you. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Libertarian is a left-wing word.

Anarchism is a left-wing ideology.

Right-wingers stealing, appropriating and corrupting left-wing talking points to both discredit our movements and disguise the inherent selfishness of their own is nothing new. The most egregious and notorious of which would to my mind be "National Socialst" and more recently "identitarian", but still significant of which would be anarchism and libertarianism.

Anarchism is a word invented by Pierre Proudhon, the first person to ever call himself an Anarchist in 1840. A man also famous for his hottest of hot takes: 'Property is theft.'

Libertarian, in a political context, was first coined by Joseph Déjacque in 1857, a self-identified Libertarian Communist, who leveraged the term to criticise his friend Proudhon for not being inclusive enough in his perspective on Anarchism — in this context, towards the feminist struggle for women's rights.

On the other hand, the man known for coining the term "Anarcho-Capitalism", Murray Rothbard, conceded:

'We must therefore turn to history for enlightenment; here we find that none of the proclaimed anarchist groups correspond to the libertarian position, that even the best of them have unrealistic and socialistic elements in their doctrines. Furthermore, we find that all of the current anarchists are irrational collectivists, and therefore at opposite poles from our position. We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground, and are being completely unhistorical.'

But even were we to look beyond history towards more modern usage of these terms, all they mean, in essence, is an opposition to authoritarianism; the desire to organise horizontally, collectively, rather than vertically in a society where power is pooled at the top and leveraged against those at the bottom.

Right-wing anarchism is an oxymoron. There is no such thing. If you endorse the exploitation of the poor by the rich through heritable ownership of land and means of production (landlords & CEOs), then you endorse the legacy of feudalism and hierarchal structures. Fighting authoritarian rule in order to supplant it with a different kind of authoritarian rule isn't "Anarchy"; it doesn't matter if your goal is to replace government regulation with unchecked corporate power, replace Capitalism with one-party Communism, or take out the president of the United States in order to enforce the regime of an unelected fascist.

Anarchism is when power is equally distributed through direct democracy, and the protection of all individual rights that don't impose upon other people's individual rights. (License to kill? Not included. The right to own slaves? Also not included.)

I will always prefer to wait forever for really good writing than watch someone pump-and-dump something mediocre. Well, maybe not forever — ten minutes between emotes is the max I like to wait, though I'll wait longer for someone special. I find that the speed of my own writing is inversely correlated with how engaged I am, funnily enough. If the scene really grabs my attention, I will take longer, because I want to put more thought into what I'm writing. Quick banter with a writing partner who doesn't challenge me has never been, well, challenging for me. This improves over time as roleplay chemistry and familiarity develop, but there are writers out there who are so damn interesting that anything they write means I have to stop, stare, digest, and really care about what I offer up in response.

The content of the emote matters. I like a good paragraph, on average, but I also like variety. A sentence or two is fine, from time to time, as is the occasional two, three, or in recent memory, even four paragraph response. There are times when a short one-liner is more apt, and I don't like it when people needlessly pad in these instances.

I have a personal preference which I think makes me pretty weird, and is the opposite of how most MU*ers think: I dislike emotes containing too much dialogue. Spare me your character waxing poetics and serving up all their philosophical and political views on a platter; rants and rambles feel inorganic and unrealistic to me. I would so much rather read a paragraph detailing your character's body-language, the way they move, the way they meet my character's eyes, the tone of their voice, and for this to breathe life into their one-sentence, even one word verbal retort. I wish more people loved writing body-language and actions as much as I do, as it's so much more immersive than reading a screenplay. C'est la vie.

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

So glad that MU*ing has taught me to always, always keep the receipts if someone is being shitty.

I hope they got defensive and accused you of being an obsessive stalker for it because that's by far my favourite part of showing someone irrefutable proof of their own lies.

@greenflashlight

She gave a fiercely powerful speech advocating for the desegregation of trans healthcare in my country. (E.g., the same access to HRT that cis people have without an arduous interrogation & waiting list.)

Upon realising she was in the area (I genuinely had no idea she would be there, a lot else was going on around this) I had a mini excitement freakout during which I secretly professed my undying love for her to two nearby acquaintances of mine. They gently cajoled me into approaching her, flanked me en route, and then graciously held back a step while I did my very best to seem like a normal/healthy/respectful adult in expressing my cordial admiration for her work. We complimented each other's style, I am elevated to a new plane of existence by this, and then I extracted myself so as to stay out of her way for the rest of the day and confine my remaining 'OMG's to said acquaintances who helped me navigate the aftermath of this emotional time.

I have good wingpeople, and also good boots. One of said wingpeople had actually complimented the boots separately before Abigail did so, and was smugly validated in their judgement.

I actually hate the boots but I guess now I have to keep them forever.

@vixanic said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

So, I guess this is the thread to say that as of last week, I have a formal diagnosis for ADHD. I'm starting new medication tomorrow - Elvanse, the active ingredient of which is lisdexamfetamine dimesylate, an amfetamine. (Edit: I am told it is called Vyvanse in the US)

Does anyone else have experience with this drug or a similar one, for ADHD treatment? Any advice, anectodal evidence of how it helps, etc?

Congrats on your diagnosis. I'm in the same boat as you and know how powerful that can be. It's also a lot to process, especially starting out on the medication ... good luck.

When you first start out on Elvanse (or any ADHD medication), you're going to be given a relatively low dosage, typically 20mg or 30mg, and it'll then be gradually increased by your psychiatrist depending on what you report back to them. With this in mind, here are my tips:

• Report back to your psychiatrist as instructed and be completely honest with them. Unlike many other types of psychiatric medication (e.g. antidepressants), the effects of stimulants like Elvanse should be apparent the day you take them. If a few hours after taking it you still don't feel anything, or if the difference is only subtle, it isn't working and you probably need a higher dose.
• Don't increase your dose without first discussing it with your psychiatrist. There's a reason they take you up a little at a time; there's a sweet spot for how much you need for it to be optimally effective, and taking too much, resulting in excess dopamine, actually has the opposite effect of what you're probably trying to achieve.
• Don't give up hope and don't despair if it doesn't seem to be working as expected. (I speak both from experience of feeling this way and from talking to other friends who've recently gone through the same journey.) Just trust your psychiatrist and communicate. It takes time to find the right dose and they'll adjust until you get there, but you will get there.
• The max dose for Elvanse is 70mg. Your doctor will probably take you up/down around 10mg at a time as needed. Typically what will happen is that every time you go up a dose, you'll feel better, and then your brain will gradually adjust to that dose until it no longer works. Then your doc will take you up again, until you reach a stable dose where the effects no longer seem to be decreasing over time.
• If the dose is too high, you'll feel high. And honestly this is an amazing feeling, I thoroughly enjoyed it until it wore off. (And it will wear off so don't get too attached to it.) When the dose is just right, you won't feel high but you'll just feel like a normal adult who can do normal adult things without it being difficult. Other than that no one in your life should be able to tell you're "on drugs" because you'll just seem like a normal person, more normal than you have been previously. I know people who take a very negative view of amphetamines (because it's commonly abused by normies as a "study drug") and they're surprised when I inform them that I take them, since I don't act like the people they've encountered who were using it without a legitimate diagnosis.

For me, 30mg did nothing. Two days later my doc boosted me to 45mg (instructing me to split the capsules and take 1.5 instead of just 1). On 45mg I felt high for 2 days which was cool and fun, then it wore off and stopped working again. I got boosted to 50mg which worked pretty well. I told my psychiatrist it was working but that the effects were subtle (though still good) at which point he took me up to 60mg. This is currently my stable dose, with a few other caveats:

• Elvanse decreases your appetite and you're going to want to eat less. This is exciting if you're trying to lose weight, especially since ADHD is often comorbid with obesity and binge-eating disorder; if you're anything like me, food is one of the few things that gives you a dopamine boost normally, which makes you think about and crave it all the time, and that goes away when you're on stimulants. That said: don't get carried away, 'cause I did, and it was not a good time. If you aren't getting enough calories, all the ADHD meds in the world aren't going to help you focus. It's OK to use Elvanse to help you lose weight and reduce calorie intake, but make sure you're making time for breakfast and dinner before/after the effects are felt. Maintain your physical health; your mental health absolutely depends on it.
• No idea what your biological sex is, but female sex hormones have a profound effect on dopamine levels, and therefore also the efficacy of ADHD medication. It's very common for the effects to fluctuate depending on which point of your cycle you're on. If female, I recommend using a fertility tracking app if you don't have one already and trying to schedule your productivity around that. Additionally I'd recommend insisting on either a female psychiatrist or at least one whose online profile lists "ADHD in women" as part of their specialisation. You will also want to do your own research on the topic because the institutional bias against women & female bodies in medicine means many doctors simply aren't informed/educated about these nuances. I've had to take a very active role in understanding my own healthcare needs to ensure that they're met. If you're AFAB and suspect you may have an endocrine/fertility condition in addition (such as PCOS, endometriosis, menopause, perimenopause, a history of hysterectomy, or are on hormonal birth control) I highly recommend seeking out a female endocrinologist in addition to seeing a psychiatrist for ADHD. Controlling/tracking your sex hormones is absolutely key to managing & treating ADHD for AFAB individuals.
• Elvanse is a slow-release stimulant. I recommend tracking the times you take it, the times you start to feel an effect, and the times when you start to feel it leaving your system. For me, it takes about 2 hours to kick in and lasts for 8 hours after that, but I've noticed my metabolism of the medication differs throughout my menstrual cycle and has slightly increased over time. Therefore I notice a sort of "bell curve" effect throughout the day, giving me about 2 hours of peak productivity and a slight decrease before/after that. I communicated this to my psychiatrist and was prescribed a quick-release stimulant (dexamfetamine) in addition to the Elvanse to help ensure I'm still functional in the morning and evening when the effects of Elvanse are greatly lessened. I take up to 2 doses (sometimes 0) of this throughout the day depending on whether I actually need it. (E.g., Do I have important tasks to accomplish? Am I liable to forget my keys when I leave the house if I don't take it this morning?) Typically that would mean one in the morning with the Elvanse, and one in the afternoon without.
• It's OK and even good to take breaks from the medication now and then. I find having a rest day or two per week helps ensure I'm able to relax and unwind more since the medication increases my productivity to such an extent that I will genuinely forget to goof off and have hobbies, which are still necessary for optimal mental health. On those rest days I'll also increase my normal calorie intake to ensure I'm not overdoing the weight loss or compromising my body's basic functioning.
• Taking Elvanse with or without food will modify its effects to some extent. In particular fat intake can dull the bell-curve effect mentioned, and ensure you experience a slower, more sustained release of the medication. Too much fat can dull the effects to the point where you won't feel it at all, too little will cause it to be absorbed too quickly and create a sharp/abrupt productivity peak followed by a crash straight after. Once you're on a stable dosage you should experiment a little with the optimal amount of food to take with the medication. Elvanse will be fully absorbed into your system 20 minutes after you've taken it, so you'll want to eat any food intended to aid absorption either right before or during that window. My doctor recommended a light breakfast; I found a heavy one worked better, since being vegan my diet's lower in fat/calories than most people's is regardless.
• If you wake up really late, don't take the medication that day. It'll keep you up and you won't be able to sleep. If it interferes with your sleep regardless you may want to talk to your doc about some sort of nightly sleep aid in addition, e.g. I take Trazodone and have done so historically for insomnia, even prior to being prescribed Elvanse. (Though I needed it that much more after.)
• Because amphetamines are a Class II controlled substance in the UK, and because many people do abuse amphetamines without a diagnosis/prescription, doctors are often reluctant with how much they prescribe, to whom and when. You may need to prove to your psychiatrist through consistent communication and adherence to their instructions that you can be trusted. Elvanse is considered a medication with a low abuse potential due to its gradual release mechanism; this is why it tends to be the first line of treatment offered for new patients in the UK and why you're unlikely to be offered a quick-release version upfront. If you feel like you need a quick-release medication like dexamfetamine, just be patient and give it a few months of trial/error/discussion with your psychiatrist. It's unlikely to be offered until you seem to be on a relatively stable dosage of Elvanse and have enough experiences to draw on.

I realise that was a lot but I hope it helps. It all would've certainly helped me when I first started taking the medication, and a few friends of mine on a similar journey have reported the same.

I'm UK-based. (London specifically.) If the above helps and you want someone to chat to about specific doctor recommendations in that area or just experiences with Elvanse that your psychiatrist doesn't have the time for, feel free to drop me a private message.

Unfortunately, getting seen on the NHS is difficult to the point of feeling practically impossible (especially for adults, especially for women ...) and private psychiatrists are overbooked, overcharging, and provide too little time. There's a gap in this country right now between the available knowledge/expertise on ADHD and the amount of people currently realising they need help for it.

Good luck.

lol. lmao.

As a literary person, my goal when playing MUs is to read and write the best possible story. I want the kind of story that, when complete, could be enjoyably read about in a book, without anyone sighing with boredom or rolling their eyes. Such a story requires conflict, progression, stakes, and diverse, fallible, realistic characters. I won't say that such stories don't exist in MUs, but they're rare, fleeting, and require a lot of finesse to achieve.

One of the most easily identifiable barriers to good storytelling in MUs is something we can call, without any clinical implications, 'the Hero Complex' — or more simply, player egos. Players don't often view their characters as unimportant cogs in the storytelling machine, but as the hero; the victor. They want their characters to be smart, sexy, morally unambiguous, badass, powerful, competent and special, but when these traits are universal, they don't make for a good story; they make for a cast of competing divas on a stage too small to hold more than one.

They don't want conflict, because conflict with their character feels like a personal attack. They don't want stakes, because stakes implies a risk that they might lose. The don't want complexity or diversity, because they want their characters to be unambiguously pure, upstanding, and worthy of admiration. In the minds of many MU players, ideally all other characters should like and approve of their own, should desire their own, should never fight their own, and no obstacles that seem insurmountable should ever be in their path. Their characters should never lose anything or come to any lasting harm. But can you imagine what a boring story that would be? It can serve the goal of personal escapism, but very little else. As patronising as it sounds, I think many MU players don't actually know how to have fun, and actively avoid it without ever realising that their own inhibitions are responsible for their lack of fulfilment in the games they play and the stories they write. This would be totally fine if it were self-contained, but it rarely is: divas tend to lash out at anyone who threatens their escapist bubble of in-character peace and perfection, are riled up by environmental conflict, and make it their mission to stop any rising intrigue in its tracks by trying to 'solve' narrative obstacles prematurely or creating unprecedented backlash against any moral ambiguity.

So the question becomes, as a game creator, how do you tackle this? How do you encourage your playerbase to step back a little from their need to play heroes? From their need to avoid obstacles, reject risks/stakes, and inhibit progression or complexity in a story?

An idea I'm fine-tuning at the moment but would appreciate more feedback/discussion around is something called 'Heroic Sacrifice'. This idea wouldn't solve the Hero Complex, but it would exist to incentivise behaviour in the opposite direction. By capitalising on player needs to feel that their character/play-style is heroic, noble, important and special, the idea would be to reward players for 'sacrificing' some aspect of their character throughout their play. It could be the character's life; it could be an ability, such as sight or their leg. It could be a moral sacrifice, for example taking a life in order to gain wealth, or in the opposite direction, sacrificing the entirety of their character's wealth in order to save another character's life. The idea would be that throughout the story, opportunities arise for the characters (or sometimes the players OOCly) to make various sacrifices, for example a diabolical NPC might want to mutilate your character's face, rendering them ugly, but if you accept this consequence you'll earn some points to invest elsewhere — or in your next character.

I know that current systems do exist throughout the MU world that allow you to select preexisting conditions that make your character's life harder (a limp, a stutter etc.) in exchange for getting more points to spend elsewhere, but in this instance I'm talking about choices made on a near constant basis throughout the story. For example, letting someone kill your character, having your character fall down a treacherous mountain while the rest of the group struggles to climb and becomes increasingly nervous that they might be next, having your character lose their leg in an epic battle, or having your character betray their own. You, the player, would be rewarded for making unpopular choices, thus helping to balance out in-game demographics, raise in-game stakes, and so on. Ideally such a system would also socially reward you: as a player, you'd be thanked for helping to drive the story.

For the question of rewards, I'd like other posters to chip in.

What would incentivise you to let your character be killed or seriously harmed in some way, such as being blinded or losing a limb?

What would incentivise you to have your character make an immoral choice?

Under what circumstances would you not be mad at someone whose character just royally screwed yours over?

@Aria said in RL Anger:

@Ghost said in RL Anger:

A friend on Facebook: "White Irish immigrant slaves were treated worse than any other ethnic group in American history, and you don't see them asking for reparations..."

Really?

I mean, really?

ETA: I'm not entirely sure that I have the willpower to address that gently. I told her that Irish immigrants were indentured servitude and had rights, unlike chattel slavery, but if it turns into an argument, I dont know if I can keep Jim Halpert WTF from turning into...

This was actually a common argument used in the pre-Civil War north in order to dampen what had historically been a very strong anti-slavery sentiment among the Irish in the New World. Effectively, they were sold membership in the newly made up club of "whiteness" in order to get them to STFU and still let slavers count black people as farm equipment. **

Spoiler Alert: It worked.

Double Spoiler: This means your friend is not only spewing racist shit, she's spewing two hundred year old racist shit. At least come up with something new and exciting, like the Irish once ruled the world until the aliens came and made Barack Obama president and that's also how we got all our Civil War artifacts that didn't exist until 2008. (You didn't just imagine them in school. Those are memory plants from the aliens.)

MUFON and casual internet racism combined! Look, Ghost, I'm helping by combining all your friends' hobbies into one.

**Source: The entity of Ignatiev's "How the Irish Became White", which is incredibly fascinating but was written as a text largely used by graduate students in history programs, so it's really, really dry.

Haven't read the source you're quoting but even just the title hit me in the feels. (Your whole post did.)

What happened to the Irish people, how they 'became white', were 'sold membership into the club of whiteness', as you describe it, is something that I sense has been happening to the Jewish people for a while now.

I get really, really angry, as an ethnic Jew, Holocaust survivor-descendant, when I see Jewish people around me, especially in my own family, spouting racist stuff. How quickly we forget the harm racism has done when we're granted a temporary reprieve from being its targets.

The funny thing is my family isn't even white. Half of them are brown as a nut. I'm like, 'Where do you get your high horse? Have you looked in the mirror lately?'

But then there's people like Milo, and Michael Cohen, and Kushner, and Shapiro, and it's ... ugh. Just ugh. White supremacists are not your friends, Jewish people. They do not want you in their club. You're next.

@Admiral said in The 100: The Mush:

They singled you out and treated you nicely because they wanted to be able to prop you up and say 'See? This person likes us! We can't be doing wrong!' They picked you to help be their enabler. I'm sorry, Cupcake, but they very much are making you their patsy.

VASpider has/had the same modus operandi and just about everyone on this board who dealt with her can verify that statement.

So I guess I was also singled out and treated nicely so I could be propped up? Given that I too have plenty of good things to say, despite having a character who was forbidden from using firearms due to her behaviour, and who walked around with a serious head injury for three months. I assure you that while I was present, I was not central to any plots.

I didn't leave because of staff being central to any plots. I liked staff PCs: I liked Grey, Gideon and Lionel (though admittedly Hanne wasn't really my speed). They were fun to write with. I also think they're great people, who showed an inspiring amount of tolerance and positivity around some pretty shitty players.

I got burned out after they asked me to run an event. I'd already been losing interest before then, but that experience was so needlessly aggravating that it made me realise I was just sick of the playerbase. Disrespectful backseat GMing, constant whining and sniping over consequences. If that's what A&O had to put up with on the regular I really don't blame them for giving up.

They weren't perfect. They made some bad choices in the way they chose to run the plots, but that had nothing to do with the complaints that many other people voiced here about too much antagonism. If anything, I left because there wasn't enough conflict, of the strictly IC variety. Which is no wonder, because any time something started (I fondly recall Arlin kom Trikru punching Grey and making him drop the wounded Asher, after a missile blew up his village as a result of an 'I warned you this would happen' situation), some salty self-centered toddler would throw a tantrum about it OOC and cry 'WHY CAN'T EVERYONE JUST GET ALONG'. That, that is what killed the game for me. Not the staff, except perhaps insofar as staff caved to it and didn't do enough to police the tone.

@simplications

I'm calling bullshit on all of this. You're a phony. Using the language of the oppressed while siding with the oppressor is textbook fascist baloney, and while the current crop of useful idiots might eat it up, I am not buying any of it.

We can skip past the fact that you have such strong opinions and intimate knowledge of MSB's Hog Pit despite supposedly having only registered an account here after it was done away with. I'm willing to bet that one of the threads you're determined to see expunged is about you, but as that's speculation, let me instead point out the factual inaccuracies:

@simplications said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

At what point did the forum protect someone? If Jerkface gets banned from the game he's on, it's not because he's somehow been identified as Jerkface without having engaged in bad behavior. The identification requires the bad behavior to occur. The behavior, and the toll it takes on the victimized, has not been prevented.

1. Cullen/Azazello/Surtr was banned from at least two games as a direct result of the thread that started about him in the Hog Pit and was later cross-posted to Reddit. The two games I know of having done this are TI: Legacy and After Earth.

He preyed on players on both games. On TI, from the forum post, I presume that his target either didn't come forward at the time, or that it was an isolated incident and therefore not treated as actionable. With regards to After Earth, I actually know a little more: he made it to the staff team despite rumours of abusive behaviour, was eventually banned by the head dev, and then managed to talk his way out of it and get the ban reversed.

The head dev had doubts about him, but because he's a serial gaslighter and making people doubt their own reality is what he does, he was able to suppress them. Seeing the thread helped corroborate many people's individual experiences as being part on an overarching pattern and realise that no, they're not the jerks for disbelieving him, he is for lying to and manipulating him. He was then rebanned, this time permanently.

Never mind what he did on some stupid game though, because my real issue with him has always been that he uses these games to form real-world relationships with the women on them, and then uses game mechanics to further stalk, harass and control them in their communities. He's driven good players out of this hobby, some of whom never returned, and I for one am sick of it. How does the thread protect people? Because when you're being gaslit in an abusive relationship and asking yourself, 'Is it me, am I the crazy one?' Seeing a bunch of other people screaming from the rooftops, 'No, you're not, get out!' can absolutely make a difference between life and death.

lol I know life and death sounds so dramatic. His criminal record includes a Class B felony, but I think sharing that with the class would be against the rules. Sorry, no receipts.

DWOPP and @ZombieKerouac were also successfully banned from multiple games thanks to identification on MSB, and I for one do not think any of these people deserve any more chances to further poison this hobby or hurt anyone else.

@simplications said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

In order for that behavior to be reported, it has to have been done to or in the presence of someone that is reporting it. Did they skip reporting it to the game runners and instead came to the forum instead? This doesn't make any sense.

@simplications said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

I wouldn't want to see any of these as posts. If someone is acting in a problematic way on a game you're on, you should take it to the game runners. They have the opportunity to hear what you have to say, possibly compare it to other reports they may have heard, and get the other side of the story from the accused. This protects all parties.

2. What if the abusive person is staff? As has been the case on Firan, Sindome, and After Earth. Or good friends with staff? As is the case on HavenRPG. Or staff just won't, for whatever reason, do anything about it, as is the case on many games where people don't check their privilege, and plug their ears imagining that since they don't see it and aren't directly affected — and may never be affected, for example because they're men — then it isn't happening or doesn't matter, because IC is IC, and there's surely no way for OOC malice to tarnish that without the victim being to blame.

3. When abusers are banned, there are always people who are like, 'Wow that seems unjust. I happen to know his cat's uncle and he's a great guy. Maybe staff are the real abusers and banned him for no reason?' But when there's a public thread full of people coming out of the woodwork to put their hands up and say, 'This happened to me too,' it's a lot less sus.

But I don't think you care about players at all. I think protecting shitty staff and the abusers they harbour is entirely your goal, and it's a goal served by ... look I need to brush up on my political lingo, and you seem very well educated. What's the phrase about something something silence oppressor?