Best posts made by Monogram

I don't know if this has already been covered in this thread, I didn't read through the entire thing, but I find what's more rare than an honest apology from someone owning up to what they've done, is the idea of forgiveness for someone fucking up on a game to someone else.

This was bred out of a conversation I recently had with someone on a game. And it got me thinking. For all the bile and angst and rage that MUs seem to generate at times, we hear so few of the times that players who have had beef in the past being able to move forward, forgive the other person(or even admit their own fault to where the anger came in some cases)and move forward.

There have been a certain number couple of times where I've heard someone say "Oh, I can't believe that X and Y are friends again. Especially after what X did/said/done to/about Y." And I sometimes ponder to myself how unfortunate it is that it's so rare that we hear about it. Or least, from my perspective anyways. Made me wonder why this this.

If it's just a symptom of it being the internet, that anonymity allows grudges to fester, sometimes for years. It's true that this isn't exclusive to MUing. Far from it, but I suppose this is my best example since this is where I see it most often. I guess, I try to look at from the standpoint of, "holy shit aren't we supposed to be adults about this?". Which yeah, is easier said than done(and we say this so much I notice), notably if you're one of the injured parties involved. It's easier to be mad and resentful than it is to look at it from the other perspective.

And maybe there are just some truly shitty people in the world. Not saying everyone is a saint either. We fuck up, we make mistakes, we lie. I know I have and have lost people that I valued as a RP partner in the process of that, and I do regret that. But the number of times I look at myself and consider how many people I've forgiven versus the number of people that I haven't and that number is eschewed heavily to one side that I can't say I'm all that proud of. So maybe it is easier to just be mad and hold some animosity for some stupid shit that one person did months or even years ago, when realistically, I can't think of a reason why I'm still mad. Only that I am. Especially when that reason seems more and more petty. Maybe it seemed relevant at the time, less so now. The whole concept of the Hatfields and the McCoys, they keep fighting a war they no longer know why they're fighting anymore.

Maybe you're angry because you feel slighted. That you didn't do anything wrong, and yet get your name dragged through the proverbial MU mud. Because once your name is tarnished, it's so hard to get back. And it doesn't even matter whether or not what you did is even true. Because easier to avoid that person on chans, leave scenes the other person is in, and just be petty.

Or maybe you're angry because someone was honestly shitty to you. They lied to you, screwed you over for some kind of IC advantage or magic macguffin. Or lied to you OOC, saying one thing and doing another. Or they hurt a friend of yours in a IC or OOC way. The list is pretty long for reasons why.

You could do nothing and let the anger fester because you don't want to cause some kind of confrontation that could spiral out of control. Which happens in a lot of cases. On the flip side you can also be a dick and antagonistic(though depending where you play, it might just get you banned) instead of just asking, 'so yeah, i'm pissed at you, but I want to hear your side of it. I want to know why you did/said X'. Maybe they'll apologize, maybe they won't, maybe they'll lie to your damn face, but maybe the fact that you considered long enough to actually broach the topic says more than than anything else. Some might appreciate it, some might not care, but I feel like what matters is that you tried.

Though what I think is the most insidious of all this is the word of mouth. You hear from one person that X did/said this about Y and you, someone who had nothing to do with the situation decides, well shit, they're an assclown, fuck them and the horse they rode in on. Holy damn, that is something I was horrible with for a long time. Come to my shock that, wait hold on, Y isn't even that bad, why the hell was I even mad at them?

It might mean nothing in the end. At the very end of the day, most people, beyond the ones you talk to on a heavy OOC basis where you share Skype handles and phone numbers, don't mean much. They're lives will never intersect with yours beyond whatever method of online media you partake in(unless you stream Twitch and someone decides to be a dick and SWATs you). But the longer I've been in this hobby the more I think I should actually try forgiving people that I've fell out of touch with, especially if the fault was mine, or if I've deserved some measure of it in some kind situation where neither side came out looking pretty. And on the other hand, I should be willing to forgive when someone honestly comes to me and apologizes.

Or maybe I'm just getting older and more jaded and realizing that I'm indeed 'getting too old for this shit'. Could just be simply as not caring as much as I used and letting really old and dumb reasons for being angry go.

tl;dr Monogram matures a little

An update.

I realized today that I had to do the hardest thing I've ever had to do when it comes to MUs. I had a breakdown today. It's something I'm not going to go into detail about, but there was a lot, well, it was messy.

I need to start taking steps. Small ones, slow ones, to try and better myself. I could not do so while on the game that I play on. It has gone past a degree of escapism and turned into something else. Something worse. To fixate and try to replace things in my own life with a fictional fake.

This was bred out of anxiety, depression, self-doubt, anger, jealousy and it all bled from my real life into my MU life. All the things we hate to admit we do and can sometimes be on MUs, I was and have been many of them. And it needs to stop. Today. Because I can't do this anymore. I can't take the tightness in my chest.

I write my feelings down here, raw, unedited. Because I want others to know, there is a particular dark side to letting escapism become some much more and so much worse than an idle hobby. And I don't want to be that person that people here look to and say '..ew'.

I'm not well. I know I'm not. And it ends at this point. I may of written about trying to get better in posts previous, but I have stepped away from the game. I has asked to be IP blocked from the game for at least two weeks for my own sake.

I'm looking up therapists tomorrow. Not to be able to go back and RP. But because I want to get better. I'm tired of being scared. I'm tired of feeling like this. I need to fix it, or I will never be happy. And eventually, I will of pushed everyone I care about away because of it.

Clearly, the obvious solution is that staff shouldn't be allowed to have their own alts.

Then again, maybe no one should have a character.

What a strange game. The only winning move is to not play.

http://deadspin.com/aaron-hernandez-commits-suicide-in-prison-cell-1794445345

Say what you will about Aaron Hernandez, but at least he killed that scumbag Aaron Hernandez.

Can you give legit reasons for not liking something and still be a creeper?

Why not both?

I followed his battle that he would talk about on here and back on WORA. I admired his strength to be able to handle everything that came at him with a sense of grace. He never seemed down about it, he always seemed to accept it for what it was and fight forward despite that.

I never knew him on any place but here, but I always admired that about him.

And for the rest of us? We're all a little lesser for his passing. He will be missed.

This is my horde of animals.

The cat loaf in front is Old Man Merlin. Had him since 2005. He's old, going deaf. But he's the best cat I've ever had. He does nothing but want your affections and will be happy to sit next to you on the couch all damn day. He may not be able to hear a damn thing you say, but somehow he knows when a package of lunch meat is being opened.

The gray floof in the middle is Gandalf. This cat usually has a constantly worried expression, and I'm pretty sure he's scared of his own shadow. He doesn't meow, he simply chirps. My friend has decided to start calling him Floof Wizard.

And that bitch in the back is Saskia. She's dense as hell, both literally and figuratively. She's constantly being a little shit and she's either too fat or too lazy to clean her own butt, so randomly there's butt streaks on the carpet that I have to scrub. She can be sweet, but those times are rare.

Throw me in a game set during the Dominion War. Paranoia about changelings. Klingons civil unrest. Rebellion on Cardassia Prime. Romulans being shady little shits.

That's a ST game I'd play.

Edit: Or you could set a game where you play the Maquis. Smaller crews, numberous ships.

Mostly I'm writing this because it didn't really fit into @Catsmeow thread. That's more of the physical health. This more along the lines of mental well-being and how to take care of one's self. Although some of may be completely stable, normal human beings with few hangups and luckily enough have a decent and sensible head on their shoulders and some may have their own issues they struggle with every day and most simply don't know.

Speaking for myself, and this has been a very long time in coming(years, even), I've realized that I need to work on me, myself. And for the longest of time, again, years, I thought these were problems I could deal with on my own. That I didn't really need help, the belief that I had them completely under control. Turns out I don't, or maybe I never did. And I couldn't say what started it all. Come from a middle class(when we used to have a middle class)family, grew up in a rural area, so I like to think that it had nothing to do with my upbringing.

Even as I sit here and type this, at 34 years of age, I can feel myself starting to get angry at the belief that this should not be an issue. That I'm old enough that I shouldn't worry about this sort of thing. So why do I feel the way that I do about various things? Now, I'm not going to self-diagnose myself since I think we do too much of that(like staring at WebMD and believing you have cancer), but after talking to enough people, asking for honest opinions and the niggling prick at the back of my head I've had for years leads me to believe I've had a certain degree of depression my entire life. The constant self-doubt, the feelings of not being 'good enough' and the continual sense that I'm 'being a bother' or that I'm simply not living up to other people's expectations. Or that I'm simply not worth it. Doubt, self-esteem, things like that.

My fiance tells me this is something I should've been treated for ages ago(I also wish I had her ability to pick up and drop RPing and not care), and I guess she came to the opinion that I'll face it when I'm ready to do so. So that's where I'm at now, trying to move forward from there. And it has bled into my MU life more than I'd like to admit. That you want to be 'worth another RPers time' or have some kind of sense of belonging or trying not to have that feeling that you're just not good enough for you or your character to be interesting to others. And the more I focused on that, the worse I seemed to get. Always feel like having to say 'sorry' during pages because you feel like you've said too much or you're spamming someone or you're afraid they don't want to talk to you. The list goes on, really.

It all seems silly, reading this back to myself. That I should just be able to 'grow up' or not let it bother me or have fun for me and not anyone else. And I know that and I tell myself that all the time. I just don't know why I can't let myself do just that, and I want to. But I think that now that I've finally admitted these things to myself and to a greater audience at large, I can try to get better. Improve on not just myself from beyond the computer and the MUs, but be able to do so within them as well. I was willing to ignore a lot in the name of a lot of things, but I can't do that anymore.

And now that I've talked about myself enough for these things, there is another actual point to the thread. Being that what other people do help themselves when it comes to mental health. Whether it's seeking advice, council, even medication or things along those lines. Because at this point, I don't know if I could afford seeing a therapist or medication, so I've been doing what I can to read up on things to help myself. It's a far better than just ignoring it and thinking I'm fine. And maybe what worked for someone else will work for me.

While I've been on the game for quite some time(and I really do enjoy it much like others have already said), there is a sinking suspicion that I think some players are using the reasoning of 'well it's conflict' to mask questionable behavior. And while I won't sit here and sling names, there are a few people that are so antagonistic that there's just no dealing with them unless you yourself are an conflict-based character. I've had a few times where I had to sit back and wonder about that.

Likely it's simply because this game, more so than others I've played has been more conflict heavy than others. And it can be daunting, perhaps intimidating to the point where you don't want to deal with it. And overwhelming, a lot of stuff is being thrown at you all the same time that there barely seems to be time to breath. Ironically enough, playing my Grounder alt has been more refreshing, because I can only take so much angst and the "I'm out for only me" mentality.

That all being said, I think the game is great and has a good playerbase and players that don't seem to be absolute jerkwads. But playing a Delinquent can be mentally exhausting at times, especially being around particular alts that seem to just want screw just about everything up. But hey, what game doesn't have that aspect of things?

If I were to take anything away from the intial post.

Someone go check on Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan and make sure they're both okay.

And as another note, is GRRM writing this year? Fucking Red January or some shit.

Fuck this month.

@Lorne'eth Could you play the troll and internet-tough-guy card any harder? I never played on KD, but if it's full of people like you, sorta glad I never bothered with the place.

So long as I can, at some point, play out the knife game, I'm completely on board.

I feel like this is more becoming my own personal blog on my mental health than an actual thread devoted to how people take care of themselves.

I made an appointment tomorrow to see a therapist.

I've been told that that's one of the hardest steps.

I liked the game for what it was. I had fun and I enjoyed my time, and I don't regret my decision to keep playing it even when I was told I was wasting my time. And I'm happy to made more than a couple of new friends in the process of playing it. But no game lasts forever either. And I'll take something that's not WoD any day of the week.

The game was far from perfect and I have no qualms saying as much. But realistically, if you enjoy a game for what it is, that's sorta the point. Everything else is just a matter 'someone is wrong on the internet and that pisses me off' or 'stop liking what I don't like'.

Play what you like. Enjoy it for it what it is while it lasts. And fuck the haters who think you're wrong for having what they view as 'wrongfun'. RP and the games associated with them isn't a popularity contest, no matter how hard some people try to say otherwise.

Today was a good day. I know only started medication this week, but I have already noticed a difference in how I think and perceive things. It could also be a placebo effect on my brain, but the constant anxiousness and that particular tightness in my chest isn't as noticable. As if things are more manageable now. Aware of them, but they don't control or rule how I act and react. It's a good feeling.

I logged into my MUs for the first time in ten days, just to see if I was comfortable enough with doing so. Catch up on boards, just say hi to people. It was a good feeling and to myself, as if I had taken a positive step forward in the right direction.

I don't want to jump right back into RPing, not yet, but at least able to log in and poke at things lightly, I feel good about that.Like what I've been doing has been having a positive effect.

I feel calm and comfortable. It's not a feeling I've had in a very very long time.

I'm only doing this because @Crysta convinced me to. There's been a lot of games over the years, and I'm probably not remembering all of them but I'll try to recall what I can. Yeah, I know I'm missing a couple of places in the past.

Previous Places

Steel and Stone - Aeron Nayland and Kain
Eternal Crusade - Marcus <something>(ditched because Nermal was crazy)
Game of Kings - <something> Sollinger(though that was before the game opened)
Fifth World - Cedric Orelle, Flint Grantham, Solace Temple
Game of Bones - Some kooky old mage hunter can't remember the name.
Fallcoast - Lucius <something>. Cop and Giest never really got to play him
BITN - Jacob Solomon(shortly lived but fun)
Star Crusade - John Solomon
Realm Adventurous - Lainn Laverstock, Cole, and Arngeir Shrewton
CoMUX - Peter Quill, Thunderstrike

Current

Battlestar Unification - Jacob Marx

I don't know if this is a downside to what I've been going through, but the longer I've been treated, it almost feels like you develop a kind of new self-awareness for your surroundings. To be given, or realize a newer sense of clarity that you hadn't really noticed before. And now that you have, you can look back and realize, 'holy shit, I was messed up'. And it's only been three weeks or so since I first started on this track to try and get help. Get better. But already, I see the things I had done, or had acted, or had said, and realize that whenever I'd wonder why I'd suddenly lose a friend online or people were cold, that it wasn't because of any grand scheme or assholishness, it was my own behaviour. It was me acting entirely erratic and off.

There is a guilt associated with that, especially when you realize it. I'm not going to sit here and blame it all on my brain chemistry, though I do think large portion does go to that. I wasn't me, I wasn't...right, I guess. And now, I feel as if I have a good deal of people to apologize to.

I realized this had come to head when I was actively being excluded out of things. And someone told me, who I thought had been a friend, was actively ignoring me and they felt like shit over it. I realized then that it wasn't just on them, but on me. I had caused a lot of this to occur.

I think I've come a long way from where I was. And I think admitting to it openly is something I need to do, not try and hide from mistakes I've made. It's all so sobering. On the same token, I also know I can't try breaking my back to mend bridges with people. Sometimes, you just can't. And if they can't accept that I'm trying to not be the person I was, or at least understand it, then I guess there's nothing else to be said.

At least I'm not torn up in knots over it.

Sourdough or gtfo