Best posts made by surreality

Yeah, yeah, ZOMG US-centric, whatever -- nope, not the point. This is a spot for things we're grateful for, in the hobby and otherwise. (Timing is just a convenient excuse and inspiration.)

Hobby stuff:

• That after so long, this hobby still even exists, period. Much as we may grouse about dwindling crowds and so on, we're still here and there really are quite a few of us actively involved as players and creators. That's awesome.
• More original games coming along each year.
• A game I really love with amazingly creative people that aren't rushing along at breakneck speeds I could never dream of keeping up with.

RL:

• Still breathin'. (Suck it, doomsday prophecy!)
• My two amazing and ridiculous cats, Tesla and Tama.
• Hearing good news from various folks about things going well in their lives lately.
• Getting to see one of my cousins later at dinner.
• Progress on cleaning the house!

...add your favorites, have at.

@Pandora There are a lot of reasons 'isn't willing to work with staff' could end up eventually in a ban.

Examples:

• someone told 'no' about a thing they then go on to do anyway, and defend doing despite being told no
• someone insisting theme or policy be changed to suit their preferences rather than following the existing community guidelines that work for everyone else
• someone unwilling to follow whatever steps are outlined to do a thing (send in a note before running a plot, ask if you're going to create a new character in a private faction, etc. -- whatever they are)

These tend to result in 'this game is not what you're looking for, it isn't going to become that for you, and your refusal to accept this is causing issues for staff/other players; you are not a good fit here, leave'.

Plenty of people leave of their own volition at that point; some say 'no'. Either way, the result is essentially the same, and really should be backed up by code. Just because someone walks out the door voluntarily doesn't mean they won't sneak back around with a new name and pull the same garbage behaviors all over again; there are people who make this their standard operating procedure.

@Rinel

Good on you, goose. Very proud of you.

@Sunny said in How to Approach (nor not) a Suspected Creep:

Can somebody explain to me why it's problematic behavior to go:

p X=You ok?

This would be my go-to, too, but I still had to seriously think about this one before posting.

When I first read the question, this was my reaction, and it's definitely a case of 'instinct'.

I know I've been in situations in which someone is engaging with me in a way that suggests that they have NOT read the room re: appropriate tone/behavior and there's a notable disconnect about cluing them in to why their actions are Not Cool even when I've said something to them. Needless to say, someone being 'lifeline person' in those situations would have been extremely helpful.

That said, I get why it's hard to be that person when it's a stranger. It is REALLY EASY to come across as 'wrongfunning someone' if they are perfectly OK with what's happening by asking if they're uncomfortable when they're not, which could in turn make both parties uncomfortable. So I get the hesitation or unease -- it's a case of 'do I save the seemingly harmless rabbit from that bear trap, or is the rabbit in on it with the bear'?

This issue on the whole is a case of 'err on the side of caution' or 'err on the side of protective instinct'.

In these cases, I'm heavily on the side of 'fuck caution, if they want to be mad at me for trying to help, let them' for the most part. If it's borderline or not super clear to me? I may go with caution instead.

That eventually, the truth of how things actually are may become apparent.

For a variety of reasons, I haven't believed this for a long while now, and while it's a struggle to believe it now?

I at least believe it's possible.

I still feel like that mentally exhausted motherfucker insisting that the world is indeed round being harried by zealous converts to the Flat Earth Society, but it is progress.

FTB is useful, but as BlondeBot says, it isn't enough for the other extreme end of abuses.

As it stands, with FTB, any unreasonable or extreme someone can imagine is permissible, it just isn't explicitly RPed.

Also, some folks -- when hearing 'FTB' -- will escalate the extreme awfulness of whatever it is in order to try to force the RP and leave the character more viable afterward.

Example: Someone asks to FTB being slapped around and insulted; the other player really wants to RP humiliating the FTB-requesting character, so after the FTB request, they decide that 'slapping around' now includes carving insults all over the other character's body in visible places they'll walk around with for the rest of their RP experience on the game, and throwing acid in their face, mutilating and blinding them in the process.

Questioning and grilling and default-doubting the person saying, 'wait a minute, that's a bit extreme for someone who took your barstool or didn't want to fuck you and that's not the kind of RP I have interest in' is pretty ridiculous when there's zero examination/suspicion given to the people who come up with over the top nonsense, and these folks are by default given full benefit of the doubt and all possible protections.

Stop acting like people who say 'no' are the only people worth side-eye or suspicion. It is so far from being a balanced or reasonable perspective, it's ridiculous.

@Pandora He was definitely one of the reasons The Vampire Diaries was not as awful or ridiculous as it really should have been.

ETA: He also does superlative smirk.

@Derp That's why I like the hybrid consent approach described.

The 'person stirring shit who isn't willing to take consequences' factor is easy enough to resolve with boot to ass. (Them being shown the door.)

Sadly, the people who just love to dish it out, but can't/won't take it (or any form of consequences) without playing poor persecuted victim are not in short supply. The only real way to deal with them is eviction.

Managed to not actually freak out or cry during surgery. Not a minor feat.

Found out the new doc screwed up one of my prescriptions, whee. Now I get to fix that.

C'mon, y'all... don't fuck with the medication that stops me from freaking out and shaking right when you give me damned good reason to do so.

@BlondeBot 'Least charitable interpretation' seems to be default, unfortunately.

Remembering the living room model is good because (generic) you know you want everyone to be comfortable there, unless they are being a jerk.

All manner of genders/orientations/religions/etc. are welcome in my living room. If someone makes them feel unwelcome by grilling them about their validity or making them feel like they have to defend it in that space for whatever reason, that someone is going to be shown the door, fast.

If I'm being really honest here, one of the main ways I get food in me when depressed is that my husband notices (if he's home), or sends a text on his way home from work (he works out of state, and until recently that meant being gone a few nights a week) asking if I want him to pick something up on the way home.

If I have enough presence of mind to know I need to eat something -- or if the liver stones are getting rambunctious because I haven't eaten (this is spectacularly ow) -- I will send him a text with something like 'bring home a food'. It is rarely more detailed than that, and is usually just that or 'i need a food' or 'food plz' or 'wife requires fooding'/etc. (I forget where the shift key is at that point, because sending the text is enough effort. If there is no shift key, he automatically knows by now he needs to stick to comfort food or something mild and destined to be filling and put me right to sleep.)

I would also be lying if I didn't admit to 'emotional support vodka', even if I can't ever have much of it these days (again, liver stones I prefer to not agitate).

@Bad-at-Lurking said in Model Policies?:

I don't want to do that at the expense of having some people think they have to hide or put up with low grade aggression and/or bigotry to make 'socially conservative' people comfortable.

If people are engaging in low grade aggression and/or bigotry, toss them right out on their ass.

Please. Truly.

I am not being flippant or sarcastic in the least here.

There is no greater statement of support than staff taking action to say: that is not welcome in my living room, there is the door. No policy will create a feeling of safety anywhere near as effectively as action taken to remove people who violate the intended peace and comfort zone of that space.

@Rinel FWIW, I would send you all the glorious crazy wigs if I had managed to get to the 'making lace-front wigs' part of it all, if you wanted 'em. (I know the theory, but I've only made them for dolls, not people.)

I realize this is super OT, but... fukkit, I reserve the right to tangent.

As of yesterday it's confirmed I have to get a lot of breast tissue removed due to crazy hormone hell destroying internal tissues. I'm a boob person. They are huge, literally each the size of my head. They have been huge since I was 10-11, when they went from 'nada' to DD in a year, I'm a JJ/M now. They are officially part of my personality at this point, and long time forum members probably recall them as a running joke in ye olden WORA days.

I feel you on 'this has always been here and is part of how I look (mixed bag reactions notwithstanding) and it is going away/changing in a way I feel is negative and I feel ugly/not right with myself because of it'.

I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but it will be something I find gorgeous/funny/meaningful in a decorative way, and trying to turn it into an opportunity for that.

Just know that if I had some awesome wigs that weren't full of costumey yarn/crazy dreads/glitter, I would happily send you all of them if you thought that'd help along the same vein.

@Bad-at-Lurking said in Firefly - Still Flyin':

"Okay, in this sandbox sex scene, we're going to be Cthulhoid merfolk, working our way through the Cephalopod Sutra. But I'm going to narrate in the voice of Bob Ross. Annnd go!"

...I kinda want to see this now, because it sounds like it could be hilarious.

@Ghost said in Dead Celebrities 2020:

Schrodinger's Strain?

Prefer this to dead Strain! Absolutely!

@faraday You legitimately deserve it, and more. You do not deserve the bullshit abuse people are flinging. Not even the tiniest bit. I am really sorry to see it happening to you.

@insomniac7809 said in Separating Art From Artist:

@surreality said in Separating Art From Artist:

I do not support harassment, full stop. I believe what the Klan does is harassment. I do not believe that justifies promoting harassment of them in return. 'They do harm' does not justify harming people in the periphery of them, and it never will.

Taken to its conclusion, this sort of assertion prevents anyone from suffering any consequences for anything ever. No one is an island, after all; there is no such thing as a punishment that can avoid causing harm to the perpetrator's friends and loved ones.

...no? Am employer seeing the image and firing the employee (or even seeing the information) is not engaging in harassment. Friends abandoning the person are not engaging in harassment. And so on.

Taking the classic MSB dogpile, ramping it up by a factor of 100x or more the population, and sending off a fired up mob to do whatever they want with someone's personal information? That is harassment.

You know where this tactic has most commonly been used over the past twenty years or so, until quite recently, right? To publish the identities of people who worked at places that provided women's health, birth control, and abortion services. This has even extended to patients at times. To say 'that did not go well for the people whose identities were published' would be an understatement.

I'm going to -- gods help me -- share a personal story here. About 20 years ago now, I thought I had an ectopic pregnancy. I had to get a blood test to determine if this was the case before moving on to further testing, because that was the cheapest option when you didn't have insurance. The totally secular lab I went to for this had an employee who noticed that she was doing a pregnancy test from the forms she was sent, and went on and on about how thrilled I must be to have a baby on the way. I told her that wasn't the case, and they were concerned I had an ectopic pregnancy, so if I was pregnant, this story was unlikely to have any sort of happy ending. This medical professional chose to lecture me that I should still keep the pregnancy if that was the case, despite the fact that nobody survives if they do that.

And that would be bad enough, if things like 'murderer' didn't start getting scrawled on my car window in lipstick. If flyers weren't tacked to my door for over a year after that. If calls didn't come in from a number of pro-life activists and 'crisis counseling centers' for several months. It was very clear my name, address, and telephone number had been shared with these groups and there was very little doubt about who was responsible.

Spoiler alert: a cyst had burst, I was never pregnant. That didn't matter. The circumstances had I been pregnant didn't matter. (This wouldn't even be acceptable if I had been normally pregnant and had an abortion, either, obviously.)

This is where this shit goes. Stop pretending it's harmless make-believe 'just on the internet'. That is absolutely harassment, and people have only gotten a lot more ugly about it with the rise of social media and with a much larger population on the internet since that time.

@Kestrel I think adult children are a different animal than young dependents. Big names with money are also pretty different from a blue collar family that's feeling alienated and shoved out of society and responds the wrong way (with hate). Someone else mentioned offering support and showing that the people they're hating are not different from them in the gross ways the dogma they're embracing says, and that's a much healthier approach in those cases than harassment campaigns.

@Groth said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:

@surreality said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:

There are endless permutations of this and all of them are real. I would ask you, how dare you delegitimize the suffering those people are going through?

Suffering doesn't make it any more appropriate to make fun of disabilities. Suffering doesn't make the comparison any more valid. I'm not delegitimizing their suffering, I'm saying it's not comparable because it should not and can not be compared and I'm not going to indulge it being used an excuse to mock the disabled.

Absolutely no one is making fun of anyone for having disabilities. What you initially quoted in no way is an example of making fun of someone for having a disability.

It is an example of people assuming 'same shit, different day' to their own experience and not providing emotional support or empathy.

Having emotional support and empathy (edit to correct: NOT freely) provided to you by complete strangers who are in no way being hired for this purpose and in fact are present to unwind and enjoy themselves playing make-believe is also not making fun of someone for having a disability.

They are also in no way obligated to provide emotional support and empathy in that space, because that is not the purpose of that space.

People not having the reserves they normally might to indulge this -- and make no mistake, it is indulging, it is NOT an obligation -- because of current circumstances? Is real. It is happening. The likelihood for someone to engage is lower than normal because of what's going on in the world and how many people it impacts. I am boggled by how you can't understand this; it is incredibly obvious and simple.

You are completely off the rails with this notion that anyone is making fun of the disabled, supporting people to mock the disabled, or encouraging people to mock the disabled.

You are, in fact, delegitimizing their suffering. In your own words.

@Groth said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:

why invite the comparison or give it a veil or legitimacy?

It is legitimate suffering, that's why. It doesn't need a veil.

...I edit a whole lot. A LOT.

@A-B said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:

@Cupcake said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:

stop and calmly explain that sometimes you have difficulty processing people's tone, and could they please clarify their intention?

In those exact words? Bit vague. On the other hand wouldn't want to risk hinting at what it is I'm worried they might mean, because that always leads to them calling that an accusation.

And I take it that by "calmly" you mean "pretending to be calm"? Because I can't switch on and off what I feel about a given thing. And frankly, I wouldn't want to, I've a right not to like being (as far as I can at that point tell) insulted, without being told to "calm down" it away whenever I don't like anything. The English language (probably other languages too, don't know) is a bit awkward in this way, it lumps together "feeling X" and "appearing to feel X", and "inspiring X emotional reaction" and "intended to inspire X emotional reaction" or even "pretending insincerely to intend to inspire X emotional reaction while knowing it'll do anything but". Oops, went off at a tangent.

Suggestion: Prepare a small statement to this effect. Keep it generic and simple. You can keep it in a sticky note, text file, even make it a macro to easily cut and paste or drop into a conversation whenever it is necessary.

Something like this is just fine: "I sometimes have trouble interpreting someone's intended tone, especially in a text medium. Can you explain or clarify what you mean when you say, '<put the quote you're uncertain about here>', or say it in a different way?"

This way, you can present calmly worded text -- and find out if you should be mad at all -- without having to steel yourself to word something in the moment.

That's it from me. I'm not even going to address anything in the post to me directly. I endeavor to be as clear and straightforward as possible, and avoid any innuendo or insinuation, when I am talking to someone I know may have trouble interpreting what I'm saying. It has not been successful thus far, so I'm done trying here.