Best posts made by surreality

@Ganymede I'm talking about suggestions and alternatives coming from her, not that they aren't out there or in the works.

Instead of making suggestions, or volunteering to contribute to the story she claims she wants, etc., she's just throwing shit at the walls at this point like a child throwing a tantrum.

She's one of the prime examples of 'it's really easy to criticize; it is not so easy to put in effort, ideas, or put yourself out there in even the slightest way'.

I've not seen her do and of the latter even once. This'd be the perfect opportunity to volunteer to make sure those things are in place, contribute something, etc. -- even something so simple as, "I would like to see X kinds of storylines/management/things to do/etc." -- but even that ain't happening.

Just piles of bitching and passive aggressive horsefuckery about how shit just isn't good enough for her. Frankly, if there's one thing we have an excess of... it's that.

I never played on one of your games, or encountered you anywhere but here, for what it's worth, so I can't say "I know how it was".

I can say that if you're sincere, and you're making this change, you really will be much happier for it in the long run, even if it's hard now. Awkward and tense as things may be for a while, that's something worth holding on to.

No snark, good luck to you on this path. Will keep my fingers crossed for you, 'cause this stuff is hard.

...not enough hugs for everyone in this thread. Nowhere near.

@Ganymede said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

I am of the opinion that a blanket ban, while constraining the otherwise-ethical staffers in how they may engage with players, provides a baseline of behavior -- an ethical rule -- that can inform or assuage players as to what sort of RP staff may press them into.

I think this also goes both ways; it informs players of something that they cannot demand staff to provide for them. That's a non-trivial protection for members of staff, and cements their right to say 'no' as well, even to players who have firmly adopted a 'you are here to provide a service for me and give me the scenes I ask for' mentality.

@aria said in Um...What?:

So I guess what I'm really saying is that the best part of having been in the same committed relationship for almost a decade now is that we generally only have two people's awkward, disappointing, or just downright weird romantic ideas and behavior to deal with -- each other's. And after this long, at least we know what to expect. #truelove

Finally, someone who understands why me and my husband are married!

@Arkandel said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

Also: Anyone who's fucked up big time but wants a fresh start should be entitled to one. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that either.

...there are absolutely limits to this.

This was not found with the gif button.

It is still a gif, and it is fucking awesome, so I wanted to share it, because it makes my inner art geek and coffee lover make kitten-like trill noises deep down to the cockles of my usually coal-black heart.

And there is no current home for wayward gifs, so I'm putting it here. Enjoy, if you're into coffee and/or art geeking and/or unexpectedly classy gifs.

Randomly pretty or shiny or funny or whatever-the-heck images, toss 'em in at will.

@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

If staff are unwilling to deal with truly abusive online behavior or if other players are regularly being mean to you, then there's no the bad actors win. The bad actors have won.

This is accurate.

Thing is, you should be bringing this to staff. Not walking away at the first sign of an issue.

Beach. Found a seahorse! Might have been alive since it wasn’t dried out. Spent 10 minutes trying to rescue the little bugger but it was already gone. Forgot to get a pic of the lovely little dude in the process.

(Yes, I’m a fucking sap, I know.)

If words did not have the power to harm, the very concept of a slur would be so alien that we would not be able to comprehend it.

While I'm not sure how we could do that in some instances, I can offer this much: some of the best times I've had RPing on a MU were when I was in a skype call with the person I was playing with, or when they were people who were living here at the time. (Not Spider, but others.)

I mean, this may sound crazy to most people, but there is nothing so grounding as writing even smut with someone sitting six feet away while gnawing on pizza while you're both cackling your asses off with the, "OMG, that was so mean!" or hearing the devious giggling while a pose is being written, and giving or getting the look of 'oh, damn, I'm in for it now', and just laughing and joking all the while.

It is really just impossibly hard for it to be a big drama factory then, so while y'all may think that's crazy, it sure did wonders for keeping shit in the proper perspective. (Namely: harmless fun that is not anything resembling a big deal.)

ETA: For all the people suddenly shocked and horrified at the very notion? Seriously, try it sometime. You may be surprised.

The simple difference is that social dice are about the story, and the x-card is about the people engaged in creating it.

One thing controls what happens to fictional people.

The other controls what happens to real people.

'OMG, control mechanisms!' applies to both, and reasonable people can reasonably embrace or reject either/or/both in part or in full on a personal philosophical level. That is where the similarity begins and ends.

I know I was looking at a general RP-prefs setup on-wiki. It wasn't meant just for 'I hate this, don't go there', but with general categories where people could write whatever was relevant to them on any given subject. (Subjects were fairly broad and would have been customizable for any given setting -- ex: 'law enforcement', 'crime', 'romance', 'horror', etc.)

Not only could people list their 'nope's, they could list what they were looking for on lists that could be sorted and scanned by anyone on the game. As in, if you were inclined to run a horror scene, you could check what active players were interested in re: horror as a general subject, or if anyone on the game was interested in horror at all. I looked at it from the perspective of, 'What would I find useful info as an ST trying to develop a plot that would engage people based on what folks are actually interested in doing with who is here on the game these days?'

It was a casual, no-need-to-interrupt on general subjects per player, too, which can be handy. It's also easy to mark things off as 'talk to me OOC about <subject/content> first' to avoid including any details that might be identifying or potentially embarrassing to the player to list openly.

(Sooner or later, I'll use it. Eventually.)

@sunny No dyin', lady. <much hugging>

Really... I found Ark's post a bit out of place, too, particularly since the initial post makes it clear that it isn't for everyone in no uncertain terms. Going on about this as though it wasn't addressed from the jump due to things that are in no way universal wants was more than a little off-putting. My brain went 'he probably skimmed/read too fast and missed that bit', so I stuck with the relevant facts. Without that 'he probably missed that bit' mental loop in place (which is often there for everything)... uh, yeah, it does come across as a bit condescending and short-sighted. I mean, the things cited are not things that everyone wants, either, so their absence is not going to be a universal negative. Plenty of us find them to be major positives.

The game has now been around for almost a year. Just to address one of the points raised in the 'but what about' post, look at the difference between a player who joins the average permanent XP-gaining game a year from when it started compared to the active player who joined on day one. Odds are often good they won't be able to be in the same scenes and events due to the power disparity between the two. This is not an issue on HM at all, and it never will be. To some folks, this may be the most terrible thing ever, but to me, it's pure gold. It means that anyone interested can hop right into play/events/anything/everything without level-based concerns. It means everyone needs everyone else much more. It means new players or old players are not 'locked out' of things on the game over stat/level-based fairness concerns. It means plots and stories can be designed without a never-ending worry about how to handle sheet-based major power disparities, and can focus on telling an awesome and engaging story without ever once having to worry about that vast catalogue of issues.

This is non-trivial. The impact is notable. Inclusion increases because people don't have to worry about whether or not the new person is going to get turned into a greasy smear due to 'just having fresh out of CG stats'; they can be invited along without impediment. (And if and when anyone does get turned into a greasy smear, they live on in the metastory and the next story to fight another day and continue forward.) This also contributes to giving more people opportunity to shine that is otherwise often dominated by the very, very active, or high-powered dinos who showed up on day one (and maybe haven't done much of anything since but gain passive XP for existing until there's a spotlight to dive on like a shark catching a whiff of chum).

Finally managed to get some of the fossil pieces polished, since alt-hobby is what I've spent the most time on for the past few months at this point.

Cleaning them is taking forever. FOREVER. But I am seriously happy with this one, this morning.

...but I'm waiting on former assassin turned home ec teacher who bartends in the evening because a teacher's salary doesn't cover jack shit in this economy.

@derp It's that nothing is going to stop the bad actors from acting badly, and it isn't long before it becomes a case of, 'You got raped? Shouldn't have left the house then, should you?'

I run into a number of similar issues. Some of these aren't necessarily new for me, but these are what I work on:

1. I'm another person totally cool with creating spotlight opportunities and setting myself as support for others. Like most folks, it's frustrating when this is never reciprocated. I've stopped hoping for it to happen to avoid disappointment; I never expected it to happen but I've shifted toward a conscious expectation that it won't. It may be pessimistic, but it prevents the disappointment, and turns the times it does happen into something much happier and shinier, and I find I am more grateful for them. Still working on the frustration part.

2. "I cannot fix everything." Some days I have to repeat this out loud for a while. Stereotypical Libra. Seeing both sides of the problem is not the issue. Can it help find a solution? Sure, sometimes. Not always. I need to find a way to chill some regarding those times it doesn't, because in those cases, seeing both sides of the problem that has no solution is knowing those two sides are unhappy.

3. Even if a problem has a solution, most of these things involve compromise. Rarely does this mean everyone is happy; it generally means everyone is somewhat happy and still somewhat upset, because there's typically give and take involved. Work on trying to not dwell on the grousing the 'give' part involves or consider it a sign of being some horrible failure, because there's usually continued grousing, even if the solution works out well for everyone.

There's more than that, but that's all my brain is up for for now.

My husband shaves his head, and has a really intense blush response to wasabi. Goes bright pink in a wave, and poof, it's instantly gone again within seconds.

Recently, my parents, terrified of 'the green stuff', dared him to eat a small amount.

We can track its strength by how far up his face the bright red goes: bridge of nose, weak; mid-forehead, average; hairline, somewhat strong -- etc.

While traveling, we went to a place that had much stronger wasabi than normal, and we watched in amused awe as he turned scarlet all the way to the top of his head.

My husband, wasabi spice thermometer. (ETA: Proof that we all have super powers -- most of them are just spectacularly ridiculous.)

@faraday ...and the percentage of any one of these things in any given game is going to vary wildly, too, depending on the creator's intended focus.