My muddy chaos demon
Kestrel
@Kestrel
Profile art: Fade to Light, by Yuumei
Best posts made by Kestrel
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RE: MU Peeves Thread
My peeve is me. I want to get back into MU*ing, and have not one, but two games lined up that I want to check out. (Maybe even three if for whatever reason the first two don’t work out!) Both are run by friends whom I respect and admire; whose creative projects I want to support; and whose ability to run good, healthy games that I’d enjoy I have complete faith in.
It’s just been so long since I’ve fully invested in a MU* that I feel like I’ve practically forgotten how to. I’ve been in creative lulls like this before, and I know that if I just get my foot in the door, roll up a character and get myself into a scene, it’ll all come back in an instant, like I never left the hobby at all. I’m just finding that initial step weirdly harder to surmount than it should be.
To the multiple friends who might be reading this, and to whom I’ve made empty promises about rolling up to hang out with on a MU* in recent months, I’m sorry. It’s really not you, it’s me. (A phrase I know always feels like bullshit on the receiving end, yet is legit, in this case, true.)
Marginally related peeve that I’m sure other alumni of this game can relate to: I hate the extent to which PHSD (Post-HavenRPG Stress Disorder) lives rent-free in my mind. Experiences on that game have made me intensely skittish at the very first sign of red flags on any other game I’ve checked out since, and permanently damaged my ability to put faith in game staff on the whole. It’s not the main reason I’ve been flakey about checking out the two aforementioned MU* run by friends of mine, but it has made me bail a lot quicker than others deem reasonable, on other projects, recently.
When there are so many good gamerunners out there whose proven track record makes me feel safe to put my complete trust in, it just no longer feels worth it sticking around after the first sign of trouble anywhere else, hoping/expecting things might get better or continuing to make excuses for staffers displaying strong red flags. I did that for years longer than I should’ve on HavenRPG, and I’m not prepared to do that for a day longer anywhere else.
It also makes me feel much stronger appreciation and gratitude to those gamerunners out there who’ve proven their commitment to their players’ safety time and time again. And to these boards as well, which promote healthy communities & staff practices, and which hold the hobby to a higher standard than I’m regrettably used to seeing.
There are a number of posters here on these boards who don’t know me at all, whom I’ve never spoken to one on one, whose positive contributions to this community have meant a lot more to me than they could possibly realise.
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RE: MU Peeves Thread
Every few days I wake up feeling creatively inspired and motivated to start something new. Roll up a new concept, join a new game/community, maybe even start my own game. The ideas and plans really turn into these full-fledged beings and worlds just begging to be written. Sometimes I even reach out to friends on Discord and let them know that I’m warming up to dive back into MU*dom or that I want to embark on an ambitious project.
Unfortunately, then I look at the date and realise I’m already late to meet RL deadlines. In the background, my mysteriously athletic Siberian Husky (seriously, how and when did my pandemic puppy get this buff?) makes her stance clear that if I’m awake enough to be sitting at my laptop, I am definitely awake enough to be giving her the first of 2-3 hours of exercise she’s owed, and no amount of focus will be permitted today until she’s been tired into a coma. And so the muse continuously dies unspent.
I miss escapism and creative writing.
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RE: MU Peeves Thread
The inevitable paranoia I constantly feel when friends talk shit about our other friends, and then I can’t help but wonder what they’re probably also saying about me.
Part RL peeve I suppose, but we are a gossipy hobby.
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RE: Bannings
@Testament said in Bannings:
@Herja While I realistically wouldn’t expect it, I however would not be surprised if they somehow did the mental gymnastics to allow either Cullen or Dropkick to start posting there(I’m pointedly not including DWOPP in that because I can’t imagine any MSB staff being so oblivious to be okay with that). I would rate the things that Cullen did and what Hella/VK did to pretty near each other. So if they let one of them there…
Like I said, I’m not expecting but, also my expectations are exceedingly low at this point.
I would just like to say, loud and clear, in case anyone missed or somehow doubts this memo, that Cullen’s player is an actual, literal, real-life rapist.
I would love to post receipts. Dearly I would. Unfortunately that would be A) doxxing him & B) not my story to tell, not my receipts to share, and not one of his victims’ duty to publicly bare their trauma for the satisfaction of sealioning, misogynistic chodes.
I cannot adequately express the degree of livid I feel at some of the insinuations made on MSB these past few weeks; or how much it sickens my stomach to imagine that anyone would argue he deserves to be allowed back into community he’s abused for years to do it all. Over. Again.
I do not believe in second chances, not for him. He’s had a hundred already and abused them all. No.
But I hope making that case, or at the very least making light of the notion, is worth the internet points that MSB’s new boys’ club gets to reap at the expense of other people’s trauma. A categorical fuck you. Check your privilege, “simplications”.
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RE: Pets!
My snow dog is not enjoying the scorched English savannah right now.
I’m not sure why that photo came out with a lens flare. I didn’t do it on purpose, so I think it’s her natural radiance emanating them wherever she goes.
She is, however, remarkably well camouflaged for this weather. As you can see, in this picture she’s completely disappeared. I bet you can’t even see her now.
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RE: Bannings
The last two threads on MSB serve as an excellent reminder that misogyny and Authoritarianism often go hand in hand. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and neither should be trusted in a position of power.
That was sinister to watch, but I’m glad they’ve at least revealed themselves.
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RE: Bannings
simplications if you’re reading this:
I’m sorry, I fucked up. The way you showed up on MSB, the timing, and the group of posters whose statements were being mutually borrowed as fuel for each others fires, made me assume the worst about your intentions.
There are actually a fuckton of literal fascists in this hobby; Cullen for example had an iron cross as his forum avatar on HavenRPG for a while, and I’ve posted receipts elsewhere of someone going on a very explicit antisemitic & misogynistic tirade about me. On the recent thread, I also linked an example of what was basically an attack thread against me for wanting to start a pro-intersectional community for other MU*ers. So yes I am very prickly about this subject, and I like to think I’m generally good at spotting the talking points of people trying to manipulate the discourse in that direction, but in this case I misfired. Because yeah: I was there to address misogyny and victim-blaming, and in that context, the discussion about privileged groups while seemingly siding with the people doing it, looked to me like a very common tactic.
I now understand this was a misunderstanding.
Sorry I went for the throat; I was in attack mode, and attacked the wrong person.
I’d DM but lol, banned. (Which is for the best, because that was not healthy for me.)
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RE: Bannings
Belittling rape, misogyny etc., doesn’t make you look like less of a misogynist, Devrex. If it hurts you that people would say this about you, then stop fucking doing it.
I called Cullen a rapist because he is a rapist. Like, I would love to share his criminal record with you, I have it right here, but it’s against the rules.
And I feel compelled to drive this point not to be hyperbolic, but because that fact has been questioned incessantly, here:
And because the undertones of MSB’s discussion, prior to me posting there to make that point explicit, very much were of the fear-mongering suspicion that Hog Pit threads might contain false accusations, and that receipts are necessary, and oh no, what if all these poor innocent souls have been damned because you all didn’t do your due diligence. These points were made in particular by Ghost, and upvoted by you, and Derp, and the rest of your sealioning fanclub.
Which by the way, I think is despicable, and dangerous. And not despicable in the sense of, ‘Oh I don’t quite like the theme of this game, perhaps I should play on a different game instead; each to their own.’ But in the sense that makes me feel compelled to say something about it because people could get hurt, have been hurt, and are hurt, by the delegitimisation of their trauma and the benefit of the doubt you wish to confer to predators with multiple accusers. Such as Rysen too, for example, which is why I assume people other than me felt the need to rebutt the comments about him, too. These are not assumptions; this has been made explicit.
By the way, Ghost, still paying attention? This is why I do not accept your apology, why I doubt your intentions, and why I bring up the fact that you’ve always done this, dating back years ago and are still doing it right now.
So don’t act like you’ve always been an ally or that it’s disingenuous of me to bring him up.
My sincere apologies to simplications for getting them mixed up in the crossfire; on the other hand, Cullen is a crypto-fascist, as is ppurg, the other dude I’ve been known to harp on in the general MU* community about being a fascist, and your mockery of my willingness to call people out on that certainly makes you look like someone who’s either in their camp or tolerant of it. Which is further backed by this thread of yours from three years ago, which was directed at me. And it’s relevant to bring that history up because you’re still doing it. The only “apology” for it you’ve offered was coupled by an untrue accusation, simply another of your classic attempts at DARVO. The aim of that was not to apologise, but to justify.
P.S.: Thanks for successfully getting the person who posted the exact account you referenced in your reddit comment, the one about him threatening to send nudes to her boss and stalking her on social media, to delete her testimony. Your actions have material consequences, and it is not hyperbolic to say so, nor to react to them.
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RE: MU Peeves Thread
eggshells 🫤
Feeling like … I can only scene with you as long as I am very polite and mindful and watch my step and am on my best behaviour. Which is a very reasonable thing to expect of anyone. But also I don’t like feeling tense like that, so if RP always feels like a first date or a job interview, I think I would rather just avoid and hang out with friends who take themselves less seriously and let me fart around.
Latest posts made by Kestrel
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RE: MU Peeves Thread
Even though this never used to be a thing, in the modern world I’m realising I basically forget that a MU* I was playing still exists if it doesn’t have a discord.
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RE: MU Peeves Thread
eggshells 🫤
Feeling like … I can only scene with you as long as I am very polite and mindful and watch my step and am on my best behaviour. Which is a very reasonable thing to expect of anyone. But also I don’t like feeling tense like that, so if RP always feels like a first date or a job interview, I think I would rather just avoid and hang out with friends who take themselves less seriously and let me fart around.
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RE: Good things in Mushing
Seeing friends who were mistreated on other games go on to start their own creative projects, and join staff teams where their labour is appreciated & admired, gives me immense contact joy.
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RE: MU Peeves Thread
Watching a known jerk continue to do jerk things in the MU* community and feeling unsure about whether it’d be the right call to just let people know that’s a known jerk. Idk, do people deserve second chances if they wanna be anonymous? … atm I’ve settled on the feeling that maybe it doesn’t really matter whether people know who they are or not, since the culprit seems eager to dig their own grave on a brand new identity anyway.
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RE: Stupid Memes
I dropped out of my psychology degree a decade ago for this exact reason.
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RE: MU Peeves Thread
I’m super guilty of “accidental revenge” with async scenes. I say I don’t mind if the other person needs extra time, but the longer they take, the longer I take. And then it eventually snowballs from them taking 24 hours between replies to me taking 48.
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RE: MU Peeves Thread
The above discussion is why I will not have logon messages if I make a game.
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RE: MUSIC ADDICTIONS
I think I’ve listened 20 times in the last 24 hours since it was released.
Also, hyped for The Tortured Poets Department to release on April 19th. Midnights turned me into a Born Again Swifty.
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RE: MU Peeves Thread
I hope no one hates me for this, but sometimes I avoid greeting anyone on channels, because I feel obligated to greet everyone otherwise.
And I’m not ASD, I swear, but this is one of those social norms I could live without. I would way prefer a frosty atmosphere where people skip greetings and just talk about whatever’s pertinent. (Maybe this is why most of my friends are ASD??) Idc if you’re weird and have no etiquette, just page me out of nowhere to game. That’s fine.
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RE: Good things in Mushing
I saw a tweet today about the historic MUD genre and laughed.
I think people don’t know that we’re still around.