Best posts made by Paris

@botulism said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

@arkandel I felt the same way recently, that in order to ask someone to leave I had to catch them breaking an actual rule.

Then I realized it's perfectly valid to do it because someone is a shitty person who bullies and hurts others, even if they don't do it right in front of me on my game. This hobby is toxic for a reason - we tolerate toxic behavior from toxic people out of a misguided sense of fairness. No one has a right to play on a game.

In the 90s, I ran a game that I really loved. The staff were pretty solid, the theme is one that I'm still fond of.

On it was a player that I had gotten semi-involved with, and I went out to visit them for a few weeks. He turned out to be a lying, predatory jerk that targeted vulnerable people, and I only escaped him, and sexual assault, because of a friend.

When I got back home, I informed my staff that I was going to kick him off the game.

"You can't do that just because a relationship went bad."
"It didn't happen on the game, so it doesn't count."
"You can't let personal feelings get involved."

I stepped down as God, amidst a bunch of accusations that I was a PHB. Word got back to the guy and his friends, and he got a ton of sympathy. I figured that I wasn't the only one he was going to target, isolate, and assault, so I figured I'd be vindicated eventually, but it still hurt.

Several months later, it was discovered that he'd used the game to target a very underage player, was actively grooming them to run away from their family and go stay with him. He didn't, in part because I, who lived in the same town as the player, went over and shared my experiences with them. They weren't entirely convinced, but (with the help of others, I won't claim sole credit) eventually cut it off with him.

Ever since then, if I KNOW, with logs, screencaps, etc, especially from multiple players, that a player is toxic and actively does things to harm people, I have no qualms about kicking them off any game I run-- even if they don't do this shit on my game. I consider that part of my responsibility to my players and MUSHing in general.

VASpider has hung on for years because of this, because people, as the God of PernMUSH once said to me, would rather hew to the ILLUSION of fairness rather than the harder reality.

Take responsibility for the hobby and the part you play in it, MU* Soapbox admins. Do the right thing and drop Auspice from your staff.

(Edit: typo that annoyed me.)

Abuse thrives in silence.

@thenomain This is where I remind you gently that you are struggling with your mental health, and your meds are not being effective, and you are under RL stress which compounds the other two; and thus flagellating yourself as shit compared to those who are 'really' suffering does not help you or anyone. You are suffering.

This is not an excuse, but it is a reason.

This is not about willpower or mind over matter or moral weakness.

There are techniques that can help to a degree sometimes; I'm sure you know about things like meditation, deep breathing, reducing outside sources of anxiety, etc, and I don't want to be patronizing.

I hope you can get your medication situation straightened out, because you will probably not realise just how unmoored you have been until your brain is chemically back to its proper balance, and I hope that at least at that point the self-recrimination will ease up.

Back when I was going through chemo, my service dog would glue herself to my side for about three full days following my infusion, only getting up from my bed to potty and eat. She'd bring her toy over and insist I hold it while she chewed on it, and would watch me very intently for any sign of trouble.

We couldn't bring her to the clinic itself because she would get very upset that she could not go comfort every person receiving treatment (because they were immunocompromised) and would mope heavily afterwards.

When I am alone at home she reverts to this behavior. But normally she hates to lie down and will play for hours and hours, and is extremely hyperactive. Anyway, she's supercute. Someone the other day leaned over to pet her and then recoiled, exclaiming, 'She's got human eyes!' And the folks at the korean BBQ down the street all want to pet her and glomp her every time we go.

We trained her ourselves, having been given her as a puppy when she was weaned at 6 weeks old.

Valentin, the year he passed away, still a glorious floof at 11 years of age. He was not the heaviest of Pyrs (about 120lbs) but he was very tall, easily waist-height on most people.

As some know, Stardust and I live and work on the Las Vegas strip as buskers. We've heard that some folks not on our game were worried about us, so: We are ok. SD was on the Strip when the shooting occurred, and was caught up in the panic and chaos that engulfed the Strip in the immediate aftermath, but she escaped safely and was in phone contact with me for part of it (it was very tense when she was not).

Cops in riot gear made checkpoints at every skybridge and exit point and were dispatched to each casino as panic spread. This both upped safety but made the process of escape much slower. Many of our local friends were, as I was, stuck watching news reports while waiting for our loved ones to check in.

While it's right beside the Strip, our complex is a gated community and security was out in force, listening to police scanners (as were we, and half the city I'm sure) to make sure to intercept any threats.

While our game is set in realtime, and many Las Vegas incidents have occurred on the game, this one will not. We a) feel that it's disrespectful to the injured and the dead to just RP about a tragedy of this magnitude, and b) we are already living it and could use the break, given that we were swept up in the drama ourselves.

People are welcome to talk about it ooc and anyone is welcome to check in, regardless of how folks left (someone did earlier, while we were asleep after a sleepless night processing it all). Whoever that was, thank you. I hope that no one here was hurt, or had loved ones who were.

@Ghost said in The MU*Bucket List:

I gotta admit, I really do want to make a character that is severely likable, but horrible in bed to the point of justified murder mercy killing.

I've met a lot of those, but I don't think it was on purpose.

Further, both as a gripe and an illustration, of which I don't believe I've brought up here before, I was accosted on the Strip a small while back.

I was surrounded by many of the world's prettiest men and woman, folks in beautiful dresses and trousers and coats, all able-bodied and semi-drunk and having a great time. I, meanwhile, since I live here, was dressed in nice but non-party clothes and stone-cold sober.

I was also in my wheelchair, presenting an ambiguous gender-- some people assume from the back that I'm a man, others a woman. IE, not necessarily someone who would stand out as amazingly hot attention magnet, right?

This guy walks right up behind me and starts fondling me. Telling me he's gonna take care of me, this and that.

Why did he do this?

Because I am disabled. Because he felt entitled to go after me because I am less likely (he thought) to fight back. Because to him, I looked 'helpless'.

Because he wanted to.

You can't tell me, 'don't be disabled in public', even though I've actually been confronted with anger about that. 'Don't hold up the line while the meat guy chops the chicken up for you.' 'Don't hold the bus up because the driver needs to strap you down.' 'Don't block my way with your wheelchair.' 'Don't make me stumble over you because your head is at elbow height and I had mine in my phone.'

But why's it ok to tell a woman, 'don't be drunk in public.' 'Don't do drugs in public.' 'Don't wear this--' (Even though many assaults are done to people who dress unsexy.) 'Don't do that--'

'Oh, but she can CHOOSE to be drunk, you can't choose to not be disabled!'

The point is that the standard for preventing rapes is put on the victim, and is generally only aimed at ONE gender. Men don't have to go through every rigamarole and behavior-policing that women do. Why? Because most men don't rape men.

What she was wearing, drinking or smoking has no business being in a discussion about rape, aside from the regrettable having to train as a goddamn ninja, if you're a woman, to be able to function in public without being violated.

@bored said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

Most games have the same problems they always have, good RP is painfully scarce, and little of what you can scrape up is worth the effort. Of course, a lot of this is due to a change in personal standards of effort/reward compared to games getting worse, although there are factors on that side too (very sandboxy games, etc).

I disagree that good RP is painfully scarce, I find wonderful roleplayers pretty regularly (and I don't think my standards are low). But I've never gotten tired of public RP, even after over 20 years of MU*ing, and a lot of folks nowadays seem to consider random public RP an obstacle between themselves and the RP they want- like roleplayers have started to see other roleplayers as obstacles between themselves and roleplay. But the quality seems pretty consistent, imo.

I love meeting new folks. Sure, I've got my own RP peeves, sure, you run into some real weirdos, but the majority of roleplayers I meet are all right, and every now and then you find some superlatively good writers. Many of them, I find, are like me: we pose at about the level of what's around, and are happy to raise our game when we meet someone else willing to do the same.

My poor doggo, who I've terrified with sneezes all day and who normally MUCH prefers to sleep at my feet. This was after a chemo infusion, as she immediately attached herself to me pretty surgically for the next three days after, and would just lie there and watch me for any bad signs.

@surreality Well, now that you clearly (and recently) know the signs of someone winding you up in order for you to lose it, it might be easier in the future to guard against that kind of manipulation, and your responses to it, in the future.

@arkandel What sounds political to you is the lived experience for a number of women here.

This is going to be rambly!

I just get so happy to be around other nerds, who like the same genre of stuff, who like to write about it, play in it. My parents were violently unsupportive of my reading fantasy and sci fi and supernatural stuff, and my town was almost as bad, so discovering a whole community of folks into the same books and games, and who wanted to write together about stuff... that helped keep me going as a kid on the streets (I mushed from a friend's house on the weekend back then). Twenty years on, it's still awesome. Sure, we don't all get along, there have been some really lousy turns along the way, but I still don't take how incredible it is for granted.

After I got diagnosed with stage 3c cancer, and given a few months to live, and especially when I started chemo, mushing and gaming became my escape. I might be in a wheelchair, I might be tired all the time, I might not be here next week, but fuck it, online I could be a healthy guy with nice hair and some snappy lines, you know? So I just started paging folks I thought were cool. I know that weirded some people out - who just pages you out of the blue? But I didn't have time to wait around and get noticed. I was gonna rp the hell out of the time I had left.

I ended up going into remission, despite not being supposed to. But chemo does a number on you, so even now, RP is still a way to get out of the bed and the wheelchair. The worst is the brain damage from the chemo, which made me forget a lot, including most of nWoD, but I've been relearning and rereading a lot of stuff. I can do MUSH combat and remember my rolls again! Most people have thankfully been very patient with me, and the ones who weren't aren't on my game, yay!

I swore I'd never bring up another MUSH, but this one has gone pretty well so far. I was really gratified and honored when Thenomain and Cobalt gave so generously of their time and code. Almost dying made me decide to build something worthwhile instead of walking away again, or uselessly bitching somewhere, and working out what exactly we wanted, why, and how was much more constructive than other options. I value my time nowadays (since my cancer can recur anytime), so I try to spend it positively.

Building a whole grid in three days was kind of cool, even if it wiped me out for a couple weeks. Seeing people roleplaying in those rooms is just so cool, I'd forgotten how satisfying building was.

My real life is not so great right now with sweetie and I having to fight the city over our legal right to work, so signing on to a pleasant, chill game where stuff goes pretty smoothly and I can just get rp whenever I like is really nice.

I guess this is all to say that I am a relatively simple person and MUSHing makes me happy. Running a game where people have fun makes me happy. Making sure staff stays fast and efficient makes me happy. MUSH drama does not, but it passes. I'll probably MUSH until MUSHes, or I, are gone.

Hewas too creaky to get up on my bed, but was perfectly happy to sleep on the floor at its foot. I tried to put up a doggie bed for him but he hated it, I think he just liked the cool tile.

Did I post this one already?

I tend to be more forgiving of newer MUshers, and generally only shitlist folks who keep doing the same toxic stuff over years.

I don't really accept the 'socially majadjusted' explanation for these behaviors, though. Most MUers are grown-ups, we know how to put ourselves in other people's shoes, and we can empathise. Once again, I give newer, younger MUers more leeway, because they're learning the right netiquette; but at the same time, as human beings who have grown up amidst civilisation, I expect some basic courtesy, manners, and awareness. You don't need to tell people not to sexually harass people, or stop manipulating people to cause drama, etc; they already know this is wrong. (And they hate it when it happens to them, so they ARE aware of boundaries.)

I have NO patience or forgiveness for long-term players who are actively malicious OR extremely 'clueless', because the vast majority of them do know better and just do toxic shit anyway. IMO, they just need to leave. They had every opportunity to be better than they were and they chose the shitty option anyway. This is specifically repeat offenders, as has been previously said, everyone has a bad day and a couple arguments here and there does not constitute a pattern.

I've been in the hobby since 93? Ish. And so in my case, it's resulted in letting a lot of things roll off instead of getting angrier about it: there's a lot of minor-level stuff that people do that is just what people do, especially new people. But I am, as people know, pretty hard-ass and confrontational about a very few things: stalking, creeping, harassment, harem wars, crap like that. All of these things, people know better. It isn't necessary. It isn't beneficial in any way. It just creates more unnecessary toxicity. People who thrive on that just suck and I believe they are too often enabled. They are categorically not welcome in my little corner of the internet (and the feeling is mutual, I know).

If you sneak food into a theatre, sneak the wrappers/bags back out when you leave, or the lowest folks on the food chain there will get bitched out by their supervisors and/or fired. Sone folks like to leave stuff behind as a nyah nyah but it's those who don't have any say about it who get punished.

A lot of us MUSHers are disabled or struggle to get out of the house in general; and it's also nice to be able to portray things without struggling with the outside appearance, either (which can be an issue in TT and LARP).

I was homebound (and then fully bedbound) for years because of a broken back and lupus, and RP (and then MMOs) saved me from losing it. Being able to set goals and achieve them, being able to interact with others, and getting to play someone who wasn't me and didn't deal with my real life problems and limits, was literally life-saving.

As an intersex person who has passed as both male and female at various points, especially whilst homeless, I had to learn how to defend myself pretty quickly. I n e v e r get drunk, I don't do any kind of drugs, and actively avoid things that will make me dopey even in a medical setting-- for example, when I had my chemo port put in, usually they give you the stuff that makes you drowsy. I just went with local because I didn't want to be impaired.

So, I have been in situations where I was attacked, or going to be attacked, sometimes sexually, by men. I was able to defend myself. The problem is that my defending myself or not had nothing to do with their INTENT of raping me. IE, my behavior had no impact on their decision to try-- at least at first. I did develop a reputation for being so brutally violent to any attackers that they stopped, but the problem then was that they simply transferred their intent to rape someone to someone else.

But telling women who have been assaulted, 'well, why did you put yourself in that situation?' especially if you are among the class of people doing the assaulting, is wrong. The only thing that leads to rape is rapists. Without rapists, there would be no rape. And the mindset that a girl who is drunk, drugged, unconscious, or impaired is just inviting rape is the justification that rapists as well as cops, friends, and most of society uses. This is also not a standard we put on men (even though it happens in those circumstances to them, too). Why is that, I wonder?

As someone who's been able to move between both gender presentations and dealt with the privileges and consequences of each, I can assure folks that there is very much a nasty double standard, and I am not surprised that people here are sick of it.