It's nearly impossible for me to conceive of a way of writing this without it being about my firsthand observations. That's my experience in the subject, that's everyone's experience in the subject. Over the years one observation has been constant: there's always going to be someone irked by the outcome. That seems to be a universal truth, not just about this topic, but about any and every topic. If there are enough different 'stakeholders' at least one of them isn't going to like the outcome. If conflict doesn't exist then something's missing; be it all of the stakeholders or the full details of progressing forward in time.

My present problem stems from the results of attempting to find a fair and universal way of approaching the topic of physical sex (typically the second dictionary definition: 'to sex': determine/declare which sexual organs are present) and social gender (loosely, which pronoun is preferred). My logical answer was to be both fair and avoid every stranger I encounter possibly considering something I say to be a slight towards them for lack of recalling their personal preference for social gender by always using singular they. In that goal I might have actually succeeded, but possibly at the cost of being seen as even more odd, different and confusing: someone others find revolting.

It seems likely that this same confusion and difficulty exists for any same-pronoun interactions as well. Maybe a surrogate pronoun buffer is used, like singular they for the 'other'. Maybe it's just unconsciously overlooked. Or maybe that's just something encountered mostly by those who have a preference for using the same pronouns already and it just gets overlooked. This is an area where my own observations don't work or count. My true self is a herm, and I've been using singular they for everyone for a few years now, during the few chances that haven't worked out.

The one thing I do know is that trying to remember everyone's preference just isn't going to work for me. I have enough difficulty remembering names and faces. Thus my decision tree looks something like this:

Draft Option A: Continue using singular they for everyone, to be fair and not prejudice anyone.
Draft Option B: Make an initial assumption based on some exterior factor; probably every conversation unless I've interacted enough for memories to sink in.

Option B is also more complicated and messy in other ways; such as related to myself. One of the other reasons I went to using 'they' was as a self description that was accurate and didn't seem to conflict with the not small portion of the population which actively detests the use of traditional (in the places I started roleplaying online) herm pronouns such as shi and hir. While I do still think of myself as an actual 50/50, not-feminine and not-masculine herm: in light of my 'custom no' (anti)kink about myself not penetrating others, I've concluded some pronouns imply expectations I will not fulfill. Even if someone obvious submissive who does use those pronouns isn't expected to fit those expectations either, the same appears to not hold true for herms. So with Option B is a set of sub-choices.

Option A they should work for everyone, dammit: Continue using singular they for everyone, to be fair and not prejudice anyone.
Option B hir with dynamic for others: Adaptive use of pronouns, with primary self pronoun shi/hir/etc (recommending falling back to she/her/etc if someone's uncomfortable).
Option C her with dynamic for others: Adaptive use of pronouns, with primary self pronoun she/her/etc (but accept shi/hir/etc for me as well).

Even though I list Option A, that is my 'status quo': possibly be one of the reasons things haven't been working out for me. The brink of this decision feels very much like that moment in 1984 (the book) when the guy in the resistance is so completely broken down by their torture, myself by social isolation and stigmatization, that they willingly drink the koolaid and want to believe.

What do the glimmers of light in my life want me to believe?
Equally as important, why is that opinion the best and correct one?
Please persuade me: what pronouns should I use?
Replies in public are preferred, but if you reply via a PM or note or something elsewhere please reply letting me know you've done that.

Since no one else seems inclined to add a new DLotD here's another classic series.

This is a story series from Glee's scraps. It doesn't really have a formal title I'm aware of so I'll refer to it as "Jerry's story" since I searched 'Jerry' in my glee/*.txt files to verify I had all the pages. Thank you Glee for writing this AND using the date in the filenames, made finding the links much easier.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2821997/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2830402/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2855083/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2859197/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2864495/

The various X becomes a Slave stories (multiple authors)

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/46003/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/868778/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1377481/

These are the three from my Fav's, if I'm missing one please add it in a reply :)

We just couldn't decide, so I'm going with the three top suggestions, one for each main gender.

Female: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3417716/ The always hot Elektra in her new look.
Herm: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2065734 Sphere was also suggested, it makes me shiver, but you can read the comments to find out why.
Male: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3053148/ Endium has some tasty thoughts, this suit is both especially kinky and embarrassing.

Since there were a two competing desires and a set of links for one I've decided to make a journal and indirectly link both options:

Female:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3370354/ A Rubbery Winter Morning - RubberVixen

Herm: (please view in order of first listed to last for maximum enjoyment)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1431507/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1431588/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1812653/ On Loan - Glee - M/H, Many ?'s/H bondage, latex, heavy orgasm denial

Enjoy; remember the most important rule: no orgasms ;p

The game is primary won by /playing/ it. Here are the rules.

* In each round every active player must add one new bondage device or toy to another player (even if now inactive).
** They must store the keys or release methods for locks/etc in such a way that the bound subject cannot undo their own lock/etc.

* A player must be able to guard their locks during a round; any locks which are /effectively/ unguarded during a round -must- be confiscated (and thus controlled by others instead). The first sent pose during that turn would typically have priority for acquiring the access, but the final decision shall be made by the now 'inactive' player if they are present during the turn.

* The game ends when, after a round, one or less players are still able to use the keys/etc.
** The 'fun' might still go on with related 'games' though.

Much like my favorite's purge the watch purge used a similar strategy. With a now cleaned account I re-added the 38 favs I wanted to keep by accessing the fav toggle URLs. I did not keep a list of watches I wanted to restore, as there were far too many for me to sort through. I'll re-add watches from memorable artists and others that I want to receive submission notifications on.

#!/bin/sh
#purgewatch.sh
~/bin/ff3x-cookies.sh | grep furaffinity > /dev/shm/facookies.txt
while [ "$?" == "0" ]
do
wget --load-cookies /dev/shm/facookies.txt -O /dev/shm/fafavs 'http://www.furaffinity.net/controls/buddylist';
perl -ne 'if($_ =~ m{\"(/unwatch/[^/]+/)\"}){print "# \n"}' \
/dev/shm/fafavs | tee -a /dev/shm/faunwatch > /dev/shm/faurls
if [ ! -s /dev/shm/faurls ] ; then break ; fi
wget --load-cookies /dev/shm/facookies.txt -i /dev/shm/faurls -O /dev/null
done
rm /dev/shm/facookies.txt /dev/shm/fafavs /dev/shm/faurls

After years of seeing a huge swath of favorites that I never remembered adding (and suspected were either database corruption or the result of my early attempts at tracking users before FA's more modern late 200x url format) I have finally made a list of the favorites I want to keep.

Lacking a Nuke button for favorites I've opened a trouble ticket; however at this time that feature doesn't even seem to be at Wishlist priority, so I've taken to doing it in an at least automated, but less efficient way.

ff3x-cookies.sh is a method for retrieving the cookies from a firefox 3 sqlite3 database; I didn't write that code but did modify the wrapper.

The process is effectively; "load favorite's page 0", "grab all the delete urls", "wget the urls", "exit on error", "loop"

Oh, not automated is backing up the favorites the user wants to keep and re-adding them. I might see if add favorite can be mutated from the backup urls, but if not it won't take -that- long to re-add my favs.


#!/bin/bash
# ff3x-cookies.sh

SQLFILE=${1:-~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/cookies.sqlite}

cp $SQLFILE /dev/shm/cookies.sqlite

sqlite3 /dev/shm/cookies.sqlite <<EOF
.mode tabs
.header off
select host as domain,
case substr(host,1,1)='.' when 0 then 'FALSE' else 'TRUE' end as flag,
path,
case isSecure when 0 then 'FALSE' else 'TRUE' end as secure,
expiry as expiration, name, value from moz_cookies;
.exit
EOF
rm /dev/shm/cookies.sqlite


#!/bin/sh
# whatever
~/bin/ff3x-cookies.sh | grep furaffinity > /dev/shm/facookies.txt
while [ "$?" == "0" ]
do
wget --load-cookies /dev/shm/facookies.txt -O /dev/shm/fafavs 'http://www.furaffinity.net/controls.....orites/0/';
perl -ne 'if($_ =~ m{'"'"'(/controls/favorites/delete/[0-9]+/)'"'"'}){print "# \n"}' \
/dev/shm/fafavs > /dev/shm/faurls
if [ ! -s /dev/shm/faurls ] ; then break ; fi
wget --load-cookies /dev/shm/facookies.txt -i /dev/shm/faurls -O /dev/null
done
rm /dev/shm/facookies.txt /dev/shm/fafavs /dev/shm/faurls


### Edit 1 # Added 1 space before \n to try and retain the \ in the face of lacking a style tag.
### Edit 2 # Using a temporary file to test for zero url length, since wget returns true when given no urls on it's input.

Well, I've always intended to post things related to various RP's I've done that are polished in here... but for the moment there's this. Obviously it's useful for normal Dares, but... I prefer the adult version. Standard T/D rules for 'dares' apply.

The rules for 'multi-dare'. First though, a bit of background.

Background:
I like Truth or Dare, but the Truth part is always quite boring. So for a while I've had an idea in my head, but only recently did it get called forth in a certain IRC channel. The basic idea is combining the type of game show where there are multiple choices with the Dare part of truth or dare. Naturally there's a problem, what if the one coming up with the dares forces you to pick whichever one they want? The solution is to have a third player, besides the one coming up with the dare and the one being dared, to be a 'neutral' observer.

Rules:
1. The game is comprised of any number of 'rounds'. Everyone wins, and each round can see 3 or more players, even the same players.

2. Before the start of each round a list of players will be created. The list is to be randomized, but patterns occurring repeatedly explicitly broken up.

3. The list wraps around, so that the 'last' player on it comes 'before' the first.

4. The goal for each round is for each player to create a list of at least two possible dares for the player after them in the list, and secretly tell them to the player before them on the list. (They needn't stay secret past when a dare is selected from them.)

5. Then, after step 4, the dare-giver asks the dare-taker to select from choices (A, B, or C, 1, 2, or 3, or any other way of keying a completely generic answer to a given dare). Either the Dare-giver or the Observer (prior player) may answer, with the other correcting them if required. Ideally such corrections do not occur.

6. Since the order is fixed before each round starts, more then one set of dares can occur at once. (For example if there are 8 players, players 1 and 4 can start their dares for 2 and 5 respectively.) In this way, multiple 'dare tokens' can be passed around, until everyone has completed their dares.

7. The round is completed when everyone has completed their dares. Should a player drop out during the round, the list shortens, and responsibilities transfer automatically.