Big stronk men that aren’t afraid of anything and meet every challenge with a funny quip and a devil-may-care attitude. It’s boring. Give me someone who actually lets their character have emotions and fears and worries. Characters that make mistakes and have to work through them. Characters that have awkward moments rather than having a smooth line for any situation. I love that shit so much.

I wish we could let go of this expectation of ‘constant content’ in the community. I think this is why a lot of very creative, talented people either try staffing and burn out or refuse to even dip a toe in because it becomes something of a grind to feel like you always must be doing ‘something’ creatively. Most creatives just don’t work that way, especially those of us that are neurodivergent. The well needs time to refill sometimes.

I love creating stories. I happily give up time doing other hobby activities to do so because I love this hobby so much, but, man, is it discouraging that any lull in activity is seen as a problem versus just a natural part of the ebb and flow of creative activity. Sometimes, I am going to GM four scenes in a week. Sometimes, I am going to take a couple of weeks to do other activities, either game related or not, to let my idea well refill. I just wish we could normalize that a little more.

This isn’t really spurred on by any specific thing that happened so much as thoughts after reading some articles regarding Twitch streaming and burnout and thinking about how often burn out happens in the MUSH community, too. I also acknowledge that I am probably preaching to the choir here.

Thought posing in a one on one scene in order to provide context and a glimpse of an interior life of the character is great. Thought posing in bar RP to be a snarky jerk without getting the consequences of being a snarky jerk is annoying and puts those players on my To Be Avoided list.

I’ve been in a real creative funk recently due to various issues but I read a journal today that was just refreshing in the sense of wonder over stories that I’ve been working on for years at this point. It reminded me why I do this and I think I might see a path out of this black cloud.

I had a liver biopsy last week because my numbers are terrible and some ultrasound scanning showed some worry spots. The results of the biopsy show no cirrhosis and no cancer which is such a relief. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for a week.

When someone presents a screed about how they have been so mistreated in a game’s community and how people have betrayed them and talked bad about them…

But conveniently leave out how they were engaging in at least one nasty whisper campaign against a player that chose not to engage in romantic/TS RP with them. And how they have also weaponized their personal feelings about players to make reports against them.

Cool, cool.

Who even gets to define what is ‘civil’ or not? According to old white men, if I dare to complain about being marginalized in any but the most self-effacing of ways, I’m not being civil. According to my ex husband, if I rightly demand that he takes responsibility for the two children he helped create in any but the most non-angry and non-confrontational way possible, I’m not being civil. According to the MSB crew, if I drop a cuss word while explaining my point, I’m not being civil.

Civility is a code for ‘don’t make a fuss because I don’t want to really have to consider your emotional state’. I am usually pretty considerate of the emotional state of others but I am done putting other people’s feelings over my own. If someone wants to stop listening to me because I cuss and my vocal tone is upset, then the likelihood is that they were never going to listen to me in the place.

I’m not the sort to relentlessly attack or be ‘uncivil’ to anyone that I just don’t like. If I don’t like you, I’m just going to ignore you. But if I am dealing with someone who is abusive or a subject that I care a whole lot about? Damn right that I cuss and get expressive.

My head getting that something isn’t personal and my ego not getting that memo.

@BurnNotice I am going to take a little time to recover from COVID and then there are lots of exciting things coming down the pipe.

By which I mean war. Lots and lots of war.

In contrast to all my frustrated ranting on the Peeves board, my therapist gave my some resources about Rejection Sensitivity Disorder, how it works, and how it is a very common in women with ADHD and it has been so freaking validating. All my life, I have thought myself over sensitive and a lot of other really bad thoughts because I have hurt my own feelings over someone inflecting on a different word in a sentence than I expected.

I have spent years masking and beating myself up for these types of reactions and feeling very ashamed over crying over dumb rejections or reading too much into conversations. I thought this was something intrinsically wrong with me as a person and to find out that, actually, my gift for pattern recognition also means that I look for patterns where they don’t exist.

My brain is still fucked up but at least it’s not because I am at my core a terrible person? rofl

@hellfrog YES. And it is really hard to figure out how to express how the lack of executive functioning and the memory lapses have really fucked up my life in a lot of ways. I can be positive and gentle with myself and I am in therapy right now because my harsh inner critic was leading me down some dark roads, but all the mindfulness and gentleness and meds and self-accepting in the world doesn’t change that this sucks and I wish it were different.

My head getting that something isn’t personal and my ego not getting that memo.

@hellfrog said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

I am seventeen creepy frogs from the abyss in a cardigan.

I know that it certainly refutes any claims made about you when you come in and make situations in unrelated threads a chance to once again make it about you for sure.

@bear_necessities

For real, I wouldn’t waste the time responding over there, even just spitefully. Interacting over there at all just validates them that their opinions have weight and value in this community and they just… don’t. Just like how no ‘conservative Twitter wannabe’ has been able to succeed, they only want an echo chamber as long as they have an audience to show it off to. I just don’t see any reason to be that audience for them.

@TNP Right? Which is why I have no desire to even look over there. There is no one left there that isn’t also here that I really care about what they have to say.

@Meg said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

Yeah, the thing that these people don’t seem to understand is that it doesn’t matter who you are doing it to, but what you are doing.

I think it’s pretty telling when people make this assumption that only ‘perfect’ people can be victims. Being a victim doesn’t mean you cannot be an abuser. Being an abuser doesn’t mean you can’t be a victim.

Aww, I think the manipulative creep got her feelings hurt because we pointed out she’s gross. We are such bullies! To be safe, I think she should just never join any MUs run by or played by anyone here. Just for her safety, of course.