Best posts made by surreality

That moment you realize all of your geeky collections are either of the 'art supply pile' type or currently packed away and/or scattered everywhere, I am totally having it.

<tiny voice> I have a lot of seashells... </tiny voice>

@L-B-Heuschkel The initial thing is appearance. I mean, that's pretty basic: <person> resembles <collection of physical stereotypes>.

It gets more insidious past that, since within every group of people with any given physical stereotype, there are the cultural or national or specific differences.

There was a point in time -- not terribly long ago in the historical sense -- when Spanish, Irish, Italians, Greeks, and some others 'weren't white enough'. You'd see despicable stereotypes about these groups spread around widely. You see relics of it today: 'Irish are all violent drunks', 'Italians are all greasy mobbed-up womanizers', etc. despite these people now being ushered under the 'white' umbrella in the US.

These groups were 'brought in' to the white umbrella when it came time to object to immigration from Asia and Latin America, and to ensure African Americans would not achieve any real equality after the end of the Civil War, over time. These groups had been treated poorly, and were essentially exploited into a devil's bargain of 'we'll sorta let you in to the respected people group with some side eye if you step wrong, if you shit on the other people we shit on'. It stuck in part due to the cycles of abuse we see play out psychologically with those who have been abused: some become empathetic due to their experience, but others become abusers themselves. The latter was dramatically encouraged, and so it's little surprise it became dominant.

It's that cycle you see playing out endlessly through every possible level of difference, from the macro of 'how you look' to the micro of 'you're from this specific town in this specific country that did that thing the one time 200 years ago and the rest of the country has been in a feud with your town ever since'.

I knew I loved wombats for a reason. And not just because I love the word 'wombat', which is just a great word.

@mietze said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

If someone takes it upon themselves to go all out lecture/"I shall educate you how to RP this right" mode without even asking questions or finding out more (and especially if they seek to do it publicly first) tbh most of the time at least they're full of shit.

Some of these folks may know the subject, but that's independent of this behavior. This behavior -- as described, the 'I'm going to complain about this other person's RPing their character 'wrong' loudly in front of the other players' bit -- is not about whether they're doing it right or wrong. It's about elevating themselves and putting the other person down.

It would not be the pre-dawn hours of morning without a proper snow weaseling in this house.

(Pics are crap 'cause work light is on and this is just from the old computer's built in camera, but whatever, it's still funny. My pre-coffee, just-rolled-out-of-bedhead ass is blurred because I am, deal.)

That's how the weasel do. Anyone wondering why the chair is like that, well, it's survived ten years of four cats now... and they all do this. Just not often so 'I'll walk over you to turn around, k?' as Magical Princess Murderflouf does.

@Kanye-Qwest The assumption being that the dude in the equation is gay, and 'you're the woman who changed his mind'.

There are a lot of people into that one, and not remotely subtle about it, from every possible angle there. Like, it might be the one thing bi/pan folk ever escape: 'the conversion fantasy'.

Except we don't really because our version is 'the one who made them finally pick for good', which is... also flinch-bait.

I don't think, fwiw, that Kestrel or GreenFlashlight are suggesting the equivalent of 'comin' to take our guns!' re: any works of fiction/etc.

I know I heard a lot of talk like this at the art shows I did around the holidays. Not 'we should do this!' but about concerns that dumb shit they said in the 1950s -- things that were norms of the 1950s, and these are things they no longer think or believe today as they've changed with the times with evolving opinions like the rest of the world -- have kept them up nights re: acceptance at things as simple as fire hall craft shows. It's really not a joke.

I feel for them. There are shows I am very uncomfortable applying to -- many churches here run them cheap, and for the $25 for a table? Yeah, if I make $150 (which is fairly easy) I'm still ahead and frankly, I'm not too proud for that like my mother was when she was running things. Still, I'm a neopagan, I wear my chosen symbols like other people wear their Star of David or crucifix, etc. and I've had concerns for years about being asked to leave.

I know that 'you think wrong, so you're unwelcome' feeling well. It's not something I wish on more people, which is what's happening, and I'm seeing it happen up close.

It is not charming in the least.

@HelloProject This touches on some of the stuff that was prevalent on Shang that just... really made me not want to play there.

Also, this is just... all people do good and bad things. That's how the world works. You don't only deserve recognition for the good things you do if you're without flaw, and you don't deserve to be exempt from the consequences of bad things if you have good qualities as well. This just seems utterly elementary to me.

I mean, how hard is 'reward the good acts, punish the bad acts'? (Massively simplified, obviously.)

@Prototart Yeah. I knew a few PoC players (players, not their characters) who had major problems because of it, too.

I know one had endless requests from people who wanted the gross because his character was black. And he was like... not human black, even, he was a supernatural creature that was literally like volcanic crust with lava fire cracks in it and whatnot, but people saw 'black' and... cue asshattery.

He'd already given up playing a PoC at the time, but even that wasn't safe.

...or you're dumb and believed some dumb thing some other dumb person told you.

Considering this makes up probably at least half of all human experience, uh.

@Pyrephox said:

None of which will stop someone who isn't playing in good faith from abusing the system. But I've yet to see a system that DOES stand up to someone not playing in good faith. One of the big issues with social systems on WoD MU*s is that we let far too many people get away with playing in bad faith in this particular subsystem.

This is essentially the problem in a nutshell. There are plenty of people who have zero qualms about playing in completely bad faith.

@Derp said:

if you're at a tabletop game, it can be assumed that most of the time you are part of a team with said PC's and working toward the same, or at least similar, goals over a much shorter term than a MUSH. The only real difference between NPCs and PCs on a Mush is how often they appear on the screen, and who ends up controlling them.

This difference is an enormous one with myriad complications that would definitely need to be addressed.

I... have to shake my head.

These terms are for the codebases, they are the names of the codebases, not 'philosophies of game design'.

I don't call a black and white spotted cat a Holstein just because of their color patterns, either, and it's for a reason.

@Vixanic Youtube has some great tutorials.

If you look at amazon, you can find a LOT of older/used books. They may have cheesy or ugly color choices if it's some 20 page pamphlet from the 70s or somesuch, but the step by step illustrations are still accurate and the designs tend to remain the same, just use the prettier new seed beads we can find today and they really are totally transformed.

Check for beading magazines, too. There have been about a dozen of them, not sure how many are still around since our brick and mortar bookstores went poof in my area, but for about $5 you end up with 20-30 ideas per magazine.

DEFINITELY check here: https://www.interweave.com/store/beading

They don't have a lot of free stuff, but I think they have a newsletter (or had, I ended up dropping it since I had so many daily things already) that sometimes has free projects. They do a LOT of pdfs for $10 or less, and sometimes have some truly amazing bundle deals for more. I know I picked up something for like... $35 once that had five or six nice books and over a dozen pdfs from them. So while those are a bit more, it's enough stuff to be SO incredibly worth it.

Their photos, instructions, and designs are pretty spectacular. The kits are too pricey for me to ever bother with, but everything else tends to be reasonable. Since a lot is available as pdfs, you can take them with you everywhere, too. They keep up with what kinds of supplies are coming out that are the 'oooh, I wanna try to make something with that weird new shape of thing!' as well, which is really neat.

(Interweave is awesome for a variety of other artisan crafting work, too, so errybody in this thread should go peek at what they've got, seriously.)

https://www.interweave.com/store/quick-easy-beadwork-collection-volume-1-4-ep15687 <-- a good example of what I mean. $20, 140 projects. Even if half of them suck, that's a pretty good deal.

Another edit to add: https://caravanbeads.com/blog <-- they have a bunch. They tend to be simpler/stuff I'm not as fond of (a lot use expensive supplies to make stuff that's kinda 'ehhhhhhhhh' to me, but it is a bead store/supplier so they are trying to push expensive products, can't blame 'em).

@Ninjakitten said:

@surreality said:

These terms are for the codebases, they are the names of the codebases, not 'philosophies of game design'.

This is why I would like there to be a good, preferably not codebase-synonymous name for the general philosophy-of-game-design I favour.

This. Very much this. Because repurposing the names of codebases for something other than codebases themselves... that way lies madness.

@Lemon-Fox I have an appointment on the 5th, so it's already in the works. Holding out until then I can do. It isn't fun, but I can do it.

There are certain things I just don't like to see, let alone be subject to, and they're pretty inescapable in life at the moment.

@Rainbow-Unicorn said:

Well.

We knew there was something funny about Jill.

...more funny.

...I am so glad I wasn't the only one who thought of Jill immediately.

@Auspice said in The Crafting Thread:

It's my happy crafting place

I feel that way about this thread in a lot of ways.

I legitimately do not care if I am mad at someone outside this thread or they hate my face or whatever normally, crafty-sharing spaces are like sacred ground and we're all the cast of Highlander. (We have more sharp pointy things than they did, anyway.) I am overjoyed to see what people are doing/making/planning like this every frickin' time.

It is genuinely refreshing and every single post someone makes in this thread makes me smile and get all excited no matter how crappy any given day has been otherwise.

@ThatGuyThere No one is immune to backing a crappy horse. That's a given. Similarly, perfectly awesome people can still fuck up unintentionally and/or have some kind of crazypants moment of total mental breakdown and go bonkers all of a sudden.

MU* is no more immune to this happening than any other aspect of reality and having an expectation that it will -- or even could -- is... well, it may take me a bit to whittle down the adjectives for ZOMG HAHAHAHAHA ARE YOU CRAZY that should be associated with that notion.

You are not going to immunize people with the policy that RfK had any more than any other policy, and its policy has all the downsides attached that I've described before.

I can't, for instance, say I ever had any 'advantages' on TR when I was staffing there in terms of what I knew or didn't know. I got along with most people fine but never asked for -- and never would have dreamed of asking for -- special favors. (Hint: if someone is the type to do this, don't fucking hire them, omg.) I got so busy with staffing on Reno I more or less never had the chance to actually play again• so I can't say I had any advantage there, either...

You are supposed to trust staff to handle whatever shit you need handled in a fair and even-handed manner. If you don't or can't, don't play there. Your personal baggage is not their problem and it is not their duty to cater to your personal emotional damage that some other staffer did ten years ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Rules that essentially say "we can't trust our staff to play fair so we don't let them do things" doesn't help, it codifies that idea that staff cannot be trusted to be fair.

•I think you were witness to my sole, pathetic attempt at such on Nora, where I got all of three dinky-ass poses out before I got dragged back to the salt mines to tend everyone else's fun and/or drama without even a chance to pose out, so I think that speaks for itself.