Best posts made by mietze

Every time I go to the Arx wiki page, my eye immediately draws to the "latest news" section, I always misread Tehom's "Healing Tweak" post as "Healing Twerk" and it makes me grin really immaturely each time.

I love being able to surprise people with compliments. Or when people notice I notice/remember/incorporate little details from previous scenes with them (or who do the same for me!). It's really fun.

Right now I have a lot going on in my life.

Since initially needing some time out, there has been a train of stuff that has not eased. I got very ill with a viral non-covid illness. I'm dealing with some stuff with my kids. I have some medical stuff going on where my stress level is quite literally endangering my health/significantly shortening my lifespan (Welcome to everyone else's existence, right?)

I wish I was in a better space to argue, advocate, keep up, ect. But honestly I'm not. O feel like the time I've needed and my slowness is hurting the community now. It is hard to see blame being assigned to Gany for many things that

Please understand that the decision of having more uniform behavior expectations is something I advocated for because of the frequent spillover that were becoming consistently harder to mod (behind the scenes). So if people want to blame someone if things continue in that vein, blame me.

If you are angry that things weren't turned on fast enough or responded too immediately, blame me. I'm the one that hasn't been around. There's no nefariousness by gany or derp with that, and I hope you will believe there's no ill intent on my end either.

While I have laughed, cried, been depressed, been proud of helping to moderate MSB at various times it never felt like a burden and I never dreaded it. That's changing and eveb though i know it is 90 percent non-MSB situational and timing feelings, i know ultimately that's not going to help anyone feelings, and I have been feeling like I've fallen down in so many other places and ways right now at least I can step back here before i do more damage. My feelings for the community haven't changed but when it feels like I'm a hindrance rather than a help it's time to let go. Especially when if I can't be around as much to help. As much as sometimes I want to wring some necks around here at times I do still care about the community here and too many individuals friends and acquaintances to name.

I'm not leaving MSB. I am an infrequent discord user but if someone enjoys me as an individual and wants to keep in touch because they are or they want to in general I'm happy to share my discord username thing via PM. I currently play on Arx and plan to continue to, as RP remains a source of stress relief and enjoyment.

If you want me to send you my stupid meme and pictures of cats and fun game stuff you're more than welcome to contact me, but i don't plan on talking about current events here bc it is painful for me too and I am not in a place where I can adequately process for me much less help others.

I fucking hate the Good of the Order portion of membership meetings being used by individuals to make commentary on things they didn’t like at the meeting. Double points when it’s clearly directed at a specific person but couched in “everyone should remember...”

At our last membership meeting I had a very blunt exchange with our local sheriff candidate. It was not gentle (I’m sure all of you are real fucking surprised), and I was asking him about some inconsistencies in his comments about issues important to our platform (he’d been endorsed earlier in the year) as well as some pretty troubling comments he’d made that seemed, well, pandering to racists.

A point of background: I’m biracial. This was a little more obvious when I was younger, thinner, and hotter, when I had a lot of men comment how they loved mixed and part oriental people because they were so exotic. Baaaaaaarf!

Anyway. Sherriff and I have words, but shake hands before he leaves and his staffer that usually attends our meetings gives me a hug, as we’ve gotten to know each other well over the last 6+ months. Everyone’s happy despite the no minced words on either side.

Meeting goes on, rah rah sis boom bah. At the end of the meeting is the good of the Order section. This is usually for community/body announcements. Fundraisers, events, if someone needs assistance with something in their precinct, etc.

One of our members, who is also a candidate for another office this cycle, so he’s really not supposed to use the public comment sections at all, as he did not win the vote for endorsement, gets up and starts off with this rambling kind of weird awkward statement about how long ago he dated a black woman, and even though he’s white, because he had an intimate relationship with this ex girlfriend, he has a unique understanding on how to approach people about racism and you know, some people should just be gentle, and not so loud about it.

Another point of background...I was not the only participant in the q and a, but i was the only woman. And the only person specifically to bring up racism. And also the only person to not yell or curse. (Believe it or not, when I am in professional mode, I don’t use profanity.)

I’m going to have to deal with this asshat tomorrow night. I’m going to have to be professional and personable to Mr. Hey I Fucked A Black Woman So Well Actually, and I will have to deal with him because my role at these meetings is often to help wrangle candidates and members people to their speaking slots in a timely manner as well as supporting them as they do.

When really what I want to say is “hey, I fucked a white guy this week and I just want you to know that I understand you’re really weird and gross, if you’re talking about your sex life as a reason why you get to be the arbiter of who and how we get to bring up concerns about racism!”

It's never worth it if you don't have the balls/ovaries to approach privately first, rather than blab it all over a forum that many people read (including most of the people who say they don't ever never.) You'e already ruined your chance.

Perhaps my heartbreak would not be so had I not been involved in fighting for recognition and action against politicians and leaders in my party who have sexually harassed and assaulted people both in the context of their jobs but up to and including a popular activist and organizer for the Bernie campaign, who was a personal friend, raping a young woman 3 days after she turned 18 during a state party gathering. (He was expelled from the party, over the objections of other old primarily white dudes who said he was too good of an organizer to let go just because some girl “made a mistake.” Now we are in the process of rooting out those folks too. No place for rape apologists. Period.

I don’t mind if other people think it’s excessive to be repulsed by Franken’s conduct even if he did not, so far as we know, rape or harass teen girls at the mall. If I wanted to be part of a group that’s fine with rape culture behavior as long as there’s a warm body to vote in line with donor wishes, i would go join the Republicans.

I probably know more about operations and issues in my corner of local and statewide Dems than anyone looking down their nose at me because they perceive it to be too excessive for their tastes.

Fuck that shit. This is a pervasive problem, we’ve been working tirelessly to change it from the ground up, and it’s fine if I feel pretty disgusted by Franken’s stupid, sexist behavior in his past but including when he was a sitting senator for my party. I expect better from the people I work hard for, and yeah, sorry not sorry I’m not willing to hold them to the same floor licking standards as others do for their racist rapey ass creepster bigots who get defended by “well golly gee if he’d had more time Jesus prolly would have done it too, he’s just being a man!” idiots.

People can fuck right off with that shit.

I think it is probably not a wise thing to have someone who is promoting a game in the thread and somewhat casting disbelief about others problems with it be the one to move a thread.

It's different if there's only one admin, but there is not. Is it fair? No. Was there malfeasance? No. Are appearances important? Yes.

So I would say to be honest because you guys let Auspice be the one to move that thread you let her down, and risked reputation because this is not a board with a history of hands on modding or administration, not all conversation on all other threads has been moved, and probably its best if you are careful while that new culture settles in.

I have just completely cut off a whole branch of my extended family, and am now dealing with some of the rest of them trying to "explain" what was meant by the cut off people reposting shit about how America should be taken back for God by rounding up and putting to death all of the LGTBQ adults. My son is trans and turns 18 in less than six months. He is out, and I have made comments when they've posted less extreme stuff about "hey, you are talking about my family here" to which they always act shocked and how could I think they hated my kid/my family. This was the final straw, as it's been getting worse and worse. I am thinking my ability to tolerate that kind of just thoughtless cruelty and blindness is also crumbling, so I expect to be estranged from the vast majority of my extended family and perhaps even my parents by the end of the year.

I don't know why this makes me sad and angry, it's not like they're not being themselves. It's irritating how many people will say "good riddance" as if there's no mixed emotions in effectively kicking people that you love very much despite differences from your life. It's complicated, and depressing. But you know, I've spent the last 6 or 7 years answering their questions when asked, being loving, being patient, being very measured/calm in my reactions, providing resources to those that wanted them, ect...and now I think it's time to just throw in the towel. At least all of my cousins and their kids know we are a safe place to run to if one of them is lgbtq and they know how to contact us and get help.

I just can't stop thinking about how my favorite baby cousin, who I rocked and held and loved and who would always be the first of the pack to run up to me when I came for the summer, and the aunt and uncle that provided sanctuary for me when they knew about my mom's mental illness/abuse now so happily post about people like my child deserving death or imprisonment and how families like mine are a scourge on the earth. It is so fucking painful. But who knows, maybe they'll wake up someday. I just can't be around to SEE what's going on in the meantime.

I think it’s important to point out that it’s possible to be “not leadership material” as a player and be perfectly lovely and an awesome RPer with great intentions.

It’s just that perhaps they get overly stressed/avoidant with ooc unhappiness with others or overly involved.

Or they have a mental or physical illness that requires unpredictable and/or sudden and/or lengthy downtimes.

Or they take stuff very personally even when it’s low volume, and feel like they must/should please everyone all the time, and when they can’t do that they will become reactionary.

Or they are not very organized and/or aren’t good at building a support team of others.

It’s possible to not be a bad or selfish player
but still be a poor choice for a fachead. And there are many great rpers who are much better support than leadership not because of personal failings, but RL time commitments or personality.

Spending the last two days being part of the team putting on a community care event with free medical/dental/clothing/shoes/on site DSHS workers to sign people up for services/vision care/meal plus groceries/haircuts/hygiene kits/community org representatives for our local area. We served 1000+ people in 5 hours of the event. I am fucking exhausted. And we didnt put a dent in the problem I know, but it was nice to see those people breathe just a little easier. And I can't believe I have an employer that gave me the day off to help and paid me my usual wage too.

It so depends on the game. I really can't RP at work either, and it is very VERY hard for me to be able to do spontaneous RP. I work a grunt job, where my schedule is very unpredictable. It's also a very physically demanding job and occasionally very emotionally taxing also. So there are a lot of days that I can log in to chat or whatever but I am literally exhausted.

It takes awhile for me to build up my base of people and connections that let me feel involved and happy/satisfied because I do need a lot of support to do so (on the plus side I think I do a good job of supporting others as they try to do the same!).

I have also had to adjust what it takes to make me feel happy/satisfied. I am never going to be in the cool kids club. I am never going to be one of the super active knows everything large and in charge people or in the groups of those people. That used to bug me a lot, since I am a hard worker and in RL I often am pulled in to leading people/settling into those roles, so it's something comforting and familiar. But if I try to do that online with the time I have not only do I drive myself crazy, I also drive other people around me crazy and have a high chance of being too moody/needy/bummed to make interacting with me fun at all. I mean I do have people in my life/mushlife who can and do reality check me/care about me/give me a kick in the ass so I can reset. But I don't like being that way. So I've had to learn to just whine (and tell the person I would like to whine) with people I know for a little while and move on.

I have found that a surprising number of people are very responsive to "I would really like to RP about X/get Y done, but my time lately has been really tight. Is it okay if we start a scene not at the entrance where everyone is just coming in/exchanging pleasantries/ect and maybe just make the basic details of that in the scene setting poses, and get right into the meat of things?" It's no different than like if you want to get some relationship RP in but you don't want to TS, so you ask to fast forward or start the scene in the aftermath. You can carve sometimes more than an hour off of a meeting scene or an important RP moment scene by mutual agreement to cull the RPing through every single moment of arrival/getting settled/ect.

Finding people who enjoy message RP is good too, if you enjoy that (it's okay if you don't, I find it's hit or miss for me personally too.). Sometimes I've asked people if they don't mind sending an IC message summarizing for me what has happened (if I know they like writing that stuff). I will admit I do a lot more gdocs RP than I used to.

I don't know if any of that would help you (and I bet you have already tried a lot of that). Sometimes it really does help to find your tribe of fellow "can't sit for 4+ hours for a live scene or do that more than 1 time a week" RPers.

Someone taught my 5 year old to say "Stop!! Hammer time!" So for shits and giggles I showed him the original video of the song. And he wanted to watch it over and over and now says he wants "big pants" like MC Hammer and keeps running back and forth trying to do it sideways and singing "Ohhhh ohhhhh ohhhhh" like the middle of the song. :P. I am sure I will be annoyed by it in the next hours but right now he's pretty cute.

Best news of the week, just got test results back and it is not covid19, he had influenza and this is day 2 of no fever. Which means I can go back to work, do not have to blow through all of my sick time, and do not have to worry about how many people I infected.

Getting to feel super accomplished even on a low brainpower week because people have invited me to help on very personally relevant actions/investigations on both of my PCs. I really love the warm fuzzy teamwork capacity as well as the ability to do things solo!

All 3 of my older kids are now at their respective college/universities as of this afternoon. I love seeing them ve excited. Got to hang with my eldest a little more since he wasn't feeling 100 percent after dental work recovery from the day before yesterday and thus asked for some help setting up his dorm room today. Was fine on the drive home maybe because my youngest kid was in the car. But now the house feels so much more empty. I miss them all already.

Lots of changes everywhere in the last few days.

You can still be discreet while not talking through everything proactively ooc. It really isn't hard. And anyone should be willing to stop immediately any RP with someone who says oocly to stop. You may need to negotiate (with or without a staffer) for how to handle whatever it is (FTB and any consequences/aftermath decisions).

But even if someone were to solicit a rape scene from you, if they say during the course of the scene hey, I need to stop, then it should. If someone promised you ooc that their PC was going to be your PC's partner forevermore and during the course of the game they decide that's actually not the direction they want (even if you have talked about it and had fun with the ooc conversation), then actually they do get to stop being that for your PC. Maybe you talk about extrication or if there might be ic game impacts, but they do not have to continue on with what they do not want to do. (Doesn't mean that they get to dodge consequences).

I do not think that someone deciding that they do not wish to RP certain things with someone (even if they have before with that person or others) or noping out constitutes expecting to be babysat. Nor do I think anyone has a right to demand a proactive ooc conversation (unless that's game policy--ive seen that for agency removal play such as rape, "forced conversion" to another template, kidnapping to another org, ect. that both parties have to put in writing that they understand/ooc consent, to prevent ooc misrepresentation campaigns later).

I think any sex/relationship rp should come with a huge caveat emptor with a huge side helping of understanding that things can shift radically over time. You have to be willing to hold it with an open hand. If you can't handle people changing their mind then it might be better to refrain. That's not to say that you cant be sad/mad/confused, but I do not think anyone is really entitled to an explanation to their satisfaction. It is really rewarding and fun RP (IMO) but there is also some risk involved.

Pretty much nobody but other parental figures/carers will care--but. My final child just peed and pooped in the toilet after telling me he had to go. No more diapers is finally on the horizon again. At least until old age.

Getting teary eyed over scenes TWO nights in a row, in a really good way.

After months of being stressed out/absent because of RL (and slipping into that rusty disconnect that comes with that, at least for me), I have had multiple scenes (spontaneous/PUG and planned) in the last week that have really reminded me of why I love this hobby so much. I try to say thank you, I hope that people know it's genuine, because it really is and I've had so much fun this week on the game.

And also:

For those of us who are having to navigate parenting while also coming from a background of abuse and trauma, there are more and more therapists trained in how to help with that also. Because a lot of your instincts from childhood may be very dangerous or ineffective, and nobody is ever going to trigger rage like your children can. If your own attachment was fucked up, it can create a lot of internal emotions as you are providing for your kids what you yourself never received. Some people can tough it out.

But honestly, investing in trauma/attachment focused therapy for myself during each prenatal/postnatal (I get severe depression in pregnancy, not postpartum) and tween/teen period has kept me from making too many destructive mistakes, or at least helped me talk to/apologize/keep the door open for my children. I highly recommend it. Not being shy about getting therapy when needed has helped my kids who felt that they need it at certain parts of their lives have the language and know how of how to ask for help too.

Again. Not a magic formula. No guarantees. But you're never a failure as a parent for needing to ask for help in getting your shit together as you are parenting, IMO. It can be an important family safety thing to do just that.