Best posts made by mietze

Maybe our compulsion to dehumanize anyone we find threatening/distasteful/disagreeable and declare them garbage is part of what got us into the current mess we are in.

You know, I actually can't think of anything I've not seen handled by mechanics on a MU. I mean not everything at once, but in all the places I've been the only world/personal function I have /never/ seen coded or addressed at all is pooping.

I've seen hard social dice, pregnancy rules, when/how/what kind of wounds in combat, personality trait shifts, status, 3D movement, food/water intake, shelter, transportation, even friendship/impressions between pcs. Advancement via narrative rather than XP, no advancement, or needing to give up skill/focus in one area if you wanted to shift in a static system.

@ThatOneDude said in RL Anger:

The kids can be sent away for less...

IDK, maybe California is different with the high ticket price plus price of concessions and then huge crowds equals >.<

Sending kids to a friend/relative/parents night out ... priceless?

The going rate for a sitter coming to my house when I had 3 young children was over $20/hr. I had no relatives within a 3 hour drive. I've never paid $80 for 2 movie tickets plus a tub of popcorn.

Now, my house always was the dumping ground of choice when other people needed some time away because honestly, once you have 3, adding more kids to the mix really isn't even noticeable. But the intimidation factor for other people who only had 1 in particular of going from 1-2 to 4-5 was huge. Not that I blame them!

Now our house is the teenage hangout because, I shit you not, now that we have a toddler again, we have an sandbox and kiddie pools/slip and slides and popsicles. I should have taken a pic of the 4 giant ass 13-15 year olds playing with the 3 year old with cars and sand castles the other day. Otoh my babysitting expenses probably will drop to nil once he's completely toilet independent!

Wow, I love the idea of an exit short-desc!! I think that's fantastic!

As someone who has lived in the Seattle area now for nearly 20 years but who is from the south (Louisiana, West Virginia, and Florida to be exact)...please understand that the Pacific Northwest is very very white supremacist by culture except for a few (and not as much as you'd think) urban pockets. There is a candidate running for my school board who loves to splash the "confederate flag" all over his Facebook, says that BLM is a black jihad against cops, and is extremely trans and homophobic. On a regular basis over the last six months we have had people stabbed, shot, and beaten up for being brown in the presence of "America first!" people.

I have seldom heard the kind of offhand casual bigotry (especially for Native Americans and Latino folks) elsewhere. This is one of the most segregated areas I've ever lived in, which I guess is somewhat understandable since our area retained sundown laws long after they were starting to be legally struck down elsewhere, etc. and has also a long history of legalized housing discrimination and other issues that persisted while attention was directed at other areas of the country, and also suffers from snobby "we can't be racist if we don't have the klan!" thinking.

Seattle is not a racism and homophobia bigotry free zone. Especially in the burbs. And given how the whole puget sound is gentrifying I predict a worsening.

That being said, Seattle is awesome. In geography, the arts, climate, and the people (for the most part). I have lived all over the world and the US and this is the place I will call home for the rest of my life by choice. But we have some very scary and real problems here, under a veneer of assumed progressivism.

Sorry for the rant. Currently I am am activist and primary volunteer with our refugee community and with making our suburban schools safer for LGBT students and students who aren't white. It's an easy sell on the surface but sometimes the huge difficulty in affecting real change is very daunting and wearying. So I guess this is my RL anger at present.

Agreed, @Arkandel. What I have seen though too is some players really get their jollies less from story and more from destroying another player's PC. They think they are not having any impact unless they get to do that. Oddly most of those folks I've seen only want to do that if they're sure they won't risk the same. I think most antagonistic stories that I've seen sometimes end in PC death but people take their time and often avoid it by doing other terrible (and sometimes more rewarding) things to each other IC.

When someone implies the only satisfying and impactful way for their PC to live in the mush is to hunt down and kill other pcs, then I kind of get red flags raised about that player, mostly for lack of creativity.

I do think having rosters or villains for hunt and destroy might be a good idea if people need to kill things to stay engaged. Any St can grab/puppet one for awhile, use them in stories, the PC still gets their jollies. If people want to play antagonists for the same purpose then I think why not. I do usually hope tgat PC antagonists are more nuanced or can offer pcs a greater variety of growth/challenge than seek and destroy but I admit that may be totally appropriate in certain genres.

Most of my friends are transplants from other Pacific Northwest states (OR/ID), Mormons, or are ex-pats from another country. It's why I cook great non-westernized Indian food now! :). And I am learning a lot of Somali and Persian cooking styles now too. Also helps that I have four Seattle born and raised kids, which once you see the same families day in/day out for 10 years in the PTA/school district makes it easier.

Really there are enough transplants and friendly people it's not as difficult as it was in the late 90s when I moved out here. At least if you're white or can pass. I am not kidding about the uptick in both subtle and overt crass racism that I've seen, with false resentments at the root cause of it.

Or:

@ixokai is one cocky motherfucker. Kestrel just stares at him with a baffled expression when he steps on up to that wall with the clearly stated intention of climbing it. There is no way he can climb that wall — look how short his stubby legs are. When she sees him do this, her heart breaks, that's what happens when you see people do things you can't do any longer, that terrible accident from a few years ago stole her chances of ever doing parkour again, and now she's tragically sad and will need a beer after this. It's little wonder that she frowns at him and snaps, "You're such a dick." That's what happens when someone reminds her of what she lost.

Hate to break it to you but once you hit 40+ pretty much most people put on a little weight. Not like a huge amount (10 lbs ish?). But at the same time you lose muscle mass and your fat distribution will change.

It's not inevitable, mind. But I'd encourage folks even if they don't want to do lifting and stuff to incorporate weight bearing and strength exercises into whatever you're doing in your late 30s and beyond. Men are at risk for bone loss/issues as well particularly if they've worked mainly in sedentary jobs, etc.

If it's just the weight losing 10-15 pounds is usually super easy absent medical problems. It may take longer than you want, but cutting out processed stuff as you can, reducing the meals you purchase ready made or at a restaurant by a manageable amount per week, cutting out your afternoon cafe treat, or not snacking can do it super easily.

I feel pretty depressed that I have to lose a lot of weight again, surprise pregnancy and then major health issues, but now have the all clear, but losing weight in small increments has been pretty easy for me because I know the behaviors that make me fat and I can reduce them a lot or a little based on how much I can handle.

I mean to some degree, this shit is unintentionally funny. A lot of the time I can laugh it off, because it's so fucking eyerollerly. But most of the time it just makes me want to avoid that person or totally ignore them or just walk away from the scene, since usually that gets the ball rolling for a lot of "IC" posed ooc snark. And these days nothing kills my enjoyment like that, and just ooc hostility.

Just for that comment I'm going to deduct 50 DKP minus from your menstrual attractiveness stat.

What I expect in a scene are things I can react to. Unless you are going to open up to my PC about your past or give an in for me to inquire (looks like/bags under the eyes/visibly upset) then it feels like you just want spectators rather than give and take. It's not a cardinal sin or anything. And there are appropriate small scenes for that (one on ones or very small groups where everyone's familiar). But it can definitely be intrusive outside of that, at least for me. I love taking an interest in other pcs. But i enjoy that with interaction not spectating. That's more a personal peeve of mine though.

Sick and tired of feeling like shit scraped off from the ground and onto a cracker. After getting a good six months mostly-respite, I'm back into the literal bone deep fatigue again. Right now it is every other day get my ass up and out of the house so my kids can have something fun to do and then spend the next day pretty much horizontal and dozing off and on.

Bone pain sucks. Fatigue sucks. Having to go through the "oh, you're fat, just lose weight and it will go away! Here have some antidepressants they help fat old ladies feel better!" conversation/delay of 8 weeks with a new doctor is just bleh to the point I don't want to pay some asshole $75 to tell me I'm old and fat. Thanks, genius, guess what, I can see that! Now can we move on?

But what little I know of my bio family history there is a lot of cancer/autoimmune disease on both sides. So woohoo! Off to make an appointment to be treated like crap until enough time elapses for there to be further investigation into symptoms than stopping at "Forty+, Fat, Female."

Yep. I'm all for not having to molest a thesaurus to come up with ways to indirectly communicate things. If your character is visibly upset/obviously contemptuous, ect then I think it's awesome to pose that directly. To me, that's not really meta. (though as you can see folks have variant interpretations!) It gives me the choice to decide if my character notices/how they react. It does not forcefeed me explanations. Maybe ICly my PC has an idea and can ask or goad further. Maybe it's a total WTF so it gives an opportunity to wonder/seek out more, ect. But that's an /invitation/. If there's no invitation there, only commentary or background, then I tend to feel pretty steamrollered.

I also think it's neat to differentiate even in scene. I might have a public pose for my PCs that are harder to read. If someone is in the room that knows them well, then I might @pemit something telling (especially in large group scenes). That way I can acknowledge multiple levels of intimacy (not the sexual kind) or incorporate things I know the other player likes that's personal to their PC without rubbing it in everyone's face or cluttering up a ginormous scene with stuff that's really only targeted towards one or two people.

That just feels oocly friendlier to me. I do try to pay attention to every other PC in the scene, so that I can incorporate stuff into smaller scenes with them later if we have a chance to play again. It's such a treasure when that's returned, or done back!

12 year old boy sense of humor faction? Though to be fair, I make more fart jokes on faction channels or pub than I do here. ;). Maybe immature humor faction would be better cause I can't really pass up a menstrual joke either, really.

I have never played a mud, but I have seen all these variants, from the "everyone is timestopped if anyone in the area isn't online and will remain so until things can be coordinated" (not very respectful of players, IMO) to "if I don't see you/talk to you I can make up whatever shit I want to ooc about what your PC was doing and I can and will present it as ooc fact, not just my PC lying". (The only time I ever filed a complaint on TR and one of only 2 times ever I've filed one period). I have also been ICly penalized for "not being around at these important scenes for the group"....because I was running them for the group. :D. And waiting for all the friendly powerful people to go to bed oocly and log off was often the time the telenuke would be given, back in the 90s/early 00s.

On MUSH/Xes, not MUDs. I like @Ganymede 's distinctions best. It makes a lot more sense as a cultural sense. I bet there is a spectrum of MUDs to Mushes that fit both.

I'd definitely be interested in giving it a whirl. Please keep us posted! I am a bit leery of too many spheres on a place that's already got some special applications (like a historicalish theme) and a mix of of things that don't have conversions to CoD yet. But this does seem like a really fun place to do mortal, which I have really been missing.

That's why I leave/disengage, Ark. Is it worth fighting to stay at a place? Not usually. Is it worth creating a stink or complaining on game? No. IME staff is usually not open to listening, no matter how well they know/like you, at least not until things reach a tipping point. But is it worth discussing in a general community sense things I wish I saw more often? Yep.

I would say it requires proactive staff or mature player base, preferably both. Certainly that's possible.

I don't think there's been any implied opinion is better, just "hey I read this, here's what I read, here's my opinion, what do you think of this subject". NOT ZOMG U CAN ONLY TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK or whatever. I guess I don't understand why it is weird to reference something one read/experienced or whatever vs not at all and just give your opinion with no context. You could do both, does it matter? Why is it bad to reference a book (or life experience, or whatever) while giving your opinion? I'm not being snarky here, I just don't understand the hostility to it?

There have been linked articles and such posted as part of a discussion generator here before. I didn't see them getting this reaction (though often times the articles were disagreed with or whatever), so I just don't get why this time it's a problem. It's just a way to open a discussion, right? And the discussion is happening with little reference to the book beyond the opener.