Best posts made by surreality

It isn't really anger. It's more... sad, I guess.

What seems like a really long time ago now, a late night diner coffee friend of mine and I had this long-standing argument about the myth of Pandora's Box, and more specifically, Hope.

For those not familiar with the myth -- which I'd more or less assume is nobody here, but you never know -- the box contained "all the evils of the world", and when it was opened, they escaped to plague mankind. Urged to close the box, Pandora started to do so, only to find Hope still at the bottom, struggling its way out into the world.

We argued about that myth for what must have been four years, on and off -- on road trips to the beach, over coffee as the sun rose, walking along abandoned railroad tracks in the middle of the night looking for a cave someone told us about that they swore was haunted -- and it seemed like almost any conversation touched on it, somehow, somewhere along the line, until it was more of an in-joke than an argument.

While it may be hard to believe, I was always the optimist, of the two of us. My take on the myth was simply that without any evil in the world, we didn't need Hope, either.

He always shook his head, and insisted: Hell, no. Hope? The heaviest, slowest, most horrible evil of anything that could ever have been in the box, and the cause of more pain and frustration than all the rest put together.

It's been years now since he and I talked, having had a spectacular falling out after he started dating one of my other friends and I got the 'you can only be friends with one of us!' ultimatum when they split, but I still think back on that long-running exchange every once in a while.

It's been more than every once in a while, lately, and in regard to a specific situation that really, actually, pretty profoundly meant something big to me, that I'm finding myself on his side of the argument instead of mine.

And I really, really fucking hate it.

This was inspired by the current conversation in the Shadowhunters MUSH thread, which is a little broad and warrants a discussion of its own. (Also, I'm gonna tangent and I would feel awful doing that in someone's advertisement.)

I know I'm looking at aspects of this for a project myself, and it's one of the few things that gives me pause about the theme/concept. It's probably the only reservation I have because I have my ideas about how to handle and where to 'draw the line', so to speak, but various other games have handled this in a variety of ways, to varying degrees of success. (I'm still waffling. I do not have a solid plan; I have ideas, though. It seems like I'm not the only creator-person who is facing this issue. Hence, thread.)

This strikes me as an issue that doesn't have a "right answer", but instead a variety of approaches to address the potential problems it can create when either a fantastical society or a historical setting is not aligned with the current understanding of how things should be.

How would you address this as a staffer? Would your approach change if you were using a completely invented fantasy setting vs. a historical one? What about an 'alt earth' setting ('The Man in the High Castle', World of Darkness, etc. which are essentially fantastical takes on the world we do know and draw from it's real history)?

As a player, how do these issues impact your choice to play somewhere or not, if they do at all? Do you think there are reasonable compromises to make on these subjects? If so, what kinds of things do you think would influence your decision one way or the other?

Some day, when I win the lottery and have the kitchen to end all kitchens, I'm inviting everyone over for the MSB Meatloaf-and-Similar-Foods Cookoff. That's just all there is to it.

...though maybe we should start a recipes/nom nom nom thread at this point?

@Kanye-Qwest The game has a preferences system accessible on game and on wiki that players can fill out re: this and various other subjects, stating their interest or lack thereof in that subject matter.

In other words, if someone wants to play a character who is very racist or sexist, they can say so there, in a completely non-confrontational• context. This provides a warning to others if that's something they don't want to deal with, but also means that a character who wants to explore those challenges knows there's someone they can reasonably expect to encounter them with IC. This is actually not uncommon already; I have seen endless wiki pages on games that make note of this, and do so to make fellow players aware in advance.

It also means that if someone is playing an exceptional character in some fashion, they can say, "I'm interested in exploring the difficulties of being a woman running a business in this setting," and players who might be uncertain about going there know it's safe territory.

This specific setup isn't so much about the design of the game world as it is a tool to enable communication amongst players surrounding topics of interest (or complete lack thereof), because these things are relevant on any game.

Despite all the horror stories here, people generally do not go looking to offend or upset their fellow players; more often than not, they have no idea that whatever it was they did would/could do so, and they feel like crap for having done it just like the person who had their comfort zone kicked in the shins does. This is a 'mutual fun' principle. Enabling people to explain what is or isn't fun for them in a comfortable, easily referenced, and non-confrontational fashion means they're much more likely to avoid the things they don't want, and are better able to find the ones they do.

• By 'non-confrontational', I mean: they are not in the heat of the moment when the explanation is made. These notes are things that can be set up at any time, and it's a lot more comfortable to express one's interests or lack thereof in a neutral space/frame of mind before 'oh, shit, danger, Will Robinson! LANDMINE!'

People from ye olden days will likely best understand why this one caused a spit-take:

Also, I dare you all to google 'Vampire Diaries Valentine'. Go on. Put the beverages down first.

Dakota Urban. Really.

@PuppyBreath I am not going to give you any platitudes, because they don't help. I will say, it's becoming more and more recognized that people change careers and such many times over the course of their lives these days than it once was -- and many people don't find 'their thing' until much later than we were always told as kids we were expected to know what that was and be immersed in doing that thing.

I feel your frustration on scraping and putting every scrap scraped up into trying to get further on a thing you love. If you really do love it, keep the faith in it and do what you can with it.

In case it's something artsy, well. This may help. (Even if it isn't something artsy, much still applies.)

@Meg I'm going to have to disagree here about the 'fairness' factor.

I am speaking broadly here, and I am also speaking as someone who will absolutely fight tooth and nail for people and projects I believe in. (Read: I empathize strongly with the drive you are describing.)

I'm one of of those people who hates the use of ANSI in descs and truly loathes ASCII art on M*s. Despise it. Hate it with all of the hatey hate hateface I can muster. I've banned it by policy on my projects because I find it unpleasantly distracting and inappropriate for a descriptive text medium, and often enough, have run across people who have more serious (visual problems) issues with it than my primarily taste-based and philosophical ones. Do I have anything against folks who enjoy it or think there's something wrong with them? Not in the least. Different tastes, different strokes for different folks, etc. -- life goes on either way. (I would consider something like an art gallery or bboard or similar thing for this specific purpose fair game for something like this, admittedly, and think that could actually be pretty neat.)

I felt no need to comment about it in regard to a game I don't play on. It is in no way my business in that case and frankly, I have very little energy to bother with most things lately. However, that will rarely stop anyone from commenting about something on the forums, for better or worse. (Lord knows I've commented plenty re: random things on games I don't and wouldn't play on, usually with why, would expect the same on threads for my stuff and have seen precisely that -- and I consider that entirely reasonable for people to do.)

There are reasonable times to rush in to defense. There are also considerably less reasonable ones. I'd call this the latter, for one reason: "Ugh, I don't like <whatever>!" is not a demand that something be considered wrongfun -- and to insist that it is so is to declare something wrongthink, which I, personally, find considerably more distressing on a number of levels. People are allowed to not like a thing just as they are allowed to like it, or you are not simply going for 'live and let live, leave people alone to enjoy their kind of fun' (which is a positive goal) and hedging much closer to 'how dare you state your dislike for something other people like, you're bad and you should feel bad! It's now all right for someone to jump in your face and attack you!'.

Not everyone is going to enjoy everything, and that is also OK. In an ideal world, people would be polite in conveying their lack of interest or dislike, but that's not how things tend to go down all the time (or even often, really). When it looks like somebody can't handle that without exploding into a frothy attack dog? I don't think I'm the only one who notices, and it's (unfortunately) not the good kind of notice.

It also comes across as being entirely closed to criticism from where I sit -- and I don't actually believe that's true of any of the people involved here, so that's something I consider a bit worrying. Does it look that way? Sadly -- no snark intended, it's distressing to say so, especially since I hold @Apos in fairly high regard -- it is coming across that way at the moment. Which I don't think is intended. And it's precisely because I don't think it's intended that I'm saying anything at all. (I wouldn't bother if I thought y'all gave none fucks. I know you do, and that a great deal of work has gone into this. That has big respect from me and I don't want to see that effort hindered by something this dumb.)

All in all, someone can have a two dozen kickass qualities and still have two or three that, to put it as tactfully as possible, could use some work. (That's something that is doubtless true of absolutely everyone on these forums and I do not exempt myself at all.)

Accepting the existence of the not-so-awesome things does not diminish the genuine quality of the kickass ones, and turning a blind eye to the traits any given person has that could use some work serves no one's best interest. The bad isn't a disqualifier -- but the good doesn't make the bad a non-issue, either. The bad still needs examination and probably some work, and the good still deserves praise and encouragement.

People have been more than fair to @Kanye-Qwest on these forums, just like they've been fair to me when I've gone attack dog defense mode in a very similar way. Actually being fair does not mean it gets hand-waved into nothingness or not called out for what it is. Ultimately, that does someone an enormous disservice, especially in the long run.

I always come back to making jewelry. I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse, but even in my current 'the world is ending and totally devoid of meaning, why am I even wasting everybody's perfectly good oxygen' state of mind, I am still surprisingly good at it. (Which sort of weirds me out. There's some part of me that feels very much like a whore on this front, in the literal way of 'I am prostituting a part of myself in a mutually exploitative way that is really not OK'.)

I kept saying for ages that I started with that when I was about 12, but recently was reminded I have been doing that since I was 8. (...and I had previously apparently sold little hand-woven coasters made on a table loom when I was four. Four. 4. I don't even remember this, and probably just wondered at the time where all those dollhouse carpets I wove for my Barbies went. And my family wonders why I keep defending this hobby as the one creative thing in my life that I steadfastly refuse to even consider trying to find a way to even try to monetize... )

I've come and gone with it since then. I am now 43. I tend to be so hyper-productive with it that even if I quit for two years or so, there was plenty left to sell in the interim.

I collect odd skills. This is relevant. I learned to weave on a four-harness loom by the time I was four, ffs. (This is simply non-normal, people. ) Pretty much every skill I have demonstrated even the most pathetic proficiency with, my family has pressured me to monetize. I have, as a result, had some pretty weird jobs.

I have:

• made jewelry•
• dyed yarn
• made little woven coasters
• made skins and other textures for Poser• (no really, one of my skins is on the box for Poser Pro 2010)
• made designer doll clothes for a living•
• made theater costumes
• worked as a performer at the ren faire
• designed and made formalwear
• embroidered•
• designed web sites
• designed graphics

I went to college for fashion design, theater costume design, and illustration at various schools over time. I do not have a degree. I shamelessly squandered what money my parents were willing to spend on an education not to get a piece of paper that said I knew my shit, but to go to a new place, learn all the things I wanted to learn that they were willing to teach, and fuck off to the next place to repeat the process, which is really not smart? But in the fields I thrive in, it isn't the paper that proves a damned thing, it's a portfolio. (This is why I've somehow managed to end up forced to take Art History no less than four times. If I see another photo of the Hagia Sophia or the Venus of Willendorf, I take no responsibility for the murder spree that will ensue.)

Things marked with an • are things I've won awards for and in some cases had the work published, sometimes within the first year -- and in the case of the embroidery, the first actual time -- I'd done the thing. (Which you'd really think would give a girl even a jot of self-esteem, but no. )

Though there's a story worth telling here, in spite of the general downer streak I'm on, and it's a good one, I promise. It is the best advice I ever got, and while I didn't follow it forever, I did listen, and I did take it genuinely to heart in spirit, if not specifics, and I have found, over time, that it makes a difference in a way that I cannot quantify, but that has made a substantial difference in the real quality of my life.

When I was a kid, I made clothes for my dolls. It's the main reason, other than a phobia re: moray eels, I didn't just go off and become a marine biologist like I wanted to when I was tiny. It's more or less why I went into design. Whenever I was sick, feeling like crap, or otherwise useless re: actual productivity (which as noted has been demanded since I was 8, ffs) I would make doll clothes.

At the last college I bothered with -- a new school, local, first year it was open, studying commercial illustration -- we had a fantastic teacher. No, really, this man is one of my idols. He is, in a word, an amazing human being and I admire not just his work, but him. (And no, not just because he had the prettiest green eyes any of us college-age girls had ever seen, ahem. Didn't hurt, though?) Because it had been drilled into me since forever, and probably because I was about 5-6 years older than most of the other students who were fresh out of high school, my standards for my own work were much, much higher. I am not trying to talk myself up here; this was actually something pretty painful to me, because I am someone who really wants people to embrace their creativity, do the best they can, and express themselves and feel good doing so. I'd put something up on the crit wall, and see people take their pieces down rather than be compared (and frankly my shit for that class was not super good since we had so little time from week to week to complete a thing) -- and instead of being an ego boost, it was crushing. It hurt. It made me sad, and feel horribly guilty. Needless to say, much as I loved that teacher -- and why will be clear in a moment -- I hated that he used me as a yardstick to point out to others that just grinding something out was not how someone made art, even commercial illustration. I don't particularly give a shit that that's true, I just hated being the example. Talk about awkward and uncomfortable!

I got a concussion during our '3D illustration' project period. I was out for three weeks. I could come up with nothing that was worth doing, nothing I had done, when it came time for end of year portfolio review to take up that slot. All I had was this crappy doll dress I'd made while sick, because I was simply incapable of anything else.

I was so embarrassed when I took this silly doll in a simple little 1930s dress out of the portfolio. I was expecting my teacher to laugh. I was expecting the 'are you fucking kidding me?' look.

It wasn't what I got.

He looked at me calmly, and when I handed him this silly doll, he smiled. (Did I mention the eyes? Yeah, the smile was even better.)

He tells me, "You're my best illustration student this year. Including Pratt. (Which we were not.) But you should be doing this."

And he handed me back the doll.

I just squinted a little, and shook my head, and I couldn't help but ask: "...why?"

He said the one thing that is probably the most educational and human thing I ever learned in college:

"This is the only thing you have ever handed me, smiling."

...and he's right. It matters.

@Coin said:

One thing we'll never get on a MU that we get all the time on television is the will-they-or-won't-they Uresolve Sexual Tension...

... because on a MU, they always do.

I'm laughing because as true as this normally is? I've had this take years to accomplish sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't.

Bonus: this was while I was playing on Shang, where that is the whole point, usually. How epic fail is that?

@WTFE ...while ranting about double standards and hypocrisy. Let's not forget that part!

I guess being old and stupid about computers means I have more space in the brain to dedicate to things like "self-awareness", which is, in case this is a life lesson that some folks still need to learn, different from "self-importance".

Dude. This is where our generation fucked up by handing out all of those awards for just showing up. Whoever came up with that idea needs to be taken for a GoT-style walk of shame.

I like the +badges, which is such a trivial thing but is good fun and positivity. (I may beg some day for someone to post this code somewhere so more games can use it, or may try a wiki/game hybrid thing with this idea.)

I'm using a lot of incremental XP awards in some of the stuff I've been kicking around for a few years, but also looking at some other things that are a bit more ephemeral. I know @Sunny had some ideas that were XP-linked or similar that were used for something other than buying stats (but could be put toward special goals) that I hope she'll chime in with here as well.

Something I think might be really nice? Something that stores the +reccs (or whatever system a game is using along these lines) someone has rec'd by others, and can display them -- the text of them. This may be, code-wise, too huge a bear to do, but being about to +recc/list <name> and see what good things others have said and given thanks for is something I know I want to figure out how to do and would love to see more of on games in general. A lot of times, people who put a lot of effort into things do so somewhat invisibly -- or they feel these efforts are not really even known about, seen, or appreciated. Being able to list one's own would help to counter the latter a little, and this would also make it possible for others to see: hey, this is a player who regularly goes out of their way for others, that's really cool!

Recognition for someone's contributions, no matter who they are or how big or small that contribution is, is something I'm big on.

Cautions: I know that some of the things I'm looking at, I still need to hyper-scrutinize in terms of scale. Since I'm gonna guess you're asking for things to implement on FC, scale's a huge factor as is a game just starting vs. a game that's been running for a couple of years. Something that'd be great on a game from day one might be easy to implement if you do it later on a small game with a dozen players and mayeb 30 total characters, but it'll be harder to tuck in to a game with 20-35 players with 2-3 chars each and starts to take a lot of work and time. (Reno1 was like this, with the 1E -> 2E werewolf conversion. Ask me about my eyetic! Or don't, please? It's embarrassing. ) Similarly, some stuff will be easy on a small game where everyone can talk to staff about some custom thing or another in depth, and cook up something unique for them. Some things are just too big to really do past a certain point without it becoming more trouble than it's worth.

It's cute how you think anyone's even bothering to argue with you at this point.

(This is only true because I actually have enough vodka to participate in the drinking game along with the rest of the forum on hand, for once.)

I think the courtesy thing is a good point, definitely.

I will almost always tell people if I need to AFK, for instance, even if I know I will only be gone for a minute or two. I don't expect others to be that anal-retentive on courtesy, but if someone is fucking off for an hour to do something else, if they don't tell me, I am not going to be the happiest of biscuits.

I don't mind if somebody multi-scenes on me if people are giving equal attention to both scenes, or if sometimes that one is busier and sometimes mine is -- but if I think someone is constantly phoning it in with me while lavishing tons of attention elsewhere, eventually, I am going to get very tired of that, in the same way that I'd feel similarly put off on someone (and a little offended if not a lot offended) if the moment their current shiny object logs in, I simply cease to exist and don't event warrant an, "I'm sorry, I need to go, the thing I'd rather be doing just came along." I mean, damn, people, what's with that? The honest approach is still shitty but the 'you don't even warrant being told you don't matter worth a damn' is shittier by a factor of umpteensquillion.

I cannot, personally, multi. Not unless it's something like OOC chat, running something for others, or basic staff work on one window, personal character RP in another. I admire people who can multi effectively among multiple character, I just can't. I'm too ADD.

I put a lot of 'how does my character think?' into my writing, and to some extent, that means tweaking my thought patterns a bit toward 'how I think they would think re: what is occurring'. That's already two heads to be in; that's my personal maximum.

Once I split off further from there, the characters will start crossing over into each other in ways I dislike. Others may not notice -- though sometimes I would hear something like 'huh, she's acting kinda weird, are you OK?' or similar -- but it falls below my personal standard of what I want to be able to 'give' in a scene, so I avoid it at all costs. It isn't just a matter of the attention paid to the scene or the other players in it, since I'm usually watching something or working between poses, it's a matter of 'the other people here are giving me the gift of their time, time and attention are something to be valued and not taken for granted, they deserve the best that I can give in return.'

It probably sounds a bit much, but it's how I try to approach everything. I don't like doing a half-ass job if I can help it -- even if that means I end up whole-assing something else (like a scene that needs to be postponed to another day on an alt, or limiting myself in terms of opportunities to do more things) -- in the process. If something is worth doing at all, it's worth doing right -- and I'd rather give up twenty things done in a half-assed fashion or that aren't up to my personal standards (which are so much higher for myself than they are for anybody else, believe it or not) than have something slapdash and crappy out there, unless that's really the best I can do. (At which point, criticize and think I'm crappy away, really -- at least I know I did my best.)

@GangOfDolls said in RL things I love:

You could go hardcore with it and get them tattooed on you.

...if I had a place that wasn't going to get screwy from die+t'ing later this year I'd be doing this with the Tzimisce one already as my 'zomg still aliiiiiiive' thing.

(I probably wouldn't be if not for a wonderfully crazy doc who more or less built me a custom organ. I have been fleshcrafted, soooooo... )

I would think a large college campus (with a few surrounding areas -- Greek row, the one street where all the shops and crappy second floor apartments are that's by every campus) would be ideal for this.

You really are all of my favorite people, so help me.

@Misadventure said:

How about &afinger updates a list of who has ever read their +finger, for the paranoid, and there is no timing specific notice, for the paranoid user of +finger?

It provides metrics, feeds everyones insecurities, and takes up space.

If someone doesn't want people finding out any information about them, how about not volunteering that information in +finger in the first place? I mean, it isn't like they aren't listing this information themselves, entirely of their own volition, and choosing what they do or do not make public (aside from the most broad strokes: name, alias, connected/not, etc.)

+finger is the public profile on a game. You can leave it pretty blank if you want, but it's still public. We have the same thing here, and I don't see anyone claiming there is a downside to not having the ability to see who clicked on their name to read that profile -- or any suggestion that ability is some kind of right, the lack of it is deprivation, etc. here, so why is M* somehow the exception to what many typically expect regarding the same sort of data?

And another one! &afinger depresses me. I can't count the number of times I see it go off, then get a page from someone who clearly did not read a word of what was written there, when I know dang well it all scrolled up in their face. That gives me a serious case of the murderface.

This isn't exactly anger, but I can't call it something I love. More something that makes me wince with all the wincing: the husband sent a link to a show we watched as kids back in the 80s.

OMFG THIS SHOW WAS SO CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE IT IS A MIND-BLOWER.

I don't think they intended to be? But. Uh. OMG. What in the actual fuck.

If the very clearly caucasian lady playing the Japanese princess and referring to herself as part of 'us Orientals' wasn't bad enough in the pilot, the second episode where they had to free The Mud People slaves from a freighter, uh. Just. Uhm. UHM. Seriously. "Who are they?" "Oh, they're the Mud People!" I wish I was making this up. I am blinking so hard at this shit my lashes are probably kicking up a breeze by now.

What. In. The. Actual. Fuck. 1980s. ?!.

You have officially let me down.

This is one of the reasons I like the 'seasonal arcs' approach to metaplot. You can have guaranteed endings to a major story, but it is not the only story, and another will follow in its wake (or potentially overlap, or be spawned by the events of the previous arc, etc.).

You can have time jumps in this, but it's not at all necessary.