So I'm actually really happy with how my pumpkin turned out this year. I still see stuff I probably could've done with shading on various parts, but my hand was so tired by the time I quit last night at 3am, I decided to call it good. Here he is:
How about the rest of you? Let's see those Halloween masterpieces! 
So this is a second version of something I whipped up the other day, that I thought the community might get a kick out of. I have too much time on my hands, apparently.
I give you.. Crochethulhu!
Someone else did a thing, a while back. And, honestly, much as that person and I no longer see eye to eye on many things, the intent behind what she did was noble, and still stands out in my mind as 'a thing she did that was not only needed, but mature and courageous.'
It's difficult, apologizing. Even when you know damned well that you're in the wrong, pride can be a bitter pill to swallow. It's the mark of a conscientious, adult human being when one can choke that pill down and do what's right.
I owe a lot of people apologies. Not quite on the same scale, but I feel just as important, I owe explanations. Not justifications, not excuses, but questions have been posed to me that with only a few recent exceptions, I've deigned not to answer for reasons I thought at the time were considerate towards others, and wise.
Not a whole lot of you know me. And that's okay. I generally tend to try and keep my head down, my nose clean, and utilize this hobby we all share to spend time with the people I care about, weaving stories together and having fun. So I don't usually wind up joining in on this board, because so often it can veer so wildly off into negativity and drama -- a pairing that makes for the quickest drain on funtimes I can think of. So, a lot of people likely won't have any clue as to context, here, and probably won't give much of it any thought. That's okay, too. If what's been happening had no negative impact on you, I'm genuinely glad, and wholly in support of you being all, 'ohmigod this chick is writing some kind of novella, screw this' and closing the thread. For the rest, though..
I've been absent a lot, the past half a year or so. In activity levels, yes, but what I'm talking about goes deeper than that. There were lots of times that I was here, but not really here, if that makes sense. I wasn't myself. I wasn't there for the people who needed me, at all the times or in all the ways I would normally have bent over backwards to be there for. I wasn't always patient, or kind, or forthcoming, and sometimes I was selfish about things that, grand scheme, really should not have carried nearly the amount of weight I placed on them at the time. I was tired, I was moody, I was overly sensitive, and I was intolerant of things or people when I normally would've just smiled and chalked things up to differences of opinion, personality, or what have you. I wasn't 'me.' That person had faded into the background. I was 'absent.'
Back in December, I lost someone I held very dear to me. This someone was my 'person,' and it hit hard. I'd been struggling with depression for a solid chunk of time before that, so this loss hit me hard. But it also woke me up, at least a little. I'd lost this person because those things that made me who I was had already started to falter and fade, and they weren't willing to stick around and 1. watch it continue to happen, or 2. bear the brunt of my moodiness, my oversensitivity, etc. I can't fault them for that. Looking back, I don't think I would've wanted to stick around me, either.
It was shortly after that loss that I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The mass was small, but malignant. And frankly, were it not for the fact that the aforementioned person's abrupt departure had served as a solid slap upside my head, I might've just let myself sink all the way into oblivion. I would've helped my friends finish putting together the game we were starting, gotten my affairs in order, spent a little more time with the people who meant most to me, then just let go.
But I fought. The mass was removed, they got clear margins, my lymph nodes were blessedly clean. My oncologist suggested chemotherapy as a means of lessening the risk of recurrence, so I did that too, earlier this spring.
I didn't tell anyone about any of this. In retrospect, that wasn't very fair of me. The fight was hard, emotionally and mentally even more than physically. It was draining. I was tired all the time, I wasn't around as much, and if anything, I was even more moody than before. And the people closest to me suffered for it, which is precisely the thing I kept telling myself I wanted to prevent, when I made the decision to keep it to myself. I'd figured, hey. It was small, they got it out, I should be fine, so why bother anybody with it? People got problems of their own, they don't need to deal with mine, too. Instead, they wound up having to deal with the 'side effects' of what I was going through, without the benefit of knowing what I was going through.
That was wrong of me. And, to the people on whom it had an impact, I wanted to come forward and say that I was sorry. Genuinely, wholeheartedly sorry. None of you deserved any of that.
That's a blanket apology, offered up to the community as a whole. There are specific individuals, though, to whom I owe more personal apologies. I won't air the details of those situations publicly, and I won't try to force an interaction down anyone's throat that isn't wanted. But I will make myself available, so that these individuals can reach out to me if they choose to, and we can talk.
@Coin , @Auspice , @Goldfish , @Ghost , @Killer-Klown , @Botulism . I admit, I don't know a whole lot of people's handles on here, so there are others, but I'll likely need to reach out to them in some other way.
The one other handle I do know, which is fortunate as she's the biggest out of all of them.. @surreality .
I'm not looking for responses, here. I'm not looking for sympathy, or condolences. I can barely bring myself to wrap this all up and hit 'submit,' because I just.. don't really want undue attention. Most of all, I don't hold any expectations of forgiveness. None of the above excuses or justifies the way I've behaved, and I would never claim otherwise. But if recent months have taught me anything, it's "don't withhold the truth from the people who deserve it, respect from those for whom you feel it, and make damned sure every day of your life that the people you cherish know what they mean to you, and that they are appreciated."
... Also, "pride can get fucked."
Cannot even begin to express how much I love...
When a huge scene is going on (which are usually nightmarish), full of drama and tension and impending doom hanging like a cloud overhead.. but all the players are being downright hilarious and sarcastic and fun in [OOC].
Seriously, nothing better.
@Admiral -- Hmm. If that's how you choose to take the conversation I initiated in direct messages after your post in the Echoes thread, I suppose that's your decision to make. To clarify, though.. I wasn't pretending to not be myself. You asked if I was Moonshrimp, and I said I wasn't.
Because I'm not.
Nor was I trying to "get dirt on people." You had posted negative comments about the staff on my game, so I reached out to you to ask what had happened that made you want to avoid the place. Personally, I'm of the opinion that headstaff making an effort to find out what players' (or avoiders') concerns about their game are so that problems can be fixed or potential issues can be watched for is just.. responsible headstaffing. I'm sorry that you see it differently.
The winds are supposed to change. That's where that whole phrase comes from, right? 'The Winds of Change.' OooOOoo. So impactful.
Except they haven't. Not here at Reno. Not in a long, long time.
Reno was birthed from the mind of a mad genius. Blackjack, as he was known here and then ( @tragedyjones ), worked with a small cadre of like-minded crazy folk to create a dynamic environment. And they succeeded in that. Beautifully. He has our respect and gratitude for opening this place. He'd probably prefer gifts of money and/or beard grooming products, but our respect and gratitude will have to do.
Then Wendigo came along, scooped this pearl up out of the dust where it had been left abandoned, brushed it off, shined it back up some, and Reno lived on. She took her leave somewhat early on, but dedicated staffers kept things going.
And then the winds blew, and Mechanipus closed its doors. Reno faced closure. There was brief discussion about opening a new game on a new host, maybe set in Charlotte SC or up in the Pacific Northwest somewhere, but ultimately it was decided that we should throw things at the wind, and be all, "Fuck you, wind! Change sucks!"
So Reno was transferred, intact, to Kydance. And it's been a glorious run, kept vibrant with story, a steady stream of new and wonderfully creative players, and a metric fuckton of effort and dedication from the staff corps.
But this time, we can't ignore the wind. We've run out of sharp and pointy things to throw at it. Our voices are hoarse from all those "Fuck you, wind!"s. Reno's contract with Kydance is up, the first of the year.
Before you freak the hell out and stop reading to engage in an epic display of Muppet-arming, do read the next line, at least. I promise I'll be done waxing prolific shortly.
We will be renewing the contract.
This time, however, we're going to take a beat and do a pretty massively spectacular overhaul on this place. When we reopen, hopefully within a reasonably short timeframe, we won't be Reno anymore. All characters, all builds, all of the everything in the history of ever omg (okay not really but you get the idea) will be gone.
When we reopen in early January, the doors will be flung open onto a new city: Portland, Oregon. Contrary to rumors that are apparently already making the rounds (to the eye-rolling of those actually in the know), we will still be offering Vampire, Werewolf and Mortal/+. The only sphere we are dropping, at least for the time being, is Hunter. Because Hunter is still 1e. When that changes, it will likely be brought back. Maybe others, down the road. We'll see!
Watch this space for further details.
Here are a few.
I'll admit it. There have been times, in the past, when I felt sorely tempted to just.. break away from everything. Go someplace new, possibly get lucky enough to stumble onto a place where nobody knew me, leave my old online persona with all its baggage and bullshit other people have attached to it, deservedly or otherwise, and just... play. Play, and relax, and have fun, without all the crap.
Trouble is, there is almost always someone who will recognize you. Whether it's your writing style, or character (game character) traits that are similar to those you've given your PCs in the past, or the hours you keep, or wiki page styling, or.. hell, even down to the way you type emoticons, or if your habit is to use < >s or * *s around mini-emotes, like <grins>.
There have also, from what I've heard in rumors past, been staffers who recognized IP addresses and -- whether with deliberate malicious intent or not -- let slide a person's real identity to someone. Who then shared it with someone else. And so on, and so on.
So no, it's not always a simple matter of "just leave the old you behind, and become someone new." And as much as there have been situations or people that I've needed to walk away from, there are others I genuinely cherish and would have enormous difficulty leaving behind.
Just my two cents.
Reno, beyond its initial incarnation, was about preserving an environment that someone else had made. Allowing people to continue their personal stories, in a setting they enjoyed and were familiar with.
Portland is an entirely new setting. It's no longer about preserving someone else's legacy, but creating something new. The area is wonderfully rich with story already, and within the first week of planning alone, we've come up with even more that we want to add - all nestled beneath the umbrella of a defined metaplot that will affect all spheres and encourage (or even necessitate, at times) cooperation.
It's not going to be a shiny, happy world of rainbows and frolicking unicorns. The city will be vibrant with culture, as it is in the real world, but the hope is that the dark and gritty underbelly of it all will be creepy as fuck.
One of the issues we ran into with Reno was that our generous XP policy led to a heavy population of 'dinosaurs.' We're going to be toning that back, at Portland. Things will be more challenging. People won't be able to sneeze in the general direction of a Rank 5 ephemeral and wipe it out of existence. Risk will return as a prominent factor, and along with it, we hope, more of the 'darkness' that's supposed to be a core theme of the World of Darkness.
On a smaller, sphere-specific scale, an issue we've long noticed across many games is the disjointed nature of the Mortal/+ sphere. Generally, it winds up being comprised of scattered 'lone wolf' types, who don't really fit in anywhere and usually wind up feeling pretty left out of the game overall, unless they manage to tie themselves somehow to someone(s) with a supernatural template. We're changing that at Portland. Plans are still in early stages, but we hope to create an active and cohesive sphere for these folks, complete with backstory of their own and two distinct factions they can get involved with.
The changeover is still a couple of months out, but the people involved are massively energized and already working like crazy on all this. Meanwhile, Reno will remain open all the way up until we switch to Portland, to allow people to finish out their characters' stories.
Maybe produce some proof of a person's wrongdoing before advertising their identities and making serious allegations against them on a pseudo-public forum -- while laying out in elaborate detail what other games should do in order to ban this person.
I have no horse in this race. Personally, I maintain a belief that there are three sides to every story: one person's, the other's, and somewhere in between? The truth.
This could be handled a whole lot more maturely, and with a whole lot more class. Just saying.
"Someone's therapist knows all about you."
"I think a perfect metaphor for your life would be someone trying to stand in a hammock."
I'm flailing over here. When will my bumpy night things be available again?!
@skew - This is a Soft Open. It was stated clearly that some systems, including the wiki, were still under construction. People were interested in getting into the game, familiarizing themselves with the grid, starting to RP. Thus far, from what I've seen, the lack of a finished wiki has not impeded anyone in doing this.
@Derp Wholeheartedly seconded. Staff PCs are one thing. They are PCs. NPCs are there as a resource for the players in a sphere, or the game as a whole. All players. If a staffer on my team thinks they can pick and choose who to give time with a NPC to based on who they like or don't like, or who they can dole out plot seeds to based on same, they don't deserve to have access to that NPC. Or a staff bit.
@Sunny Except.. okay, example. You and your group are standing there as the shambling hoard of zombies edges closer and closer to you. Shambleshamble.
Your friends get the f*ck outta Dodge.
You stand there. You fail to act. You get your brains nommed by shambly zombies.
Sometimes failure to act should reasonably result in consequences. 
I cannot even, with how psyched I am for this story. Maybe part of it is that it harkens back, in some respects, to Alien Mutation -- which was my first story at HorrorMU. Pleasant rush of nostalgia. But the concept itself, the IC connections and plans already made, and just the general awesomeness of the player base has me excited as anything.
Can't really blame you for being tempted, @Ghost. I would be, too. 
A week or two? No big deal, in the grand scheme. Upgrade that to a month, two, even more? And you're shitting on the RP of everyone who's associated with your character.
I'm in a sticky situation like this myself, at the moment. The player who portrays my character's spouse essentially dropped off the face of the planet back in December. They've logged in just enough to keep their character from being frozen, but haven't played. They've communicated with me only once or twice, OOC. During one of those conversations, we determined that he'd been out of town up until that point, but was now back. Thing is, he specifically stated he was sleeping elsewhere, and gave an affirmative response when I asked if he was simply avoiding my character and the other members of our group.
So I put a deadline on it, on my end of things. That if he wasn't back around and active by my character's birthday in early February, she'd start moving on with her life - including filing for divorce. Her birthday came and went. A @mail was sent letting him know that he'd find his belongings in boxes outside the place where he'd been staying...which was ignored, for quite a while. It got to the point where I did reach out to staff, stating that my character had filed for divorce, and mentioning that legally, a defendant has 20 days to answer before the plaintiff can submit a request for default judgement to the clerk's office - and asking for the go-ahead to say that the divorce went through by such-and-such a timeframe, if he hadn't returned to argue the matter or get active again by then.
Still waiting on a response from them on that, but honestly, I really don't feel that this is an unreasonable move on my part. Nearly three months? Seriously? There has to be a limit on how long another player's agency over their character remains sacred. My character deserves the chance to move on with her life.
