I honestly could not possibly care any less about who's romancing who, as long as both parties are cool with it, in whatever form it takes.

I think it can be a dangerous line to walk to quantify certain types of "Writing a scene for funsies" as inherently better than any other type of RP, and it can come across as extremely dismissive to those who enjoy that sort of scene. When you add sexually-charged content into the mix, it gets even more of a fine line, as these are traditionally (mostly) safe spaces for people to typetypetype about that things they can't necessarily do in real life.

(Note: all examples fictional and not allegory for anyone I know)

Jane the Fite Warrior cutting the heads off of goblins is no more and no less valuable than Dillan the Diplomat, who loves to attend galas and gladhand, and that's no less valuable than Cody the Bard, who loves to romance his paramours and then fade to black, and that's no less valuable than Trudy, the healer who in her downtime is more 'Hello, Nurse', and steps on people for in-game currency.

But the community at large seems to have a tendency to look at these example and quantify, "Okay, Jane's cool, Dillan's like, really impressive, Cody's RP isn't very valuable, and Trudy should just leave, that <perjorative>. She's only that rich because she's a <perjorative>."

The community tends not to care that pTrudy is really nice OOCly, values consent, and constantly drums up plot for others in her role as a healer, or that pDillan is backbiting literally everyone on the game in their Discord server.

Defining the value of the player by the scenes they find valuable is inherently reductionist, and when you bring sex into it, weird and puritanical.

I'm not really going to touch on staff/non-staff interactions here, because I've never been staff and I've never been TSed by staff, but our community needs to put its money where its mouth is when it comes to shaming people just for bumping against one another.

I will take a dozen Trudys in a game over a single Dillan.

At the same time, if necessary.

@rightmeow said in Something Completely Different:

Don't forget to be kind.

Honestly, I'm cool with just this.

There's people behind the keys. That goes for people who were banned, and people who did the banning.

I think locking threads was iffy, but fine. I think locking MSB was a huge mistake. I think the bans that went out were almost entirely uncalled for, and should have been reversed. I think insisting on DMs was also a mistake, because people are inherently mistrusting of what happens in the dark. That's where the fear and mistrust and the idea of cliques and whisper campaigns comes from, warranted or not.

I'm as far from part of the 'clique' as it's envisioned can be, because I often disagree with the broad consensus, but I think at some point, we need to confront that mistakes were made, and doubling down on them has only harmed the site's credibility.

My brother is married. His wife's alright, but her mother is possibly the worst human being I have ever met. Let's call her Hannah.

The first time I met her, I was pulled out of a lunch break in order to just 'pop out to meet her real quick' while at work. Just my brother's spouse and her mother. We made some small talk because I had nothing in common with her menthol-smelling boomerness, but it was nothing outside the pale for meeting someone for the first time under frazzled circumstances. I excused myself to return to work because I knew I was running behind on a task, and I hear her say to my brother's wife, "Oh, well you know the LastNameHeres. They're all a bit slow. It must run in the family." She and my brother's wife laughed.

My brother is on the spectrum. I'm not, but that isn't really the issue, here. At the time, I pretended not to hear and just fumed about it because I was in a shitty retail job and needed to keep working to not get fired so I could get my 7 bucks an hour while murdering my body. Luckily, this woman never turns up anywhere. No family functions, no gatherings, so I just let it slide off of my back. Today, my mom called to set up our first 'post-covid' family gathering, and off-handedly mentioned that she'd be inviting Hannah.

It has to have been over ten years since that first exchange, but the stars aligned and a wire just snapped and I was sick of keeping it to myself. So I shared the story with my mom.

...

"Oh. Well, you can sit at opposite ends of the table." My mom suggested.

Flabbergasted, I repeated, "Mom. The very first time I met her, she called Brothersname slow and implied the same about me."

"Well... you know, you don't have to take that in." My mother said, blindsided and trying to placate.

"No, I know," I snapped, "But I'm anxious and depressed and it takes real fucking effort for me to get out of the house, and I'm not doing it for someone who called us slow."

"That doesn't mean you have to take it to heart." My mom suggested.

I hung up.

I feel like the worst person ever right now because my mom has been pinning a lot of hope on this idyllic picnic where we all get together and things are normal, but I'm not breaking bread with that woman voluntarily. If that's the sort of things she says in public, with me in fucking earshot, then I'm quite certain she's probably using slurs in private. I don't need her ugliness in my life.

...So yeah. Angry. Had to vent it somewhere, because I'm not great at sticking up for myself all the time. Go fuck yourself, Hannah.

Edit: Thankfully, my mom called me back, and pivoted to a plan that didn't involve Hannah. Yay.

Received a diagnosis of PTSD today, and I have mixed feelings. Embarrassment, because I feel like my trauma isn't as bad as other peoples' trauma to fall into this category, grudging relief that when talking about my trauma, my psychiatrist seemed to take my problems seriously for the first time ever, and... honestly, just emotionally through the ringer for having to dredge up some decades-old wounds I haven't had to touch in years.

I know it's not the trauma olympics, and this might lead to better evaluation and care, but part of me feels reduced to that trauma by this diagnosis. Just a weird, shitty feeling.

Sydney 95% of the time:

Sydney 5% of the time:

(I have no alts and wanted two pictures, too.)

This back to normal shit is happening too fast.

I can't just flip a switch and suddenly be okay in a sea of coworkers, vaccinated or no. My brain has immediately gone into fight or flight, and even though I am only working one day per week on site at the moment, it's enough to stress me out for much of the week.

Then, of course, is the news that that's changing from 1 to 3 in the near future, despite being assured it wouldn't ever be more than 2 going forward.

Fuck the technologically illiterate CEOs that make these choices about how and where I can best do my job, and thanks for all the scrambling that's only left me more scattered and overeager to get Xanax into my bloodstream so my body stops feeling like my chest is caving in.

Sure love that. Keeps me closer to 'the mission.'

I'm moving in less than a week - while I can't move in to a house this year like I'd hoped because of the aforementioned absurdity bubble that's even more absurd in my neck of the woods, I was able to land a decently sized upgrade to the current apartment.

I cannot overstate how excited I am to be moving from a 1B/1BR to a 2B/2BR plus a loft. This means I no longer have to have my setup in a literal laundry room. Not sure if I'm going to post up in the loft or the second bedroom for my office, but either way, it is decidedly not the fucking laundry room.

And I'm thrilled with that.

Knowing exactly what's wrong with you, knowing how to fix it, but being completely unable to muster the energy or resolve to do what needs to be done.

There are friends I have in real life that know only a fraction of who I am as a person, and there are people online who have reached the entire iceberg. It varies, obviously, but I have online friends who have actively checked on me and cared about me more than friends I've had for my entire life. Friends who have endured my whining and anxieties, and questionable elitist takes on anime, yet still want to actually speak to me. Why these people exist is a mystery to me, but I am quite pleased for it all the same.

So, yeah. I'm firmly in the 'They are real' camp.

The most terrifying thing in the world with online friends is when they stop connecting, and you don't know why.

...and then they reconnect like a week later having just loved their vacation, and you feel like a dip for worrying but it was just really out of character for them to not log on at all like that okay.

Topic. This appears to be broken.

@Misadventure

Look, I see what you're getting at with this, but the optics are a tiny bit different because you're not someone who was deputized by the very party I'm criticizing.

I don't appreciate that dissent is being categorized as dehumanization, so yes, you're very much a human being - every bit as I am. We're just having a disagreement over who's shaking the keys to what was once a community and now is experiencing a painful rip through its center.

I am not someone who thinks people who I disagree with are somehow subhuman.

Cheers.

@Ghost

It's a direct response to a post on the topic.

@Derp

I can very clearly see why you'd think that, when this schism was largely along the lines of whether you were suitable to hold power.

Now you do so nearly unilaterally, with two admins racing one another to upvote your every take.

Best possible outcome for you. Thus, healthy.

@misadventure

Gosh, yes. I can think of nothing more lame than losing a character to completely mundane threats. My example has always been 'bandits'.

Very real risk of this happening in an armed robbery in real life? Definitely. But having it happen in a story is quite the anticlimax unless handled with absolute precision.

No one can convince me that anyone failed in the new trilogy except for J.J. Abrams.

And Colin Trevorrow, for losing his chance to direct one of them, for which I am eternally grateful.

@macha

Ah. Welp.

@macha

I don't endorse data exfiltration.

That being said, copying the PST file to a thumb drive is less likely to set off alarm bells than a massive amount of forwarded emails to yourself going through the mail server.

@ganymede

Thank you for this.

Transparency is arguably the most important element to these proceedings, and I think it's been where some of the major heartburn has stemmed from. I would urge the three of you to reevaluate some of the decisions that were made in the heat of the moment, and I hope that's being considered.

Bannings, especially, should be reserved largely for people who have gone far beyond the pale, and I think when the door was locked to the hogpit, it's quite natural that it spilled out. Some folks in that initial wave got slapped down for what were, ultimately, pretty innocuous statements.

I don't think it's impossible to restore goodwill, and I do think that even if unbanned, plenty of folks wouldn't come back anyhow, but it represented an inconsistent application of moderation, and I think everyone involved struggled with keeping a level head about it as the situation compounded.

I'm nevertheless glad to hear that course correction is being considered, and codifying the rules of engagement to be less floaty (to avoid inconsistent application of moderation) is something that should be considered. It needs a second pass to remove some of the ambiguity, which can currently be read as, "You can be banned if we feel like it."

While that's generally true of any online space, I don't think that was quite your staff's intentions with revising the rules of engagement, and it's how it reads from a mostly-neutral stance.

I do hope this is taken in the spirit it's intended, with the intent of being constructive.

@rightmeow said in Something Completely Different:

Don't forget to be kind.

Honestly, I'm cool with just this.

There's people behind the keys. That goes for people who were banned, and people who did the banning.

I think locking threads was iffy, but fine. I think locking MSB was a huge mistake. I think the bans that went out were almost entirely uncalled for, and should have been reversed. I think insisting on DMs was also a mistake, because people are inherently mistrusting of what happens in the dark. That's where the fear and mistrust and the idea of cliques and whisper campaigns comes from, warranted or not.

I'm as far from part of the 'clique' as it's envisioned can be, because I often disagree with the broad consensus, but I think at some point, we need to confront that mistakes were made, and doubling down on them has only harmed the site's credibility.