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!

I still have some of the pain and fatigue over 2 months later. Please please consider getting the booster if you’ve not already done so. I’m pretty sure had I not had the paxlovid access I would have had to go to the hospital.

I’m reasonably certain it’s just a shake off frustration post. That’s how it read to me anyway, and there’s been stuff going on there since.

Until game owners make posts saying that they’re closing the game, I don’t assume that they’re closing it. I thought we’ve learned that lesson before when game runners make a relatively innocent post in the community about needing to take a little time to destress and people immediately freak out and abandon ship.

Just like the spigot of new game FOMO excitement from the community can obliterate games and crush gamerunners’ souls beneath the feet of WhY AReN’T U DoinG IT LiKE tHe GAmE I waNteD iN My HeAD/THaT oTHer PlACe?!?!?!eleventyone!!111! I think sometimes the opposite happens too.

I appreciate when private scenes are hidden from view honestly. That way I don’t have to see my lonely just me scene is cricketing while others are actively posing on their private things. (Even if I intellectually understand why that might be happening, and I myself would have been likely to have a private scene too, it’s still kind of an ouch personally) That tends to remove most of my stress of FOMO.

I usually have set a time limit for myself for how long I’ll wait for someone to show up. If I liked the set or managed to come up with a clever title, I shamelessly keep it and close/stop it! And then recycle the next time I get a nibble of someone saying yes to my RP request channel post or whatever after I’ve spammed the channel for days with no response. I’ve never had anyone complain about it, they probably never noticed me on the orginial scene in the first place.

Keeping/reusing is actually very helpful to me especially with my brain and now fatigue issues. I’ve not done this on concordia because private scenes are visible, but I’ve done it regularly when it could be hidden and even tried to have like 2ish premade scene starts ready to go so that the other person/people and I could jump into play without having to wait for someone to come up with the mental energy to fill out that form.

Grieving a bit over loss of RP energy. Well, loss of anything energy. I really appreciate how understanding my RP partners have been. I still fret. And I miss pick up and public scenes that are live. I figure I keep bombing impressions for anyone who isn’t familiar with my RP and storytelling capacity.

But going on now almost 2 months of pain and fatigue post covid is maddening. Luckily i think this time of year most everyone is crazy busy. I miss you. even if RL is biting a lot of folks right now.

@Polk why not put out a query more public, maybe you might have met some new people that would have loved to participate.

@Third-Eye i have lost count of how many times I have been told that if I jumped through all the hoops I would get more action. One time famously by a staffer who had left my job unanswered for over 18 months (with a ping from me every 2 months). I think by the time I gave up, I had like 6 open jobs (I’d long given up on that particular one). It kind of trained me to not do jobs/mail/requests because usually there is events you can sign up for but for me the snubs in private while the person is telling people they just should get up off the butts just really feels bad. Once I have something go unanswered with absolutely no communication for 6+ months i assume that my participation is not wanted or wouldn’t be important anyway.

There are lots of reasons people fall through the cracks. We are all human and I dont really begrudge staff either but for Pete’s sake don’t tell people they’re just lazy and dumb when they’ve got stuff in your queue.

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.

Covid recovery sucks. I made the terrible decision to pick up two full time days of the last week of preschool summer camp. Cue needing to lay down in an unused classroom during lunch and seeing stars a few times. And actually crying on the way home due to tired. Now I’m going to bed. And following the advice to take it as easy as possible for the next several weeks.

School boards are been targeted heavily these last few years. We have a robust district community discussion group (over 5 figure membership level and all stakeholders welcome) and that has frequently weeded out the stupid people. Nothing like publishing a q&a written response questionnaire and seeing who never bothered to respond and which candidates are like “I’m unfamiliar with that.” On even basic things.

But that was organized after we had people with white supremacist/Christian nationalist ties run 2 cycles in a row. Good times.

@junipersky eh maybe. Last year first day of school I had a child literally flip a shelf of fragile objects when they didn’t want to transition to the next activity and then later injure me by throwing a chair at me which i had to eat so it wouldn’t hit the other child behind me. And like another one pooped in the sandbox.

This person’s weird attempts to troll seem more like robust farting than all out poop in the sandbox? But maybe I have a high tolerance.