One side is “accidentally” doing Nazi salutes twice

And the other side suddenly cares now that it’s not their side’s cause du jour doing it

I’m stressed. I’m concerned.

---

EDIT: air quotes added for /s clarity.

@KarmaBum said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Kestrel I read everyone’s desc. I like reading them. Writing them can be a challenge sometimes, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

If we don’t keep challenging ourselves as writers and creators, we’re going to wind up RPing nothing but Movie Nights and Karaoke, linking to images of our outfits instead of actually (wait for it) describing anything.

Rabble rabble kids these days.

I don’t think we shouldn’t describe stuff. I just think we should only describe stuff that matters, when it matters.

It’s the Chekhov’s Gun principle. If it’s not going to go off in the second act, it doesn’t need a paragraph describing it in the first.

There are games where you’re encouraged to write a paragraph describing every garment your character owns, every object in a room, every body part, etc. For me, “a white T-shirt”, “a mahogany desk” is sufficient. And if your character’s a musician then it’s relevant that they have “pianist’s fingers”, if they’re a lumberjack it’s relevant that they’re callused, but otherwise I don’t care about their hands.

I have never and will never use ChatGPT to do my writing for me. But the stuff I see people using it for is almost always stuff they feel obligated to write that actually didn’t need to be written at all.

I would rather (can, and do) write 3 paragraphs describing something in the space of 10 minutes, during a scene, when it’s relevant setting — than 1 paragraph prep work with unlimited time. It’s drudgery that saps my motivation to play. Maybe it’s my ADHD but honestly don’t think I’m the only one.

@Warma-Sheen said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Third-Eye I wonder how long it’ll be before staff start requiring people defend their applications like one does with a dissertation, just to weed out those who wrote their backgrounds with an LLM.

This is what they get for still having people write out backgrounds that will never again have relevance once the app is approved.

Said it before and people totally misunderstood my stance as defending AI — I’m not:

The stuff that people commonly replace with AI these days, the drudgery that no one wants to write and no one wants to read (typically descs, filler text) is stuff we should just culturally outgrow as a hobby.

@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Third-Eye I wonder how long it’ll be before staff start requiring people defend their applications like one does with a dissertation, just to weed out those who wrote their backgrounds with an LLM.

There are apps that can detect with relative accuracy whether something is AI-written or not.

And I am completely 100% in favour of outright banning all use of AI-generated art and LLMs on any game.

I hope everyone who lives in or has loved ones in LA is safe.

@TNP said in Pets!:

She’s dying. The most important part of my life is going to be forever lost to me along with our little boy. I’ve scheduled a vet to come tomorrow. I just wish the vet could have a second shot for me.

I’ve felt keener grief for animals in my life than I have for humans. I’m very sorry you’re going through this.

Finding out someone I felt uncomfortable with, but not uncomfortable enough to openly voice my objections to:

1. Actually has a known history of much more serious permutations of this behaviour on other games
2. Was already shown the door on my current game without me needing to say anything

Thank u yes I knew I wasn’t just crazy, and I am so happy to know I’m now playing on a game with safe, healthy, vigilant staff.

I totally feel for people saying they don’t page people because they feel anxious etc.

My quibble is that, while I have no official numbers, I estimate that if I were to take a poll, 90% of this hobby would say they are anxious/autistic/depressed etc.

I hold it against no one for not making the first move. But I do think that past a certain point of familiarity, if you’ve been playing with someone for a long time, and you care about them, you are morally obligated on some level to force yourself to be the one who reaches out and initiates stuff from time to time. It’s the same with relationships. I’d be sad and insecure if my partner was always dtf when prompted but never initiated. I’d wonder if they actually like me or just like that I’m convenient.

Labour isn’t easy for anyone but you should still make the effort for people you value. Otherwise they won’t know you value them. You wouldn’t like feeling that way. That’s why you like it when they do the work, right?

Not a meaningful complaint. I know I’m being a silly insecure baby about it.

But I wish the person I’ve been playing with for years, who always expresses unequivocal enthusiasm and joy about our scenes, would sometimes actually initiate them, seek me out, invite me to games they’re on, so my brain weasels would stop making me doubt whether they actually want me there.

They always say yes when I ask but why is it always me asking.

So I really like it when someone can play a compelling sociopath who’s highly manipulative and intelligent. I think this is usually a more interesting kind of foil than just Punchy McPuncherperson.

But when they get caught and then try to lie about it OOC it’s a weird … sticky feeling.

I think I might’ve recently RPed with Jill on a game that has very limited/no OOC? Does she do that? Because I’ve never met her in the classic Guest sense, but I recently had a very weird scene, between two female characters, where that sort of exchange took place IC before I got weirded out and bailed.

I really gotta know if I’m the only person in the world who thinks the new season of HotD is just not good. Legit questioning whether it’s AI-written or something.

I don’t watch many shows these days, so I’m probably super late on the uptake, and I’m sure this has been a thing for a while …

But someone recently recommended I watch a show on Amazon Prime, so I did, and now I’m mad to realise suddenly there are ads and I have to pay extra on top of my membership to remove them??

Don’t I already pay for unencumbered viewing with the Prime membership itself? smdh. fkin bezos.

(Yes I know this is very much a first world problem peeve.)

EDIT: For anyone with the same peeve — swapping from AdBlock to uBlock Origin did the trick.

@Testament said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Tez said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Tez said in MU Peeves Thread:

I am begging game-runners to stop using ChatGPT.

I AM BEGGING PLAYERS TO STOP USING CHATGPT.

I’LL STOP USING IT WHEN GAMES STOP ASKING FOR DESCS

Disclaimer: If it wasn’t obvious; this is a joke, I use it to get ideas for a desc and then actually write one. As much as I absolutely loath to write it.

Although this is a joke: I do think that the advent of AI has done one small favour to the MU* genre, which is expose a lot of the drudgery that people don’t want to do. If people are so unmotivated to write or read prosaic descs that one could literally replace them with AI-generated slop, and in the minds of some people that would be better, then those are aspects of the game that might be superfluous.

I think this is a bigger problem on MUDs than MUSHes, but there are games where instead of walking in and posing, "Kestrel arrives on the scene, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. She looks around curiously and then waves to Testament", I would have a white T-shirt and jeans as codified objects on my person, that can be examined. And because some people think more prose is always better, there can be a cultural expectation that your character isn’t properly presentable unless each of those objects has a paragraph describing them. Even though no one cares, and no one is going to read a paragraph describing a white T-shirt. It’s a white fkn T-shirt, what more is there to say?

That’s the stuff I see people delegating to AI a lot now, and that’s my peeve. We should just rethink outdated cultural norms, instead.

People who are consistently always nice to staff.

… And only to staff.

@GF said in Comic Games Are Still Fun!:

@Roz “Politics” seems to imply viewpoints that people can disagree about in good faith. Alex Jones is simply an ongoing denial of objective, observable reality who has never spoken in good faith in his life. That it’s “controversial” to say so blows my mind.

Agreed about Alex Jones, however,

@GF said in Comic Games Are Still Fun!:

I didn’t want to go there because I’ve been trying very hard lately to identify and curb my prejudices, but yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought they meant. Being a minority is political, so you mustn’t discuss your life because it will make “normal” people uncomfortable, but “normal” people can chat shit about you because that’s not political.

I belong to a minority group (that’s a disproportionate target of hate-crimes in the UK & US) where it’s increasingly being castigated as some variation of:

@Apos said in Comic Games Are Still Fun!:

far right wing extremist and conspiracy theorist

[not by Apos, just borrowing the phrase] to say that I have a right to exist without being killed or raped for my nationality & ethnicity.

I am not right-wing, never have been, and no one who knows me would’ve ever accused me of being right-wing until under a year ago. Not because my values have changed, but because society’s goalposts have.

In an age of rampant disinformation, what’s considered “disagreeable in good faith” is a highly ephemeral standard.

I’m a highly political person, but I would rather have a no politics rule, even knowing how unfairly it’s applied to minority groups including my own, than have to repeatedly bash my head against a wall in a hobby space because someone fell hook-line-and-sinker for some TikTok disinfo and is now convinced that anyone who disagrees with them about it is a right wing conspiracy theorist engaging in bad faith.

This applies especially to historical & geopolitical topics, where education is paramount, and not guaranteed.

Théoden

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.

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.

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.