@surreality Man, I hated NJ taxes until I had my kid and that EIC kicked in. Take my money all year, it's fine. I'm terrible at saving, I just consider my refund money in the bank. Though if we actually earned interest on the amount NJ 'borrows' from us annually, we could all probably retire early. It's criminal, really.
I brought my new guinea pigs home on Sunday, and as expected they've been hiding and pretending I don't exist.
The younger of the two (she's 7 weeks) came out to eat while I was stuffing her ball with hay. It was the first time I'd seen her face since the day they came home. Naturally, I am elated. She's a beautiful, lilac sheltie with vampiric red eyes, cannot get enough of that haughty little face.
She did a fairly thorough exploration of the enclosure I built, and for this I've named her Freya.
The older of the two (she's 11 weeks) has been giving me her ass to kiss - literally, she burrows and leaves only her furry butt visible. Granted, she's a long-haired Peruvian, so her face and butt look a lot alike, except one has stunning dark blue eyes - and one doesn't.
Edited to fix the breed names I mixed up, whoops.
@Ganymede said in MU Things I Love:
One of my favorite PCs of all time was a vampire who had adopted a teenage girl. Half of my RP was him spying on her from afar, going bowling, or fixing other PC's buildings and/or plumbing to make a buck.
Emphasis mine; the amount of side-eye this would get in most places these days is hilariously depressing.
I had Fraggle Rock and the Little Golden Books and a case full of Disney movies when I was really little, my mom liked cute things and so my exposure was cute things.
But then I got dumped with my grandparents for a year while my mom was finishing school.
I'd finished all the little cute books I'd brought with me, so I decided to take a look at the books on my uncle's shelf. Mutiny on the Amistad. Wuthering Heights. The Hobbit. Ender's Game. Speaker for the Dead. Several more I can't recall the names of, but these are the ones that impacted me in ways that I still feel to this day.
That summer and the following school year witnessed the birth of my obsession with all things literary, all things historical, all things sci-fi. I didn't know how to tie my shoes yet, I was eight and my hand-eye coordination was (still is) shit. But I was (still am) a pro page-turner.
It's so easy to make smols happy. I sent my nine-year-old to go brush teeth the before bed and got hit with a massive case of the sulks. I intercepted in the kitchen and pulled skewers and marshmallows from behind my back. We roasted a marshmallow each over the gas stove and danced around the kitchen. All smiles to go brush the sticky from the teeth afterward, and bedtime only delayed by 5 minutes to bring back the happy. So worth it.
@jibberthehut said in RL things I love:
@Pandora I had to look those up. I sew, it just looks like it's fleece, slapped together like a french pillowcase edging. But the price, ouch. If you let me know your dimensions, I have fleece and can rip you off a few. The fleece has been sitting forever on my shelf and I'd rather see it used. Also, keep an eye on joanns for fleece, day after christmas sales, their no pill fleeces go on ridiculous cheap. Like 2 bucks a yard. And coupons through the year gets you 40 - 60 % off. You can even buy heavy duty hem tape and make a no sew one, with just your iron and the hem tape.
It's fleece with a sewn diamond pattern to keep the material from shifting, a waterproof bottom layer, and a layer of organic, absorbent bamboo to hold the piggie wee. I looked into making one myself, but I don't know where to source organic bamboo fibres on this bloody island, so GuineaDad gets (all) my money. 
@krmbm So, what are players meant to do? Is this a tavern-sitting, small-talk game, or is there something feasible to do even if you don't already know people?
My first scene on my current Arx character was a commoner chick breaking down her list of princesses she'd fucked, right there in public, in our first conversation. I just smiled and nodded and noped out as fast as I could, because the line between 'Shaming someone for being an indiscreet, crude, disrespectful ass' and 'Omg, slut shaming!' is very thin.
The last items needed for my guinea pig cage have been ordered. Once I have the cage set up perfectly, I can start looking for two pretty sows to live in it. GuineaDad fleece covers are so.fucking.expensive ($85 for a 2ft by 5 ft fleece is highway robbery) but I am assured it will be worth it to not have to scoop soiled bedding ever again.
I'm nervous - mammals have care requirements that are much more rigorous than those of my reptiles. But I'm so pleased to finally have enough space for two little adoptees.
My boss is Greek, which is irrelevant. More importantly, he is 'not racist, but'.
Sidebar: 'Not racist, but' should be a thing. Is it a meme? It should be a meme. I'm going to make it a meme. One second:
Right, back to my boss.
He is a Holocaust denier. He agrees that it happened, in some form, but cites wackjob conspiracy websites that say things like 'gas chambers wouldn't have actually worked like that'. It blows my mind really, that people can have not just these opinions, but also the gall to say them out loud.
And for the record, lest anyone be confused:
Almost any sentence that begins "I'm 'not racist, but'..." is probably fucking RACIST.
@Tinuviel said in Intersectional MU* Community - Discussion:
@BobGoblin said in Intersectional MU* Community - Discussion:
You know what the Mu community needs? More stupidity... Oh look, I found it!
There's always room for more! We've been far too considerate and caring lately.
Not by choice, there's just a rabid mob ready to jump on you if you accidentally use a word or meme they don't like so we're a bit boxed into a culture of only being mean when the hive mind says it's okay to dogpile on something, at which point people gleefully tear into it after being repressed.
@Tinuviel That play made me cry in the theatre, I was mortified.
@Tinuviel said in MU Things I Love:
@Pandora said in MU Things I Love:
But there's only so long before I want to control something. Build an empire, start a cult, start a war. Make a name for myself that matters not because it sounds cool, or is attached to power, but through sheer force of will, with no one's permission & on my own schedule.
Write a book. Seriously. Doesn't have to be good.
It's not the same. I write; I have a decent fanfic following & sometimes I get the urge to write something original but it invariably ends up abandoned.
There's something uniquely compelling about writing that involves others; that 'repeating-that-one-line-out-loud-because-it-was-so-clever-and-people-are-ICly-quoting-you' feeling, that 'people-OOCly-paging-you-to-say-'My character can't support your cause but damn that was an amazing proclamation' feeling, that 'people-care-about-this-like-really-care-about-this' feeling.
I don't understand how people can stand to read other people's RP logs for the most part, they aren't as good as a real novel, and only really seem special to me if they involve me in some way. But I have logs from like, way back in Firan days that still make my toes curl with joy.
Geeya being blessed by Soli to not die in childbirth (she died at war instead, but that's irrelevant).
Aldrette being arrested by Nydias for not curtsying to his neonoble wife and subsequently being made HoH.
Aldrette's fiery fight with Ketarus about how she'll never amount to anything, the day before she was named proxy.
(Shoutout to Cecilia's player, I might have had my raging issues with Firan's staff but she was good for elevating a woman over the BS men in that damn clan.)
But anyway, logs of someone else doing something else - not interested unless I was there. Maybe I'm just self-centered, or maybe MU writing is less about writing something good and more about writing something that makes you and the people around you feel good.
Books are a different beast altogether, they need to be good or you're wasting your damn time.
@Kanye-Qwest Pretty much any RP-enforced game that isn't a MUSH.
It's funny that when I'm playing MUDs I sigh dramatically and say I want to play a political princess (don't judge me, that's my favorite thing ever) and fuck off to MUSH-land for a while.
But there's only so long before I want to control something. Build an empire, start a cult, start a war. Make a name for myself that matters not because it sounds cool, or is attached to power, but through sheer force of will, with no one's permission & on my own schedule.
Course, for me this means sucking it up and dealing with Havenites again, that's a Mu thing I do not love.
Games where what you do is important and your surname isn't. Games where time is relevant. Games where your titles are earned. Games where your writing skill carries more weight than who you're boning.
@Auspice Spoken as an older sister with a younger sister that flat-out had a better life than I did, but still complains more than anyone I know - little sisters are just shitty people. They mean well, but they're horrid.
People that joyfully, proudly proclaim their disdain and loathing for all of mankind - while trying to be friends/curry favor with everyone. Don't rep that life if you aren't about that life, you might cut yourself on your own edginess.
@Rinel Metairie. Which no one has ever heard of, for good reason, so I always just say Nola.
I don't know where members of the community are coming from, but MSB seems like an odd place to recruit for it, all the same.
I'm finally moved into my new house and (mostly) unpacked and my room is far enough away from everyone else's room that I can finally, after almost two years in that apartment, MASTURBATE IN PEACE.
@Kestrel Haven has pretty strict rules against IC/OOC communications, and one of the problems I see coming up, again and again on many games, is that stalking, harassment, bullying, manipulation, etc. that happens outside of a game's in-house systems (mail, pages, messenger) is nearly impossible for staff to police.
You're now accepting the burden of being yet one more place where vulnerable people are wearing a target on their back without the protection of staff aid should things go pear-shaped, so what plan do you have in place for when inevitable receipts get back to people and they go on the offensive? Remember, one person's skeevy jackass is another person's current manipulating TS partner - Logs. Are. Going. To. Be. Shared.