Posts made by mietze

Al Franken. This is a heartbreaker for me.

It’s usually a balance of rl and in game issues, and where that balance falls tends to vary depending on circumstances.

Soooooooooooooo helpful, I know.

But here is what I mean:

When my rl is jam packed and I’m getting my social/busy bee/feeling like I’m getting Things accomplished with other people, I have pretty low tolerance for ooc drama or nastiness or staffer instability, or a rude game culture. I also will bail no harm no foul if things require more time than I can give.

When I have more time, or the hobby is my main source of “look I did something other than change my underwear today!” enjoyment in life, I have tolerance for more bullshit, because I’m not getting as much bullshit face to face.

The more batshit crazy busy my rl is the less I can deal with it online. I have stayed for years on a batshit crazy place with batshit crazy people when I worked night shift because I didn’t have as much daily contact with normal people my age and my life was relatively stress free so a little drama or narcisstic staff could be kind of fun or easily ignored. Same for when I was a stay at home mom and dealing with mushers meant at least I was talking to someone over the age of 6 for a change. My best mush stickability comes when I have a noob, because I can’t go anywhere anyway and it’s easy to pop them on the boob and cuddle them like the little human grub they are while I type!

But when I’m working a demanding job, dealing with people constantly in severe physical pain or emotional upheaval (like when I had my massage biz), it’s harder to deal with people throwing tantrums online or being dicks. During election season this year I was putting in almost a full time job of hours coordinating volunteers, engaging in activity at the state capitol, helping with fundraisers and events and refereeing fights and personality conflict within the org, etc. my tolerance for anyone wanting me to eat shit on their game, especially if they are yucky to me oocly in game, has been nil. My tolerance level for any kind of boundary invasion at all is almost nil because of my stupid stalker and dealing with court stuff and security stuff.

Mushing is dealing with a group of people. Sometimes everyone is going to be an asshole at least once. I can usually connect with at least one person on a game and get in to most any theme for a little while, as I love to try new things and meet new people. But staying power tends to be directly related to my patience level. I don’t like to be bad company, so if the culture or my rl makes me too crabby or needy, I tend to throw in the towel.

As a game owner, I'd think the atmosphere and safety of the /game/ is the prime concern, since players come and go. (Also it's my experience that when a situation gets to the point of a ban or boot being needed, the player who was on the receiving end of the unwelcome behavior probably will have the game ruined for them for awhile anyway. Usually it takes repetitive times for someone to even make a report, instead of just leaving.)

It's irresponsible in the extreme to allow a harassing, boundary violating player to remain on game just because the victim says don't ban them "because of me." Well, it's not because of them. It's because the actions of the other person show untrustworthiness and poor judgement and you don't feel that you want that individual on your game.

Sometimes people say that, when really what they want is to be told very firmly that it's not their fault.

I think the thread went off the rails when opp started challenging people who disagreed or who challenged what were kind of half truths of his.

By the time I read it he had already shared pms (and yeah they were referenced, I realize that) that apparently he though made him look good but instead reinforced the same sort of pattern that had happened before.

Well, here’s another quandary. People cannot post challenging or negative items on ad threads, fine.

But what happens when a person decides to go public with an apology that kind of puts others on the spot and may indeed be a way to get around not being able to communicate with them otherwise? Now if someone brags about playing with someone who they’ve made intensely uncomfortable in the past but hid who they were, who gets belligerent when confronted about their statements that aren’t completely truthy, etc...now it’s off limits to comment on behavior shown on display in that thread as well as prior experience?

I don’t think so.

This is also a person with known, bannable history of sexual harassment and creeping on games. Including circumventing a ban but being unable to keep the act together. I don’t think that person should get a pass because they try putting their thread in MC but their own behavior in it belies it.

@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.

And adding, luckily I've never had the misfortune of having to RP with you on any game that I know of, I've played on BSO and spinoff but only saw the fallout you left behind with the people that you really weirded out.

To a point it really doesn't matter what your intentions are. Clearly you are not someone who can have normal boundary relations with people on a game. Like this has been years of this now, yeah? So if you like to play, play. But maybe just don't chat about your personal life or try to find out about others. Some people can do that and be friendly and make other people feel warm and fuzzy. You clearly can't. If you really give a shit about these people you have weirded out, then stop doing it.

Also, IC suicide for OOC manipulation is fucking gross. For me personally, that is the one thing that will make me deep six ever getting remotely involved with a player in RP or otherwise if I see them pull that sad, grotesque boundary crossing behavior with others. Yuck.

Maybe it’s just me, but this whole topic seems to be a way for the OP to continue their weirdness with people who they might not otherwise have access to because they’ve been banned/blocked.

OP, this is transparent and gross. If someone turns you down, dont keep contacting them. You’ve enough history of pursuing and bothering people across frameworks and games (including PMing people unwelcoming it here, and applying sad sop/passive aggressive/outright aggressive pressure I hope the mods consider banning you.

It’s pretty gross to use a public forum to continue contact with people who you’ve already made uncomfortable. It’s wrong.

I have stripped down to leggings and a sports bra at work (with permission, and a client I knew well), because my treatment room was the one with the main heat vent and one of my office mates came in unusually early and cranked up the heat not realizing it. I had my window open, I was stripped as much as could be, my client was naked with just a sheet (usually folks have sheet and blanket), and we were both drenched in sweat after just a 60 minute Massage. Sooo gross. After that my poor client always grabbed my 7 AM Saturday spot (my other suite mates never were in on weekends and turned off the heat on fridays).

I would be upset if someone came here over my game or me.

My first reaction would be anger that they didn’t talk to me first, but to be honest, I’d also be more internally sad that obviously I had not been behaving in game or as staff in a way that the person felt that they could or would like to come to me first.

I think one of the things to strive for as staff is that you get to the second stage very quickly and don’t linger too long on the first. If that makes sense.

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.

I have kittens!!!

They are teeny and cuddly and sweet and full of personality. Both are black, one all black beautiful short haired boy and the other one a fluffy medium or long haired girl with a little patch of white on her belly.

They have cute little raspy meows, the loudest purrs ever, and already have reset my computer Home bar from the bottom of my screen to the side and I don’t know how the fuck to get it back again.

All my teens are charmed. Even Emo Eldest makes baby talk and kissy face at them and now spends evenings in the family room instead of holed up in his room. They are remarkably tolerant of and getting used to the 3 year old. The last couple of weeks has really fucking sucked, but they are adorable and awesome and soothing.

@arkandel said in Regarding administration on MSB:

Either way we've seen, again and again, these little petty dislikes go back and forth as the feeling is returned until they become toxic. A perceived microaggression just gets to the point of groups - since people get their friends involved, too - dogpiling each other, until loners get flamed sometimes right out of existence. For nothing.

Honestly, I think that this is one of those things that people get or don't. I don't know that having ooc chat here or elsewhere really helps humanize folks to people who want to keep things very distinct, or who are incapable of separating the person from who they are online.

I think I have met well over...50 mushers at this point. Not at a big gathering like a meetup at a con, but over dinner, many times over providing a crash space/meeting place/hospitality for people passing through. I have yet to be in a situation where I have regretted meeting or spending time and attention on someone RL, that I met on a game or via gamers, even if they hurt me later.

I have met people who I frankly found annoying as fuck online who have become dear friends. People who I greatly enjoyed/enjoy online who I find to be obnoxious in person. People who are well regarded online that i've seen behave absolutely horrifically in person, and those who are or have been online pariahs with whom I enjoyed RL company.

But I am a people person. I love people. I enjoy people. I enjoy and care for a wide swath of people of various social skills and presences. It's not hard for me to hook into and feel genuine warmth for a community, and so I love reading up on what folks are wanting to share they're up to.

But it is not bad or invalid for people to have preferences the other way. Maybe because of history, or inclination, or whatever. It's okay to not be a people person. I don't think not being interested in the RL details of an online acquaintance's life makes you a horrible or antisocial person, or at risk of becoming more toxic. (As we all know, some of the most toxic people online thrive and must have that community/online connection to do what they do).

@Apos, I think it depends on the context. I’ve had mostly really good experiences with my own play in this regard, and the bad ones I’ve had tended to be people who I think would have had issues regardless.

Playing a half-caste on a Fading Suns game was pretty nice. I felt most of the people there gave it good balance. There was a lot of leeway for pc views, which was great. Some enforcement of prejudice largely by npcs in scenes (not run by me. For some reason using npcs myself to discriminate against my own pc individually seems, I don’t know. It feels off, like the people who use npcs in scene to suddenly attack/Force other PCs to rescue in scene, etc. when the whole group of PCs is being looked askance at/unwelcome, that is a different story and pretty fun).

I do agree with others that yes there are discriminatory PCs that go over the line oocly, but that a just as annoying/bad problem are the people who pick heavily restricted PCs and then throw fits that they are restricted in what they can accomplish or that not everyone comes to fight on their behalf/rescue/defend them.

I think a lot of times people pick these types of PCs because they anticipate being different/rare/unique/easy in to a special place (or in the case of subservient PCs they think it’s a good way to “learn the sphere/group/theme”). Unfortunately to do it well without imposing on other people oocly it takes a lot of ic and ooc work.

Again, I enjoy these PCs a lot. I have no problems with any kind of subject, really—as long as there is ooc consideration and discretion involved. It’s just that there are a lot of people who are incapable/unwilling to take into account other folks’ comfort. Which is why I think it’s important that staff set very clear boundaries around any kind of the classic triggers of RP. (Loss of autonomy via mind control or domination, including slavery, powers, rape, etc)

Staff also needs to be prepared to deal with some of the burden. Realistically they are going to need to be able to deal with over and over again incoming people’s freak outs or somewhat oocly motivated crusades. Whether that’s about a particular character or something that’s touched on in a plot, etc.

That’s annoying even with the most mundane topics. But when you add in the emotion and stress level of something that’s a very big problem right now outside of people’s gaming lives, that puts an energy into it that can be very difficult to deal with (as player or staff) and that can also increase staff stress/ability to respond without snapping.

Think of all the issues surrounding power exchange and discrimination built in to the very familiar WoD. How many times have we heard people complaining about ghouls? Kinfolk? Both always had their own neat potential but it often gets shoved aside with other people’s extreme distaste for “who would want to play that except for TS! They’re useless!”

And that is a purely fantasy thing, without any sort of real world history ties.

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.

This looks amazingly fun. I might need to check it out. Thanks for posting it up here.

I usually have a base concept that I think will fit in well with the game (very very basic, often a trope if you will). For me the personality (usually the second thing to come) is largely determined by music inspiration. I almost always have an extensive playlist for a character concept before I even think about what they look like.

At this point, I prefer collaboration. In the last years this has been mostly with people I know, but my all time favorite, long held PC (Ariadne @ TR) came about because I was able to then find a family that I felt looked interesting and I was able to app in without knowing anyone. Sometimes that doesn’t work out quite how one wishes it to because of the rapid pace of change and wikis not being kept up to date. But despite that, I was able to connect with some nice folks on the ooc channels and find some specific tasks and places where there wasn’t ample coverage.

Once I have a few hooks in (or at least what I think are hooks in) to the in-progress game, then I work on my sheet. This is my most hated part of the process. If I could pay someone in xp to hear my concept, what I think I will be doing, and then have them translate that statistically into a sheet for me, I would. It’s just not something I enjoy.

Once I have that, back to semi-collaboration to set some history hooks with people who seem interested, write a background that allows for more weaving in of stories post approval, and doesn’t answer every mystery from the past.

Then I usually find a picture.

Mostly I crave organic collaboration both pre- and post-approval, that is not heavy handed and enhances play in present and richness of background for all parties. It’s more fun for me, and I find it easier to invest in a game when others trust me with bits of their story and I’m not just creating something in a vacuum to launch on grid.

Yeah I think I’m out. If your idea of good modding is calling people who request clarification and express genuine confusion children and implying they are stupid—I sure as hell wouldn’t stay on a game with staff like that.

Why would I stay here?

People who want to get in touch with me are free to, but having been part of this place since the beginning and WORA and SWOFA and all that stuff this is way too hard to see.

@aria sorry, that really sucks. Especially if you were working on growing it out, suffering through the weird inbetween stages, and having to be patient for so long.

I’m in the stage of life now where I tell my stylist “do whatever the fuck you want, just make me look better and less like a dowdy trainwreck.” But I have had a situation where a stylist misunderstood me, gathered my hair into a ponytail and cut off 10 inches in one fell swoop while my brain was still going “what—“

Hairshock is a thing. I hope after it wears off a bit you’ll like your cut a bit better.