Yellow Rose's Garden

Dear Friend,

I could tell you that what's going on is a huge karmic bitchslap, but it's not what it's about. It's not about you and me. What it's about is some people think they are better than you and don't grasp the concept that other people have opinions as well. Let them do all the work on their own and see that it's what happens when others are driven away.

People rarely miss the water until the well runs dry. The attitude becomes, so what, new people will come to take the trouble maker's place. Catch is those sweet wonderful people that take that position rarely see that they are the a part of the cause. No one ever sees the woman go into total bitch "I'll eat your face" mode or the guy in "I'll beat your ass" mode because they never or rarely do it where it can be seen. They do it in private where no one else can see they aren't the nice kind person that they want everyone to believe they are.

If you don't stand up for yourself, how can you expect others to support you? Have you stopped caring altogether? Don't make me bitchslap you, stand up for yourself. It has become personal on many sides, don't you think it's time you added your side to it? Once I cool off, I think have a letter to write.

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Dear RP People at Large,

You know, it bothers me when people take advantage of being a mod to squelch the opinions of others but their own are allowed to roam freely all over the place. It bothers me when people don't acknowledge that others are entitled to an opinion. People don't use examples with names if they are smart because it spurs comments like "Oh, so THAT'S what got the knot in your shorts?" However, let's be realistic, generalities are usually spurred by specifics. Catch is, not only does one get fried for the choice of example, but back in the day they got fried for harassment of the other party.

RP wise, it bothers me when people assign or deny motivation to characters that are not their own. Really bothers me when I have seen proof with my own eyes that things could be different than what they believe. That's just my opinion.

Recent incidents are reminding me of the whole secret meetings deal with Dragons Mark. Anyone that had not been reading the Players Assisting Players boards or the Kitchen Sink board is not likely to understand what I mean. It was interesting to learn that Panther had publicly promised a voice to all in decision making for the RDI then we learned that things were being decided in closed door sessions between him and the pirate. Seriously, they had the Member Room open and she wanted the boards closed. WTF? She used the analogy of not being able to get the ship underway with a foot on the dock. When I confronted her and she said the MR was a gateway, I'm like... you can't have it both ways.

The MR eventually shut down, but the bad taste that was left in several peoples' mouths keeps them from going there. Or as Akhir put it, "usage of the imperial WE" by TT indicated she was the one really running the show not Panther.  They had to tell her to shut up. Let's face it, you don't market your product successfully by outright calling your target audience idiots because they disagree with you or don't like being lied to. Anyone not reading those boards at the time probably has no idea what happened, but this is me venting.

Over in ME, there's a no holds barred way of dealing with things. Yes, it often leads to standstills in stories, but you know, I'd rather have the brutal open honesty of ehzoterik than the bitching behind the scenes that I can't see that's going to have an effect on me in some way that I don't know about until it's too late to say anything.  I have a right to know what's being decided for me, especially when it's disguised as being in the interests of privacy or a need to know basis. If my life or my RP is going to be effected, I need to know, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

I'm not as hard to get along with as some people think. However, if you want to start from the point of open warfare, be warned, the bear is stirring and doesn't like being poked. As my friend, Michael, often said, "Never waken a sleeping bear without a shotgun." Women are not allowed in combat for a good reason, they will annihilate anything they perceive as a threat to their own doesn't matter the age or the gender. There are many cases in history where second queens murdered the offspring of the first to ensure their own were heirs.
 

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Dear Other Half,

I have to remember to thank you one day for telling me the real reason women are not allowed to serve in direct combat positions.

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Some general thoughts.

Fire purifies, but in order to do so, complete destruction is required. There is no halfway. Remember this, when you light the fire, eventually, it burns you as well.

Karma is karma, it always gets us in the end. I keep hearing about employers digging up personal journals of their employees as well as coworkers digging up shit on each other and using this information to dismiss others from jobs and whatnot. We all need to vent in our personal space. LJ is often said personal space. The minute we use someones need to get things off their chest against them is the minute we open ourselves to the same. As long as they aren't discussing a crime they have committed and are only venting leave them the fuck alone. Mark that well, Karma is as nasty a bitch, kids and she spares none of us. It may take years, but oh, yes, she gets us all. What will karma bring you in the end for what you have done in your life?

I got most of the things done on my Friday list. I opted to forgo the garden centers because I went nuts at Target's after Easter clearance. It's only April and already the heat or something is getting to me.

Monday, I will be cleaning out that Rubber maid storage shed on the patio. I picked up a couple of those little digging tools at Target for a buck. I'm not sure if my old ones are wrecked or not, but they were a buck apiece, so, it's no financial loss if I have two sets.
Need to dig up a plastic storage box from the garage to put said tools in.

( Well, stick me with a fork, I'm bitching about dumbasses again.. )

Lately, I just don't seem to have the urge to write anything outside my journal. Well, to be more precise I have too many ideas rolling in my head and they get muddled. I started a few pieces as well as done some for the Great Redcap Hunt, but ... it's like I'm second and third guessing some of those things.

Craft wise, I have finished the stitching on the four main panels for one of the plastic canvas vases. I need to cut the pieces for the base then the next step is putting it together.

Sent out the money to pay for Kevin's Christmas gift. He already knows what it is, but it's something he wanted.

Got a couple of odds and ends to stuff in the stocking for Tom.

Three boxes left to finish packing that need a ride to the local post office. Some people might think me silly for dropping them off one or two at a time instead of waiting for them to pile up and take them in one big stack. Thing is, if I waited, the seven I already sent would still be waiting to go.  It just works out better to toss what's ready into the car for the errand run and go.

Jessica and Aaron's stuff are among those waiting to be sent. Will be working on those this weekend. Have one to go to up north and another goes to points south.

Yesterday, I found two nice surprises in my mailbox, holiday cards from blackhilllife and mistralwind.

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Cryptic message to nhyrvana. I hear you, believe me. I suddenly find myself having to preface things that are not 100% my opinion with my opinion in order to avoid people getting on their high horses just to tell me I am all 100% wrong.

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I really need to clean out my buddy lists one of these days, there are some people on them that I haven't spoken to in ages, for various reasons, despite having seen them online. I start to hit that send IM button and then realize why I really shouldn't. I could use the reasoning one of the people has in the past, "I've slept since then," but I suppose that really doesn't wash.

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A new person has added me to their friends list. Hi to thatwouldbe_me. Please step up and introduce yourself.

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( The following might be offensive to some people and pleasing to others. )

Dear You,

Spank yourself, twit, since you do not grasp the concept that alienating people that you are supposed to be helping is not a good way to do business.

Thank you so much for killing what little love I had left for the RDI. Like my voice really matters when you have the control of all things for the new place? Actually, it does matter ... I can say NO, as can others that don't like your tyrannical approach. You just don't get it... it's not about you and you keep making it about what you want. It's about a lot more people than JUST you. I tried to tell you, as did a few others, that you need to put a sock in it because you are driving people away.

That is all...

We all need to vent to let off steam. Recently, I posted a friends only post to a community to do just that, vent, and let off steam about behavior that was bothering me and a couple of other people. What I was hoping for in addition to getting something off my chest, as always, was the input of the other community members on the situation. Instead of someone coming forward and saying, "hey, I know that person, you might try being direct and talking to him about what's on your mind," they passed along the post to him.

Had it been a public post, I could say, "Oh, my bad, I'm a moron for leaving it in the open. Problem is, I didn't leave it in the open, just as I don't leave all posts in my own journal open for public view. It irritates me that someone in the community, who won't come forward and who the guy received the copy of the post from won't name hasn't just violated my privacy in a totally anonymous way, but that of the entire community. We don't know if s/he has passed along information before, but it seems likely that they have.

Just for note, nonmembers can reply to public posts in the community, they are screened.

What's been accomplished is as follows:
The community's trust level is now in the crapper as far as some people go. Way to go, spy.
They circumvented my personal way of dealing with something, blow off the steam and maybe what was bugging me won't look so bad in comparision to what I thought was going on.
Instead of allowing me to gather the thoughts of the others to see if just maybe I was blowing things way out of proportion or voicing their view to me and saying, "Hey direct confrontation is best," which I know quite well.
Instead of having the calming influence blowing off steam usually does, having the process circumvented has just caused me and at least some of the other members to be irked.

It's simple:
Vent
Draw input, if any, from said vent
Cool down while determining if I overreacted or not
Confront the person/people causing my irritation is the last step.

IMs are often passed about like samples in a Baskin Robbins. Thing is, if it's a legit IM, you know it came from one of the people involved.
When the community admin gets a complaint letter on locked post, you have to wonder about the integrity of the person passing out the info as you must wonder about the intentions of the one passing the IM. What's the difference? In a community setting you can't be sure which member passed it on.

I really must ask a question of both deditio, who has come forward to post here, and whomever passed my post along. What sort of reaction did you think you would get when a complaint was registered based on a locked post? The balance of the regular posters in the community are not happy about having to wonder who has seen or passed on what they put in private postings.

Here's the irony, I posted privately because I was not ready to directly confront anyone, yet, the person in the middle, that has put deditio into the position of coming forward, was not willing as a community member to make themself known and their voice heard.

Unlike his friend, I must give deditio credit for not violating the privacy of the person that passed on the information. However, I will repeat the message I asked him to pass on to the person in question:

If they chose to step forward, it's up to them, but I doubt they will. However, what they have succeeded in doing is turning an already divided group into smaller splinters that are now wondering whose throat is in line to receive the next cut or whose back will receive the next knife and from whom. Maybe they have no conscience, but if they have even the remotest sense of one, they should be wondering about what backlash it will have on them.

I've been surfing the net and LJ. There are a lot of things I see that get me going "whatwhatwhat" like Kyle's mom in South Park.

First, I read this article by Andrew Vachss, who happens to be one of my husband's favorite writers, on Cyber Chumps. He's right, certain crimes existed long before Internet Explorer was a gleam in the eye of Bill Gates. While there are a lot of privacy issues that are questionable with the internet, I agree with what he says here: "Cyber-chumps "trust the Net" as fundamentalists do the Bible. That trust has great capacity to promote predators. Darwin dictates that, without skepticism, intellect dies. That's the danger, people. And it's very, very real."

Sidenote regarding finding things on the internet. For months people wondered who to complain to about a bitch that yammered about copyright issues on AOL, yet, on her own domain, she posted up a lot of posts without permission THEN had the gall to tell those reading it they needed her permission or the original writer's to reproduce it; would have been nice if she told them who the original posters were. Flipping hypocrite.... and of course a few people that didn't know the whole story were jumping up going... "But.. she CAN edit and crop pictures and put them on her character page if the artist says so." Well... yeah she can, but you know what? Look past the smokescreen, people, and see the bigger picture.

I'm not perfect, but I do try very hard to NOT beat people about the head for something I am guilty of doing. I have, on occasion, used photos of actresses for roleplay characters, but I don't stand there screeching at people to not do that. It's your own conscience and the law you will deal with in the end.

I haven’t posted an entry in some time. I start to write and then lose the train of thought. Not a good thing for someone that enjoys writing as much as I usually do. I was inspired by a piece of fiction though… A friend did a memoir series for an RP character of hers. I wrote one for my Double Star character and realized that I should be posting my own memoir after all, isn’t that partly what a journal is for?

First order of business is to offer happy birthdays and good wishes to anyone I missed over the last couple of months. My memory is full of holes and without the birthday reminders I forget to post. ( Read more... )

 It's been seven months now and barring an important message passed, I've left him alone. Can someone tell me why I miss someone that treated me so rudely? I'm not perfect and we both knew that we butted heads going into things. In the pissing the other off department, we were both guilty.

 I'm not the one that issued ultimatums and went into the mine, mine, mine rant. I'm not the one that dredged up the past that was supposedly long dead nor am I the one that was so narcissistic to believe that the other of us had ulterior motives with respect to me for bringing people along to a public event and meeting of friends. Funny thing, that, I had two ulterior motives, but neither to do with you .It's pretty awkward to be walking around in the cold of November without shoes. Most people would think someone, in the shape I was at the time, was prudent to bring someone along to drive if need be.

 I'm not the one that killed off one of the characters in your story without asking. The one that honked me most about IC BS? I'm NOT the one who decided who your character was having sex with and how many in a backstory. I am not the one that taught you to mode and then bitched when it was done to me. A woman can point fingers at any man that she believes to be the father of her child, that doesn't mean he is. I'm not the one that publicly broke off a partnership and failed to tell you first.

  I am the one whose character's history you changed, without asking, yet, bellowed to high heaven when that same character got pregnant without me asking you. Ah.... seems you forgot about the two pregnancies and other two children you never asked me about. Why do you think my character never wanted to know, with regard to one of her children, which of her lovers was the girl's father? That was me... not wanting to get into it with you over things again. I am the one who made the mistake of using your background scenario in a manner which you didn't intend. That one I'm guilty of. I am guilty of feeling hurt because after all we had already been through together when I thought we were finally on common ground, you sort of left me high and dry to play your new character. Did you once consider it was tiring to play out sex ALL the time? While I miss you as a friend, I'm better off without you as a writing/role play partner, even if we did produce some good pieces together.

  This is what hurt and still hurts, the rest, I long ago laid to rest. I'm not the one who asked to have a letter ignored, and instead of deleting what I KNEW would be an angry and knee jerk answer, never gave the chance to the person I asked one of. That's what hurt most, not the ultimatum, not the mine, mine, mine, not even the bringing up of past mistakes of your angry words, but that I was never given the chance to retract what I had said even though you had asked it of me and I had told you I would, but the answer was already in your mail. I just have to ask... why was I not worthy from you, what you asked of me? Someday... someday...