I’m so glad there is a space for people to process their feelings, not only as individuals but together. We may “just” be an online community and some of the meeting places may “just” be a message board but it is a real community, and when stuff breaks down it can really hurt.

I don’t want anyone to misconstrue my quietness to mean I don’t care. I do, very much. It’s been hard to see my name invoked in things that are incorrect to me (though I can see why it was done so), or to back up things by people who were hurtful to me personally. But sometimes that’s what happens when people are arguing or trying to cope with what they need to cope with and I’m not angry about it.

I’m not a saint, or some great person and it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t think me being present during the blow up would have changed anything, I don’t and never did have that much power. For that same reason I don’t think anyone else could influence the decisions that have been made either, except for the people that are right now making them. I thought that stepping down would relieve stress (and it did), and that it would be enough (it wasn’t), because the minute I stupidly engaged in a discussion that I should have known how it would turn out, a lot of that hurt came right back to the surface and for my part in that I’m very sorry, it’s hard to not feel like that didn’t instigate something that shouldn’t have been. I thought I was getting to be over it, but I’m not.

It’s hard to lose access to a place that you once felt like you had a part in. Or to feel less welcome and safe. Regardless of justification but especially when it doesn’t feel like it was and it was abrupt. It’s hard to let go of that and stop looking/reading/whatever. It may not even be appropriate for some people, and that’s of course a decision that has to be made for yourself. I wish I could say something that would help, but I also know I can’t. There’s nothing to say. It did not happen for me on the boards this time, but I have experienced it elsewhere and it was bewildering and angering and made me feel more grief that I thought I should.

To say this has been a dark time for me would be an understatement. Yes, 90 percent of it is factors other than what happened, but what happened triggered some pretty serious things that I still have to be very careful about (as I discovered last night too). I guess I’m not over that either.

There have been several times in the history of “the community” where different boards have existed (and yes even rivalries–ask the dinosaurs, this isn’t the first time this has happened. I think it’s easier now to find/hang on to the friends that you want, and refind others as time goes on. I’ve had friends in this hobby that were close, and then a falling out ended things for years, and then we reconnected stronger than ever. And other relationships with folks that just…didn’t ever re-engage–and that’s okay too. Real life, right? It doesn’t make it less painful in the moment.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I do really love you guys. I wish things had happened differently. I wish I’d been more capable, or it had been a better moment for a whole bunch of people. That things didn’t bubble up exactly the way that they did, because while I can see why people say it’d been building up for awhile, I don’t think it was the best for anyone how it happened. I wish that we all didn’t have so much other shit in our lives that sometimes makes stuff in THIS community feel like the last straw. I think whatever place you land at, and are able to settle into community is good. And yes, even if it’s both. Sometimes having an alternative that you feel more comfortable on and that becoming the new main (or the old main)–that’s a good thing. There doesn’t even have to be a comparison. I like what’s building here. I hope with more hands on deck both here and at MSB people will be able to build what they want. Hats off to the team here for being able to take something like this on board when a lot of the people are grieving at least a little. Sometimes that’s taking on some hard stuff that you don’t notice until later, but I think you are amazing.

There’s a lot of games I’ve been on over the years, so any omissions is more because I can’t remember the names (but I do tend to remember people/situations)

Current:
Arx: Edris, Karina past: Nurie, Ouida, Maren, tried Lailah but couldn’t mesh.
City of Shadows: Fiametta

Past:
Shadowrun Seattle: Nocturnis, Sakura Saito
Shadowrun Detroit: Milla
TCbTT (oWoD): Galatea, Niccola, Chai
A2A (oWoD): Arianwyn, Julia
Metro 2.0 (oWoD): Jade
A handful of other oWoD places, one set in Hawaii, one in Morocco, a few in US cities.
The Reach (nWoD): Ariadne, May, Fremont (changeling app staffer, then later Mortal/M+ sphere head)
CoFaB (nWoD): Gloria
Eldritch (nWoD): Toni (also at BITN)
Mystick Krewe (Buffy): Nanette
Star Crusade (Fading Suns): Naima, Verity, Samina
Battlestar Orion: Kostas
Battlestar Deimos: Enyo
RfK (CoD?): Nathalie
Savage Skies: Donovan, Enid
Liberation MUSH (new owod): Bastian

Brief appearance on Keys as the person who took Fable off the roster. Tried several other ares places at this time, but none of them took (not because people aren’t nice or I didn’t enjoy things, just it didn’t grab me like Arx has).

I’m always looking for new folks to play with/meet. If you’ve told me your alt and I don’t rp regularly with you (or honestly even if we do) chances are I will forget about it. So I’m almost always game for a background tie, ect.

for many reasons both mush related and not i’m really sick of the “keep sweet” mentality that is often pushed on people who push back when someone is being ugly. it’s honestly rather repulsive to me. i’ve had to deal with a lot of “be kind/put other people’s comfort above your own/shut up” through most of my life. i don’t feel particularly bound to be kind to someone who threw shade at a game runner about being irresponsible because the game didn’t last for the amount of time that they thought it would and then even insinuated that maybe they shouldn’t have made the game in the first place because of that. along with the ‘hmm if you’re not perfect maybe you shouldn’t say anything because you know you’re both not perfect’ stuff. that kind of stuff should have died in the 90s and i think it should be called out bluntly every single damn time.

Struggling with significant depression rn. I’m doing ok juggling most things I think. But a bit slower on the uptake/not very much energy right now. At some point maybe I will be less burnt out by life, but man it is really hard. I know I have lots of people right here with me tho.

“let’s all be nice” is a tool of silencing. i think it’s not always intended that way, but sometimes it absolutely is less about actual concern for others and more about that person calling for that being unable to tolerate their discomfort. i think that’s fine outside of the rough and rowdy section. but within it, i’m going to be just honest here with my personal opinon–i think pushing keep sweet on people is being an asshole here.

enforce respectful language. call out hypocritcal stuff. that’s needed. keeping sweet is not, and should not be. maybe my feelings are inappropriately raw for this. i am trying to be respectful, but i’m not feeling kind and i’m not a bad person for not feeling kind about this. IMO.

today was hard, but I made it through.

@CuriousGamer why are you involving me in this?

ETA: if i cared to comment on any thread on MSB, then I would. I do not know why she would want to quote me about anything regarding defending herself, as to my knowledge i’ve never RPed with her (or if I did it was unknowing or such a long time ago and unremarkable as to not really stay in my memory, so it was neither a bad experience or an ecstatic one).

So if she hates me or something, I really have no clue why, unless it’s just a flailing thing, in which case it’s certainly not personal, because I’ve never done anything to harm this person. And I can’t imagine that she could possibly say anything that would hurt me more than other whisper campaigns have in the past (and I have a pretty good track record of being vindicated with those nearly every time someone has tried it). The folks on MSB that would be eager to agree that I’m a terrible person already think that and she in no way could possibly influence that.

As Roz said. It is NOT a kindness to tell someone “hey, people are talking about you!” in a situation like this. I assume there are plenty of people out there who can say all sorts of mean things about me, and probably do. If I had to constantly be vigilant about that kind of shit then I would have even less energy for RP than I do now. I play several places, for the most part very happily, with people who are happy to RP with me, and I’d like to keep it that way.

The MSB split is very painful for me personally and it’s always going to be that way. That’s not your fault, but please be considerate and don’t tag me in like this for this kind of cross board stuff in the future.

Feeling like you are dropping every ball and letting everyone down sucks, even if you know life goes on. I feel like a crappy RPer anyway of late, but its frustrating to fall on my face right now in particular when rl too is just relentless.

There are no “receipts” that people accept in “our medium.”

Someone shows outside of the game communication? It’s always they shouldn’t have worn that dress and also unfair/not game related.

Someone shows a log? “The log was probably edited by someone with an axe to grind!” “Maybe you shouldn’t have been so sensitive. Gee, I would have been flattered and not taken that so seriously!” " Sometimes the person i could have seen as harassing me turned out to be a Nice Guy/Gal once I just talked to them a little more, so let’s give this awkward person a break and you should be more tolerant."

People take the information presented to them and make a decision. That’s always been the case. It’s just who tends to be “the most believable” is a little more diverse than it was during 90s mushing and a lot of “awkward” behavior is a lot less acceptable, and the culture has shifted away from rules lawyering about who “should” be asked to leave.

Reeling a bit from a mispage earlier in the day that kinda took the wind out of my sails.

On the one hand, I guess I know who to avoid in the future. But it’s coming at a really bad place of timing.

It really sucks to feel like you’re okayish enough to pass the time with RP wise if there’s nothing better to do, but you’re not of the caliber where it would be worth engaging in deeper RP with you since you’re just a lightweight bore and there’s nothing substantial there.

I do often feel (as do like 98 percent of the people I know) like i’m the always the unwanted/last person to be picked for the kickball team. I don’t /think/ it’s the reality (and hey if we were all the super popular kickball captains growing up maybe we wouldn’t have gotten into mushing or whatever so it’s just kind of a primal worry for a lot of people. But i’m feeling it super hard tonight.

I’ll work through it (or disappear) but damn. I’ve done my share of mispages but it’s been awhile since I got one and i have to say it kinda really did hurt this time. Even if if it’s from someone that I really don’t even care about!

@Warma-Sheen what is your point. Are you insinuating that only 100 percent awful people can do bad things?

Or only 100 percent blameless people can be justified in feeling skeeved out. And if they’re not pure as the new falling snow they should shut up because “both people aren’t perfect.”

That’s so gross.

I’m not sure why the hell inuki thinks that log makes her look better. It doesn’t. It doesn’t even make jenn look particularly bad just they were annoyed with each other and inunki did a piss poor communication job from the start. Which she acknowledges without taking responsibility by saying she just is spontaneous.

Ugh. I love the back in my day nobody asked permission on WoD so thats how I totally roll on this 2023 non wod game and expect you to be grateful.

Why am I even reading this. Its all the depressing as fuck things about mu.

I do not know if this will help. But my experience with predatory people is that most of the time they don’t hone in on one/their group of targets right away, but cast a wide net. They actually don’t always go after the easiest targets but the most rewarding personally for them–which for a lot of the worst means breaking down people who say no or express discomfort. I think a lot of people like to believe that the only people who get targeted are those who have signaled something, but I don’t think that’s true, especially in what happens in our community.

Are there some that seek certain markers (like age, people who don’t shut off inappropriate communication the first time, ect)? Yes. But there are so many for whom that’s actually not a barrier and just adds to the excitement of breaking down someone who isn’t the stereotype and especially if they can get that person to fear that other people are going to see them as that stereotype and that they ‘deserved’ this sort of transgression. Those are the sick fucks and they rarely are manipulating and hurting just one person at a time, or the same type of person at a time either.

I think this is why destroying slutshaming and ‘well you shouldn’t have given that contact info’ type of shit is so important. It makes the collective us feel better to be able to feel “well, that wouldn’t be me, because I’m not 16/I don’t do discord/I draw the line with others all the time” but the truth is I think a lot of people are vulnerable to the the right manipulator. You see it all the time even outside of our community.

Editing to add: this is especially damaging because getting off on breaking down people and seeing what they’ll do for you while a lot of the time in our hobby the ones that are caught DO go into sexually transgressive behavior, it doesn’t need to be at all. There have been horrible situations where sexual attraction or gender was totally not a factor at all. Very very damaging situations. I do think sometimes this is the one area where there has not been as much improvement.

When you’re stupider than your PC which can cause some issues, but you hope people like your RP anyway.

I understand.

But I also think that the guy who just will not or cannot see why his actions were unwelcome and also why their pursuit was not a good idea is not going to see it. And those who are knee jerk determined to “protect” certain people from “mean, bullying” others are going to gloss over what they need to. Or they genuinely don’t see or care about anyone else’s experience or interpretation.

If that’s going to be tolerated on a place for whatever reason there’s just not a lot that can be done.

Its not easy, I’m not sure a peace about it can be or should be made. I am glad that at least now I personally have a place where probably I won’t have to deal with a few folks unless I decide to.

But im never going to convince two in particular that I am even worth half a sack of shit as far as being a real live human being. I did not really realize how much that affected me when participating in the community until now where I’m reasonably certain I will not have to worry about how they treat me here because they are not interested in participating here.

Unfairly or not I expect that certain people feel the same way there. I know there are people who are over the moon i don’t have anything to do with being on the team over there. But I do think its hard to let go, its hard to not want to defend yourself even if intellectually you know that you are never going to convince people who are digging in their heels, its hard to see people siding with someone else instead of you, ect.

It’s hard and it’s going to be hard. But I do think its probably better to not make this a focus of this place or have it become the biggest main thread–eventually.

I’m certain that there are staffers out there who are a ton better than me, but honestly in all these years of playing and slightly less in staffing…

If someone repeatedly can’t come up with nonproblematic concepts that demonstrate a pattern of not showing good judgement as far as they might fit in, no matter how much time I invested in explaining/handholding/helping, ect–it was never ever worth my time. Because the minute they hit the grid, all of the characteristics they’d showed in the CG process (deliberate or otherwise cluelessness, fixation on certain problematic themes, demanding of special attention, ect) only increased once they hit the grid. And back in those days there was kind of an attitude of well once you approved them you shouldn’t take it back.

So yeah, if someone can’t even get through cg without flailing on channels, aggressively confronting staff on channels, then yeah. I mean even if they’ve made it through CG by some miracle and start after. Just boot. If you are unhappy even before you start, it’s not going to improve if you don’t even have that when you’re still in the honeymoon stage!

Getting to play with relatively new to me folks plus a friend in a scene where our pretty srs bsns PCs due to some really amusing roll failures got themselves into a psychedelic pickle.

It wouldn’t have worked for every group of people but these folks had me grinning so hard my face is sore and giggling so much that I kept having coughing jags (I’m still ill with a parting gift illness from work).

I love being able to play gritty, play dark, be serious and tragic but also sometimes getting to have a funny (and probably stupid to some folks im sure) scene on the fly.

I really needed the rl laughter, and it was delivered.

My youngest did youth first aid and cpr training with his cub scout den tonight, and while I didn’t attend I was asking him about the activities he did.

One of the techniques they practiced was in essence packing a severely bleeding wound hole with gauze and pressure. Packing, not just pressure. For a specific reason which maybe they went over but my kid is only 9 and has ADHD so I’m not sure it really hit him.

I actually don’t think about school and community violence often except during my trainings. This year in my cpr/first aid training for the first time in taking about 35 years of keeping my red cross first aid/cpr/later AED training up to date every two years, there was a quick clotting bandage and tourniquet component. (For the rest of the time it’s always been NEVER use a tournique unless given instructions to by 911/EMS–except that’s not the world we live in and hasn’t been for awhile).

I also notice that all of the hallways in my kids’ school (public) have bleeding control kits labeled as such, and my (private) school I’m employed at is getting them too.

It’s really hitting me in my deep feelings tonight. I wonder when it was coming, since usually it happens when I pack a bunch of lollipops in my substitute go-bag, but that didn’t happen this year. Just…I’ve had to use my community cpr/first aid training for a lot of incidents over the years (choking, epi pen, lacerations, ect) but the fact that it’s now decided that tourniquets and hemostatic gauze is entering the community Red Cross training makes my heart heavy even if I’m glad that it is.

And my 9 year old practiced packing a bullet wound type of injury tonight.

I think what got me about this last was negative ooc complaining at a constant and somewhat inappropriate (in the sense of directing that venting at someone not known well) level right off the bat. To an exhausting level. I chalked it up to me being intolerant/less able to handle stuff due to RL stress/feeling stretched thin. I suppose it was borderline reportable at the time but it wasn’t creeper stuff and again I was worried I was just being oversensitive. (Which could have been the case anyway).

But I have had a few people ping me as off lately for reasons that I can’t put my finger on and I do feel bad bc its made me avoidant where usually I would love stepping up to help if desired, because its not to the level I feel comfortable officially reporting and I mean let’s face it, my tolerance level is way way lower than my norm.

I checked it out, it looked interesting, but when i was browsing the roster pcs I was instantly turned off by one of the older male professor pcs whose RP hooks contained multiple lines DADDY DADDY DADDY (like literally it said this on one of them).

I assume this is some kind of personal in-joke, but it was a real turn off even though I don’t usually have a problem with sexual references and stuff, they can be fun. Maybe it was the whole professor and student thing? I think it’s one thing on a private game or whatever, but for me personally knowing a staffer was trying to recruit for a specific PC using that (and little else) just seemed like there wasn’t a lot of discretion there and it’s really that that’s the turnoff.

Or maybe I got full up on finding the SPANK ME DADDY oriented PCs when I was doing WoD apps. Or I’m old and boring and unfun now. Who knows. It was too bad because at least at the time the logs seemed fine and everything else seemed okay. That particular thing was so striking that it popped that red flag right on up there.

I don’t feel that tells the whole story. Sometimes being included in plot/action stuff very very much depends on who you know, and especially if you are not maximum available, how much people are willing to hold space for you.

I wish people didn’t always turn this into “if you’re not in action/plot its because you just prefer social things” that is honest far from the truth a lot of the time.

Especially on a big game, I really do not feel like it is fair to imply that.