Posts made by surreality

@Thenomain That's how I feel about HERO, pretty much.

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

ALSO. You can all hate me because we went to a Brazilian Steakhouse for Good Friday.

And it was really fucking good.

Just to talk about awesome expensive meat. And they had candied bacon.

So you can all hate me for being a heretic and/or enjoying that the Brazilian Steakhouse in a college town on Good Friday was dead fucking empty because spring break + heresy and they were really really really trying to feed the hell out of us as some of the precious few people there.

@Ghost Random bitching really is for game-related bitching, tho.

@Auspice I know, right? "It cost them more to print and mail this check to me than what the amount of the check is for, and that will forever be funny." <-- that would be my forever thought.

@Auspice That beats my dad, who was so proud of the year he got a refund (it was the only time ever) he did the same -- and the check was for $1 exactly.

And my father is such a cheapass that he cashed it.

I would have framed that for posterity.

@Misadventure ...that sounds like heaven. I have such a weakness for Squirt soda and you can't get it here, so whenever we go somewhere that we can find it, we practically live on it. This is why nobody ever loses weight on vacation even if we're running all over the place being stupidly active compared to our normal activity levels.

@Miss-Demeanor said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

I would rather see shit getting spewed out here than keeping it bottled up to where it gets spewed out onto someone's rl.

...or on the actual games.

Venting is necessary, sometimes.

I would rather see someone explode here in a froth of senseless bile and profanity than see them treat somebody like crap on the game because they're fed up with a peeve.

Negative feels are real and are as valid as positive feels are.

People are not negative, not-nice, or bad people for having negative feelings about a negative experience.

Negative experiences are common things everyone encounters sooner or later in life.

Repressing shit is not, actually, super great for someone if they do it for too long. I would rather see someone post, "Dammit, it always drives me crazy when people hog a scene. Attention whores are annoying." in the Hog Pit than suppress that feeling the dozen or so times it takes for them to explode with the force of twelve times the vitriol the unlucky thirteenth person they perceive to be behaving this way could ever possibly deserve even if the problem behavior really was genuinely and objectively problematic behavior.

In all seriousness, since we are now arguing about the ways in which people choose to argue, shouldn't this be the meta-meta-discussion?

<rubs her temples and reaches for the tylenol>

@faraday Pretty much that. You need to be able to point out flaws, or a place will turn into a mutual flattery and butt-kissing society, eventually, and that's not terribly useful. If you (or anybody else) actually aims to do this, I would suggest putting up some examples of tactfully phrased constructive criticism/etc., since that will help set the standard by example.

(We've seen how some of the 4chan trolls are considered too inappropriate for this place, but their behavior is standard fare there, etc., so examples are important.)

@faraday I don't think be nice is an inherently bad goal.

I think it's a goal with some potential pitfalls, but I think the same thing about this place, and thought the same of WORA.

Be nice would be an easier goal if, as @WTFE mentions, nothing ever went wrong that needed to be mentioned -- but plenty goes wrong, and plenty of people screw up, intentionally or otherwise.

I think the thing many are wary of on the 'nice' front is that being nice and doing the right thing aren't, actually, always the same thing.

'Use tact and do not be deliberately hurtful' is, I think, a more realistic goal or guideline than 'be nice' when it comes to potential positive outcomes.

I always ask questions like this, and then a little too late realize that my own answer (which is only fair to include) is maybe not the easiest thing ever to give fully or honestly.

The simple short form is: at different times, different aspects of all of these things -- including the unhealthy variations of some of them -- have been the draw, or at least one of them.

And, yeah, that covers it, but it really doesn't. Or, more accurately, it isn't the whole story, and to not tell the whole story in a community that sometimes can only agree on one thing -- that we like participating, to whatever extent, in telling stories together, no matter how differently we prefer to go about it -- that seems like cheating, somehow.

I link to this as often as I possibly can. It applies to the hobby in a variety of ways that I think are useful, and often enough, it's in that context. The transcript is there, so it needn't be watched, though if you've never seen it, I'd encourage you to watch it anyway. (It's one of the two things I watch on seemingly endless repeat when things get hard, and both of them help.)

The whole section beginning with 'Fourthly' applies, but this especially:

And remember that whatever discipline you are in, whether you are a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a designer, whatever you do you have one thing that's unique. You have the ability to make art.

And for me, and for so many of the people I have known, that's been a lifesaver. The ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times and it gets you through the other ones.

Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do.

Make good art.

It is, ultimately, escapism, but of a unique sort: it's collaborative and creative escapism. And yes, laugh all you like, but creative writing is an art. There is no yardstick here; there's good art and bad art and good writing and bad writing but ultimately, this is a hobby of creative expression and creative expression is art. (So laugh all you like, but deal with it, I guess.)

Something this addresses in a more roundabout way is actually interesting as hell. It's something that was touched on briefly, I think, in the mental health thread, but it's worth mention here: different thought patterns, over a long enough timeline, help to rewire the brain. If you have particularly unhealthy wiring in your brain, brief bouts of 'playing make-believe' can, actually, improve your well-being by helping to create the structures that allow you to see positive aspects of the world you might have missed otherwise, because your brain simply was not structured to recognize them before.

This is not the same thing as 'exploiting fellow players for therapy', which some people do or have done from time to time, as it's not (and can't really be) a conscious process. It's essentially a side benefit of setting aside one's problems for a little while and thinking in a (slightly or majorly) different way, as most of us do when we RP.

In short, if you are in a shitty situation you can't see any way out of, sensible doses of escapism can be incredibly good for you. Not if you lose perspective and ignore the real world or value the pretend one more than the real one, obviously, but simply letting your brain work differently for a little while can be a very real help.

It is actually sort of awesome.

It is even more awesome that this is more pronounced when engaged in creative thinking, creative problem solving, and creative expression: as you do this, you are incrementally building yourself a new brain.

I'm a professional artist, hopping around amongst a variety of mediums over the years. (Please note what I said above, and further note I am in no way claiming that I am a good artist!) Creative things, be it visual arts, performance, writing, even writing code, are enormously important to me, even if they aren't things I'm personally doing, good at, or interested in doing myself at all. I think they're genuinely important on pretty much every scale, from the micro-micro 'creative thinking helps "grow" your brain' to 'a little creativity can make your living space a happier place' to how much a culture values and encourages creative expression on the macro end of the scale.

This one? Well, it's easy. (Or, it was.) It's a neat one. It's there more or less on demand at any hour, and really, considering there's always some code that could be written or a room that needs a desc or a plot to concoct for people or some other 'thing to get to' that requires creative thinking, it really can be something that's a great creative outlet even in the crazy hours when no one else is around.

That doesn't compare to the big one, though: RP chemistry. Everybody here probably has that list of writing partners that they cherish and consider amazing because for whatever reason, when writing together, the whole is so vastly astonishing compared to its component parts. Any given group is like a compound chemical. Sometimes, you create a new rockin' alloy, sometimes you fizzle out into grey sludge, sometimes it explodes into a gory mess. It's still one of those things where it seems like you can really see the buzzword cliche 'synergy in action', and as an actual thing, rather than as a buzzword, that's something pretty spectacular, as it can lead to the most surprising and remarkable places, even if they're completely imaginary.

Even beyond that, even amongst the people you 'click' with as a writing partner really well, the result of that 'compound chemistry' is unique. With some, I've found more drawn to scheming and very plotty things. Others, it's pure soap opera. Others still, the horrific and surreal explored in very Barker-like ways. Once in very long a while, Penthouse Forum letter. <cough> Plenty of other things, too. It varies, and god damn, that's interesting as hell unto itself. (To me, at least.) Different partners bring out different things, and that means all of those new places for the brain to meander can sometimes be pretty unexpected and fantastic. (They can be dangerous, too, but those things are often easier to notice and avoid than they might be; often enough we know when a story is making us miserable and we'll drop it, after all.)

This... combines with another thing, for me. Stories. I love stories. I love making them up myself, with others -- I even enjoy just finding entertaining ways of telling ones that recount some real event of the day, or knowing a real event generated an interesting one to tell later. (I collect those. Seriously. It's my very favorite collection of all.)

That famous quote about how the universe is not made of atoms, but is instead made of stories? It resonates strongly with me. It's something I think of as a profoundly human truth. Stories, ultimately, are how we relate to each other, learn to empathize with one another's experiences, and understand certain things about the world we live in on a very basic level.

There's more to this, but it's OMG'o'clock, and the coffee's low. Happy Easter or happy day before a bunch of chocolate gets marked down to 50% off, whichever applies in your case.

@Botulism I would really like to, honestly, in part 'cause one of the folks who shifted over to staff there (I think?) was super cool to me and a friend on FC, and I always found him to be pretty awesome. (Was quick to handle stuff, super open to ideas, always eager to run stuff for people, etc. Five stars, much awesome.)

If I was playing at all, I genuinely would. Y'all have my two favorite spheres (CB and Immortal), and that's a huge draw, too.

I'm just in 'tinker in the corner' mode lately; my heart to play is kinda gone. It isn't a reflection on any of the games out there or anything like that. There's good stuff to be had, absolutely, I'm just not in the right headspace (or heartspace) to jump in and join, and I do still very much appreciate the invitation.

Also pretty sure it's not possible to just, say, bind a SE into a random item and turn them into a fetish.

Entirely possible with a purified. They might not be dead, but being bound into, say, the rectal thermometer at the Central Park Zoo for all eternity by a pissed-off mage is probably not the happiest of fates.

@WTFE said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

We know all too well that this is emphatically not the case in the real world of MU*ing.

This is truth.

One of the reasons I prefer this space to others is that I know that if I'm doing something fucked up, someone here will call me out on it.

Generally, I'm not keen on doing shit I know is fucking awful, so odds are good that if I'm doing something fucking awful, I'm not aware of it.

I'd like to be aware of it so I don't, you know, continue to do something fucking awful without realizing it.

I would prefer my being awful to not continue unchecked just because somebody's too worried about hurting my feelings to say, "surr, by twiddling the widget like that, you're totally screwing over the weebles and the wobbles, only a fucking moron would twiddle the widget like that, so knock it off, you dizzy, thoughtless twat."

@WTFE Someone's trying one; I linked it a few pages back. Hopefully the people who don't feel comfortable posting here will be comfortable there, and ideas will cross-pollinate to whatever extent there is a crossover audience.

@mietze said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

I know some people that are coarse as can be here (though I wouldn't term them mean or anything, but blunt yes.), but in game they are even keeled, polite, respectful, dare I say professional in dealing with others. And there are some people here that talk up positive things that they have a history of crapping all over in game, and can be downright nasty and destructive.

Quoted for truth.

If I can't be positive, encouraging, and helpful on a game, even to the people who make me want to tear out my hair in clumps, I know it's time to step back. I have seriously valued this place as an outlet to vent the frustrations that accrue. I try to keep it anonymous and generic, and more than that, I try to wait a fair space of time before venting about <thing>, to both give myself time to chill out a little, and also to make it less likely for anyone to guess at whoever <asshole of the moment> is.

Because generally? Unless I'm naming names, which I'm not keen on unless I think it's someone people should be warned about (see the exchange with the troll on Shang from the other day for an example of the extremes I think warrant an exception -- attempts to impersonate an RL friend to attempt to traumatize someone RL? Yeah, I'mma call you out by login name and game), I really don't actually want a grand ol' mob to go torches and pitchforks on <asshole of the moment>, I just want to "OMG GUYS A THING HAPPENED AND I AM OUT OF EVENS TO CAN'T WITH!" and get it out of my system.

Maybe somebody chimes in with 'ugh, that fucking blows, I hate that, too!' and yay validation/commisseration/support network.

Maybe <asshole of that moment> sees it and even if they don't realize it's about them, that it's uncool to do <jackass thing> for <whatever reason> becomes clearer to them and they think twice about doing it again to somebody else.

Or! Maybe 'that is a fucking stupid thing to get all sandy-vag over, surr, plz go hose out your gravel and come back to us when you're not being crazy,' is the response, and I have to sit back and think, "Am I the one being the asshole here?"

I just don't see this as bad. Yeah, maybe I'm the freak in that if I'm writing something here that's 'mean', it's pretty fucking rare that the intention is to do someone harm or deliberately be a jackass to someone. I can think of one actual instance of deliberately being absolutely bitchy to someone• because I felt like being bitchy to that person for purposes of irritating them, and odds are pretty good people would never guess which post it was.

• (I'll tell ya: I @'ed someone on something specifically for purposes of them being more likely to read it, because they made a claim that 'doing X in RP means you're forcing RL THING into their face RL!' Which was total bullshit. So when recounting a story of RL THING on the forum (which is just a funny story, frankly), I @'d said person, because that, my dears, is forcibly shoving one's RL THING in somebody's face, not just posing about whatever subject in RP. Absolutely and totally deliberately bitchy. There's a reason I have a girl-boner for trickster gods, people, but to this day I'm all kinds of sad that the point was likely utterly lost on the target. Oh well!)

If I could staff for anyone and knew wikidot, I would offer. Wikidot is somewhat different in some pretty important ways from mediawiki, from what I gather.

If you need some help with css, and have someone who decides to fill that role with basic knowledge for wikidot requirements, do feel free to poke me in PM at any time (and they're welcome to do the same) if there's anything I can be of help with.

I have a wiki that's not finished, for a game I set aside in favor of a different idea, that does have some useful templates and code on it here: http://sevendevils.info/index.php/Main_Page

Not all the things I wanted to do with it got done before I set it aside, but if there is something there that looks useful to you that you'd like to implement for your game, I'm happy to talk to whoever your wikidot-savvy staffperson is to try to figure out if it can be done for wikidot and ideally can get it done. I just ask that if there are templates/a nice setup/etc. that comes from it, please be willing to 'pass it on' and share the code with others as well.

@Three-Eyed-Crow I'm kinda in the same boat. I hope they do well, since it's obvious a lot of folks still don't like the tone here and may be more comfortable posting there, which means another segment of the MUer population has an outlet/space to share stuff that'll doubtless ultimately cross-pollinate in a positive way, but beyond that, it's one of those 'it is what it is' sorts of things.

I tossed it out there since some of the folks less comfy here might be happier there. There was no content when I checked it out, but since I wanna build stuff, I'm willing to look anywhere for ideas, so why not.

As to all the general stuff about tone... the way people talk here is generally not how they talk on games. This is like the weird, shared water cooler lounge in a building full of fractious companies -- like what you'd end up with in the lobby of a building where, say, the tenants of every floor were all producing vaguely similar things for the same shared market, not necessarily competing with one another, but frequently talking about how their widget works compared to the other guy's widget, or wondering why the widgets on floor 14 are being made in the first place, or how the guy managing the widget design on floor 6 keeps getting away with screwing his secretary after hours on the desk because it's so totally obvious and dang, she's one heck of a screamer, ain't she?

As a friend of mine once put it, "In my profession, 'fuck' is not profanity, it's punctuation." That's as much a thing as the jobs in which a single 'fuck' would have you packing up your desk and scanning the want ads.

I will admit I swear like a sailor everywhere save for when I have to go do an in-person sales show or am actually talking through a commission with a customer, and even have a file up on the in-progress project that says, "Look, people are going to use profanity. Don't assume it automatically means they're trying to be horrible to you because they used a naughty word unless it's directly intended to be insulting and hurtful to you, because no words, whether they are naughty or nice words, are OK for that OOC." Because goddammit, if something is fucking awesome I'm going to call it fucking awesome. Conversely, I am not going to give somebody a pass for calling someone 'an ill-mannered lout of dubious upbringing and education' any more than I would if they called them 'a fucking idiot', because it isn't the choice of language used that makes someone an asshole under these circumstances.

@Gingerlily said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

@surreality

It is great that that exists, I hope it takes off.

Agreed that people have different opinions on what bashing is. I know what mine is, but I also know it is not shared by any kind of majority. I feel like it can't be that hard to figure out...we have to offer feedback in other areas of life and generally I feel likr most people don't start with 'Bob you are an idiot, everything you do sucks probably because you are just a worthless, pointless person' That is really crass, implies a major lack of reflection or emotional regulation on the speaker's behalf, and provides no feedback that Bob can use. As we have visited before in this thread, what we often witness here is not an attempt to give feedback but to trash talk those who we feel wronged us or generally dislike for the sheer pleasure of it.

I really do not see much of what you're describing here at all. Maybe it's just because that was absolutely almost every exchange on WORA, and it is pretty dang different here.

And I say this knowing I have a raging rant of venting right here: http://musoapbox.net/topic/1472/confidence-vs-egotistical-bullshit-the-claim-game-overcompensation-invulnerability-pissing-contests-cults-of-personality-name-dropping-and-so-on?page=1

...and nobody's named there. Behaviors are called out with zero punches pulled and a heck of a lot of vitriol, but I could probably rattle off a half a dozen offenders there for each as all are hardly unique, so they aren't vaguebooking specific targets. It's probably one of the meanest posts on the forum, and what you're describing is simply not at all there.