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    surreality

    @surreality

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    Coder Creator Tutorialist

    Best posts made by surreality

    • I owe a lot of people some apologies.

      For quite some time, I trusted someone I thought was credible.

      I found out the very hard way that this was not the case, and just how incredibly vile their take on various people really was.

      I do not know if something is wrong with them that they do this, but I really don't care. That person is no longer my problem. I have learned my lesson: do not, under any circumstances, believe what that person has to say about anyone.

      I spent a long time doing so.

      That was stupid, and that was wrong. That I didn't know any better does not absolve it even a little. That I seriously feel like complete shit about it doesn't, either. I was way too willing to hear ugly things about a variety of people and believe they were true, and that is absolutely NOT OK.

      I'm still traveling, so I can't really attend to this now in regard to specific people from this stupid tablet, but I damned well intend to make ammends and apologies as best I can -- not non-pologies -- to the people I may have hurt as a result, and to those who are open to hearing them.

      If you think this applies to (actual) you out there, please let me know. I should be home on the 5th but will reply to PMs as I am able in between. There are people I know of already that I will be trying to reach out to when I get home.

      I'm not kidding about this; I feel like shit knowing I was probably a party to other people going through the crap I recently did. I'm pretty fucking horrified by it.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: An Apology to BSO and BSU.

      @downwithopp said in An Apology to BSO and BSU.:

      Sorry if you're going to be an ass about it.

      ^ This is not how actual apologies work.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: MSB, SJW, and other acronyms

      @arkandel It comes with another caveat: 'the process of social admonishment' == 'popularity contest'.

      Right and wrong are very rarely determinative; 'how many friends you can rally to all scream at the same person at once or attack them', on the other hand, frequently does.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: The 100: The Mush

      @mietze said in The 100: The Mush:

      It sounds like you're doing the good things like bothering to check (either overtly or not) if your partners are enjoying themselves. It's the people that do not that make folks leery. Or when someone cannot express that they're finding constant unprovoked antagonism tiresome/stressful/unfun and they're told that it must be just because they don't like anything that doesn't make them perfect. That's not true for a lot of people (I know it is for some!); sometimes they mean what they say--that they're just not finding constant personal antagonism that fun when it totally dominates everything they try to participate in and is directed at them.

      Bolded for emphasis.

      Anything that is 'all you ever get' IC gets tiresome. All tea parties gets tiresome. All TS gets tiresome. All high-octane no-time-to-breathe, yes, gets tiresome. Even for the few who genuinely can't ever handle not being perfect, I'm betting endless people telling them, "You're so perfect!" gets tiresome.

      A varied experience is important to continued interest.

      A balanced positive/negative experience can also help, but isn't quite as necessary (IMHO); heck, studies have shown the reason people gamble is because out of the twenty tries, that one win keeps people coming back despite the nineteen losses (and those are odds way better than people actually tend to get in gambling). So you don't even need to have a balance in the win/loss columns, because the wins count for a lot.

      If you don't ever have them, though, you're back to the point above: there's no variance. There's only losses. That is going to make someone lose interest much, much faster.

      And this goes for a 'win' however that person chooses to define it. It may be coming out on top in an IC argument. It may be saving the day and being the hero in a combat. It may be getting one over on the hero and luring them into a trap. It could be someone, yes, telling them once they're the prettiest princess ever -- even when the other nineteen times they're totally ignored.

      That variance is essential. If people don't find it, boredom sets in fast.

      If everyone is fighting to take on the starring role of 'king/queen asshole', yeah, you're going to have an issue, because that's a take-take-take environment, not a shared space environment. IC, everyone may absolutely be out for themselves and themselves alone, but that's not really an appropriate attitude for players to take. As players, we need to remember that we are sharing space with other players, and that means sharing the resources of that space -- be it in the form of attention, the hero/villain roles, the IC resources of locations or GM time, slots in limited events, etc.

      Edit: This really, really goes back to a 'playground rules' thing again. It's been a while for all of us but we learned 'em all a ways back, y'know?

      posted in Adver-tis-ments
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Random links

      ^ Pure awesomeness. ❤

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Blood of Dragons

      @nymeria said in Blood of Dragons:

      @testament said in Blood of Dragons:

      I admit I'm slightly surprised that people are still playing it, given what's already been said, at length, about it.

      Strange, isn't it? Or could it be that some things that have been said simply aren't true? And that other things that have been said are things that some players actually like about the game?

      The primary negative re: Blood of Dragons and this community has nothing to do with the game itself. Let's not be disingenuous on that point from any perspective.

      The reason much of the portion of the MSB forum that carried over from WORA takes a dim view of the game has everything to do with your behavior in community spaces, and not quibbles about the game itself. Let's not pretend the forum community is running around spreading lies about the game to make you look bad; you accomplished that entirely on your own quite some time ago from the perspective of many here, and that attempt to sling shade is more than just a little shady in itself.

      Like many others, you could create the most perfect game to ever exist, and plenty of people here wouldn't go within a mile of it out of distaste for you personally. Same is true of many other game runners here, same's true of me if I ever open a place, etc. You made your bed, do lay in it without the persecution complex and accusations, please. 🙂

      posted in Adver-tis-ments
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Tips for not wearing out your welcome

      @A-B It's sounding like there are a lot of concerns and complications for you about this endeavor.

      Time zone issues are tough, but on a large enough game you may be able to find a decent crew of US nightowls or early risers. The problem with this is that large games are not at all common, and the number of them seems to be shrinking steadily year by year. RPIs apparently trend larger, so if you're looking into that, you may have better luck there also.

      This is likely going to sound harsher than I intend, but it's something I feel needs to be made abundantly clear. I have major social anxiety, general anxiety, and long term major depression, so I'm not speaking in a cavalier way about something I don't understand, or don't have long term personal experience coping with.

      What you seem to be seeking from whatever game you ultimately find is not going to be the answer. In a normal phase of human history, you would be very lucky to find a game that satisfies the need for interaction brought on by isolation. It is nor the responsibility of any game on the internet to provide the emotional support and resources, or an alternative, to prevent or change social isolation.

      There's a lot to this, because while you may not be expecting a new cadre of besties or someone to play emotional support lifeline or counselor, you have: repeatedly outlined things you feel staff should have done based on your emotional needs and isolation; repeatedly claimed they should have overlooked, excused, or forgiven based on these things. These things are also not OK.

      You ask for empathy and forgiveness, you don't ask for a free pass and insist they did it all wrong and it's so unfair based on your circumstances, you do not ask them to make special rules or change their existing rules or practices to suit you, and while you have done so politely in my estimation through this thread, you have done this consistently.

      That is not how this works.

      It is especially not how it works in this period of worldwide WTF. People who have zero experience with isolation are already struggling, and I have a genuine non-snark concern that if you talk about how you're in one of these spaces to escape RL isolation and expect some indulgence on the part of staff or other players because of a combination of anxiety and isolation, you are going to get sledgehammered by people screaming, "Join the fucking club!" as it is something the vast majority are dealing with.

      The only people I know of who are NOT dealing with it are even worse off, stocking shelves or in the health field, at major risk and subject to incredible if not outright insane circumstances. Plenty of them are right here in the hobby, and like all of us who are in various shades of lockdown, they're trying to engage in a little fun escapism in the tiny scraps of time life affords them to do so.

      Everyone's nerves are fried, and Gany put it far better than I could: these games have their own low thrum of steady stress. It is considerably worse right now. Looking for relief from isolation on these games is something that seems like common sense in a lockdown -- temporary or as a part of normal life for any given person -- but it isn't the easy solution it may seem, and that's in a normal time. You're less likely, right now, to get the kind of empathy and understanding you seem to be looking for because everyone's so stressed and screwed.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Critters!

      OK, so, I lied. I also came back to share this link -- https://imgur.com/a/dE5PmGB -- to album of flouf. (Ignore my messy as fuck desk, lord knows I try to.)

      Her antics have been getting me and the husband through; hopefully her silliness will give y'all a reason to smile, too.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Seeking Women for Multi-Game Harem

      Here. FINE. I see how it is. Have some boobies.
      Boobies, just for you.

      And the predictable accompaniment of:
      link text

      posted in Adver-tis-ments
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: RL things I love

      OMG, my computer chair. My keyboard. HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU BOTH.

      (Also, home. Yay! Whew. I now have no excuses but 'might be a crazy frothing gibbon' for typing like a crazy frothing gibbon.)

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      surreality
      surreality

    Latest posts made by surreality

    • RE: Another Played By Creator

      @Ghost There are a bunch of google collab things for Stability that are (relatively) self-explanatory, and if you don't mind slow and limited sizes, they can be fiddled with free or pretty steadily for $10/month for more reliable access.

      https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1jUwJ0owjigpG-9m6AI_wEStwimisUE17

      ^ That one is pretty solid.

      (It says 'no NSFW filter' but don't assume that's because it's for porn-hounds; they set up a NSFW autodetect that is notoriously and often hilariously buggy. You'd see buildings, clouds, rocks all censored to much gnashing of teeth in the beta because the autodetect thought it might be a nipple.)

      posted in Reviews and Debates
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Another Played By Creator

      It's worth checking out the possibilities with StabilityAI for this. It can do a pretty good job, or at least the best I've seen thus far.

      Their site is up at https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/dream and nightcafe also has an option to use their engine. Neither is completely free, but they have free options available if you don't use them much. I think Midjourney has options for using it as well, though I have no experience with their setup for it or their server in general. There are some google collabs you can use free or mostly free that run it as well.

      Unlike DALL-E, you can request likenesses if you want someone who sorta looks like whoever as a general appearance range or starting point. (DALL-E doesn't want people making likenesses on the whole, and you can lose your account for trying too much.)

      (Seems like I've missed a lot of something I'm pretty sure I'm glad I missed, but back to doing something else for another year for me. This past year's 'something else' is relevant to the theme of this thread, so it was worth tossing the info out there. All the while tinkering with the Stability beta I kept wondering if people had suggested it for the hobby, and it's cool to see that's happening. It's neat, fun, addictive stuff.)

      posted in Reviews and Debates
      surreality
      surreality
    • Strange and random, but funny.

      Hi. I'm still alive.

      Anyway, I was bored as hell today and tinkering with an AI art generator and threw the first paragraph of the Nymeria desc into it, and the infamous Tracy desc into another one.

      d4fl40Ma5kqimtch5kFC.jpg

      Tracy came out as gross as one would expect, so it's behind a spoiler tag.

      ***=Hilarious Nightmare Fuel***

      click to show

      hbOQAoyFVJBSlbg5PRZ2.jpg

      Hope y'all are doing well in the hellchaos that has made reality way weirder than any of our fictions over the years.

      I'm still not out and about or playing anywhere or doing dev on anything, but I couldn't NOT share that silliness with y'all.

      P.S. AI art generators are fun for people who like to play with language. Sorry not sorry if this addicts someone else.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Crafting Thread Part ?

      @crawfish I have no idea about the characters these are inspired by, but they're so nifty I don't care. I'm sure they'd be twice as awesome if I knew, but even not knowing, they still kick all the ass.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Crafting Thread Part ?

      @aria That's the knitpicks Muse yarn, isn't it. (I just finished a momshawl in it with a color just like the magenta/violet/blue is why I ask!)

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Dead Celebrities 2021 Edition

      @cupcake This one makes me incredibly sad. I remember so many of her paintings, and IIRC she went to one of the colleges I did. 😕

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Sensitivity in gaming

      @carma I am really glad to see people coming around to this. I'd set up a similar system for on-wiki preferences that players could set and add notes to as needed, and it was a lot more controversial at that time. Definitely go for it with this.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff

      Ran across this in another group I'm a part of. Since these issues are tragically common in the hobby, it seemed like it may be useful to share. It has a lot of information, including the upsides and downsides of some potential remedies.

      What to do if you're the target of online harassment (from Slate).

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: How are you coping with COVID (and other 2020 fun)?

      In some ways, it hasn't been the kind of hell for me it has for my husband. I'm used to being home and generally isolated. I'm also lucky: my parents live next door.

      It hasn't been an easy year, regardless. I'm dealing with different kinds of isolation than I'm accustomed to, and while that's 'like everybody else', they aren't the same things as most other people, which is unhelpful.

      I'm watching a lot of movies and shows. I'm trying to design a perfect dream house I'll never live in just to do it. I keep waffling over designing a game or not, then getting distracted by something else. (I know what I want to do, it's the doing it that's... meh.) Still trying to help people deal with Qanon disinfo and chaos, harassment, and threats.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      surreality
      surreality
    • RE: Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff

      It's worth noting that if you grind your teeth in your sleep, ***Spoiler tag for people who have dental phobias -- you don't want to see this.***

      click to show

      which many people with stress and anxiety do, you can drive the roots of a molar into your sinus cavity if the tooth cracks.

      It is a good idea to address any molar pain promptly because if you let it sit long enough, that 'crack' can essentially fuse the cracked tooth with the jawbone.

      If the tooth has to come out, this complicates everything considerably, because it is entirely possible that it will take a chunk of jawbone with it.

      This can mean bone grafts become necessary, and in worse cases, a sinus lift.

      Guess who learned this the hard way!

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      surreality
      surreality