Best posts made by mietze

I have a queer kid. They constantly have to deal with Christian ideology mixed up with nationalistic idolatry to not be harassed at school. Relatives constantly post articles and quote things from mainstream evangelical authors and teachers that remind my child that they are evil, mentally ill, a child rapist (which is rich coming from pastors as they are up there with coaches as far as a profession whose member molest and rape people), who should be shunned by society because of other people's "sincerely held religious beliefs".

I have no sympathy for American Christians. If you took out your own trash, then there wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately you don't. The Christians I know that are willing to push back against their vocal bigots are few and far between, and I understand why--I lost everything, /everything/ in my life at one point because I disobeyed my pastor/church's beliefs and followed through with having my ex prosecuted for raping and beating me instead of being a better spouse who wouldn't provoke him, and thus was subject to "church discipline" aka shunning. I have helped many others deal with shunning from not denouncing and fully accepting their gay or trans child, getting divorced, coming out, etc.

I'm glad some Christians are waking up, but this kind of thing was rampant when I was a believer 20 years ago and from all the pain and suffering I have personally witnessed it has not improved much.

I know I have fuck lot to answer for for what I unwitting and wittingly participated in/looked the other way on when I was in the church. So I've tried to give back.

But I don't feel sorry for people who feel bad they might have to defend their beliefs when their brothers and sisters make my child have to defend their right to exist every single damn day.

I think it can be done well...by very few people.

Even when it comes to discrimination against purely fantastical beings that have nothing to do with skin tone, you will have people who take it too far for others’ tastes, people who can’t bear it or who will be made extremely uncomfortable and then the people who gleefully stomp all over people ooc and ic in the name of justice.

I put this in the same category as rape and mind control powers as far as things that you probably want to have some boundaries about, and to realize that there is probably going to be some ooc tension around it.

I have really enjoyed exploring historical tension in regards to culture/race/power in my RP before, but as Dan Savage says, that’s kind of a varsity level kink. Many people can’t handle it well, it’s not something you should ever surprise someone with, and you are going to need to have some understanding and discretion around other people’s very understandable issues surrounding it.

I would echo that the answer is different depending on what community you're talking about.

I also think that Gany is right on the money about time, and letting people sort themselves out how they wish.

The amount of active people on message boards is so very small. The vast majority of folks on games don't learn their lessons from message boards, they just report things after they see the light. It's an experiential thing, which is why it's hard for people to really learn until it happens to them or they have evidence from people who are trusted. So I think everyone is healthier and contributes to a healthier environment if they don't think they are going to be some savior of the community for what they post somewhere, because they're just...not going to be. It's just not how it works in human nature. I do think boards have a good role in helping people feel less alone when they have experienced something and can see other people chime in about theirs. But even then it's double edged because there will and always have been people that scoff and dismiss. Or people who use vagueness or twist the truth a bit to try and turn the critical eye towards people they don't like.

In a wider community, there's always going to be people that don't like each other, that annoy the shit out of each other, that hold grudges, don't trust, listen to their friends or whoever is giving them the best goodies over other people's experiences. There's misinterpretations. Hurt that isn't easily repaired. That's true for PTA groups, individual churches, community orgs, a dorm hall, friends-and-aquaintenaces networks, an office, ect.

Sometimes it's not really something to repair in the sense of making everyone feel at home and comfortable. Sometimes it's just accepting what you can do, what you can't do, and that other people are where they are and it's very possible that there really isn't a "one true way" to do/look at/feel about most things.

@Wretched THANK YOU for taking the time you want/need with this! There is no reason to rush. I hope you find the right creative partners soon and am really happy to hear that you are plugging along at your own pace in the meantime!

Why does being disappointed and sad over someone’s behavior that you had admired mean you worshiped them before? That seems a little ridiculous.

If I found out tomorrow that Gany had stalked someone across games and sent them gross @mails and unsolicited crotch pics, I would feel disappointed and sad. I’ve interacted with her and read stuff but her now for like, 6ish years? I would not presume that I know her in a deeply personal sense, I don’t. But I respect and admire her and finding out she engaged in something abhorrent to me would make me sad.

I think it’s weird that someone would find it weird that people might be disappointed or even angry when someone does something they don’t like.

It has nothing to do with worship. I usually don’t get sad when celebrities die, I don’t care if authors or friends or other admired/enjoyed folks hav different political viewpoints or whatever. I know nobody’s perfect and I don’t worship anyone.

But still, when someone does something that I find gross, it seems natural to be sad or mad or disappointed. Regardless of the personal connection there or not.

I work the equivalent of a part- to full-time job in local politics though. So the conduct of someone in my party is near and dear to me, because I am very invested. I have enjoyed following Franken’s career in politics since the beginning. Not because I idolized him. Not because I thought he was beyond human. Most people know to not grope people when posing for pictures with them.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be disappointed when someone who should know better does something as stupid and yucky as that.

I think most of the toxicity on games occurs because of private-ish eco chambers. Small restricted channels, off game chats, etc.

One of the arguably valuable aspects of the community vomitorium (WORA, SWOFA, Hog Pit, whatever) is that it is a public thing that’s beyond the control of any one partuicular small group echo chamber. Sometimes that means that people can respond or see how one sided a perspective is (whoa, I was part of x group and that’s not at all what I remember/saw).

Can it become it’s own echo chamber, yeah. Though people here will argue/be contrary just to be so/take up devils advocate. So I think it’s less personally toxic on a game than sekrit whisper campaigns, ugly chats.

A reminder about the advertisement section: this is not a place for criticism or negative commentary. You can, as per the pinned engagement post, make a thread in the hog pit.
Or if it a discussion that can be handled constructively/perhaps is more wide ranging, there is always Mildly Constructive.

I have been scrimping and saving and taking every single plausible shift I can possibly handle (including working 12 hour friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday shifts nearly every weekend for the last 4 months) and now I get to take my family on a road trip to a real vacation destination (blue collar though it may be) for the first time in about 10 years, and way longer than that going somewhere for no other purpose BUT our fun as a family vs visiting relatives.

It feels pretty good. Maybe someday when I land that job with bennies we can do stuff like this more often. A woman can dream. but for now I get to play/hang out with my teens, preschooler, and hubby until Saturday! (And then all my kids go back to school next week, which is always a sad time for me.)

@downwithopp I'm going to preemptively apologize to @tek because I'm going to mention your interaction, including posting PMs, and your reaction to someone not taking your "apology" the way that perhaps you thought they should/would--clearly you STILL have major, MAJOR boundary issues. That communication was extremely inappropriate, and manipulative.

I'm glad that you are having a good conversation with @faraday. That's wonderful. But you know, naming someone as responding favorably to your apologetic advances unlike others will also be taken as weirdness and kind of manipulative also.

Especially in public.

But why the /assumption/ that anyone that poses into a room that you're camping out inappropriately (if you cannot bear to have anyone else in that public room) means that they are demanding that you entertain them? That's the part I don't get. You can ignore them. For all you know, they're planning on meeting other people. Why must anyone assume any ill/princess intent of anyone in the first neutral pose?

I'm starting to think this attitude of assuming the absolute worst of everyone you don't already know is the hugest problem in MUSHing by far. Whether that's OMG if I go to a public room and run into people by god they're going to rip me a new asshole so I better only sit here in the OOC and make sure anyone who I go into RP with I triple make sure that they really REALLY do want to RP with me and never accept on first invitation because I need it in triplicate, to the OMG that shithead dared to come into the cafe and make a pose, who the fuck do they think they are, some kind of lord god king princess?

Family movie is watched, stockings are stuffed, single santa gift for the 4 year old (a matchbox car garage with carwash/repair shop) is assembled, I've prepped as much as I can for a house full of chosen family to join hubby, the kids, and I for dinner tomorrow (standing rib roast, cornish hens, yorkshire puddings, all the fixings). My heart is very happy.

I would kind of hope that admin here don’t especially like the sentiment that because they’re not total psychos like they could be people should shut up and be grateful.

If this was the community standard, then every time someone posted something untoward or concerning about staff or player behavior here, people would be like “what are you bitching about, it’s not Spider. Be grateful it’s not her at least, you don’t have anything to complain about.”

The thing is, MSB unlike WORA does have a history of hands off, non chiding administration. Where modding has not taken a turn for the sarcastic. That is the standard that people are used to here, from a pragmatic perspective.

I don’t realky give a crap if things change (those I admit I was not at all impressed with the calling people stupid/children part and the doubling down of “well of course no one should apologize unless they want to”—which rather /is exactly/ the attitude/tactic that many game runners take to any misunderstanding/misstep and we all have seen it and know how easy it is to step into it too, at least anyone whose staffed for any length of time.

So honestly I don’t get the handwringing over the handwringing. It seems logical to expect that for the time being people are going to be wary. It’s like what, less than 8 weeks out?

I think there is "my PC is a dick/doesn't need everything tea and roses" and then there is "I must relentlessly turn every scene/event into me ME me me ME oh my angst oh look dark oh so outsider ME ME me me oh don't you want to help/understand/give ME something else that I can use elsewhere to make sure everything always revolves around me IC/OOC." I think sometimes people don't realize when they've crossed that line. Or that people who are willing to cede the spotlight often have people who enjoy hogging it just this one time--all of the time, so all their rp tends to be supporting others with little given in return. Dunno if that's what's happening here but it's common enough everywhere I've played now that even when I play a hardass/not easy to get on with person I try to at least on a regular basis make sure I'm giving those others a chance to spotlight and I am not turning every scene into mememelookatme. It's easy to cross that line.

Same thing with wangst "poor me/Ive lost so much/never good enough" stuff. It is fine if played well and not turned into ooc a reason to make every scene all about that.

Cute, hilarious, and so totally American--

My friend who won her election to the state legislature was born in India, but moved to the US while she was still a baby pretty much. So she does not speak Hindi at all, knows how to read her name, but that's it.

But, apparently this is super big news in the area of India her family is from, so she's being tagged in all these news stories, people are sending her newspaper and FB new articles about her, ect. and she doesn't know what in the hell any of them are saying about her, it's other people that know her that are translating for her what they're saying (I mean her parents could too, but she's getting quicker translations on her personal FB). Since they're pulling pictures from her public facebook, lots of her RL friends are showing up in these news stories too. It is super funny.

This makes me smile so hard. And get even more excited about the next round of elections because we have a ton of candidates that we've been recruiting/working with who are first gen Americans, first potential office holders in their entire family history, young people, old people who never saw themselves running for anything before, you name it. Every time I feel sad or tired, I love to spend time hanging out with these folks, and it makes me believe everything's gonna be ok in the long term.

Whenever I have staffed, regardless of genre or era, there were always a multitude of people who were very keen to tell me I was wrong. Even about stuff that was clearly posted. Or that I was wrong about stuff I didn’t even say.

Claiming you're on a crusade on behalf of the downtrodden pitiful masses (taking pains to make sure everyone knows you are not one of them!) rather than your own interest/inability to get over your anger makes you look not like a champion but a dick.

MSB is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to tormenting my teenage children. Since they were home all day, I finally had the opportunity to interrupt their game of Persona that they were playing/spectating by asking through the doorway "So what does poopleg mean anyway?" to which they all responded "Oh my GOD!!!" and they scattered to their rooms and slammed the doors.

I still don't know what poopleg means.

I think you need to be more blunt, if there's things you absolutely don't want.

Like, probably "We will not be having stories around racial tensions, the removal/genocide of Native Americans, or the exploitation of foreign laborers even though this is a wild wild west era setting" is far better and more fair.

"Without focusing" is kind of very weak, and not very informative and also leaves quite a lot of wiggle room to interpretation even by reasonable individuals.

I consider myself one, and a pretty nice/focused on the comfort and enjoyment of fellow players type of player.

"Without focusing" means to me that there's limited support FOR it, but that it will not dominate things. Or that staff will not run plotlines for it, but it won't be frowned on if you partake as a player/small group/ect.

"No rape storylines, do not engage staff or other players in that sort of RP here" is always the better way to say it, when you want NONE of it than "We are a grimdark game with adult themes, without focusing on rape."

I have spoken to/texted back and forth with my bio dad, his wife, and his sisters (whom he is super close to) and one of my brothers daily since this came out. (We have decided to roll things out slowly elsewhere, but they are so excited). Imagine a huge extended cajun family that is now over the moon. I am happy, it is a little overwhelming getting love bombed, and I know this is a shock reaction from everyone. But I feel like I am dreaming because I never expected this kind of reception. I do not think it will be the same with bio mom and her family because that is a lot more painful on their end no matter what.

This has made me crash out early and need to take a lot of naps which is totally weird. It is like my body just shuts down for a bit.

Also I got a call from one of the places I have been sending out resumes and now I have an interview on monday!

I feel like a zombie though. Now how to log in to places and say hi, I will be, but I am so fucking overwhelmed by RL right now I fall asleep at 8 PM and also nap when I used to hop online. I hope this will ease off soon.

Thank you, surr. I will admit to being hurt and confused by the strength of negative reaction to me at times awhile ago. I didn't know that you guys moved in the same circles because I'd stepped away from mushing in no small part due to my last experience with them. It makes more sense now. I'm sorry you got caught up with them because I know personally how mean and vindictive they can be with absolutely no remorse or ability to perceive the impact of how they treat people on a regular basis that apparently had continued past when I had closer contact. For my part, public and personal forgiveness, though we have always been able to resolve our conflicts privately. I worry that this post leaves you open for further hurt when things are very raw though.