Posts made by mietze

@Ghost Microsoft's use of contractors before, during, and after their legal spanking is pretty interesting. It takes so long to enforce though I am not surprised smaller companies with less deep pockets are taking the risk/crossing boundaries.

@Ghost pretty sure that's reversing now in some jobs. Employees are cut, in favor of hiring contractors.

@Ghost It is something that def happens at brick and mortar. A lot of these gig platforms are getting into trouble for violating laws governing how you treat private contractors as well since those are fairly strict and not very grey. You'd think these guys would learn from Microsoft how expensive that can be when the hammer finally comes down, but it's probably going to take a big hammer again.

I feel sorry for Amazon folks. They treat their actual employees like utter shit. That is one gig platform where the contractors are a) actually treated like contractors and b) treated way better than many of the employees (at least the blue vests/warehouse folks.

People like their convenience. They don't really think about how it gets to them. Not sure that will ever change here.

I was not allowed to read anything but Christian fiction, the NKJV or NIV bibles, and certain concordances and Christian authors' nonfiction at home, until I was in the 7th grade (Also no musical exposure to anything but hymns, classical music, and modern Christian music, except when we were moving and driving cross country, then I got to listen to Abba and country, because my dad hated religious music). Before then I just would try read every book in the base library at each post (I started in the nonfiction session though, so didn't really get a lot of exposure to regular fiction) so despite the effort I was exposed to a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't have been. My 7th grade teacher first put a science fiction book in my hand (Ender's Game, perfect for a nerdy weird military brat) and then I expanded my secret reading quite a lot. I still had to hide my nonsanctioned reading material though.

In high school I got into D&D oddly, with a group of similarly nerdy weird sheltered kids. By then my mom was sufficiently in her illness enough that pretty much I could do whatever I wanted and she didn't notice. So I spent weekend away playing D&D, Twilight2000, Shadowrun, GURPS, CP2020, ect. When I went to college I got hooked into the college RPG guild which was eye opening for how male gamers were 'expected' to behave in the 90s, finally met other women who gamed and we formed our own group so that we didn't have to hear all the rape jokes and weirdness. I got introduced to MUing my last year in school, and found I liked it even more than tabletop, and still got to be social.

I still find I am missing large chunks of pop culture that I've not caught up on. And I have a very similar problem of many self-taught compulsive overreaders I've met where I mispronounce many words that I know/use just fine in writing, because I only learned them through reading. It's funny sometimes! Now I primarily just enjoy watching all 3 of my kids and their friends all blossom into mega nerds who are not quite as awkward and weird as I was. I think my oldest actually RPs online, but it's not on MUSHes, it's a play by post thing but different. He tried to explain it to me once but I got way lost.

I see the slow movement from tips to wages at high end places here, but unfortunately in other areas the gig platforms are moving people rapidly the other way. Even directly misleading customers about their "tips" which are often stolen by the company itself or are obfuscated so that the company changes the amount they pay their driver/deliverer/shopper based on the tip. Say they promise the contractor $15 for a delivery. If the customer tips $10, then that company will just add $5 to make the difference between what they promised their contractor, and then just make it seem like the customer offered no tip. These places get caught, get handslapped, fix it for a little while, and then go right back to it.

When I worked instacart I had a regular customer show me her text convo with support one time when they kept missing their promised delivery window. She never adds a tip on the app because she knows the IC steals from their contractors, so she always tips cash (and generously). Customer service admitted that it might be because her order was small, and thus didn't pay very well, so they encouraged her to put a big tip in the app to bump up the pay the contractor would see and then just remove it after delivery (For IC and many other places, customers have up to 3 days to remove their tip). I am sure that has happened with food delivery as well (I know some just outright don't disclose tips to their contractors at all).

@Darinelle true. Probably not for insurance purposes. maybe if someone else was practicing their kung fu moves...

@Darinelle ugh! Glad you were not seriously hurt! Does this mean insurance gets you a new deck?

More fear than anger. One of my twins passed out for seemingly no reason. He was not standing up suddenly, wasnt exercising, had eaten about 30ish minutes prior. It is bringing back a lot of memories. My boys were very ill with twin to twin transfusion syndrome (only happens with identical twins) when I was pregnant (we are very lucky at the stage they were at, back in the day before the laser surgery now available was available in out area, it was considered experimental at that time and not covered under insurance either, that they did not both die, intense daily monitoring with daily suggestions for interventions that would have for sure saved one and for sure killed the other, ect in short, pure hell).

Because in TTTS the twins circulatory systems are hooked up to each other basically one twin is donating their blood to the other, leaving the donor with much lower growth and risk for brain and other problems due to lack of oxygen/nutrients, while the recipient can get heart and kidney damage because they are dealing with an abnormally high volume and pressure from having extra blood pumped into their system.

My recipient kiddo did have a heart murmur as a kid but outgrew it. Known issues have cropped up for TTTS kids in this regard again in adolescence and beyond. So to say my heart has been in my throat since this happened and it is hard for me to think of much else is a gross understatement. But at least we got in to the doctors office appointments the day after tomorrow. I hope it is nothing. Trying very hard to not infect my kiddo with the extreme fear I am feeling right now.

It's not just old people! My high school boys and their friends are into it too. Finally the giant ass pile of old computer crap that I have been nagging about for 10+ is disappearing as they salvage!

They want to jam their fingers/break their nails?

@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!

The whole rant on General BBoard about things being apped or very generic post about Some People Are Doing Bad Very Vagueposting Subject is so universal. It must just be part of mushhuman nature.

It does sound like maybe they dont know how to use the features very well though. First Ares mush maybe?

But yeah, there is a reason why I personally just do not joke around when apping into a place where I don't know the folks. The chances of it being read as gentle tease vs defiance is considerably higher, esp when it sounds like they're already stressed AF, you know,

I could have sworn there was one. In the 00sish?

@Cupcake that sounds like the run of the mill imposter syndrome/if I do or dont do this specific character type people will think I am a shit rper and nobody will like me stuff that many of us have.

I am not really sure it is a get-overable thing since even if there was no sexytimes at all I bet that sense of worry would transfer over to something else. Race, culture, type of PC (fighter vs scholar vs mundane vs magical), ect. I do think because sex and relationships are such a vulnerable thing to many folks and also because many of us grew up in the OMFG U TS SLUT era, it adds another layer of anxiety though.

I am still of the opinion that if someone were to look at you and say "omfg you dont RP the breadth of sexual expression I think you should" that the fault lies in them being an asshole, not in your disinterest or discomfort.

Also, while we do like to argue and philosophize over accuracy sometimes I do not believe it is necessarily relevant to storytelling or enjoyable reading for many people.

No I am not talking about penetrating the cervix levels of inaccuracy here, but pick up most erotica or romance novels and see how well they truly reflect how things work emotionally or situationally in RL. Even when the writers are writing about the gender and sexual attraction they hold in RL.

I think a lot of people's portrayals of pregnancy are boring or unintentionally humourous or needlessly restrictive. I ran 5k every other day until a few weeks into my 2nd trimester and worked as a massage therapist almost every day until the week before my c-section with my last pregnancy--when I was 39. I am pretty sure when and if I portray that I will be accused of Doing It Wrong, even though in my mind not portraying your PC as being functionally cognitively impaired after having twins in their first year, and the fact that nobody kills off their PC in childbirth in a low-fantasy setting or portrays prolapsed uterii or major complications after pushing out a ton of kids or multiple multiples in a handful of years is much more inaccurate. Does that stuff happen to everyone no (I had 3 kids in 18 months and still dont pee when I sneeze or laugh, despite #4 being a monster sized baby). Is every woman glowing or delicate or for that matter super athletic during their pregnancy no. It is okay to want to play the movie/handwavy book version (or do something that reflects your personal experience or the opposite of your personal experience). Do what you like, as long as you are not doing a harmful stereotype.

As long as you are not harming anyone in your play, what you choose to do or not do is your call, and players should learn to just roll their eyes in private if necessary and move on if they arent part of it. About a lot of things.

@Cupcake my question would be why, and to what end. If you enjoy and feel comfortable with things now, what would be the purpose of changing that? Is there some reason why anyone should step outside of their enjoyable/comfort zone to portray a certain orientation or gender?

What does "do better" in this context mean?

I think if someone wants to do better in regards to orientation or gender maybe the answer is to be more accepting of other players' choices where possible rather than personally make choices others have made just to be different. Though I can see being inspired to take more personal risk, I do not believe people with the widest variety of RPed genders and attractions and sexual RP are "better" than someone who has a narrower range in that particular way.

Maybe I am misunderstanding the thinking here though.

These days I feel kind of weird, because I would prefer to skip graphic intercourse pretty much, and move to the before/after. It's not that I mind graphic, I don't. Or that I think people are boring, usually if I'm in the position at all for there to have been sexytimes, it's with someone whose RP I enjoy, and I am sure I would enjoy that scene with them too. I am just more interested in the things leading up to/responses afterwards and would rather spend the time on that, especially if it's happened before?

But talking about TS can be One Of Those Things. Can you say "I prefer to FTB graphic sex, but can promise lots of RP around it/am happy to work out details of stuff they would now know about the PC if desired/I am not judging you and it's okay if you would rather NOT engage in relationship RP with someone who isn't going to provide that at the frequency you like" without coming across as someone who is just saying that but is a super hyper controlling stalky freak person? I don't know that you can. Mostly due to my own biases that almost every PC that I have engaged in RP with that had a super long or overly complicated explanations about their RP has tended to be someone who is super needy or controlling.

@Thenomain yep, that was the point.

@moth those damn fucking trees.

All you need is a FB page and instragram these days. Just scream and rant until you go viral.