#finally got my alt done to a point I can rp with her

[maxikha-ffxiv]

Open for RP - Seseta Sesebeta

The Basics ––– –

Age: 25

Birthday: 18th day of 3rd Astral Moon

Race: Lalafell

Gender: Female

Sexuality: unsure, at the very least Heterosexual

Marital Status: Single

Data Center: Crystal (home world Mateus)

Physical Appearance ––– –

Hair: Blue, white highlights

Eyes: Blue-green

Height: Average for a Lalafell

Build: well toned, muscular, athletic

Distinguishing Marks: Various burns from hot metals and acids

Common Accessories: her goggles from when she joined the Machinist’s guild, her yet-to-be-named node always following her

Personal ––– –

Profession: Smithy/Tinkerer for the Machinists Guild in Ishgard

Hobbies: making things out of metal, shooting things

Languages: Common languages of Eorzea

Residence: Ishgard

Birthplace: Ul’dah

Religion: enough to keep the Holy See fanatics off her back

Patron Deity: Oschon

Fears: losing all of her work, being forced to go back home

Relationships ––– -

Spouse: None

Children: None

Parents:Talks with mother via letter all the time, had a large falling out with father

Other Relatives: does not maintain contact with anyone of importance

Pets: An allagan node she’s restored and got running. It keeps track of various lists and notes for her

Traits ––– -

* Bold your character’s answer.

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

Additional information ––– –

Smoking Habit: casual, usually only if it’s a formality to do so Drugs: nothing that will mess with her work Alcohol: drinks regularly. not an alcoholic, but won’t turn down a free round at the nearby tavern

RP Hooks ––– –

Seseta’s main job is as a hired smithy for the Machinist’s guild in Ishgard. She doesn’t design or make the weapons for them, what she does instead is create some of the more intricate parts in order to improve performance out in the field. Her goal is to never have her work be noticed by the actual users, because it means she’s done her job well

Even though she doesn’t usually make larger items, doesn’t mean she can’t. Her rifle and her gunblade were both made from scratch designs she found as pet projects, and she has learned how to use both. Seseta won’t say no to outside commissions either, provided the job is good and interesting to her

Seseta is a classically trained Ul’dahn goldsmith, but doesn’t have the heart for it. A large fight with her father over her future led to them falling out, and she left the city to go do her own thing. After trying archery for a bit (she hated it), she found herself in Ishgard, and became fascinated by the metalworkers there. After a few years, she learned the trades well enough to be able to work just about any metal sent her way, for whatever purpose it’s needed

Seseta won’t admit to it, but she’s lonely. Pouring herself into work the way she has, there’s been no time for romance or friends. She’d more likely take to the latter, but if romance blossomed from it, I’d not be opposed 

If you have ideas, feel free to share. Open to just about anything with her. Also won’t say no to pre-established relationships with others if that would be easier

[sliptohk]

Venting and Warning

Frustrating last two days - let this serve as a reminder for anyone out there of how FC rules operate and a notice of who tried to completely yank our entire one out from under us.

For those who forgot, or never knew, an FC’s ownership is immediately transferred to another member of the group if they are absent for 35 days. While I have read about it going to the highest rank people in the group when I was looking at it after this event, it did not do so for ours. It went to someone with greater longevity. I was the highest ranked outside of the FC leader and their alts as I had brought up a couple ideas and we decided to roll with them and redecorate the house to better reflect what we were going for. I got the position to complete that. Its been months of gathering, crafting, and buying each piece of furniture we needed to completely furnish the entire place as a one person project, only finally completed within the month as we gear up in anticipation of our official opening night and the remaining planning that goes along with it.

I was away due to the 4th of July and doing things out of state for just over a week, before deciding to login. The time frame had expired as our FC leader was out of country and had recently come back, only to get caught up in RL activity and pass that magic number of days. The transfer happened. It went to someone that was absent for months or longer at times, and had never taken part in any sort of group RP or discussion in the entire time I have been part of the group, which goes all the way back to Heavensward.

They kicked every member of our FC. Years of gathered one-use items from events or quests lost in an instance of demolished personal rooms as they showed no distinction or concern for who was in the group, what we were doing, or the fact that they were impacting multiple players. All that furniture still sitting in the FC with my name likely on it, Fen Lohro, as they removed everyone. Initially we were concerned someone had hacked their account and this was done without their awareness, but when I mentioned it to our FC Leader, he found that he was blocked by her Discord. He contacted another person that was formerly in our group who had been closer to them, who reached out and got the confirmation. It was them. They simply booted everyone as soon as they got leadership.

It took over 24 hours until the middle-man in the conversation finally managed to convince the bandit, Estella Westin, to relinquish leadership back to our FC Leader, thankfully it happened before she did more than change our group name. It was then that we could see the activity, where the ownership transferred the very day I logged in, at which point she had demoted everyone and then proceeded to kick them all from the group. Her reasoning when she finally gave back the ownership to the rightful FC Leader? “You bailed.”

She made no effort to contact anyone, ignored the fact that I had been on the previous week and we were clearly doing things with the group. She ignored the fact that she had been kept in the group despite years of being a nonexistent part of any concept or activities we did together. She discarded the fact that our FC Leader built the majority of ships and submarines in the company workshop. Our FC Leader explicitly chose never to remove her as he had no desire to see her lose any of her items if she had one-use belongings or if they would exceed the time allowance to claim private room items at the Resident Caretaker. His consideration for her time and effort were not something she returned for him and anyone else.

I generally try not to get involved in this sort of drama, I prefer not to call people out as I tend to feel that outside of the truly dangerous individuals that pop up from time to time that people should make up their minds on other players regardless of my past experiences with them. However in this case, I feel that she is a danger to any group that could be susceptible to letting their attention lapse for long enough that ownership could transfer. Be mindful of the FC ownership rules and make sure you do not let them lapse if you have people in your group that you are not certain about. Be warned about her selfishness if you have positive interactions and invite her in.

Personally, I will blacklist her characters and keep her Discord name on hand in case I come across them in any shared RP community so I can update that list should she make another alt or pop up on one I was unaware of.

Slight Edit: To avoid confusing her with anyone else, this is Estella Westin on Balmung I saw other characters on other servers and do not want them to be unfairly caught up in this.

Second Edit: Well, looks like trouble is averted for now, my Crystal buddies. They jumped ship to Faerie over on Aether for anyone out that way.

[rudjedet]

please tell us how you out-assholed the asshole mod

Okay, so, AM was a soul-stealing immortal. The other players were my mod account (ex-slave turned baker Neph), Mike’s mod account (shadow knight Indigo, right-hand man of AM, husband of Neph) and his alt (his main character’s subordinate, a sarcastic little bitch by the name of Ishtar). 

AM by this point only came on sporadically. His character always bordered on god-moding, basically stating in his profile that once you engaged in RP with him, your character’s soul would be his by the end of it. God-moding was obviously against the rules, but since he was an Immortal (a mod with power second only to the “Gods” - the admin) he ignored the rules as much as he could get away with. And since he used to RL date one of the Gods, what he could get away with was a lot. 

It started because AM had done an RP where he’d acquired a physical manifestation of a piece of someone’s soul. It was a concept like the idea of magic dolls that you can use to inflict physical harm on the person it represents, but then of actual flesh and blood. An uncomfortable concept, I’m sure you can see why. Mike decided to use his alt account Ishtar to call AM out on it, and had her say something salty I can’t remember because this was almost 15 years ago. In reply, AM made the soul-piece twitch and “do a macabre dance for Ishtar”.

Mike and I had been talking about fucking over AM in RP for a while, and we decided to try and see how far we (Helpers - the lowest rank of moderator) could push this without getting banned or losing privileges. So he had Ishtar insult AM by saying things like “is [AM] still a toddler, that he’s playing with dolls?”. Eventually, AM private-messaged Mike to ask whether he knew the person behind the Ishtar account, and Mike said yes. At this point everyone thought Ishtar was run by a friend of mine, and we decided to go with it. AM asked for Mike’s and my cooperation in “teaching her a lesson in respect and not running her mouth”, since the character itself was Mike’s main’s subordinate. 

Mike asked what AM had in mind, and AM said he wanted my main Neph to make a sandwich containing the soul-piece and feed it to Ishtar. Caveat: the person behind Ishtar could not know. That obviously flew into the face of every anti-god-moding rule, since a secret ingredient cannot be eaten without deliberate consent. So Mike said “I’m not sure Sonja will agree to that if she knows” (which was of course baloney because he had been screenshotting every single part of that private convo as it was happening and sending it to me), to which AM answered “she doesn’t need to know , just give her the soul-piece without telling her what it is”. Final straw, and all that.

After pretending to think it over for a bit, Mike eventually said that because AM’s character was Mike’s character Indigo’s boss, Indigo would comply with the request and tell Neph to prepare the sandwich, even if Mike the person didn’t agree with it.

After gleefully rubbing our hands, Mike and I did some RP writing that clearly hinted at Indigo telling Neph the whole situation. We wrote it as the payback being purely Neph’s idea, since she was the seemingly non-threatening bakery lady that AM would never challenge to a fight should he figure out what was happening. Neph, however, canonically had a very strong vengeful streak. So Neph went into her kitchen and made not one, but two sandwiches.

Ishtar got a perfectly normal sandwich with no creepy, boundary-crossing ingredients for lunch, although it was of course pretended in writing that Neph obeyed AM’s orders. Neph then took the other sandwich, which did have the creepy, boundary-crossing ingredient, and visited AM in his office. AM was supremely arrogant and never believed anyone would try to mess with him, so he hadn’t read the RP that didn’t directly involve him with as much attention as he probably should have.

Some soft female “my lord I made you a sandwich because I am a woman and that is my place” talk with lowered eyelashes later, AM got a literal taste of his own medicine. I did get half his consent by asking if he agreed to being served lunch and eating the sandwich, but of course that was still breaking the rules of god-moding since he didn’t know the ingredient was on his sandwich instead of Ishtar’s. I did once again imply so in writing, so everyone with at least one brain cell that was online at the time figured out what the fuck was happening.

AM didn’t come online for a good while after that, but Mike and I got off scot-free. 

[elliottcoka]

My Discord Roleplay Hell

I hate to be this person, but it’s time.

I can’t remember the day anymore. It was a year ago or more, but I joined a Hogwarts Roleplaying server. This server evolved into a new server, as life goes on and changes. I’ve had my ups and downs with the server owner, Lord. As an adult, I didn’t care too much. I genuinely tried to work through our problems & there have been points I thought I’d solved our issues. I can’t even remember most of the issues anymore, but nonetheless, things weren’t solved. This person acted kindly to me while talking badly about me in staff chats. How do I know this? Not only did someone come forward and tell me, but I got to see these messages myself when I became a part of the staff.

Here we have her accusing me of making an alt to try to, I guess, destroy her relationship. Not only did she edit the screenshots she posted in a STAFF VENT (those are all separate messages from different times in the conversation), but she said she will ruin me if I happen to be an alt that accused her of cheating. What I really asked was why she, her boyfriend, and a new staff member shared a role called “Triforce”. I said “are they together? Or is it some video gaming thing I don’t understand” as I saw they were playing league at the time. (This is paraphrased! Message screenshot is below!!)

This person has pushed being a monogamist so much in chats before. I’m fine with both monogamists and poly people, but she always said she could never be poly. I was confused about a role. That’s all this was.

She never messaged me to talk. She never told me “I don’t like you, and I don’t feel like things are resolved.” I’ve had multiple talks doing my best to make things better between us. This isn’t the only thing said about me in staff chats. Here’s the rest:

I suggested a channel for writing help because the people who RP on that server aren’t very advanced. A lot of them struggle with basic grammar so I thought it would help people. Instead, Lord says I’m just bragging. In these messages, the staff members are dragging multiple users (complaining about them), and lord throws my name into it. 

I have more screenshots from the rest of the staff that don’t involve lord, but I’m only going to post as much as Tumblr will allow for this post. I would not include them, however, there are people bashing me who haven’t really interacted with me. She’s made me out to be some awful person just because we have beef. She shit talks people in voice chats as well. She’s raided an old server & got them shut down for CH*LD P*RN! This is all because they “mutinied” her that fateful year ago, & she made a new server.

Why am I making this post??

To warn discord users.

Her HP roleplaying server is the largest one I’ve seen. She has over 1000 members, even though less than half are probably active. She’s bribed the users with house points if they give a good review for the server. And with someone who’s taken down a server under the circumstances she did, I’ve genuinely been scared. She’s had some sort of grudge against me for the longest time, and no matter what I’ve done, I’m still shit on & things won’t be okay. They have a Tumblr. It’s: https://hogwartswnw.tumblr.com/

I want everyone to know how much I HATE drama. I’m not joking when I say I’ve tried to work things out with her so many times, and I felt sick when I saw these messages in the staff chats.

But people need to be warned. I do not want anyone else to join her server, think you can be her friend, and come out unscathed.

I’m attaching all screenshots I can (that I think are most important) in this message. I will reblog with other screenshots. For now, I’m going to list the things I’ve experienced. Unfortunately, I do not have screenshots for it all. I do think the pattern from this person’s behavior is (hopefully) enough for you to believe me.

She shit talks her old server. She calls it Oldwarts. This is the server she sank with false allegations (as far as I’m aware, as someone who worked with her told me). She still mentions it even though the people involved not only lost their server but their accounts as well.

She says she’s LGBTQ friendly, but she added a gender role of “attack helicopter” after a lot of cis (also Straight for the majority) asked for it once gender roles were a thing. When other LGBTQ users confronted her for this, she told them that it was just a joke. Users that asked for the role also told the LGBTQ people coming forward that they needed to take it as a joke. After much backlash, the role was finally removed.

I was in a server she had dedicated to raiding.

She shit talks servers for fun. She will join (it’s important to note that she says she has MANY alts, so I doubt she always joins on her main) and take screenshots to make fun of or belittle servers with others in the server. While she has not encouraged trolling behavior, she has not discouraged it when people have asked to join the “shitty” server.

She shit talks people. She has shared private DMs to talk badly about people. As a server owner, I just don’t think that’s appropriate.

She posts N*FW content in general channels even though she’s not only a m*nor but has a n*fw chat.

Her staff made a server called Oldwarts, mocking the server they hate & destroyed. 

I’m honestly sure there’s more that she does. The point is not to list everything. The point is to warn you of her behavior. As someone who’s managed servers as large as hers, I know a successful server can be run without this. It’s unnecessary and childish.

Please, if you want to join a Harry Potter roleplay server, avoid this one. Because of this server & “Lord”, I’ve been scared to make my own. Remember to be safe on the internet. Don’t share too much info, and keep an eye out for people like this.

Above are more screenshots of things said about me as well as proof of searching in staff chats for my name and nickname. As you can see, I was on an expel list from someone I didn’t talk to. My character & person had no warnings or strikes, but because I was disliked I was on an expel list. Then, in an editor chat, I’m misgendered even though my nickname has my pronouns in it. I couldn’t include the screenshot, but when called out, “Nord” continued to misgender me. (I bring this up because they say they’re LGBTQ inclusive, but changing pronouns in a MESSAGE you can EDIT isn’t too hard to do). You can also see that the position I applied for gets a trial period in case I’m “troublesome”. Once again, in this server, I have not gotten warnings or strikes for behavior.

These messages are the ones I’d deem most important. There are more, I’ve just reached Tumblrs limit, & I don’t think the other screenshots have as much substance.

If you’ve read this, even skimmed, thank you. It would mean the world to me if you could share this. This is their discord link. Their oldwarts server is linked. They also have a social server which will be linked as well. I am ONLY linking so you can AVOID the server. Please do not send hate to these people.

https://disboard.org/server/510818944781778944

https://disboard.org/server/555840909913096202

https://disboard.org/server/565200348248277012

[neurotic-knives]

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, The Story of Hali Naras

Beneath the cut is probably a very long story, detailing a lot of feelings and other things, including feelings, opinions, and experiences as told from my perspective. I will not be tagging certain people with whom I’ve since parted ways, both to prevent further conflict and spare them all the reminder that I exist within a shared space, especially as some have come to fear or are made uncomfortable by me for some reasons I wholly understand, but some that I still do not fully comprehend. For those people, if you see this post and choose to read it, I am thankful for the good times, and regret all the bad that has transpired despite them. I hope all involved here, friend or otherwise, can move on and enjoy Shadowbringers with nothing holding them back. I know that I will.

Near the end of Heavensward,

I returned to FFXIV after over a year of being gone. I didn’t leave of my own volition. I’d changed out my phone, and, with it, lost my authenticator. I had issues with customer service, then, and, instead of deactivating it like I had asked, they removed my payment info and said nothing more, essentially, as I put it “soft-banning” me from the game.

WoW had become a toxic place for me. The creativity and ideas that I had grown to love sharing with my friends had begun to be spurned due to several changes in leadership, some of whom were not used to my off-the-wall ideas and story arcs there. Combined with the rise of community groups like Failzeroth and the like, I had wound up seeing, as the Discord admin, that I was being talked about behind my back. People dithered on what to “do about [me]” because the ideas I had for my longest-running character, @titantechcorelyn, were viewed by the leadership at the time as “possible, but not probable” despite countless instances of proof in the lore, which I prided myself in knowing inside and out. I made the decision for them, and I left the game after getting sick of feeling like I was being swept under the rug.

At the time, my ex-girlfriend and roommate had a friend from work that we both got along with well who played FFXIV and got us both back into the game. After a couple of days trying again with customer service to get my account back, I was back in. Corelyn Rosefire, my main at the time, a Garlean defector who had long since taken refuge in Eorzea, was brought back into the spotlight, and I began trying to find RP again as I worked my way through the MSQ, preparing for the new Stormblood expansion.

Eventually, I reconnected with @danshadowsrp / @raptorswithlaszorz, who had been a fabulous and supportive friend for a very long time, since almost a decade ago when we met in WoW. He was the one who helped me ease into my transition and I owe finding my identity entirely to his help. He means a great deal to me, even though we don’t get to do much together these days.

Corelyn’s story moved forward slowly but steadily, and, eventually, I met Aegir, Bragi, and Araceli during a “Garlean Bar Crawl” RP. I eventually got Corelyn involved with their Garlean group, and a linkshell of Garleans at the time they were all part of. The frienship grew, and I began hanging out with them exclusively. They were great friends and I loved every moment we all spent together, hanging out and having fun.

Eventually, I was introduced the the Gold and Glory free company, which was still run by Jaliqai at the time, being a hunters’ guild full of Xaela and Miqo’te, yet that also played unwitting host to the “Not-Garleans,” Aegir, Bragi, and Araceli, as well as Araceli’s main, Lirilith. It was less than a few months in that Jaliqai decided the she no longer wished to run G&G, and passed leadership on to the Not-Garleans, who made a fantastic RP experience with their boundless creativity and inclusiveness. They invited me in, at that time, and I’d found my first real home in FFXIV since before, for the long time I’d played, I never really belonged anywhere. This felt nice. I had good friends.

G&G took off. There I met wonderful friends, some of which I still am happy to know, including Naoh, Keerith, Dato, and more. Soon, I decided to use that font of creativity within the free company to create a character that I had intended as an experiment: Hali Naras, my main character now known by the name Asashio no Haruhi, and the subject of this tumblr: an autistic Keeper of the Moon miqo’te of somewhat awkward height and build who, through the Echo, could feel out aether and tried to use that to copy spells she experienced or studied. She was meant to be something I had never done before: a character based on what was, overwhelmingly, a self-insert concept. Inevitably, she grew, and she grew fast. She was discovered by another of the Not-Garleans, their boss, Zheng. and, after helping with a job gone south, she was taken to meet the Crawfords, Aegir and Bragi’s personas for the new owners of G&G, played by an alt of Aegir’s and a recustomisation of Bragi’s main.

Things were off to a rough start, as, given the lack of a real event system, we used Grindstone rules for the most part, opposed rolls never quite working out for her. She was established very quickly as a fluke - someone who performed well when no one was looking, at first meeting, then proceeded to become a helpless, anxiety-ridden mess, incapable of really helping anyone, even herself. She was beaten, broken, and abused, time and time again, to the point where it sort of became a running joke. Aegir tended to play off on it in his comics quite a deal, picking on her from time to time, though usually just in good fun. I’ll admit a small bit of resentment over it since I had wanted her to start off as a somewhat competent, interesting character, but instead wound up with a woobie.

Hali liked to cook, as I do IRL, and so she found her niche within G&G thanks to some intervention. She would go on adventures to hone her skill and magic as much as she could, but her primary job was the overnight chef. She excelled there. My penchant for writing food porn got her far, there, and so we also decided to open G&G’s old tavern, the Bountiful Chest, back up. I took the lead on the project, creating a menu, helping to make the restaurant, and taking the lead on running things. The crew at the time was fantastic, Araceli waiting tables, Aegir and Bragi hanging about as the Crawfords, greeting people and overseeing operations, Hali cooking up a storm, and, as time went on, more and more people took part. It was a fun weekly thing - or semiweekly as my health began to decline due to a mixture of issues that I have only recently begun to have treated.

We began to network from time to time with the Outriders free company and with a storyteller, O’byahta, who was a big part of that FC, run by @glitterychaospersona and @superiorthaumaturge, along with a couple others at the time. Hali got involved in “Byahta’s Ventures” around the same time as she was scouted out by Aegir, Bragi, and Zheng’s “Immortals,” a sect of Thavnairian Blue Mages that were throwbacks to FFXI’s BLU. Hali faced a great deal of turmoil, but always managed to overcome it.

We had also, eventually, taken over the Garlean community linkshell, being heavily active with the Not-Garlean, networking with Corelyn and a multitude of others. We created what was called the Fustuarium, a group of Imperial special agents that would hunt down rogue elements, judge them, then either bring them back into the fold or execute them. We had many members join by being “re-acquired.” It was a lot of fun.

Through all I did in both the Fustuarium group and G&G proper, I was made an officer. I was never really asked if I wanted it, and likely would’ve asked not to be, but I accepted the role. I had taken such an active role within the FC, and loved the feeling of belonging to this wonderfully-creative group that ran immensely-fun events and came up with great ideas together, such as Iron Chef Eorzea, the Menphina Madness Blitzball Tournament, revamping the Golden Gala, and so much more.

Hali’s story moved on and on, eventually earning herself the title of Iron Chef, she went with the company to Kugane, was taught to become a shinobi, eschewed the blue magic of the Immortals, fought for her life with the Outriders at her side, became captain of Kugane’s Koban Crushers Blittzball team, and so on.

Eventually, through the Fustuarium group, @phantom-singularity was introduced to me and to G&G. I was leery of her at first, admittedly, as she was brought in by a member of the group, Otho/Odeai, for whom I really didn’t have much fondness. However, we began to talk in general, and then she DM’d me on Discord. Since that day, nearly two years ago, not a single day has passed where we haven’t been in contact nearly all the time we share awake. We fell in love, suffered together, visited one another, and eventually moved in together. If there’s anything I’m grateful for from this expansion, it’s her. If it were not for us starting RP between Hali and her character Dahlia @umbralhearts, I probably would not have survived the stress and abuse I had suffered over the course of the past few years thanks to, I have only recently discovered, a very abusive pseudo-relationship with someone we are still trying to escape.

As time went on, and Odeai continuously stirred shit up (eventually getting herself kicked from all those groups), I grew to greatly dislike her, especially as she was very much the catalyst that led to the awful witch hunt that was perpetuated against Dani. I won’t go into all of that again - the posts can be found on my main blog, @nierfenhimer, somewhere - but it was hell for us both. She wanted to have friends. I loved the friends I had, but they way it was all handled was, inevitably, disastrous, no matter how much I tried to stop it. Eventually, she left G&G and the Fustuarium. Not long after, I did, as well. Everyone was angry, everyone was hurt, and we all hated it. It was a nightmare come true for many reasons. There is still, today, especially after repeated similar situations on Aegir, Bragi, Liri, and Zheng’s parts with G&G, a lot of resentment between us all, I’m sure. What bridges were burned are likely gone for good. Everyone made mistakes. Following all of it, Dani and I became so stressed that we left FFXIV for a year, sacrificing the house that we had just gotten together for the sake of our safety and sanity.

During that time, Hali and Dahlia, who had been struggling together against a voidsent that possessed Dahlia, became embroiled in an awful conflict, eventually resulting in Hali’s death. Thanks to a combination of a great many things, Hali was resurrected when we returned. We left for WoW for a time, going back to my decade-long friends like @tyrellia, @kombink, @squishlecharacters, @aythala, and so many more. However, it didn’t last because, frankly, Battle for Azeroth turned out to be a dumpster fire.

It sucks, but today, I’m happy to have several great groups of friends. Dani and I joined the Outriders officially, along with Naomi and Otto, as well as Naoh and Keerith, who had gone there, Hali’s long-time rival and best friend, @trahventia, and more. We made new friends like @weaponskill, @deviltouched-xaela, and more. We reconnected with old friends from before we left such as @floating-city-of-nem and others. We made new friends. 

Even though I was unemployed on and off, going through hell on earth, and constantly unstable, Dani, along with the Outriders and my friends from the Retribution/TSV/Ashguard back from WoW were immensely supportive. The Outriders, over the summer of 2018, raised nearly $350 together to help pay for my name change as part of my transition. Today, I have a name to match my identity - one that I’m comfortable and happy to use - because of them. We’ve played countless games of D&D together, as well as other tabletops. We’ve had fun, and we’ve even had our share of drama, but we’ve made it through. 

Hali and Dahlia got married in-game, and we’ve come up with wonderful ideas, characters, and even ships together. Hali has since become a cyclone of chaotic life events, combining her shinobi training with abyssal magic as she’s embraced her inner darkness. We managed to reclaim a house for Hali and Dahlia and have since made a wonderful home together in the game.

Stormblood was an expansion where I truly let go of past hurts, in RP and otherwise, and found my niche. I found my identity, I grew up, I suffered immensely, but I learned, I fell in love, I had fun, and I let go of the things that had been holding me back as a person and from letting me truly have fun.

To all of you who were a part of my life, for better, worse, or both, thank you. Thank you all for everything you have been for me. To G&G for getting me involved, to the Outriders for picking me back up when that all fell apart, to the Retribution for taking me back for the short time I was back on WoW and understanding my propensity to disappear when life gets hard, to the friends, both old and new, that we have had, kept, and lost, and, most of all, to Dani, who I love without parallel and am happy every day I wake up next to you, no matter what trials we face.

Stormblood brought good and bad. It was truly a Storm of Blood. But it was good. It was amazing, and it was terrible all at once. I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. I’m looking forward to Shadowbringers, and to experiencing it with all of you. We’ve all come a long way. See y’all on the other side. ♥

~ Asashio no Haruhi / Hali Naras of Balmung, Crystal DC

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 14 - Candy Page 27

==>

Alright, back from a brief excursion.  I really, REALLY wanna fucking finish this.  I want to see ROXY UNZOMBIFIED goddamnit, or at least get a REASON for her zombification, even if it’s just some Dirk-like villain who just cliffhangers himself away like a fucking asshole.

Also, comment on John’s whole rant... I guess John DID kind of want to be important.  Or... well, not “important” per se, but rather at least impactful in his friends’ lives.  It feels like they’re all walking dead through their own unsolved problems, trying to put on a pretty face, and nothing he tries to do matters, even attempted kidnapping.  He feels as useless as Dirk THINKS he is, but he never really was.  Gosh, I wish he’d pulled off that absurd kidnapping.  Freeing people from this sort of thing is supposed to kind of be his jam?

Okay, reading the new page.

FUCK.  TEN YEARS???????

Pff, John’s kid and sorta!Vriska.  Yeah I can buy that.

Also I love how they type out “Harry Anderson” every single time as his full first goddamn name.

--God damnit, how is Gamzee still fucking things up ten years later?  Hasn’t someone considered killing him?

Karkat and Meenah, also unsurprising.  Too bad Dave has to die unsatisfied.  >:(

Hm... this sorta!Vriska also has a weird Capitalization Quirk for Important Words, huh?  --Oh right, Kanaya raised her.  That might do it.

Hm, eyepatch?

Alright, the world’s falling into chaos.  Did the world HAVE to fucking fall into chaos in BOTH TIMELINES where these supposedly-went-through-a-successful-journey heroes managed to eek out victory despite opposing reality’s greatest tyrant?  Pfuh.

--and right.  Alt!Callie reinforces the idea that even though this possibility “wasn’t canon” -- which... means Meat is?? D: -- that the lives within still matter when looked at within their own bubble.

JADE: while abstracted heavily, and fully freed from all forces of narrative gravity, these events still represent possibilities that slept within the hearts of all who reside here.

Mhmm, part of an extension of themselves, their uniqueness, their hopes and dreams and... whatever WHOEVER did to fuck Roxy over.  Jesus DICK what’s happened to her I need to know you’d better fix this.

And somewhere within that mess, John Egbert is the best man at Jade and Dave’s wedding. He lasts nearly two hours before he gets a ruinous case of the sniffles.

Maybe they worked it out into ALMOST full mutual love?  Even if Dave’s 70% gayness goes totally unsatisfied?  I mean, I can hope, right?  :(

Dammit, Jade, couldn’t you have done this properly?  :C

and everyone knows that John has lost his family to Jane Crocker.

What the shit?!???

What drove Roxy away was him being depressed and just an all-around huge wet blanket who was impossible to live with. John is totally ready to own the fact that he was a bad husband, but maybe not the fact that he was a bad enough husband to drive his wife to passively support a brewing genocidal dictatorship. She looks happier, though, whenever he’s caught sight of her behind Jane—Calliope faithfully at her side—in any of the propaganda broadcasts that Jane passes off as business press conferences. By the time Roxy finally cut things off between them, he hadn’t personally seen her smile in years.

WHAT.  THE.  SHIT.

WHY DID ROXY DO ALL THIS THEN.  WHY DID SHE OF ALL PEOPLE, ONE OF THE MOST FORCEFUL AND SMART AND COOL--- GUHHH SHE JUST VOIDED HER WILL JUST OUT OF OBLIGATION TO JOHN OR SOMETHING?????????? WHAT THE FUCK WHYYYYYYY

Characters choke.  Characters make bad decisions.  That’s fair.  Andrew’s said that before.  But John was VISIBLY RECOGNIZING HOW OUT OF CHARACTER ROXY WAS ACTING.  WHYYYYYYYYY DID IT HAPPEN, WHY SUDDENLY DECADES OF MISHANDLED RELATIONSHIP WITH ABSOLUTELY NOBODY POINTING OUT THE OBVIOUS WHAT THE FUCK.  AND ROXY WAS THE ONE WHO STARTED IT AND PUSHED INTO JOHN UNTIL HE ACCEPTED.  WHY.

WHY.

Read.  Calm down.  Read.  There had better be.  A FUCKING.  ANSWER.

Hi military rebellion leader Karkat.

KARKAT: OH MY GOD JOHN, STOP BEING SO FUCKING PATHETIC FOR JUST A MINUTE. COULD YOU DO THAT FOR ME? JOHN: i don’t know. that’s a pretty big favor you’re asking me there, karkat.

heheh

JOHN: i dunno. it doesn’t seem responsible, really... to dedicate my life to something so important when i’m in a place where i can’t even find the energy to think that getting out of bed in the morning is “important.”

Depression stuff, yeah.

John really needs a psychologist who isn’t just Rose.

pff, yifftrain.

That’s how the years pass. Faster and faster the longer it goes. 

What.  The.  Fuck.

We’re not going to get any answers are we.  Roxy just acted out of character for no reason, didn’t she.  This is-- no, Andrew’s too GOOD at this for that to-- I mean--  is there a big answer he’s just not telling us-- FUCK!!!!  D:

AAAAAAAA

This sucks.  This sucks this sucks this SUCKS.  But I’ll keep reading.  I have to know.  If I’m ever going to be able to stand, like, i dunno... homestuck rp i guess? i should probably keep reading.  and hope i recover.  eventually.

But that’s only part of it. Above this Earth, the dead cherub is still meditating, waiting for the day when she can have her own heroic apotheosis. Waiting for the day when she can confront the one she calls the Prince. And on this Earth, John is just waiting for the day that feeling finally stops. That feeling that he’s still waiting for something, and the even worse feeling that years ago, he missed his only chance to put an end to it. If you stand on a very high hill at dawn, you can watch your shadow move in an arc around you.

Yeah, reinforcing that John would be happier in the timeline where he did something and -- at least temporarily, since there’s hope of future revival -- “died” because of it, even if he wasn’t clear on why what he was trying to do even really mattered in the whole scheme of things.

...which is pretty weird when you consider the ending of Homestuck didn’t try to express that messa-- no, wait.  I guess it did?

Yes, everyone went to the post-victory planet to live out indefinite lives, but there WAS still the stage play.  Proving that John, at least, WOULD eventually step outside the happy ending to instead risk his life doing something important.  They earned both possibilities, really, to choose from at their will.

...Aren’t there another dozen pages or so left in this Candy segment, though??  Are we gonna follow their kids or something?

==>

...Okay so stuff still needs to happen here, plotways.  Good.  I think.

A flash above the clouds catches John’s attention: another ghost, falling down from wherever it is they come from. John follows after the light with an exhausted sigh. The novelty of dead trolls falling from the sky has really worn off over the years. But he might as well go warn the new arrival that they’ve landed in the middle of an imminent warzone. He sets down at the edge of the crater and peers through the smoke.

He recognizes the ghost immediately, because he sees a younger version of her almost every day.

JOHN: vriska?

Vriska’s face snaps up, eyes blazing. Eyes. Actual eyes, with expression, color, pupils, and everything.

JOHN: wait. you’re... JOHN: alive??

PFFFFFFhahahahah!

That’s pretty hilarious.  Vriska fell into the singularity and popped out here.

...Yeah, you can’t stand having missed the most “important” bit, can you.  Too bad.  You didn’t have the spotlight in the end.

==>

JADE: it is the one i have been waiting for all these years. JADE: we have run along parallel lines for what may as well be eternity, but my gravitational well has finally ensnared him. JADE: and now he is due to fall into this world.

Uhh, who?  Davebot or something, from the postscript?  Couldn’t be Gamzee, unless it’s, like... a different Gamzee.

“Chaos war”?  That’s a dramatic title.

==>

Hmm, reading reading...

Will Dad’s passing knock any sense into you?  Probably not.

...yeah, it wasn’t going to be that easy, was it?

Of course.  Of course Dad died saving the President.

Although, she’s going to assign fault to Karkat and then want to start a full bloody war over it, so, the opposite of having sense knocked into her then.

JANE: UGH! JANE: That... that fool!! JANE: I can’t believe that he would do this! JANE: How could he do this to me!?! JAKE: Janey... JANE: The human president could be anyone! JANE: My dad can’t be anyone but him!

Jane, you’ve become a real asshole.  :(

...Fuck you Gamzee.

GAMZEE: hEy. GAMZEE: Do YoU tHiNk ThAt MiGhT bE a BiT mOtHeRfUcKinG xEnOpHoBiC?

PFFFFHAHAHAHAHAAHAHhhh oh my GOD :’D

JANE: What? You think appealing to me with your disgusting little addiction is going to sway me?

Oh Jesus Christ that’s horrifying.  THAT’s what’s been going on.  I don’t want to visualize it, dear lord.

==>

Hahahah, catching Vriska up.  She’s practically curling up in a ball like Squidward in future shock.

PFFF PUTTING PARENS AROUND HER NAME SHE CAN’T STAND BEING IRRELEVANTIZED LIKE THAT

JOHN: i was supposed to go fight lord english, but i didn’t. so now we’ve gone beyond, like, the event horizon of canon. (VRISKA): What the fuck does that even MEAN????????

Wait, shouldn’t YOU know exactly what that means, Vriska?  Like, better than most people at least?

JOHN: all i know is that all of this is my fault.

:(

JOHN: it’s been turning around in my head like this for a while. i thought... JOHN: why does everything here fucking SUCK so much? JOHN: how the hell did we even make it from point A to point festering clusterfuck? JOHN: it doesn’t follow any kind of logic i understand, or any sort of basic sense i have about who we are as people... JOHN: and why? why have we all ended up so unhappy and... twisted up?

Yeah, a BUNCH of people have acted really goddamn out of character and it’s unclear why.

JOHN: i got everything i wanted. everyone got what they— JOHN: what i thought they wanted. JOHN: and that’s just it, isn’t it? JOHN: the more i think about it, i’m the only factor that matters to anything.

--What?!?  No!!!  You could SEE that this wasn’t what you thought they wanted right from the get-go.  It couldn’t have been YOUR imagination that this realm of alternative possibility was drawn from, could it?  D:

JOHN: whatever i did, or didn’t do, just... destroyed reality’s ability to, like, substantiate itself, or whatever. JOHN: like there’s a bug in the operating system of whatever force in this world that regulates cause and effect. JOHN: everything’s been unraveling. nothing that happens makes sense anymore. JOHN: and now i’m the only person out here who’s even real at all! JOHN: hahahaha.

That’s certainly an idea at least, that people started acting out of character as we went further from “canon”.  In fact, it’s kind of a slam at fanfics, maybe?  Acknowledging that they distort the characters by understanding them in different ways, sometimes, and.. hm.

(VRISKA): Hahahahahahahaha... Wow, I’ve never seen a guy get his 8ulge all the way down his own swallow chute 8efore! JOHN: wait, what? (VRISKA): Good fuck. Do you actually think reality gives that much of a shit a8out you? (VRISKA): Get real, Eg8ert. (VRISKA): It’s not like you’re me. JOHN: ok, well. JOHN: that’s fair i guess.

Heheheh.  ...Yeah, Vriska might pep talk him out of this self-deprecating theory of his.  Besides, I mean... is that the ONLY cause for this whole fucking situation?  That Roxy’s will got eroded to nothing arbitrarily either at random in a glitching non-canon timeline or because John kind of maybe thought something was going to happen and reality decided to run with it??

...heheh, “batterpanzers”.

I’m pretty sure caring what “c8non” is supposed to be is EXACTLY the thing you’re freaking out about, Vriska, whether you realize it or not.

Oooh, Gamzee.  Do we get to see Vriska kill him?

Yeaaah... redemption ain’t for THIS sp8der.  The ghost version of Vriska got the closest thing to redemption she’ll ever get; THIS version never learned any damn lessons and is not going to accept that she ever NEEDS to.  Also, you said her name in relevance-reducing parentheses.  Bad move.

==>

Yaaaay here’s the bunch of indigo blood we were promised!! :D

Where’s the nudity though? Maybe that’s coming.

He yowls as if he had actual testicles to be mauled, and for all anyone knows, maybe he really does.

It’s reassuring to see that while Andrew is more than willing to give us WAY too much genital detail in some cases throughout this epilogue, he still knows how to deftly exploit the parts of anatomy that still AREN’T explicitly characterized and remain intentionally vague for their impactful resulting humor.  :)

She lunges at Gamzee’s catastrophic face lips-first, and practically dives into his mouth, ramming her tongue into his

NOOO FUCK HE WAS ABOUT TO DIE AAAAAA D’:

FUCK  :(

Okay, back on to anything but this.

==>

Oh shit, double Vriska.  This might be bad.

...Phew.  Nice save, John.

JOHN: ha ha. yeah, right. because this is real life, right? JOHN: i guess reading narrative relevance into a bunch of dumb and totally random events is kind of lame and childish. ROSE: No, that isn’t what I meant at all. ROSE: By all means, apply a narrative to our lives. Up until a certain point, it would have been perfectly accurate to do so. ROSE: But not anymore. JOHN: because... it’s not canon, right? ROSE: Do you remember what I told you years ago? About the three pillars of canon?

Wuh-oh.

ROSE: As I explained to you on that morning sixteen years ago, there are three critical features of canon: essentiality, relevance, and truth. JOHN: yeah. ROSE: We have been untethered from the mooring of “truth” for some time now. ROSE: So while we, in our subjective experiences of conscious perception, feel in this moment that we have known each other for a very long time, technically it’s not true at all.

...Okay.  Okay.

So.  Were, like.

Roxy and Calliope affected by the, like... “untruth wave” of his choice not to go the hardest, because he made it in their vicinity?  And that turned Roxy into a hypnozombie with minimal apparent free will? :C

...Oh wow.  She’s thanking John that she got a chance to be happy in this side timeline, even if so many other people suffered.  Because of the fucking hell Dirk was about to unleash on her in the Meat timeline.  Fuck.

ROSE: In the silly wizard story I wrote when I was a child, ROSE: The realm most comparable to heaven existed in a state of subliminal conditionality, dependent on the inscience of the individual experiencing it. ROSE: Which is to say that it would cease to exist the moment you realized what it was. ROSE: And so, those with knowledge could never truly be happy.

Oh wow, huh.  Yeah, knowing you’re just in a fanfic kind of screws your appreciation for life around you, huh.  So John got fucked over a bit by his metatextual awareness.  :(

And... Rose was, like, cut off by his choice from her own metatextual awakening, maybe?  Hence her ability to appreciate a life somewhere disconnected from anything “canon”?

ROSE: But that isn’t me anymore. ROSE: I am blind against the veil of this world. ROSE: It’s all ambrosia to me. ROSE: I don’t care if it’s not true. I care even less if it’s not canon. ROSE: I have a beautiful wife who I love more than I thought possible, and a daughter who I am immeasurably proud of. ROSE: It can all be senseless, ephemeral noise that dissolves in the void. A whisper swept up by the wind before it’s uttered. ROSE: I’m still grateful to have felt this way.

:’)

Alright, this might be a pretty good way of accepting their potential happiness in different timelines as a potential substitute for Dirk’s mess.  I’m not sure HOW well I’ll be able to internalize it to stop the stomach cramps, but we’ll see.

We still have a little bit more left, though.  Next post.

[badrpstories]

Hey guys GUESS WHO’S BORED AND WAS REMINISCING ABOUT SOME HILARIOUS BAD RP EXPERIENCES.

Heyo Mod Anna here and let me share my tale of bad rp shit in which I am simultaneously a bad rper and still better than these guys.

First of all though, lemme just say, Mod Lup and I, not entirely in the right. We’ve grown since this incident BUT it’s still a good story so here have fun with hearing about an entire group of shitheads.

So it all begins on the offsite location that Mod Lup and I rp on. The site is in fact home to a large variety of different communities and people tend to reach out to others who they want to invite to their rps all the time. No big deal. We’ve both been invited to several and the same with other people in our community even though we’re both fairly private.

The story begins with the time that everybody in the community got an invite to one of these separate communities but me. And it was literally, every active player but me got an invite. Now being the dumb and emotionally volatile Mod Anna I am I got offended over this because my community only ever rped with my community. I was a very active part and anybody who read our posts would’ve seen I was one of the more active players. Now I’ve suspected that this was because I rped a self insert in the rp because when I’m very close to people I bring out my self insert sometimes and the fandom just happened to be the one she was a part of, and the host just happened to be my then time exboyfriend/best friend. But we’re not going to get into that. So anyways I was offended and stewed and we went through their forum and it was glorious for a laugh. I’m talking they had sexual content in every thread even if it wasn’t smut (like they didn’t know how to rp a romance without it getting sexual bad) and they had a “lemons thread” and yes you’re reading that right, a lemons thread. And it was full of awful, anatomically incorrect smut  (including a dick penetrating into the stomach) that was literally one line or less. I’m not joking one liners in smut listen I don’t smut but even I know better than to think you can smut in one line or less. And to further the bad they really didn’t seem to know source material that well.

And so we got a good laugh, I got a bit huffy at them when they finally sent me a message inviting me, and after that they were forgotten in my mind besides as the really bad rp we could laugh at occasionally.

That was at least until months later, when they were STILL harassing several members of my community to join. Including my sister. We were all starting to get annoyed, it was around 2:00 AM my time, so we finally decided to retaliate to get them to stop. First it was just a friend stealing a second account of mine I used for talking to a couple of people I didn’t want on my main account to be a bit trolly. Then a couple of friends, I’ll call them Music and Ghost got involved once the big post was deleted. Which was understandable since they were the other two members still being harassed about this rp the most (I think they’d received four messages since the initial one. My sister got three for sure. And I think another person got two.) They immediately went on and started pointing out the bad smut.

This is when Mod Lup and I got involved. Since she’s a sex repulsed ace and I’m a sex repulsed ace (although at the time I thought I was sex neutral) so we decided because we actually write more than one liners, we’d have to be better at smutting than them, which we probably are. So we went on using a set of accounts dedicated to a set of fictional brothers and said so ourselves, acting completely in character because why not? But we also very much used our actual pronouns and completely pointed out and anybody who knew the characters our paired accounts were based on would kinda know we were just acting in character. 

Then when they got all upset at us acting high and mighty over the fact that we were better smut rpers, they challenged us to a smut war. Which is far. Now Ghost and the friend who stole my alt are underaged, so we immediately banned them from the smut, so that left Music, Lup, and I. Since Lup is sex repulsed, Music and I volunteered to smut and I explained that we’d be the only ones up for the smut war because of the above reasons. So we take a couple of Lup’s ocs and actually start smutting. Now Music and I are real close so we had a lot of fun with it, worked on the buildup, spent time fleshing out the posts while continuing to chat in the ooc thread with people.

And then somebody came on and outright said that asexual people were just people who couldn’t get sex.

I was literally floored. Yes I came on and screwed with their forum but I expected them to make fun of our smut. I was ready for it. I did not expect them to say that asexuality didn’t fucking exist.

Like talk about your aphobic assholes. We left after it was clear they weren’t going to accept asexuality was real. And it was so ridiculous. I’m not saying I was in the right but at least I wasn’t bigoted either.

For the record, here are some quotes from them:

The only women we have either want to be men or don't like sex... So take your pick. (In response to Mod Lup pretending to flirt.)

“Want to be men” so they’re trans and they are men. Not want to be men.

The temptation to say asexuality is just a cop-out for those who can't get laid or choose to save themselves for marriage is increasing every time I see those words. 

I'm not saying there is no such thing as a lack of sexual attraction, because there are relationships that don't have sex in them. That's entirely up to the couple. The largest number of vocal aces though just happen to be Tumblrinas who Love to exaggerate everything. You all do you how you'd do you.

The second was the post that made me drop it, because the second isn’t a lack of sexual attraction and the fact that they used “tumblrina” was enough to prove they were an asshole.

Oh yeah, and they left this lovely gem about us:

Waluigi: A pompous douche who actually believes we believe he knows biology and is not more-than likely just a 7th grader fresh from sex ed with more Mario puns than there are Sonic games. (Side note: Likely lied about having experience other than hentai games and pornhub premium)

Ghost: Didn't get much, but he seems to be a chaotic neutral in a way. Though, this is likely derived from my knowledge on his personality being minimal at best.

Actually not a participant of our forums: One of the people who ruined Undertale for the world, as his/her post clearly states; 'if you're gonna sin you gotta do it right tho' and likely enjoys having sex with an underage goat boy.

Music: Just another random I didn't get enough info on during that little dispute. Made a few grammatical and spelling errors but I won't use that as an insult as that's the most petty form of insulting another individual. Though what I did get was that he/she is also into undertale and since she had talked about our smut being "Low quality" when she CLEARLY knows how to smut better. More-than likely on a smut forum to have sex with dog cats named 'Tem'

Yuuka Sakazaki (Mod Lup): I'm afraid I don't have much to say about this one. He/she came in, insulted our rp style in terms of our smut, said they don't like our forum, and then proceeded to try and act like they wanted to stay and be friends. A two faced bitch at the very best and likely a liar at the worst. But that's just how I took their interaction with us. Used this format rather frequently to likely signify thoughts rather than speaking out loud for some odd reason since everyone can read it.

Sakuya Le Bel Shirogane (Myself): Likely also lied about being ace since he/she stated that they've never had sex. So (Jerkwad) more-than likely hit in out of the ballpark with his comment. Also insulted us based on 'how we write our smut' and then proceeded to say he and his "Brother" had done nothing to us, even when his "Brother" claimed to have a boyfriend and "Could have sex whenever he wants" even though he said he wanted to seduce our women after saying he was, indeed, "Ace". He's likely just a two-faced liar like his "Brother" And has no place here if he's going to act like he did with his band of merry men.

Yeah I forgot to mention that they took somebody trolling as Waluigi seriously.

[safestsephiroth]

An Explanation for My Departure from The Riskbreakers, or: A Tale of Failure

This is my story with FFXIV to this point, an explanation of the current situation, and my plans for the future. The only person “indicted” or “called out” here is me. Should you feel the need or desire to contact me about this subject, and what I’ve written below does not feel comprehensive enough to you, please feel free to.

CW: extreme depression, suicidal thoughts

I joined Final Fantasy XIV against my better judgment. I hated MMOs as a genre. Paying for the subscription would, at the time, be a dicey prospect. I had plenty of other games to play, plenty of other things to do.

But I was lonely. Terribly lonely.

What I saw in FFXIV was a chance to play a game and make new friends. When I first got the game, the only person I knew in-game was @onwesterlywinds. But there was more than just that. I didn’t know anything about the community whatsoever. I didn’t even follow many Final Fantasy blogs in general at the time. I got the game at Livvy’s behest and specifically to play it with her.

I had never roleplayed in a game before. My prior experiences with text-based RP (except those linked to a tabletop game system, such as Vampire: The Masquerade) were universally terrible. Embarrassing. I had horrible associations with those memories. I was terribly nervous when I first RPed, and the first character I made in FFXIV, Blaetlona Isilmynawyn, was intentionally made in response to this and my general lack of knowledge of the game or its world. Blae was overwhelmingly cheery and optimistic to the point of obliviousness, which gave me a free out of any nervous situation, as well as being completely naiive about the world so I would be able to slide on not knowing important things.

I made more characters over a long, long period of time. It was a crawl, really. I gave each character tons of effort, plenty of introduction, and loved them dearly. But in all honesty, I was terrible at RP for the first year or two. Just abysmal. A bad RP partner who overstepped boundaries constantly because I was used to GMing games, making decisions about the game world to make for interesting plots.

I am embarrassed and ashamed of how long it took me to learn that lesson.

Over time, my connection with The Riskbreakers grew into a wonderful friendship. I did everything I could to be pleasant to be around - farmed gil I spent on in-game birthday presents for other company members, was a positive presence in /fc, and helped out with PVE content when I could - I was terrible and hated the endgame gear grind, hated the very idea of dropping either weeks of time or shitloads of gil so I could experience something I didn’t give a damn about. Because it was never about the gameplay, it was about the story - of the game, and of the RP.

It was glamour that got me out of that shell and into the Crystal Tower. That led to me doing MSQ through the abject misery of 2.1, well into 2.3 or 2.4′s time.

The problems, all along, were my fault. I didn’t want to play the endgame when I could instead level alts or RP. I didn’t want to waste time on parts of the game I was sure to just find frustrating. I hated the weekly cap, hated the tome grind, hated the very idea of doing coil.

In Heavensward, I started to care so much more about the gameplay, in large part because it was made better pretty much across the board. I remember I didn’t even do the MSQ for like two months - I was too busy leveling DPS jobs in the magical dungeon queues that happened right at Heavensward launch, where DPS was always adventurer in need.

What I always loved about The Riskbreakers (RISK) was the atmosphere. Everyone was friendly towards everyone, the RP was fairly loose and there was a lot of room for creativity. I made so many characters with such variety - nowhere else would my cast include a privateer, a melodramatic bard, an ages-old assassin hiding in plain sight, and a fangirl! Every step of the way, it felt fantastic to be supported. To be respected.

About a year and a half ago, towards the tail end of May 2016, as I recall, I feel I lost that respect irrevocably. I was struggling with severe depression at the time and I had so many difficulties suppressing my agitation in the company Skype chat that I followed an implicit suggestion and voluntarily left said Skype chat with the promise I’d be allowed back in whenever I wanted. To be frank, this was the worst decision I could have made. RISK was practically all of my daily socialization. Without access to the Skype chat I missed planned events, I missed out on the lives of people I cared deeply about. And I really, truly cared, with all my heart. In the darkest times, when FFXIV was all I had in my life that I could still count on enjoying, I tried to cling even harder to the community of friends I had. But I’ve always been a shy person, and that meant the only people I really knew at the time were in The Riskbreakers.

By sequestering myself, I killed my social life. You may be able to imagine that this did not help my depression. It was a terrible decision I had made, but the damage stayed done. I ended up installing Discord, a program which at the time I had zero interest in, because there was a RISK Discord server and I’d hoped to be able to reconnect through that. But I didn’t, and I couldn’t. I found myself afraid to talk to people I’d known for years because I thought, deep down, they all knew I deserved the isolation.

It was irrational of me, sure. But I was far beyond the point of rationality for a long, long time. Maybe I still am. Probably. I still remember there was a resistance to the movement to Discord because of past experiences by some of the membership, people who’d seen that cliques tend to form in situations where not everyone can/wants to be on mic. I tried. I really did try to be of use, to be a positive presence.

But after days of getting up my courage, the first call I joined ended quickly thereafter. As did the second. Thusly convinced it was my fault, and that I was secretly hated, I elected not to join calls uninvited. It felt rude, like intruding into a conversation at a restaurant. It wasn’t talking with friends anymore. There was only so much I could take.

My depression grew worse, and worse, and worse, as my life fell further into a downward spiral. I took increasingly long sabbaticals from RP or even all of FFXIV. I found other games to dive into. I found more distractions to keep back the voices telling me they all hated me and suicide was the only option I had left.

Even as Fanfest approached, I didn’t feel much better. I think everyone remembers that in general 2016 was a shitty year for most people, and it was especially bad for me. Much of my good cheer and will to carry on came from The Crucible. Much of my will to live came from the handful of people I was deeply entrenched in RP with, who I decided to trust.

There were a lot of sins I committed, then - abandoned plots, failure to show up for company plans, missed events - and I regret them all. I don’t feel I can or should be forgiven for what a sorry excuse for a company member I was at the time and since. After the first Heavensward MSQ RP arc which I didn’t much enjoy, something I never once voiced properly because I was hoping the problem would just go away, I skipped a major RP arc in Palace of the Dead for a reason so petty and selfish I won’t mention it here. I jumped into the next one because I felt that my connection to the company was slipping. Sometimes I wanted to leave so I could have less reasons to live.

For all I wanted to blame other people, it was me. It was always me. Every step of the way. If I had just reached out and asked for help, maybe it would’ve been different. If I’d been bluntly honest, maybe it would’ve been better. But I didn’t want to be a problem anymore. I already bothered people so much they’d leave calls if I showed up, right? So reaching out at all, particularly publicly? Not an option. I didn’t want to hurt others. I didn’t want to be selfish. But maybe I should have been, just a little.

For a long time, I lived thinking I would never reconnect with FFXIV RP outside the three (and, over time, two, then one) people I had frequent RP with. Instead of enjoying RP with RISK I found it stressful and unfulfilling, both out of a fear of fucking things up and a general dislike of where things were going. My favorite part of the company was the generally loose standards it played by, after all.

I used Rydia Misuto as a way to cope. By making a character with so much effort put in, so much potential for growth, and a story of so much more grand a scale than I usually did, I expected people to be impressed with me. Rydia came in December 2015, at the cusp of the depressive phase that never really went away completely since it started, but I was proud of her. I loved writing her. I was so inspired by her. Brohamut and I planned great things for her and Cecilia Harvey, and we elected to keep our plans largely a secret so others could be surprised by this story we were collaboratively telling. Suddenly the magic had returned before it had faded.

But I shot myself in the foot. I fucked myself over before I’d begun, because I was so casual about her character that she was quickly just the “lettuce brat”. I tried my best to depict a character who had gone through hell and lived, and came out severely traumatized and unable to adequately cope with it. Someone in need of help they were reluctant to seek. I had hoped that something this different would be of interest to people.

It was a mistake.

A depressing story like hers? Nobody wanted that. Not really. There were lots of expectations heaped upon her because of the association with the character from FFIV. Though I did my best to clarify she was inspired by the character and never meant to be anything close to a 1-to-1 transition, I clearly screwed that up, too.

Rydia, a character written extremely seriously, became ‘the lettuce brat’. She ended up little more than comic relief in the eyes of most people, I feel, and the more I struggled  to RP her more and get her taken more seriously the more I lost the fight. I misread the situation. Nobody would have wanted to RP with her no matter how I’d played her. Some things are just uncomfortable, and it’s not really other peoples’ obligation to explain that things make them uncomfortable.

The final nail in the coffin of my membership with RISK was the reformation leading into Stormblood RP. The free and open company of eclectic, bombastic personalities became a paramilitary and overnight practically none of my characters fit anymore. Jaraku doesn’t belong in a uniform taking orders. Grey didn’t want to fight. The only IC RISK member I had that was cool with it was Resh Viqqoh.

And even writing for The Crucible, carrying on other RP plots, playing Stormblood, I still tried to make Resh interesting. It was a new lease on the character who’d for so long been a nothing presence. Making her a full-on engineer wasn’t just logical, it was beautiful. It was a great evolution from her involvement in prior RP. It was a great thing.

I was so, so happy to be able to contribute, but once again I sank myself. I didn’t hunt people down to ask for RP, and the weapon dossiers I made just weren’t interesting enough to hold attention. Not one person wanted anything to do with the ‘engineering department’, which consisted of who I now see was mostly considered a kooky side character and an actual, literal child. I was doomed from the start.

Thanks entirely to Brohamut and The Crucible, I was able to find RPers outside the FC who were interested in RPing with me. I got over a lot of my shyness and came out of my shell a lot more because it felt less like one mistake would get me kicked. In my depressed state, I was convinced I was always a hair from being politely asked to leave RISK.

I never wanted to worry anyone, so I kept it to myself, almost entirely.

When my last-ditch effort with Resh failed and I found myself (on my second account) in other free companies who I felt more kinship with than RISK, the end was inevitable. If I wasn’t going to be allowed to RP with RISK as Rydia, if my characters were doomed to languish (because of my mistakes, because of my writing, because of my crippling sleep disorder I still don’t have a handle on) in a company with which I had precious little business RPing, then why not leave?

When I first broached the topic to Livvy, I told her I wanted to leave in small numbers, a bit at a time, so nobody would panic. And because I wanted to have the option open to come back. But that was me being a coward again.

So instead, I’m leaving in total now. And I want this explanation visible to the company I loved more than I had ever loved myself so that there’s no doubt or rumor about why I did it.

Now, as far as what I’m planning for RP purposes:

Any character who ends up retired/replaced will have a public post of their epilogue. I hate retcons, hate them, so I would rather write the end of their story than do what it would take for them to continue on outside the company, i.e. deny it existed IC. I’m not going to do that.

-Blaetlona Isilmynawyn is up in the air. I’ve had no real reason to RP her in any meaningful way in about a year. She’s tentatively considered an ‘open’ slot for new character creation 

-Grey Riot will be retired. This has been a long time coming and was discussed in advance with relevant parties.

-Jaraku Drake is moving on from RISK, and IC has more plans now than ever. Apparently leaving the company was the best thing to happen to him from my perspective because now he has much more freedom to go different places and do more things.

-Zwynmaga Doesmagasyn, as the ‘biker gang’ RP series is completely abandoned/concluded, is up for replacement for new character creation should this be necessary.

-Bernard Undertaker, an integral part of the Undertakings arc, will remain involved in that arc so long as he lives IC. However, as I am neither able to afford nor justify spending $50 on him at this time for a story + job jump just so he can do one in-character action, I will not be taking him to Stormblood.

-Natalya Nibiru is up for replacement or radical shift in attention/direction. Potentially, I’ll keep her on to RP with Gaelle.

-Resh Viqqoh is going to require either EXTREME shift in character, or, more likely, replacement.

-Rydia Misuto will be one of my highest-priority RP characters because I owe it to her to give her a serious story that will be worth reading about, especially now that I am free of any burden of worry about how her story will conflict with others’.

-A’sato Clueless, made specifically for an RP arc I completely ruined immediately out of panic (which is not an excuse), will be replaced with a much better character for an arc I intend to go well which will be wholly unrelated to RISK.

-Gaelle Troyes will either continue to RP alongside Natalya/doing her own thing or be returned to retirement. Likely the former. I do enjoy those two and their dynamic.

-Gerrith Gaffgarion will be taken in other directions, as it was made clear to me (tragically late) that plans changed and he will not be needed or wanted in any RP involving RISK. He has already continued his successful career via a job which was part of a story arc conceived, planned, and carried on by @sasha-rochester and their closest RP partner, who are both phenomenal writers I have nothing but good to say about.

-Tange Shishido remains a willing teacher to anyone in the Far East who desires to learn how to use a katana to kill Garleans.

As the rest of my characters are not directly affiliated with RISK in any meaningful capacity, I feel no need to address my plans for them.

I hope those of you who took the time to read this can understand my decision. I hope I can be forgiven. At this time, I don’t know if I’ll attend any future company events. I will be leaving the skype chat and discord server, however, as it seems appropriate to do so given the circumstances. I never used the RISK server to play Overwatch, anyway, and it’s not as if I ever felt welcome in calls there.

[swampgallows]

for the first time in a while, at least a month, i woke up screaming again. i fell asleep around 4, which i was proud of, feeling myself slowly sliding back toward a preferred schedule. lately i’d still been falling asleep at 6am but would wake up a bit earlier, getting fewer hours but at least seeing more sunlight. the urge to hurt myself yesterday was strong, but luckily there are understanding and generous people in my life to ease me through it, and i am beyond thankful. 

two things have happened.

one, an old face from my previous WoW server has resurfaced and sought me out specifically. a different friend had namedropped them out of nowhere, but was also drunk and wouldn’t extrapolate on why he had mentioned it. he just said the character’s name, then drunk-dialed me a bunch of times until i picked up and then had their “gay roommate” scream across the room that “asexuals aren’t lgbtq!”, then hung up.

but anyway the old face returned. we’ll call them “Pockets” because it’s 7am and I’ve barely slept and so i’m pullin raver names out of my ass. I met Pockets back on thobro in 2006ish. we’re the same age, and so we’ve known each other for a fairly long time and kind of grew up alongside each other. Pockets eventually got into a relationship with...I guess we’ll say “Dizzy”. Now, Dizzy lives very far away from Pockets. Pockets lives in America, like me, and Dizzy lives in Australia. But as the capabilities of the internet were improving every day (especially with the advent of internet telephony like skype at the time) it was easier than ever to sustain a long-distance relationship. But by the time I had quit WoW in early 2009, Pockets and Dizzy’s relationship had not progressed as one should have. For instance, Pockets had barely seen any pictures of Dizzy. While they chatted all the time, at that point they hadn’t yet had a webcam chat. It had been some years of constant companionship, yet they never had a plan to meet. But that was fair, I thought, since Pockets and I were only 16 in 2006, so planning that thing was kind of difficult. But by 2009, we were 19, and Dizzy was a bit older in the first place, so surely two people who loved each other would want to meet irl, right?

But Pockets said they respected that Dizzy wasn’t so open about their looks or personal life, etc. Okay. Pretty big red flags, though, if someone you’ve spent almost every waking moment with for three years is being this conservative about their identity. They were prominent characters in most of the server’s RP, so there was a lot of talk. “Maybe Dizzy is like... WAY older than they say, and they don’t want to admit it.” “Maybe Dizzy isn’t the gender they say they are.” “Pockets will get fed up with this eventually—they’re young! They can’t just wait around forever.”

So Pockets found me in game, yesterday, and had transferred to WRA, where a lot of thobro refugees (like myself) ended up. And they sought me out specifically because they remember my friendship with them, and that I had known them (and the rest of our community) all that time ago. And Pockets told me, yesterday, that Pockets and Dizzy had finally broken up. They had stopped talking for about two weeks, and for about two solid weeks, Pockets was staring down the cavernous hungry maw of suicide. “Everything was just... so quiet.”

They must have been fucking married by now, I thought. Either way, it had been over ten years! I knew Pockets was taking it really hard. Except... Dizzy and Pockets never met.

Not once. Not once in over ten fucking years of being in a relationship did they ever meet. And Dizzy had actually been to America a handful of times throughout the relationship. Yet Dizzy never went to meet Pockets.

I don’t know what the rest of the situation was like. If they video-chatted every day, if they called each other all the time, or whatever. Regardless of how you look at it or what the situation with Dizzy was, Pockets was catfished and abused for over ten fucking years. “It’s my fault. I should have left when [etc. etc.] happened...” Pockets told me that they hadn’t even seen end-game content past Cataclysm, despite playing WoW the entire time. Dizzy never wanted to do any of it, but would get upset if Pockets did it without them. So all Pockets did from Cataclysm onward was PVP, and once they reached the top achievements, felt there was nowhere else to go from there and stopped. Dizzy only wanted to play alts and quest. No raids, no PVP, no dungeons even. Just running around and questing, and preventing Pockets from doing any of that content. When someone you have never even fucking met is controlling the way you play a video game and what permissions you have within the game that you pay monthly to play, something is wrong.

Pockets knew they were lacking confidence. They were so lonely and so latched on that they let Dizzy run the show. And Dizzy barely cared. Pockets knew they basically only existed when it was convenient for Dizzy, but outside of that, they were nothing. I felt that about halfway through my relationship with my ex qp, and shared those feelings with Pockets. It took so long to break away and I held on past everything, past my own pain and self-torture, because I had some kind of hope that things would change. And part of me, an insidious part, said that this was the best I was going to get. After all, I’m some broken asexual idiot—”I should be so lucky,” the words rang out in my head, yellowed and worn but enduring and broadcasting itself loud and vivid over and over for years and years and years, tattered even during my childhood, “I should be thankful,”—and this person was my best friend. I should take the affection in the times I could get it. I should just accept that they will want other people sexually because I cannot provide that, and my best friend has a right to be sexual, and they are being so generous by fixing me with their limp novice dick. 

So I bit it back and squashed it down and even after asking six times and getting no answer, “Do you have a problem with hurting me?” it took them falling into the pit of legitimate white supremacy and Nazism for me to finally let go. And I had tried a number of times but felt myself being pulled back, and they, too, were so desperate for some sense of power in their shitty meaningless life (if that wasnt obvious), so lacking initiative and direction that when i floated back upstream, they took it in stride like every other aspect of existence, as if i were just some trash that floated down the river that they, some huge, slack-jawed bloated fish, gobbled up regardless. I existed only when it was convenient for me to exist, and the moment I started being consumed by my anxiety, getting combative, demanding more affection, more outward recognition, I was gaslit and told, literally, word for word, in fun little tumblr doublespeak, “Your feelings are valid, but this is all based on things within your head.” me coming to my QP and saying, “I feel like you dont care about me because I keep asking to hang out and you’re completely ambivalent about it, and when i asked you, ‘Do you want to see me?’ you said ‘You can visit if you want,’. It’s a yes or no question. Do you want to see me?” DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HURTING ME? and then being told it’s “all in my head”, it’s a perceived disinterest. YES, that is what I’m perceiving, which is why I’m trying to address that you are not giving me enough attention and acknowledgment for someone you claim to care about! But obviously, it was me that was the problem, because i was daring to exist outside those convenient parameters. If you didnt want to fuck me right now then what was I even doing breathing your air?

And I’ve been thinking about them a lot because it was around this time 3 years ago that i had started my job, which i had to quit, and had also had a falling out with them, and was mourning that loss. as well as a, in retrospect, MUCH LARGER LOSS of tokin, who had taken his own life that same week. so i tried to turn it into a new beginning, doing my job and being appreciated, but eventually i crawled back and, one-sided as usual, tried to mend things with the QP. But it didnt matter to them. I didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. “Oh well,” was their shitty little trademark. Yeah buddy, life is fucking just happening to you and you’re stuck in one place without even a dream of things getting better, or worse, just taking things as they are, apathetically, without interest, wanting for nothing except to fuck girls but not enough to do anything about it, only if they’re delivered to your doorstep.

So here’s the second thing that happened.

Yesterday was coming out day, and a sort of friend-of-a-friend posted their story on facebook. I read it this morning upon waking up.

She mentioned her living situation and how she was living with other women who promised that they would help her, which is, in her words, “a huge red flag”. She says things settled into a routine, and eventually the big problem that she needed help with fell to the wayside in the wake of all of the smaller, but more prolific things: “focused on other fires, both making and putting them out.” She talks about the time she wasted living with these women and how she was “on the edge again”. She trusted people she loved and that loved her to help her, and they couldn’t. But then, after hitting a very low point, she had a breakthrough:

I did something I'm not sure I'd ever done before in my life: I took the initiative to help myself. I researched, found, and made an appointment with a therapist who specialized in this sort of thing. I worked through a tremendous amount of repression. I did mental exercises to actively re-wire my brain, and unlearn my unhealthy coping mechanisms. It was painful.

And then, she wrote this:

Maybe my point is that you can't entrust your journey (ugh, hate that term) to anyone else. You can't let other people tell you who you are or are not. No matter how much you love and trust someone, they cannot do the work for you. They can facilitate it, as [redacted] failed to do, but in the end, it's you... get help, get the best and most objective and impartial help you can, do not let yourself be held hostage by people or environments or your own fucking apathy which benefit from you being inert.

When someone you love offers you help, it's normal to want to take the help, and oftentimes you should. But sometimes, it's too much to give, or they have their own problems or motives, and the help is unreasonable to expect. Do not turn yourself over to someone. Deal with these things on your own terms. Define the terms by which you exist. I lost two fucking years of my life...because I believed that someone else could and would do it for me.

But at least I'm there now. You can get there, too.

I do not know how I can start this journey. I have been trying for ten years, but I have very little direction or resources. I’ve spent the last... god, I guess 8 years, just trying to keep my head above water. Basically since my second year of college, all I’ve really done is survive, and the only times I felt truly alive and like myself were within the rave scene. So I have been clinging to that, and it is a definitive part of me, because it helps me breathe. I don’t think it is “holding me back” because I am not heading anywhere. But I have spent so long gasping for air that I’m almost nauseous from taking a breath. Since I was really young I have cared about electronic music, somewhat in defiance of my live musician parents [drum machines have no soul], and going to thunderdome in a week (!!!) or so is like a pilgrimage to gabber mecca, but also a kind of zenith. 

where do i go from here? I’ve said I want to DJ just because parties dont play the music I want to hear, but within the last few years I have felt myself so plugged up and insecure that I don’t know what I want. I’m too old to be precocious and have lost some of my identity in that way because of it. Now that I’m getting older, I feel like I don’t have permission to be new at things. But I have been restrained by permission my whole life. I have earned money yet i’m not allowed to pay for things. I earned my driver’s license by myself yet i’m not allowed to leave my house. i am controlled by my mother’s desperation and neediness and guilt, and by my father’s disconnect and judgment. I am controlled by my siblings’ apathy and my friends’ disappointment in me. i am afraid of not being perfect because then my parents won’t want me, so i put off things that i even want to do and i fear messing up, fear not acquiescing, fear not providing something expected of me, because i will be hurt.

but ultimately i am constrained by my own fears, my fear of pain. i am hurt by the thought that my parents don’t love me and that, to them, i just exist when convenient also, only when they can brag about me, only when they need something done. “I’m worried you don’t get out enough,” my mom says, but all she can offer are words because her heart is closed. she loves by worrying, by stifling, by pity. and i dont want to continue that. i dont want my love to be just good intentions. i want it to be good actions. love, love is a verb.

“I took the initiative to help myself. ... It was painful.”

There is a lot of red tape between my life and my parents’ control. and sometimes doing any action is so exhausting that I cannot do anything for the rest of the day. But I don’t want to be Pockets, waiting for the people who control me to start loving me actively, to have faith in their control benefiting me somehow. I’ve done it before by getting my license by myself. It was slow, and agonizing, and incredibly difficult and drawn-out, but I have it, and it’s mine, and my mom “felt bad”, but I can’t care. Now it’s just a matter of literally getting out the door, without the inquisition, without the mire of their guilt. I am genuinely starving, living on bread and half-expired milk and soda, because I am tired of making my mom cry by asking her to buy things, or coming home with things that, if I had only asked, she would have gotten for me.

I am not asking anymore. I am just going to go get things myself. It will make her cry. She will cry that she is “obsolete”, and that she has “no purpose”, and that she “lives for her kids”, and it will be painful. Like Pockets, I have wasted over ten years of my life banking in good intentions, on the trust that people who love me will help me. Or the trust that even people who are paid to help me will help me. 

"Do not turn yourself over to someone. Deal with these things on your own terms. Define the terms by which you exist."

Asexuality is a term that has helped. It gave me more agency in my verbs, of making a command decision about how I approach sexuality, whereas before I was giving myself, in every imaginable interpretation of the phrase, over to someone else. It hurts that I have to fight so much, that I must fight constantly for personhood, even from those who claim they would do anything to give it to me, even from those who physically did give me personhood. 

For my entire life I have thought my bloodline cursed. I have lived beneath the shadow of my father's greatest failure. I hated him for what he had done. I hated him for the burden he left me. But now... You have shown me truths that I would have never known. You and your allies have gifted me with something that cannot bear a price: Redemption. Thrall, redeemer of the Mag'har, you honor me as none ever have... On this day, a great burden has been lifted from my chest. My heart swells with pride. And for the first time, I can proudly proclaim who I am. I can finally unleash the fury in my heart. 

As long as I know what I stand for, even if I don’t know what I want or how to get it, I can get there. Because I’ve done it before.

When the bread was finished, the tired little red hen asked her friends, “Who will help me eat the bread?” “I will,” barked the lazy dog. “I will,” purred the sleepy cat. “I will,” quacked the noisy yellow duck. “No!” said the little red hen. “I will.” And the little red hen ate the bread all by herself.

Not that I even have my first tattoo yet, but if I ever get a second one, it should be a little red hen on my wrist. It can be my personal shorthand for “take it easy, but take it”.