Best posts made by mietze

@Arkandel I think what people are trying to get at is that, just in case you've never been fat or struggled with significant or stubborn weight loss or haven't experienced losing weight and then regaining or other things like that, those comments really aren't anything that they've not heard before, usually spoken in a very condescending or dismissive way.

As I have had to say to doctors and other people in my life during times where I am heavy (I've been all over the place as an adult), "I'm FAT not STUPID thanks."

And as others have said, and doctors who specialize in the treatment of obesity can tell you, it's actually NOT that simple. So unless you want to hurt the person, I really honestly would advise not telling anyone that. It's okay. Someone else has already told them, trust me.

Or sometimes, it can be very much a poor judgement of when to post a vent on a message board instead of just keeping it to yourself and letting it cool awhile.

I cannot tell you how many people I've seen hurt by statements on the MUSH venting thread and others because the person could not even wait for 24 hours to post their vent. Sometimes like right after someone said the thing/did the minor thing that really wasn't super bad but just a peeve, and then it turns into a much bigger hurt than it needed to be.

Maybe the comments would have been received if there could have been more detail, privately, abut any specific concerns AND ALSO if it wasn't done less than 36 hours after a marathon of many many many days of single/back/simultaneous scenes. And maybe if people waited to post their peeve about something that was just triggered by something that happened for a little while so it wasn't super obvious to the person involved, it would save that too.

Timing is important. Not that anyone is perfect in the regard.

After being ovenless since the week before thanksgiving (luckily this range has been a fucking piece of shit from day one so I have a plug in turkey roaster AND a countertop monster toaster oven along with various other work around appliances so Thanksgiving was not a bust) my new oven is here and being installed today!!!

It is good when you realize that it's just a dislike of that person on your part rather than a fault of theirs. Because someone deciding that their dislike of someone needs to drum up to that person being offensive has caused a lot of pain and is in fact used as a manipulative tactic by a memorable handful of folks.

So I do think people need to be both less tolerant of genuinely rude, thoughtless, and bad behavior while at the same time more tolerant of different playstyles and things other people like that you may not.

Sometimes the line is fine, but in my experience the line can also be fudged and used as an excuse to engage in truly vile behavior.

Someone not jumping through all the hoops you want to to include them in your personal play or someone who you feel is stupid for not getting "obvious" things that you think they should, or who is boring or who only seems to be interested in the <gender of choice> in the room, ect--these are not things that I would have a discussion with someone about.

Someone imposing on me in a proactive way, such as channel or OOC browbeating, trying to force types of play on me that I didn't want, ect? That's worth both a discussion and immediate staff intervention if it is not listened to.

@HelloProject report him, if you can. What he did was hands down inappropriate. The licensing board should be notified immediately and you have easy grounds for a no contact/anti harassment order too if you want. Do not listen to anyone who says you need to consider his feelings/the implications for him. This behavior is predatory and it is for other folks to sort out, you do not need to take that on.

Ohhh I just think @faraday is the bee's knees and I am totally in love with Ares.

One of my mom friends knows that I am really struggling right now so she sends me at least one pic a day of their new bunny. He is a Flemish giant cross, still a baby and HUGE. He is so freaking cute that I scream like a little girl inside every time I get a new picture. He has the most ridiculously long and perky ears.

I'm not sure that I would want to encourage mu players to treat of the staff of the games they run with the same entitlement that some people have towards the big gaming corporations about games they bought.

If for no other reason that by and large those corporations just do not care institutionally, they're easy to scream at, villify, ect. Most gamerunners do indeed care, can be easily frustrated and demoralized by entitled people screaming at them that the game isn't what "I (didn't) pay for".

The sheer level of extreme ugliness that I have seen directed at game runners is not something that I would want to encourage. Even remotely. At all.

it's okay to express frustrations, I mean sometimes that input is taken seriously and considered and that can help the game as a whole. I think we already have a big issue with people being unable to separate "what I want" from "good for all."

@L-B-Heuschkel I went very low contact (and remain that way for the most part) after my mother's latest abusive rampage 6 years ago. It was a tough decision bevause I am their only child and therefore feel a moral obligation to the parents that raised me. But it was the right decision.

I did break explicitly with her (in other circumstances I would have just not contacted her further and blocked number) because of her actions at that time which she could not present away like her verbal abuse that didn't happen in front of witnesses. Since she did not want to be embarrassed by people asking questions she kept our break on the down low.

Thats a fortunate experience though. I know how hard it is to go no contact when it means your parent will try to rile the family against you. So I am so sorry you are in this place, and especially if you have complicit family to deal with.

I do think though that when you know it's time, its time. And its not that it isn't painful in some ways but I think at least for me it has been what I needed and I do not regret anything. If you decide to break contact I hope you'll find the same.

@meg I just edited it out! But yeah, it made me laugh too. Can you tell I've been doing a fuckton of IC writing shit on my game right now?

I have reached a breaking point at work. I love my team. Especially my Little Boss. I love everything else about the job except for the cross selling. But of course, this is what is being hammered every day. While quotas have not been instituted yet, the pressure is real, and I know it's not really coming from my manager per se but the tippy top down.

If I was the only person that would get dinged when I refused to push credit cards to people I know are barely keeping afloat or ruining themselves financially to make payroll or helping their adult children/extended family during this shitshow of reality we have going on right now, then I wouldn't care. But not making the numbers means the whole team suffers and while pretty much NOBODY is doing that (the pushing) right now, I just can't take it anymore.

In addition, after curriculum night this week at my youngest's school I burst into tears. This is the first time in 14 years of having k-12 aged kids that I have felt so fucking depressed looking at the plans and schedule rather than jazzed that I really can't describe my feelings as anything other than despair. There is no flexbility. We were promised as parents at least 1 asynchronous day (no live zoom meetings)--the high schoolers have that but there is NONE for elementary. On the one hand I get it but my husband must work and he needs time for meetings during business hours so that we can buy food and help put kids through college and live. I must work outside the home so that we have healthcare. Because of that doing 3-4 live zoom meetings of 30-60 minutes each during the hours of 9-3:30 is...unsustainable. I can't move my schedule to anything that can even be helpful (in addition to the work stress above)

So this past week I sent out 8 resumes. I was invited to do a prerecorded video interview on friday and have 2 telephone interviews this week. Hopefully they will give me a chance. Hopefully me actually WANTING evenings/weekends helps get my foot in the door. I'm only applying to benefitted positions.

I just cannot keep doing what I'm doing, it's gonna break me. Some of my stress has lessened just putting real apps in, at least. I've experienced some stuff in the last few months that make me worried that I've already really damaged my health, but at least this is a step towards claiming it back.

In regards to multi-scening, I do not think the majority of people do it well, including people who think that they do. I do not mind slowness, so perhaps I dont care as much, but it is irritating when someone who you've been waiting and waiting to get a scene with appears to be totally checked out despite your best efforts, or they protest that everything is fine (if someone seems really distracted I usually ask them if they'd like to reschedule or do things via ic mail or even talk it out, if they're not feeling it).

But.

I find the people who obsessively check the who/where and keep tabs on alts and comment to/about those alts while activity is going on to be extremely creepy and offputting. I do not think this is the intention but it comes across to me as extremely controlling. It is an instant turnoff to being involved in RP with that player, and I have instantly ended scenes where that person pinged my alt that had no association with them as if to check up on me. If you want me to avoid you, "playfully" paging my alts with questions about my activity or commenting about where my alts are located or if they are on while I am scening with you is the #1 way for me to dump your ass as a RP partner immediately.

I am so mentally fatigued. Helped (along with others) a rl friend get out of a bad bad situation over the last couple of days. I'm glad that this time law enforcement was kind, compassionate, and helpful. Everyone is now safe and will remain so at least for a couple of days and I am very grateful. Still having a very hard time quieting mama bear even though things are as ok as they're going to be for awhile.

You know what makes me sad a little though is that in the rush to prove FUCK YOU MY PC ISN'T A STEREOTYPE I'M DOING THIS RIGHT!!! I have seen people slut shame on game and in discussions. This makes me super uncomfortable because I grew up being taught that "the gays" should just suppress their sexuality so as to not make people uncomfortable with its presence in front of them, and it was open season for anyone who dared display any tells. That kind of thing is STILL going on, especially against trans people. I have seen my son have to deal with that frequently, though usually not from his peers now that they are 16+ rather than middle school.

I think there is still a lot of disparagement and fear of sexuality on MUSHes, not as much as there seemed to be when I was younger/first starting out, but that could be just that I'm so used to seeing it, I think it's easier for me to sift it out now.

I think open sexuality in PCs is perfectly fine. I do not think it's something that should paint the player with a scarlet letter, no matter what the gender dynamics should be. If the attention is directed at someone who has said no thanks, of course that is way different. And of course, there might be IC ramifications (like a PC being booted from their job/organization/facing IC social sanctions) if they are ICly behaving inappropriately.

But to be honest, I don't see this very often. What I see more often is the whisper campaign or OOC slut shaming or derision. I get why it happens. But it still makes me feel pretty sad. It's a real thing, and I have seen it or had it happen on every game I've played (including Arx) no matter how the theme is set up. Sometimes I wonder if people are even really aware that they're even doing it. And I wonder if that's not a shock to some newer folks who maybe have not yet experienced the joy of pre-gamergate SHUT UP SLUT AND GET OUT OF OUR SPACE normalization of what female or gay or any community other than what a very specific subset of straight male fantasy are and aren't allow to be portrayed like.

I think it's a lot more subtle now, but sometimes I wonder generationally when this is encountered in a situation that I would just laugh off/brush off, if there is a reaction similar to my kids' horrified reactions to the haha-funny-rape-joke stuff in 60s-80s movies that I grew up with/loved (just about every romance movie, it's often a plot point that the best friend/brother of the male protagonist will try to "get his girl"), or seeing people just throw trash on the ground/in the ocean, or parents that are portrayed as normal loving parents slapping their children around (Parent Trap Hayley Mills version), or hahaha funny moments about how the girl can be tricked/intoxicated enough for the hero to fuck her even though she doesn't want him to at the time and then she'll fall in love with him. Rewatching my favorite movies that I loved growing up and that were shown (albeit editied for TV) on network television that I got to watch at friends' or relatives' houses with MY teenagers who are older than I was back when I first watched or liked them has been often surprising to me what they see that I never did, because I knew that's just "the way things were, what do you expect."

I am finding that I'm starting to feel more of the trauma experienced earlier in the pandemic. Luckily in my immediate area people are still by and large wearing masks and keeping distance even when they don't "have" to so that is not a source of stress. But it does feel very strange to see people taking vacations again, saying they feel more normal, and having some events pushed forward (like the school district giving us a month and a half notice for and in person 4 ticket a graduate graduation ceremony) . Lots of people are happy about that but my kids have mixed feelings and so do I. It is like i got used to a certain equilibrium of functionality and now its rapidly upended by policy reversals and guidance reversals. And I'm more tired and unlike at the start there's no adrenaline rush into survival mode at all. At least for me it is manifesting as a profound sense of detachment with spikes of anxiety/feeling worthless/anger/grief briefly and then back to feeling like a blank wall of utter nothingness.

I was worried my kids were acting much the same way but they've started perking up a lot more. So I think I will thaw out more too eventually.

It's actually not hard to keep potentially offensive or squicky themes private. I think a lot more of that goes on than people think. It is just that a small number of (usually habitual) people dont enjoy without a non consenting audience or without being able to surprise people.

I kind of wish that games would just remove the "tee hee oopsie I was kidnapped and raped again! Come and save me/stop my tears by PKing someone!" Or "my God I forgot to ask before assuming I could impregnate/put you on a leash/whip out the oil can and traffic come, golly gee whilikers, dont get mad!" people, rather than declare a whole subset of RP, consensual or not, to be a bannable offense. But there are a lot of people incapable of discretion. And as someone who had to go through/approve tons of wolf blooded, thrall, and Changeling apps once upon a time...you know, there comes a point where reading one more emo mcDarkyDark write up about rape/white slavery/incest stuff gets to be too much. I think I have a super high tolerance, it doesnt bug me at all usually but even I hit my limit for volume on TR.

a coworker refusing to stop putting their hands on another person after that person has told them that the contact is unwelcome and violating seems like a short walk to HR to me. Usually bigger companies don't play with that shit.

Also, why are people pushing that anyone who wants elevation wants it because they don't like their liege or because the player just wants a new title for their sheet?

That seems pretty unnecessarily hostile an assumption.

I'll use Tessere for an example. In the background/history that was /written/ for the house, they'd been demoted generations ago, and the family has been trying to claw its way back for 200 years, as a generational goal that people have more or less been building upon.

Maybe other houses do not have that written so plainly onto their house entry that anyone can read, but I do think it is not out of the realm of possibility that sort of thing factors into genuine IC interest and goals. Maybe some do (since people rarely seem to read the entries for even their own houses and what they do historically/produce, ect, much less anyone else's entries).

This morning at work one of the 5 year olds told me his favorite movie was Titanic. Specifically the part where they run into the iceberg and "everyone dies." He did know enough about the basic plot beyond that that im pretty sure he's seen it or parts of it.

Then after recess in the afternoon one of the 4 year olds painted a big blob on her easel surrounded by MANY small blobs and took took me by the hand to show me. "Mietze look, I painted the earth! These are all the asteroids that are going to crash into it and make huge craters everywhere! Maybe we will see one tonight!!" I told her I wasn't sure if an asteroids would strike our area tonight, and she looked me in the eye and giggled and said "/You'll/ see!!"

So kind of an apocalypse/disaster sort of day in preschool today.

You aren't "taking away" anything if you simply do not build it in to your game. People "like" huge gluts of xp and being able to max out everything too, but you do not have to provide it. (Or a low xp environment if you don't want to run a low xp game). They like all sorts of things that may or may not be present in every game. I think if staff worries about enforcing OOC conduct in an ooc room and it is going to be an energy drain for them, they should maybe examine what benefit it provides vs the cost of upkeep, for that particular game.