Best posts made by mietze

1. That stomach-in-your-throat nervousness of disclosing something important in a scene that definitely could put your PC in danger, to players that you don't know well, because you are being true to your PC and getting to do so in a scene where everyone is awesome, and so even though you are OOC fretting that you're maybe just annoying people, you push through it and they are gracious OOC and super fun ICly!

2. Having something to disclose to even put you on the edge of your seat OMFG what if this goes south delicious feeling in the first place!

It's really been a long long time since I had a PC that had stuff like that that I had to ICly and OOCly wrestle with exposure because the risks are pretty high. It's nice to have that feeling of danger OOCly (since I will almost always side on the side of inclusion if it makes good IC sense) and just not knowing how people will react ICly. In a good way.

I could just hug and hug and hug both my PCs' secrets right now. I still have plenty of frustrations with the game I play sometimes, but I haven't felt this invested and involved in my PCs since RfK, which is a very big deal. So even though I'm still super nervous I am super happy too!

I'm going to get a dishwasher! Ours has been broken for almost 2 years, and while I do not mind washing dishes by hand, I'm glad to have a break from trying to keep up with 6 people constantly home now. And to have counter space back since my dish rack/dryer is huge. This has been a shitty week, a shitty month and a shitty spring so I'm going to take what happy RL I can get. Even if its dumb!

I think some of the most unhealthy game runners I've seen tend to be the ones that are very comparative of their game to others. (Which is why I think it is good to be very careful and deliberate about starting a new game because you hate another, vs having an idea you'd like to explore other than "I hate the current poopyheads over there." I mean the former is fine as long as you have the latter.) I wonder if the reason why so many newish games fold before opening or shortly afterwards is because of the very negative tone that discord or people hanging out oocly on the unopened place or other chat/brainstorm formats can take on that kind of sour things before they even start.

If you view everything as a competition then certainly you'll find it! I really like it when game runners/developers have a nice solid idea of what THEY want and create it and gently or not so gently put in very firm boundaries about that vision's moveability due to player desires. Those environments have seemed far healthier than the ones where people are so focused on doing "it" better than anyone else or the last staff/runner that hurt them that they lose track of what it was that THEY wanted to be doing.

But I will say it again, it is intimidating to say no, especially here, and I wish more people appreciated that.

My first female role model was my 7th grade girl scout leader, Dolly. Dolly worked in the bomb shop on base. Her husband was the dependent, not her. She took us primitive camping and canoeing with her hubby's boy scout troop. She took us to the rifle range to play with m16s. We did the obstacle courses with rubber rifles too. Luckily my parents were extremely inattentive at that time, so she was the first non religious non fake adult woman in my life who had the time to listen and see me.

That was followed up by one of the chaplain's wives and mom of one of my best friends the next base we were stationed. They were Episcopalian (an oddity in a sea of conservative baptists and shit like that). Mrs. Gilman wore her hair buzz cut short. She put a lot of challenging books in my hands and discussed them with me (and her daughters) so I wasn't just an isolated compulsive reader working my way through the base library. On base you could apply for permission to paint your house a different color but weren't supposed to especially as an officer'sfamily. Mrs Gilman did and we painted their house that summer /red/ in a sea of past gray and barf green. She argued with her husband at the dinner table. She was very very pushy on getting a college degree. Chaplain Gilman was the cook.

These two women are probably the only reason why I'm still alive since it took me awhile to escape my religion and the spousal abuse it set me up for in my first go around of marriage (yes they both knew this, but both are gone now).

I really never had a fictional character that held a candle to them. I've tried in my RL with different volunteer and vocational roles though to be someone that sees who needs to be seen but I'll never hold a candle to them either!

When you are stressed out and fucking grumpy and your friends still love you! (And also when you can slip back into RP with them comfortably no matter how much the brain weasels say you've been away too long!)

On the upside I totally rocked an interview today for the position I wanted before I got my bank job, and the hours are perfect for what i need.

I work in a job where I get screamed at/unloaded at/have to deal with people who are in distress but express it as extreme anger, belittling, non-violent threatening, and insulting behavior. I often get difficult people directed to me at work because frankly I handle them really well, and as a result we can develop a relationship where I can help them usually.

My pay sucks, but the benefits are amazing, so I reserve my energy to do that.

But I only have so much energy. If people on a mush act like some of my clients do towards me, I will avoid them like the plague, report abusive behavior towards me, and choose to not interact with them again. Why, when clearly I am capable of listening and helping people process their emotions to the point that finally the task can be complete? Because mushing is not a job, and it is my outlet for fun, and that person is providing me with absolutely nothing but a sinking feeling and a headache. And usually there's no goal/transaction/task to work towards to resolve the situation.

The big boys (18, and 17 year old twins) got up early with the youngest to build youngest (6) new Legos sets with him, and then one of the bigs spent a couple of hours teaching youngest how to play the pokemon card game and then playing several games with him.

We had a very scaled back Christmas but it was nice and all the bigs hung out for quite awhile.

@GreenFlashlight said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Without knowing your characters, I'd guess it's presentation. It's not hard to spot the characters who are meant to fuck. If you don't send out those vibes, you mostly don't get picked for it.

WTF. You do not have to send out Fuck Me Vibes to be subject to people being gross. You do not have to have a conventionally beautiful/handsome PC, you do not have to "invite" it, and people who are "picked" for being gross towards are not secretly inviting it.

I have two more high school graduates now in my family! And they wanted to impromptu invite their friends' circle who didn't want to/couldn't afford to go to the official grad night party over. (which is most of their friends' group). So now they're very noisily downstairs playing mario party and MTG (after letting my youngest hang out with them a bit--everyone at the house has known him since he was a newborn, and they could hear him cheering for them at the graduation even though people weren't supposed to cheer until the end). And I'm super happy but also getting a little teary eyed that this fall they'll all be scattered to the winds and I won't see them very often anymore, these sweet boys-now-young-men that have been part of our family life since they were all in 7th grade.

One of the things I like about MUing these days is that there seems to be a really remarkable decline in people who are super freaked out by players RPing a character not of their gender, at least since I first started. I used to see people (especially female players) tell others that they were not the same gender as their PC almost fearfully, as if they expected to lose the RP with those they'd "deceived". I haven't really had that kind of conversation in a good 10 years now, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed it's on the way out. And I've not heard anyone in many years say that they would never RP with a PC who had a player of the opposite gender, hell not even if it involved TS. I'm sure it still happens though.

Just because someone does not mean to be harmful or is ignorant of the harm they are causing does not mean that there is no harm happening.

Especially when it comes to harassment or obsessive behavior.

The reality is on many games unless you come in with a group of people you know, the way you build connections is usually via social rp (most places i know of and all the ones I play require largely that player be able to sustain themselves as while staff does run things on a regular if not frequent basis, they do not have the coverage to take care of all individuals with meaty/"important" scenes.

So if you go in behaving in a way that makes everyone around you feel as if you believe you are too good for/too above them to dip your toes into "silly/meaningless" scenes where you might connect with them then chances are you will become increasingly isolated if you are pragmatically dependent on PrPs run by those waste of space players or hooks in to other things.

It sounds to me like you are not feeling creative enough to find an angle to get engaged in the rp that's available to you. I think most of us have been there at one point or another. But you lashing out and blaming your lack of RP on other people and their inferior sense of fun is misplaced.

On a low staff involvement/access game chances are a majority of people feel frustrated. And like they are lacking in the RP that would feel most meaningful to them. They are just making the best of things, and apparently are more equipped than you right now to do so.

And honestly, I no longer feel obligated to think first about the comfort and protection of someone who is making me feel uncomfortable. It really does not matter what diagnoses someone might have. If they cannot stop when someone says stop then it is probably better for all concerned if they are removed from a game until they can.

There are many people who are not neurotypical who have learned that no/stop means no/stop as well as far more people who are that rely on being able to push past that.

Suddenly able to go from novice to doctorate level of a skill, just because you attended a few parties OR because it's been 4 weeks.

Honestly, I like finding a RP group of people who are nice to me oocly in game and who like my rp and stories and who have interesting characters that I like learning more about.

Its also nice to have staff proactively involve me, but that's like not a daily/weekly/monthly thing really, but at certain points in the larger story.

There are so many types of rp and storylines i enjoy. But I can have the best story ever but if a lot of people are ooc hostile and I have to see too much of people being mean or super rude to each other oocly then it ruins the experience for me.

To be honest, I've seen more /staff/ run plots that are anti-thematic, weird, and off the rails than I have player stuff. (It's why I tend to be leery of metaplot or staff plot unless I know the staffer's STing style--sat through too many 5 hour scenes of "dramatic audiencing" or things blowing up for no purpose whatsoever and creating a giant pain the ass for everyone while also making them care even less/feel even less hope about the sphere than they already did.

Most players are far more conservative with what they want to do. It makes sense. I think very few people feel empowered to just blow up a building just 'cause or have the big bads of the sphere running around kissing people or tea parties or have just weird nonsensical things happen. (Unless they're odd individuals, but weirdos are going to be there regardless.) Sometimes staff tend to get a little overexcited about the appeal of their ideas to their playerbase, and then try to force it, ect. I have seen that happen now and then in player stuff, but not really at the semi-regular basis i've seen it from staff folks. (And to be really honest with you? I've seen as much or more staff loss of interest/farting out/neglect as I have with PrPs. I don't think that's a character flaw or anything, but just the reality of burnout/timecrunch that frankly we all face.

I think there is comfort too in realizing that you're not alone. Especially when you've been targeted by people in game who are behaving horribly. As much as my experience on an Ashes subgroup sucked? I will say that after I got back from a 4 year mush hiatus it was actually comforting to see that no, I was not treated that way because I was a bad person or did something to make them treat me that way but because that's how they divided and conquered and treated a lot of good people that way. It made me a lot more willing to reach out/speak up when I saw ooc environment stuff, so that others wouldn't need to feel alone as well as making sure that I am trying respectful and kind in communicating with others in game.

If a person shows me certain ooc characteristics of themselves (misogyny, racism, bigotry against the lgbtq community, treating me like shit) then yeah I will limit my involvement with them--because if I know about it it's because they are fine with making gross comments oocly in front of me. In skype, on pub channel, in pages, etc.

I have cut people out or declined to do things with them on games before. It's my experience that toxic people really cannot hide their behavior for long. It will slip out on @mail or fb messenger or skype or whatever.

I don't feel particularly bad about it, since if they don't want me to know they're a freak or bigot then they should've kept their crazy under wraps better.

I do not stalk, wiki or otherwise, anyone because I think that's stupid. And those folks always show their ass eventually on their own. I don't need or want to pull down people's drawers until I find one.

While I will check in off and on probably if cell phone reception and family allows, now it's my turn to go on vacation! I will be back at the end of the week. Please be good to Gany (I know you will!).