Best posts made by kk

@macha

Sometimes people under estimate the importance of treating pain. But pain itself can make a person sicker and untreated pain tends to escalate into worse and worse pain. I try to get address pain in my patients while it is mild so that it doesn't escalate into more serious pain. And often I try to think outside the box - position changes, diversion, massages, mild heat or cold, topical pain creams and etc. That doesn't always work of course - but sometimes if I can get some pain cream on a person's knee and get their leg elevated before the pain is serious - I can prevent it from becoming serious and they might have an all round better day.

We are often taught to /tough/ out the pain - but I find that pain people attempt to /tough/ out often snowballs and even delays healing.

The other side of it is of course that every pain pill comes with side effects and draw backs, so it can be a very delicate balance and often care providers are walking a very fine line when trying to address pain.

My best advice is to make sure your care provider knows the level of pain you are and how it is effecting your life.

And I feel for you - I have autoimmune issues and have many relatives with autoimmune issues and it is a hard path to walk.

@kk
It does really irk that American culture is so /whatever/ who cares when it comes to the rise in assaults and violence against nurses.

Probably leaving my job and off work for a while - I haven't fully decided what I am doing and when/if going back. I don't want to go into too many details, but had two recent head injuries from assaults on the job and I think staying to begin was a mistake as many here did try to tell me!

Appreciate all the support. I am doing well considering. I am taking a little break to recover. I might be playing more though.

I will probably move to another job, I already a have a place to lined up to work, but my work is super in demand.

Will break my heart to leave my patients after all this, but I am not safe.

It is really really hard to have the self control not to watch the hogpit if one knows they are being attacked on it. I will freely admit that despite knowing it would be best, I didn't have the self control to walk away and not read while I was being attacked and while friends were.

I have mixed feelings on if the hogpit should shut down, there are pros and cons, nobody is going to be happy with any choice and I am glad it is not my choice to make

So I play on Liberation which is world of darkness and highly recommend it. It is active, welcoming, high energy and oocly very chill and low work.

I am might go back to Shadow Run Denver now that they are 18+ for characters, they have some good rpers there.

I have Arx characters, but I personally struggle on that game for various reasons. It is active game and people's experience there tends to vary quiet a bit. .

And those are the only three games I know anything about.

I appreciate all the suggestions. Watched Lego Master earlier and am watching Frozen 2 now.

I have had issues where people don't understand that playing out certain flaws gives more fun to everyone. Certain flaws. There are some sorts of flaws such as being racist which are imo better of avoided.

But if everyone is perfect there is not much of a story and the only real conflict is from outside sources as well as different viewpoints of what perfect is.

And many people prefer rp with non perfect characters.

One of the most popular peeps for rp in my current group is a deeply flawed character because people love the drama and excitement he brings to the scene and people also love how chill the player is and ooc aware he is of his character's flaws and how wiling he is to roll with the consequences of this character's flaws.

I play a character who has a hard time dealing with scars/wounds etc and I actually was given a hard time for that ooc until it was explained to another player (well meaning player who just didn't get it) that the play of the scarred character appreciated my character's reactions oocly and we rping this by consent. And that irl I was a nurse used to wound care, wound vacs and etc who doesn't share my character's flaw.

But so long as the flaw being played isn't like racism and etc - I feel like we all should take flaws ic and understand that flawed characters are sometimes the most fun characters for others to interact with. Characters are also complex, one flaw doesn't make a character totally evil.

I am excited about this game. It looks like a very detailed out world that will be fascinating to play in.

I was exposed to Covid when I went to help my neighbors who have covid.

I am in the age range to be low risk, but I have autoimmune disease and then I watch the news and see NYC talking about their ICU filled some with younger patients and it is scary.

I am also working from home, doing tele health and some calls coming in are covid related, so everything seems covid covid and it is hard to keep the anxiety down.

I was considering going back to work in person to help out with this crisis, but clearly now I need to isolate and not consider that yet. I will wait at least 14 days and get a tested before I do that. They are not testing people with no or mild symptoms, but I would have to be sure I am not a spreader before doing direct care. I was already isolating for a very minor cold like symptoms that resolved and was probably not covid. Could have even been spring allergies.

I also apologize to those I have been ignoring on Arx and want to assure anyone, it is not personal at all and would like to ask people to be patient if I miss messages, pages, get behind or don't log in.

I am trying to stay hydrated, stay positive, take my vitamins.

The harder part is trying to relax, keep stress low and sleep enough which is important for the immune system. I have to wait 14 days to see. I think the unknown with Covid can be the hardest of all. Ironically worrying about covid, could make covid worse, but easier said than done!

Logically I realize I will probably will get covid, but I will probably survive it, but the fear is still there. I have anxiety disorder with a fear of pandemics which I was in therapy for. This outbreak also stopped my therapy for now, although I could try seeking such over the phone.

I realize this is effecting many people, most people in some way or another and I send my well wishes to everyone. From lose of income, to kids home from school, to supply shortages, to illness in one's self or loved ones, to fear of illness - these are rough rough times and even those without Covid are effected.

I think that it is pretty unfair to expect anyone to run a game on their own free time without being paid and not play that game themselves. While I think it is ideal if staff doesn't play the game, I think it is also way to much to ask and expect.

So I am for staff being able to play the game they run. Although I think they should follow the rules of any other player and should restrain themselves and be capable of using some judgement.

For example on City of Hope, staff seems to be allowed more alts than players or to play multiple alts in high ranking positions and I think that does create problems.

I don't staff on any games and I probably never will. I am super grateful that some people are willing to staff and I would never feel like it would be okay for me expect them to run a game and then not enjoy it themselves.

However there can absolutely be issues with staff alts getting special treatment be it real or imagined. I even okay with staff alts getting a little bit extra, they work harder after all. So long as I still feel like the game is fun to play and plot is accessible t people who are not staffers and etc.

@arkandel

Yeah, it cannot be enforced. But it is something that as singular players we can look at improve upon. But I think you were more looking at what mechanics could be in place to improve things.

@Quinn

I am so sorry for the lose of your uncle.

And I agree completely with taking Covid serious, wearing masks and washing hands.

@il-volpe

I had people use secret alts against me and so I would welcome alts being public on any game. Some of things I experienced, I don't think people would even try if their alts were public to other players.

It would be too long a story and degrade into too much of a rant to talk about my experiences specifically - but I had people be like oh she will be in trouble in this player vs player conflict with my character if she talks about x. I will make a secret alt who will try to lure her to talk about x while my alt's protegee is in the room to witness and etc. That kind of stuff is toxic af and transparency might help.

Its harder to go after the same character again again on different alts with transparency and its harder to lay ooc traps with outted alts.

Sadly some people will take advantage of secret alts to mess with people and even if they rule is that cannot do such, if one doesn't know it is their alt, than one cannot report it. And just knowing that alts are public is enough to stop some people from trying to trap with alts.

Of couse some people will be jerks no matter the rules.

@faraday
I prefer for every character to have a chance to be central as well. I just mean that such is not generally the case, not that it shouldn't be. I don't know how to make it the case and am content often with not being central personally.

I am going to be two jobs for a while. So if I am busy, it is not personal. I adore my rp partners, but expect life to get crazy.

I am going back to in person nursing in order to help out with the Covid crisis and am keeping my tele health job PRN. I am also tending a massive Homestead type garden.

I actually don't know how often I will be around or not, I plan to play it by ear, not worry about the game for a while and just fit it when it works and it feels low stress to play.

I love the ic only command. I finally turned it off. But when I had it on, I really needed it on and it helped me immensely. I think it can help to give someone space who feels a bit pushed ooc about things or who just want to log on rp and not deal with ooc. It really helped me during the pandemic when my time was super limited to feel like I could log in with my low energy and just check mail or whatever.

I also appreciate the player storyteller which I think is including many more players and giving people alternate ways to join the storyline. I haven't had time to fully appreciate and take advantage of such as real life is still a bit busy. But Too Old for This makes a great point. There are work arounds. And one of the best work arounds of all is living well, having fun, making your own story, including others, finding rp partners and rping on.

Also, I cannot blame staff for everything that happens on a game - they don't know everything that happens and if things are not reported they might have no idea.

The most important things for a positive mush experiences and environment starts with oneself. There are def some things I had to look at and change in myself to be a better player.

@lucidmaus

Yeah, agree with a lot of that and that is something to consider there is different kinds of failure.

Failure that is fully for ic reasons is easier to deal with imo that failure that is because of ooc politics. Such as being passed over for a position or plot one worked super hard on for someone who didn't put in much effort, but is favored by the right group ooc.

And def failures have levels. Such as failing a roll in a club and tripping in amusing pose vs failing and losing one's character to final death.

And there is failing at something might expect their character to fail at, such as a combat monkey flailing a social charm the npc role vs a social character who that was all they do and their one chance to shine on this plot arc failing at such.

My real life peeve is smoke!

We got this like haze of smoke over everything from wildfires. With this happening during the Covid scare, I have people coming up to me, I cant breath well. Is it smoke or Covid? I wish the smoke would be gone and the Covid too, but together..wtf...2020!

One thing that sometimes annoys me about plot based/adventure/fighting the big bad games can be the gate keeping that sometimes happens.

Instead of a kingdom filled with people who will fight, politic, try to kiss staff ass to get on or to be allowed to go on the adventure/join the plot

I would rather start with a premise that everyone is on the adventure. That certain prps related to going off scouting, fighting and etc while on that adventure are very easy to make happen. Allowing players who might be in the right /ooc social group/ to still do their side adventures.

And the people waiting back in the Kingdom are mostly npcs or inactive pcs - but the pcs are the adventurers and heroes.

I sometimes think games have the pcs as the masses waiting back in the kingdom and the /special/ pcs doing the adventures.

And would love a game that totally breaks that mold. Every pc is an adventurer. Doesn't mean they are all fighters - they could have came along to fix the armor or heal the wounded and etc or even socially charm when such is needed - but they are all on the mission to speak.

I know quarantine is getting to me when work asked me to come into the covid isolation unit for a few hours to help last night and I was like sure, it is something to do!

I was like omg....I need life to go back to normal, when going to my job is getting out and doing something.

Also I might post on game, working 4 back to back long shifts, might not be around so much the next few days.