Maybe I should just keep remembering why it’s better just to avoid people. Supposedly I’m the crazy one?
The sooner I’m done dealing with those PBeM people, the better. Every day is more salt in the wound. A new low for them…and I really think they honestly think I’m the crazy bitch.
Tags: PBeM, dysfunctional drama
So, I may be the red head, but N2 is the stuborn one. She not only refuses to see my Point-of-view on anything ever, but she doesn’t want to work on our friendship. She’s decided that my accusations are just too hurful and she doesn’t want to deal with me anymore. She has instructed me not to IM or email her again.
SQ had me send her one last email saying “O.K. No Problem. ;)”. I kid you not.
I was like, “You know that’s just going to piss her off. I was just just not going to reply.” But SQ wanted me to make sure I had closure I guess. It was her idea to put the smilie face too.
It turns out that what SQ wasn’t telling me is that SQ hasn’t talked to N2 herself in months. She didn’t want to tell me because she didn’t want to influence my outcome. After the fact, she told me.
I was very upset about the way N2 treated me, how she didn’t even want to try to work on our friendship, which only proved that it wasn’t a friendship at all, which is what I was trying to say from the start and which she refused to understand. Her twisted view of what a friendship is and my view of what a friendship is, however, messed up my own version is, are no where near close.
Anyway, SQ told me afterwards that I’m not crazy, that N2 has done this to people before. She has a history of it.
So…you know the old saying about just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you? I was paranoid and for good reason. I was right.
And as SQ pointed out, even if I had been 90% wrong, if N2 had really been my friend, she wouldn’t have treated me the way she did.
So, N2 is out of my life.
I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t hurt. It never feels good when you let go of someone from your life who you were close to. It might be the right thing to do and it might be the healthy thing to do, but that doesn’t mean there’s not an ache or a void and like I said, I was upset and crying last night for a while. I’m a sensitive person and I’ve been under a lot of stress in other parts of my life lately.
But it’s like SQ says, eventually, it’ll be easier and I’ll probably realize that there’s been a weight lifted and probably this has only been adding stress to it all and things will just be better from here on out. I know SQ means well, but she does have a husband and didn’t have to face the big loneliness while clean sweeping the stressful people from her life. 
Anyway, well, N2 is connected with the only PBeM I’m still playing and that has been causing a lot of personal stress for me too. It hasn’t been fun for me in a while either. A lot of it is the people, mostly the moderators. So, while I was at it, I sent an email to the head moderator and said I was leaving the game. It was the fastest reply I ever got, which hurt my feelings for many reasons — I’ve been told repeatedly that she doesn’t have time to answer all of the game-related emails, etc. and she didn’t even bother to answer the email I sent her the day before that I wanted to take a hiatus and was considering leaving the game.
Then all she had to say was “sorry to hear and it’s for the best” with instructions on how to write out my characters since I’d kindly offered to write them out, unlike most players who just say, “bye” or disappear. I had thanked her for giving me a place to play my characters and said I had enjoyed myself rather than write an essay on why I was leaving and tell her what I really thought about her and her favoritism moderating stuck up self. Did I get a “thanks for playing with us” or “sorry to see you go” or “we’ll miss you” or “sure you don’t want to rethink staying?” No. No return kindness, not even phony return kindness. Just instructions on how I can help her.
I really wanted to tell her to shove her game and the characters up her ass, but of course SQ was like “oh you don’t know, maybe she’s hurt.”. She’s hurt? I’m the one who was treated like an outsider and nitpicked by N2 for six months and isolated and she’s hurt?
I’m glad I’m getting away from the crazy people. I don’t understand them. I’m constantly supposed to be giving them the benefit of the doubt and act gracefully as I leave, but they can walk all over me and that’s o.k.
I’m thirty-five years old. I want to stop reliving high-school. When do we get to stop doing that?
Tags: dysfunctional drama, friendship, PBeM
Some or a lot of this post may not make sense to you, dear readers. That’s fine. It’s not really for you. It’s for me, for later.
SQ noted that N2 wasn’t included in a general email I sent to several people updating them on my health. I replied that N2 hadn’t responded to my email from Sunday so I assumed that she didn’t really care one way or the other which is why I hadn’t included her. SQ’s response was to inquire as to whether or not I was sure N2 had actually gotten the email where I indicated that we needed to talk because I felt she hadn’t been talking to me of late.
Originally I had told SQ that I didn’t want to drag her into this tiff like the one last Spring, but I’ve been feeling very depressed the last 24 hours and so here is my response:
Nope.
But the fact is that she hasn’t bothered to talk to me in a week. If she didn’t get the email, that proves that she doesn’t want to talk to me. If she did get the email, that proves that she doesn’t want to talk to me.
She’s been pulling away for some time. For the last few weeks the only time she’s talked to me was when I wasn’t posting regularly on [the PBeM] and then rather than say “could you post on [the PBeM]?”, she’d say “Hey, how are you feeling?” When I’d try and contact her and ask her how her
life was doing and how [her son] was and just general chit chat, *if* she answered at all, which she usually didn’t, it was a word or two and that was it. I kind of got the feeling that if I was online and not posting, she was holding that against me, but I just didn’t feel well and I’m sorry but being awake enough to be online and creative enough to post are two different things.I don’t know. I just feel like this has been coming for ages. I don’t think [N2] is who I thought she was or maybe I’m not who she thought I was. I think we’ve grown apart.
It’s sad but looking back over the last six months, she hasn’t been very supportive when I’ve tried to talk to her about being sick, like she doesn’t believe me or something, and I just don’t think that kind of attitude is helpful or healthy for me. I get enough of that from my dad and his “suck it up” mentality.
I think I just didn’t realize what was happening. I’m usually socially clueless. I want to be everyone’s friend and I just keep trying and I don’t notice when I’m the only one trying. And maybe [N2] thinks she is trying. I guess I just feel like I’ve been tossed aside. I mean, we used to talk every day about everything, but now I don’t think I know anything that’s going on in her life and she isn’t willing to share. And sometimes I feel like it has everything to do with the games…like I’m not in the upper echelon of the gaming crew and therefore there’s no time for me anymore like I’m being pushed out.
I know this sounds stupid and silly but I feel like the unwanted, pathetic geek that no one wants anything to do with like back in high school all over again sometimes. I picture myself in those flashback scenes from “Never Been Kissed” as Josie. That was pretty much me. That’s the kind of rejected pain I feel. I know it’s ridiculous to feel that kind of pain over a game all these years later, but that is exactly what the “cliques” in the gaming circles remind me of sometimes — high school. It takes me right back. Which is why I’m thinking about just getting out all together. I’d miss the actual gaming part, but the high school spaz part I wouldn’t. Trying to find people to post with me. Trying to find people to participate in my storylines. Feeling like there are favorites and cliques. Feeling like an outsider. Feeling like it’s never really my time to shine.
Well, I think maybe I have said a lot more than I really meant to say when I started. The fact is that [N2] hasn’t bothered to talk to me either way so it doesn’t matter and I’ve been keeping up with posting so she hasn’t had to ask me about my health. But I didn’t want to drag you into things. I’m very sad about what’s happening and very hurt and a little angry but part of me is very accepting. It’s just a reminder that I need to get out more and meet more people.
Tags: dysfunctional drama, friendship, PBeMs, rejection
To: N2
From: N
Could you at least acknowledge either way that you’re at least getting these emails, that you’re alive, etc? Tell me to shut up and go away if that’s what you want but don’t leave me just sitting here wondering what’s going on.
Talk to me.
To: N
From: N2
Talk to you? About what? Your very unfair and kind of insulting temper tantrum on me yesterday?
We’re still friends, don’t worry.. but I need to cool down still…so give me some time.
To: N2
From: N
I’ll give you time, yes, but please take into account this perspective (as [SQ] would point out), your email to me from my perspective was very unfair and insulting and indicatated that you not only didn’t listen to anything I said the day before but you assumed I lied to you and you didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt….after you appeared to have stopped talking to me sometime the day before when I way trying to work out what was wrong.
[N2], I’ve been crying for 2 days and not about the game, but because I feel like you turned your back on me and shut me out and you’re my best friend and I can’t figure out what went wrong, which is why I think we need to talk on the phone. Maybe tonight rather than let this fester through obvious perspectives of emails.
To: N
From: N2
Did you not read [GM bitch]’s original email to you? She specifically said that I thought you should keep Willow and that it was her making the decision to remove Willow from you.
I did listen to everything you said and I took it all into account. You have not lost me as a friend, not one bit. I’m not even mad; just frustrated and irritated mostly that you found blame with everything but yourself and that you exaggerated on certain things to make it seem that you were that much more innocent and everyone else was that much worse. That happens to be a pet peeve of mine and I don’t take it from anyone, including my friends.
Yesterday, yes. I’ll admit I assumed you lied. It was a very, very -pat- coincidence that you started posting so much after [GM bitch] sent that email (which was cc’d to [SQ] and I and we both received it immediately after she sent it); the second thing was my first email to you yesterday morning, asking if you’d gotten it… and I got back one, single solitary word. “No.” Which is out of character for you. The third was that you found it… after I sent you an email about it…. you had to admit that when it’s laid out like that, it sounds quite planned.
Talking on the phone is fine and tonight is fine.. if I don’t hit the movies.
To: N2
From: N
First, I don’t lie to my friends and I don’t appreciate being called a liar by my friends who should know better. That is a pet peeve of mine.
Second, I had appologized the day before about the conversation on Tuesday night and had taken responsibility. However, it appears that it doesn’t matter how many times I appologize.
On Wednesday morning I specifically told you that I would be either posting for all of my characters before bed or before work from then on. I have been trying to explain to you since last week about setting up lists and schedules and how important that is to my recovery and it’s been increasingly frustrating to me that you don’t seem to be either interested
or don’t seem to remember.
I replied “no” because I was mad that I had tried to talk to you about the fact that you were brushing me off the day before and you weren’t responding AND I had not in fact gotten anything from [GM bitch].I have a separate beef with [GM bitch] now which I now understand is a separate thing and quite frankly I haven’t decided what to do about it. However, after receiving her email which I didn’t get until after I got to work yesterday and which I still feel was unfairly handled, I was quite upset and read your email that accused me of lying and it sent me over the edge.
Anyway, I’ll be home all night. I might even leave early.
To: GM bitch
CC: N2, SQ
From: N
In the future, I would prefer if you have an issue you would like to dissuss with me about a game, do not ask [N2] or [SQ] to approach me on the subject; I would prefer to discuss it with you personally if possible. I just feel that it adds complexities that need not be added to such situations.
I’ve requested similar before I know, but I would like to reiterrate this now since it appears to have become a problem again.
Thank you.
Tags: friendship, dysfunctional drama, PBeM
I’d like to say TGIF but quite frankly the day of the week means nothing to me. The weekend may be more time alone at home to sulk and stare at an empty inbox or an unrining telephone or an IM-less Y!M.
OK for about seven hours Sunny and Queer Eye will be there to distract me a little tomorrow but then it’ll be just me and the kitties and my runaway thoughts again.
I talked to SQ last night from about 11:30pm to about 1:30 (she’s on the West Coast, you know). She could tell I was distressed and didn’t want to let another day go by without trying to talk to me about another perspective and offer some suggestions on handling the “situation.”
The “situation” goes back to that earlier post about the PBeM issue but it goes back further than that and it doesn’t and it’s about other issues and it’s really about being angry at one person and what she did in specific and hurt by what N2 did or didn’t do or isn’t doing or may be acting and they’re kind of separate but they’re entertwined and to tell it my brain kind of goes off on tangents. At least I’ve figured out that I’ve been crying since Wednesday night but the tears are for N2 and not for the stupid game or the way that the GM bitch handled things. But I believe I deserve an appology by both of them.
So, anyway, SQ pointed out something I already knew. When your brain is running in place over the same track, it sometimes help to write it down so your brain can take a break, knowing it’s been put somewhere for save keeping. Well, I’m going to try. I appologize if this doesn’t make sense.
Last year, during my depressive episode, right around Hurricane Katrina, GM bitch and SQ first approached me about playing Willow in a Buffy/Angel PBeM. Normally I don’t play cannon characters as I don’t feel comfortable taking on already created characters but I was somewhat interested. However, between my depression and the Survival Guilt of Katrina, I decided not to join. I decided I couldn’t commit to the game at the time. A month or two later, they came back again as the girl they’d gotten to play Willow was a “nut job” and I had to come and save them. Reluctantly, I came to play but admittely I felt a little thrown into the wolves and unsure of myself.
Not to worry, I quickly discovered that GM bitch had plans for everything and she was constantly IMing me and sending me emails with instructions with what to do with Willow’s character. The one time I was actually doing something with Willow on my own, I was told to drop what she was doing and go do something else — when I complained about this last night, I was told by SQ that I should have spoken up then and therefore it’s my fault; I didn’t know I had a voice, but oh, well.
Anyway, like I said in the previous post, I kind of dropped the ball with the game. There was a four post per week minimum in “active” threads. I did find this difficult as one of the players I was in a scene with almost never posts more than once or twice a week herself if that, which has always been one of my pet peeves with her in other games. Then SQ moved all of our characters into another scene filled with other characters, lots of other characters and it was total chaos and it was, to me, impossible to figure out who was talking to who and where exactly everyone was standing. Not everyone was including such information in their “required” header information.
So,GM bitch sent an email to the game’s discussion list telling me to have Willow leave the new character she’d just brought with another character named Trysta and go look for Giles. So, I sent an email to the discussion list asking where Trysta was, if Trysta and Willow knew each other and if Trysta would mind telepathic contact.
That above email is the one that triggered everything supposedly. I was told that I was posting too many emails asking for help about being lost. (Mind you out of the 1099 posts on the discussion list since I’d joined in October I’d posted 44 total and only one asked a question about where anyone was, etc.) Anyway, that’s when suddenly N2 needed to “talk” to me.
O.K. Well, if you go read the other post, you know that sometime on Wednesday, N2 just plain stopped speaking to me. Certainly before that she wasn’t listening to anything I was telling her. I know specifically that I’d mapped out for her how I was going to be answering PBeM posts on a schedule of 30 min before bed or 30 min before work from then on. She obviously didn’t pay attention to this as you will see…and this was one of the first things I said in my initial appology to her on Wednesday.
When I got done working with Sunny Wednesday night, she still hadn’t answered any of my emails. I tried IMing her but she was very monosyllbic and cold. You know, you can always tell when someone doesn’t want to talk to you. You just know. So I said good night.
But I wrote another email and told her that I was very worried about our friendship, that whatever was up with the games, they were just games and that our friendship was certainly more important than that. I honestly told her that I was very depressed and hurt and that I needed her friendship and I wanted to fix whatever it was that had gone wrong.
I’ve never received a response.
I started crying that night. I cried most of yesterday.
True to my word, when I got up yesterday, I answered all open tags for my PBeM characters and then went to work. When I got to work there was an email from N2 asking me if I’d gotten “the email from GM bitch”. I replied “no”.
I got GM bitch’s email right after. (Please note that the time stamp said she’d mailed it from Austrailia on Wednesday at about 3:30pm)
It was a long unpleasant (in my opinion) email that basically said that N2 had “gone to bat” for me but GM bitch had made the decision to take away Willow from me. However, they didn’t want me to quit either game (I also play in her Firefly game) so I could make up a non-cannon character if I wanted.
Well, I was pissed off. I mean, why come to me on Tuesday night and tell me that I play a great Willow and that they don’t want me to quit playing Willow but thay they’re worried that I can’t keep up with the upcoming storyarc so they need to know if I can commit to it, let me commit to it and begin posting and then take the character away? What a friggin’ bitch?!
It felt like I was just starting to pull myself up out of the hole and she stepped on my fingers and kicked me in the stomach. Don’t make an offer you aren’t willing to go through with. And certainly don’t offer me a concolation prize. I only was in the game to play Willow. Fuck that! Which they begged me to do!
And this morning I realized why it really and truly upset me. It’s the associated memory. The rejection. The being fired. I know SQ kept saying that I wasn’t run out of the game because I had an option, but it wasn’t really an option to me. Why would I have stayed, really? It’d be like staying at a job after you’ve been demoted.
So, I quit the Buffy game.
Do I regret it. A little but only in that I feel like they should apologize and offer the character back, which they won’t. As SQ says, it’s a done deal.
So, GM bitch is at the top of my hate list right now which is kind of hard because I don’t want to have anything to do with her and the only game I have left is her other game and quite frankly I don’t trust her and despite what SQ says I do think she hunts for dysfunctional drama and it wouldn’t suprise me if she had a little chat room set up last night to talk bad about me and my little meltdown as I left the Buffy game.
What really pisses me off about her is that she always assumes the worst about me. She thinks I’m too negative and assumes that I mean something seriously when I’m joking and has accused me of such and told me to use Smileys when I’m being funny but then doesn’t believe the Smileys either.
Personally, she’s made this whole PBeM experience rather miserable. If it stays this way, maybe it’s time to finally leave roleplaying all together.
O.K. so back to N2.
After I wrote a nasty note to GM Bitch quiting her game and thanking her from always knowing when to kick me when I’m trying to pull myself up, I got N2’s response to my email that I hadn’t gotten “the email from the GM bitch”.
You didn’t… but now you’re posting like mad… cowinkydink?
You no longer have Willow, hon.
[N2]
Well, this kind of pissed me off.
I got [GM bitch]’s post after I got your email, after I had spent my morning
posting my posts like I told you I would do yesterday — post before work.
This is such bullshit.It doesn’t matter. I’m quiting Buffy. I might quit the other game too.
Thanks so much to all of you for kicking me in the stomach while I was
trying to pull myself up. You know what, I really needed some
understanding this week and I really needed my friends and I was really
trying to pull myself out of and sort things out the last few weeks but I
don’t need all this shit from people who are supposed to be my friends.You people obviously live on this drama. I did what I was supposed to do.
I posted my characters more than once this week and then I get this email
taking my character away. Bullshit.
I never received a response.
Last night my Y!M status message was “trust no one,” which SQ made me change. It now says, “It sucks to be Frodo.”
I feel betrayed by N2. I feel like she wasn’t there for me as a friend when I needed her. I feel like she repeatedly hasn’t been listening to me talk about my therapy and my treatment and my plans to get better and I’m hurt, particularly since she also suffers from depression. I resent that she judged me and told me that 20% of my problem is me and that she thinks I’ve gotten worse and that my meds aren’t working and then turned her back on me when my life went into crisis mode. I am hurt that our friendship is intermingled in this mess.
I have expressed in the past a dislike of having GM bitch send N2 to do her dirty work. This is why. If this gets fixed, I think I’m going to have to be more aggressive in explaining that in the future, either GM bitch comes to me or she sends someone else.
SQ tried to point out that N2 and I are alike in many ways, one of which is an aversion to conflict. It’s possible that once GM bitch made her decision on Wednesday, N2 just stopped communicating with me because she was afraid. Still, that hurts me too.
Anyway, this morning I sent one last olive branch to N2, an email telling her that I’d like to talk on the phone this weekend to straighten this out. There’s no reason that a stupid game should screw up our friendship. However I told her that the ball is in her court.
I have had no response.
Tags: PBeM, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, friendship, dysfunctional drama
I really need a pat-myself-on-the-back moment right now. (I’ll explain later in another more lengthy post).
I’ve been mening to make of list of recenent sucesses and accomplishments as far as pulling myself out of this last big depressive episode. That way they’re all in one big place.
I’ve been working hard in that Cognitive Therapy class. While I’m having trouble decifering the “evidence” chapter, I’m looking forward to the chapter on balancing thoughts. I have great hope that somehow this therapy class will be of significant help in teaching me to deal with these rampant out-of-control automatic thoughts that seem to poison and overwhelm me sometimes on a day-to-day basis. Maybe I’ll never think like normal people, but maybe I can counter my brain’s runaway train thoughts somehow and fake it out. The shrink says that I should worry less about what hasn’t been accomplished and be proud of what has so there’s my list of accomplishments for the last month or so and it’s not so bad at all.
N2 rudely told me that she thought I was getting worse the other day, but I think she’s wrong. I think maybe my life is a little more chaotic right now because I’m trying to pull myself out of the bog and I’m trying to find a place for the things I love — sometimes when you’re sorting out something, it looks a little messier before things clean up, you know?
Tags: anxiety, depression, wellness, therapy, personal organizer, PBeM
Let’s get something straight right now. We all have hobbies, right? I mean, there are those of you out there who are seriously interested in WWF wrestling, golf, knitting, scrapbooking, bird-watching, and even bigfoot hunting. I don’t mock. Much. These things are important to you.
I have a tendency to put down my own hobby as being silly and my therapist tries to discourage that because it’s important to me. I try to write-off it’s importance because it’s a “game.” Obviously games are not as important as other things in life and therefore don’t deserve to be worth emotional upset, in my mind. However, my therapist keeps assuring me that it’s o.k. to get upset and express it and not put myself down about being upset about it.
So. I’m upset.
The thing is that really I’m the only one to blame and so I’m mostly pissed at myself, which is easy to do when you generally accept that most things in life are your fault anyway. However in this case, I should have been a better player, but quite frankly the last few months I haven’t put a high priority on my Play-by-e-mail roleplaying games. I’ve kind of let them slide in favor of being depressed and mopey and then I used that as an excuse. I have lots of excuses.
So here’s the thing. I know and knew I wasn’t playing up to par. I’m not stupid or oblivious. It does make me somewhat hypocritical as it’s something I’ve complained about in other players in the past. However, the longer it kept sliding, the harder it was to pull myself back into shape and the longer no one mentioned it, the easier it was to keep letting it slide.
Now, here’s the thing. Just because I know I’m screwing up, it doesn’t mean I like having someone point out to me that I’m screwing up, because that means they know I’m not perfect. Or it means that they’re ruining the illusion I have that everyone might think I’m perfect if I close my eyes and pretend hard.
Really, who likes to be scolded and told they’ve fucked up?
And they (the game moderators) always send my friend N2 to “talk” to me about whatever the issue of the month is and then we get into a pisser. Take two depressives trying to analyze each other and one is trying to tell the other that she screwed up and the other is trying to protect herself by raising her defenses by blaming everyone but herself even though she knows she’s at fault. Shake well.
So, I was in an upward swing the last week or so. I’ve been busy with the cleaning and the puppy visiting and I even told my mother that I was feeling better and was excited about stuff. I’ve been enjoying all the sunlight and I’ve lost a couple of pounds and I’ve been downright chipper.
And usually when I think I’m making progress, I guess that’s when they think it’s time to send N2 in to deal with me. Maybe they think I can’t handle it when I’m “too low”. Usually, N2 “dealing” with me always knocks me back a bit. I think if she discussed it with me while I was down, I’d deal with it better because I’d already be there. Now I’ve got to crawl back out of the hole again.
And this morning, after thinking on it last night and oversleeping and thinking on it this morning, I wrote her a long email. I told her that basically I understand everything she said last night and that I agree that I hadn’t been setting a high priority for the games and that I was willing to change that. I explained that I don’t initially accept criticism well and tried to appologize for that. I thought I was being very mature.
And her response was to basically echo back that she was frustrated from last night about how I was making all those excuses and not accepting responsibility and how most of my problem with my depression is me. She told me that I need to make a decision about whether I’m going to commit to the game because they need me to post for my characters 4 times a week, etc.
And I got really mad and said that I thought my previous email had calmly explained all of that and how frustrated I was that she didn’t seem to understand that.
I haven’t received a response now in several hours.
I sent another email asking if she was pissed at me now. No response there either.
I don’t know. I really just want to get on my life, but I can’t until I know that she’s o.k. with it. That’s just how I am. I have to have closure of some sort or it just keeps eating me. That’s the General Anxiety Disorder.
Tags: PBeM, roleplaying, anxiety, dysfunctional drama
I’m feeling kind of odd this morning. Last night I admitted to myself and SuzyQ something I hadn’t wanted to admit but had been feeling for some time. Perhaps I’ve been on the verge of this for a while.
I started playing roleplaying games late in my life in 1994. They have been a big part of my life — the creativity, the escapism, the socialness of it all. I’ve been both player and GM and I’ve both enjoyed and hated both at times. I started Play-by-email games not long after I guess. It’s sort of blurry and there were times when I was in as many as 5 at one time and for a while now I’ve been in just one — I call it my baby though I wasn’t the creator and I joined 6 months after it started and five years later, I’m the only player who has continuously played for all but 6 months of the game.
And I guess I’ve been clinging to the game because it’s my last tie to roleplaying since I haven’t found a roleplaying group in Southern Maine and most of the play-by-email games I’ve seen advertised kind of scare me or sound too silly to me. Personally, I have no interest (anymore) in roleplaying in some literary or televized fictional world created by someone else — o.k. well, I can qualify that a bit — I wouldn’t mind playing in the world of Harry Potter as long as none of the characters were cannon and it didn’t take place in England or Hogwarts, etc. That is J.K. Rowling’s story to tell and I don’t like messing with it. I also wouldn’t mind roleplaying in the realms of Buffy and Angel and the Charmed sisters but again, I don’t want to play with cannon characters and altered universes. I have no interest in playing in the Star Wars or Star Trek realms. Nor do I want to play high school soap operas like Dawson’s Creek or Felicity. I also have very little interest in soft or hard-core porn via email.
O.K. I’m picky. I admit it.
But maybe the truth is that I’m tired of playing in worlds created by other people. Maybe unconsciously my writer’s block stems from the weight of all of the work I have to do to keep the game going. It’s tiring having to nag people to post and nudge the people who are supposed to be telling the stories to actually do so. It’s just not any fun for me anymore…and I really do want to write. I’ve become so dependent on others for storytelling and the stories never go the way I hope they will. Maybe it’s time to focus on my own stories, open my mind to my muse.
Yesterday’s chat with SuzyQ lifted a little of the weight off of my shoulders and chest just by admitting how I feel and just knowing that she too feels the same — though she does have other PBeMs to play in.
And strangely last night as I was falling asleep the niggling of some characters I’ve had floating in my head but had no games for started to expand a little…they sort of spoke to me. I’ve not found a game world suitable to play them in and had no desire to create one for other people to play in and mess up, but what if I built the world and directed the character in that world on pages of my own.
Maybe this is what I need to take back my muse, to daydream once again of characters and scenes and adventures that long since seemed to have abandoned me.
And yet, I’ll miss being the player (if not the GM)…
Tags: writing, PBeM, roleplaying games
When I was little, I was always making up stories in my head. I’d have conversations between characters in there. Sometimes I’d even act out scenes. Sometimes Barbies were involved, I believe.
I also played with the girl next store and we would re-enact movies we loved or pretend to be cartoon or t.v. characters and play in her backyard or my living room. I sort of outgrew that foolishness, but I did turn several of my creative musings that came from this into short stories and one really bad novel in high school.
In college, I returned to the stories in my head, the conversations between characters only I could hear, and even the acting scenes out alone in my dorm room.
Yes, I was weird, but I got weirder.
After college, I got into role-playing games with my circle of friends. It seemed like a good way to feed my creative mind. I even kept character journals for the longest time. I agonized over character creation. I loved interacting with others, never quite knowing what was going to happen next or how other characters would react.
When I discovered play-by-e-mail games, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. After all, what could be better than merging my two loves — writing and role-playing?
I’ve played in quite a few play-by-e-mail games since then though currently I’m only in one. Now I wonder if it’s become too comfortable to depend on others to push the stories along, to come up with the plots, to create the scenes. I wonder if I’ve become so content in that state, that I have lost the ability to muster up my muse and find a world to write in or characters to interact with. Heck, even in the play-by-e-mail games, I don’t like to have my own characters interacting with each other. It’s boring to me.
I miss the muse in my head, developing characters and stories and plots for them. I wonder how to get the muse back in there.
Tags: writing, PBeM, roleplaying games
I’ve been semi-looking for another RPG PBeM to play in the last few months. My X-men RPG was the only one I’ve been in for quite a while after dropping some and closing one after much disappointment. So, I was clinging to it and of course, you all know the recent drama. The X-men game has revived itself and it rolling along very nicely. New mods, new players, exciting plots. Nice. I’m much more involved in the day to day than I used to be which is good for the game and probably for me, but I still would like to have something different to play in and just play, not mod. No worries but having fun writing and RPGing.
One of my online PBeM friends and I were/are supposed to be starting an American Harry Potter game with no charries from the books and a realistic bent. We haven’t really been working to get it going though.
So, when the same friend (N2) invited me to play in a Victorian Era Steam Punk game similar to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ironically an hour before I watched the (badly made) movie, I decided to give it a try. Cannon characters for any game universe rarely interest me because I always feel I can’t do them justice, but a requirement for the game is that I have to play at least one character from literature or movies that fits in the time period. SQ and L are playing Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer respectively and they convinced me to play Becky Thatcher. Since very little was really written about her, I have a mostly blank canvas to work with. I also get to play a non-cannon character of my own design from BJ’s failed Steam Punk/Wild West/Deadlands game, which I’m pleased with because I liked the character but never could find a game for her. Ironically the characters are opposites, one’s a complete tomboy and the other is a bit of a pampered princess, though both were feminists and have jobs that during the time were 99% done by men. It should be fun and I’m looking forward to it.
I’m also signing up for a writing class in the fall. It’s just 8 sessions but it’ll be good for me to get back into writing on my own, I think. I just mentioned it to my mom and now she’s going on about my published novel in a year or too. :rolleyes:
But back to the RPG PBeMs, I started this post to actually talk about some scary PBeMs I’ve seen out “there” in the last few months:
I am so afraid…and sometimes I have to go look, like slowing down to see an accident…
Tags: writing, PBeM, roleplaying games
Well, the pbem still isn’t up and running. SQ had some problems writing the email so that no one came out as the bad guy but everyone was shown as responsible for their own part, moderators and players alike. J’s email to SQ and me seemed to indicate that she accepted her part in it all and that she wasn’t sure she should remain a moderator, but when SQ and I made the decision to replace her and she saw the rough draft of SQ’s email, she got extremely defensive and was all negative and kept avoiding us except to spout her negativity. Again she is stalling the game with her behavior which has been one of the real issues with the game — one moderator refused to make any real decisions, particularly in a timely manner and whether that was due to her being too busy to really commit to it or whether she just can’t seem to make a real decision isn’t important anymore.
Granted, she wasn’t the only one causing problems. NetPoet constantly disrespected the other moderators and ignored all rules. He continuously ran off on his own, would cause a mess and then abandoned it all to let SQ clean it up. She really deserves more credit than she’s been given. I will say that.
I am not blameless. I am really too nice a person. I don’t like to do things that might hurt people’s feelings and I really am not a leader, which is odd since I have often found myself in that role in my life. I am a good advisor. I am an idea person. I prefer to be the woman behind the scenes pulling the strings. Because of this, I often don’t like to make the final decision about anything…and after I got tired of always passing the first vote on any decision, I started holding off in giving my opinion to try to force the others to do something, anything. This is something I have promised SQ that I won’t do anymore. I generally have an opinion right away. I don’t need a week to think about whether or not someone’s character application is up to my way-too-high standards. Plus, I haven’t been as involved as I could have been because of my life issues, but I’m resolving to be committed to doing what needs to be done. I know I made mistakes and I’m willing to change.
I think that is why I find what J is doing is unforgivable. I mean, she knows what her flaws are; she pointed them out in her email to us, but obviously she isn’t willing to change. She ran one good, established game into the ground with her slow response time as both an admin and a player. She ran one game with potential into the ground the same way. She blames it on lack/loss of interest by players, but running a game takes a lot of work on the part of the moderator and the players and since the moderator is also a player, then he/she has extra work. If you can’t commit the time, then don’t waste the players time, in my humble opinion.
Anyway, I felt that SQ had every right to explain to the players what was happening behind the scenes without naming names. I felt that she should not look like the bad guy when we were all to blame, but J doesn’t think that it will solve anything and it makes NetPoet & her look like the bad guys. The email so clearly blames all of the moderators, including SQ, as well as the players. It points out that on my own, I ran one game into the ground and nearly ran this PBeM into the ground when I unexpectedly inherited it from the original owner — which is true. I don’t deny it. I admit that I couldn’t handle that kind of leadership role alone. I don’t see how stating it changes anything. In fact, many of the players currently were around for both instances. No where in the email does it say that any specific person did anything wrong. Now admittedly, we are telling her to step down to player status (NetPoet already did so a month or so ago), but even in J’s email, she seems indecisive about whether or not she should or wants to remain in the moderator status. We are making that decision for her since it’s that very indecisiveness that is part of the problem we need to overcome to continue on.
What I am bothered by is that 4 or 5 years ago, if you’d asked me, I would have told you what a strong person J seems to be. She seemed to be wiser than her actual years. Her energy amazes me with her catering, regular job, piano teaching and socializing. However, now I wonder if she doesn’t take on too much to the point of not being able to give her heart to any one thing and not being able to realize that she can’t really do it all and have it all be the best she can do. Maybe she’s just got something going on in her life we can’t understand. But at least when I had all of my job loss issues, I went to the moderators and said I needed to take a break, a hiatus.
I don’t know.
The new email SQ wrote last night is less explanatory. I think it leaves her looking like the real bad guy and I have promised her I won’t tell anyone what all went on behind the scenes because it’s not right to gossip, but it bothers me that she is taking the brunt of the blame. She deserves more than that.
Tags: PBeM, dysfunctional drama
This morning I am in danger of having a blink turn into a nap. I am so sleepy working on just 3-1/2 hours of sleep, but at least I feel less stressed out this morning about the goings on of the pbem.
I don’t know how much of this will make sense to anyone because I am so friggin’ tired that I’m having trouble formuating sentenses.
Anyway, I did talk to the doctor yesterday (or her nurse at least) and was told that the amitriptyline couldn’t be causing the racing heart and horribly high blood pressure (once it was 153/89). Also, the sugar withdrawal from a few days on The South Beach Diet wouldn’t cause that either. So, that left the stress of the drama involving the pbem.
By the time it came to talk to SQ, I was resigned to whatever happened. I just couldn’t think of anything else that I could say or anything that she would say to make me agree with her actions.
I will say that while I still don’t agree with her action of shutting down the pbem without warning, I do now understand her point of view and respect her strength in doing something that was obviously as distasteful for her as it was for the rest of us.
I have been saying that this pbem has always been for the players; it is how the original creator wanted it. In fact, it’s what NetPoet, who did express my feelings but I now understand was a bastard in doing it so publically, insisted — “as long as there is at least one player the game should go on”. The truth is that SQ and I are speaking the same language to each other but it is a different definition than theirs. The game is about the players (without them there is no game), but it isn’t run by the players, though I believe that was what the original creator meant. It simply can’t be. There have to be guidelines and management tasks and parents. Otherwise it’s just chaos. She and I agree that the game needs moderators, especially ones who are involved and committed.
J wrote us both a rather lengthy email about how she preceived the situation and what things she thinks need to be done to “rebuild” the game. Ironically, if she had done this two weeks ago, this whole thing might have been avoided — but as I told SQ last night, if something good comes out of this, then maybe it was worth it.
Anyway, J wrote that this occurred through a series of misperceptions, lack of communication, personal grudges, and general frustration.
I think it is fair to say that the three of us put some blame on NetPoet, who was a consistant source of frustration to the three of us when all four of us were moderators. NetPoet would start a new plot/storyline without discussing it with the whole group or with anyone at all, which was against the guidelines we set up to stop that nonsense. He would get everyone riled up and then lose interest and often disappear. This was frustrating to players who sometimes couldn’t figure out what was going on in the plot and who wanted to continue to post. Further, he would make his main player character the hero more often than not and one of my constant complaints that SQ agreed on is that storytellers should never use a story to make their character the center of the universe, but he often did…and so did J, I’m afraid. I was frustrated that he was running a brainchild of mine (I am not a storyteller in this game, but I am an idea person) and he not only wouldn’t tell me, the moderator, what was going on but he wouldn’t give clear directions to the players involved to make the story make sense. In the end, SQ had to go in and clean up the mess once he lost interest and since he hadn’t laid out the details for a plot that SQ and I believe had so much potential for being so much more fun and even humorous, the end was sort of stunted. This happened often with NetPoet’s posts and SQ was more than frustrated with having to pick up the pieces once he dropped them.
SQ and I also agreed that while J is a nice person and has great ideas, she doesn’t have the commitment or drive to be a moderator, and I used the example of an old pbem that died once it was handed over to her. She easily becomes distracted with other things in life and has a full life and should learn to accept that if she can’t find a balance, then she shouldn’t be running the game. It takes time and commitment and taking over two weeks to reply to admin emails, particularly ones that are trying to get the game active again, is just not fair to the other moderators or the players. SQ is supposed to talk to her about stepping down to player status. We both think that J wants to step down but doesn’t have the strength to do it herself. I offered to be present, but SQ said she would handle it.
SQ and I talked for a long time about what we wanted in the game and what our compromises were. We want to bring in two new moderators to help take up the slack and we easily agreed on them. These two are folks that volunteered in private emails on Monday to help me run the game if we had to move it elsewhere.
We both think that encouraging players to run approved stories themselves with moderator back-ups is the way to go. We both agreed that the players have to make certain commitments to the game for it to succeed and if this doesn’t occur and the game returns to a low post rate with people being reactive rather than pro-active, then per a discussion between at least us, the game will be shut down. We agreed to share this “threat” with the other players.
SQ’s frustrations weren’t really with the players so much as the arguing and disrespect amongst the moderators. I promised her that I would personally concentrate on less negativity and more creativity and constructive criticism. I had gotten in the habit of waiting for someone else to reply to an admin email because I was annoyed that I always seemed like the only one resonding and I wanted to force NetPoet and J to respond. I admitted to SQ that perhaps this was the wrong way to handle it and in the future I will be prompt. Moderators who consistantly don’t have time to help with admin tasks will be asked to step down.
There was so much more that we discussed. There is a secret agreement between us that while we both have thought of NetPoet as a friend and a productive member of the list in the past, it would not be the end of the world if he left and I have left it up to SQ as to how she wants to handle him due to his passionate, angry email that was broadcast to the list. She said she was fine with my angry email because it was just to her, but I still appologized to her. Really I do try to wait a while to think about things before I write angry email. It never helps the situation but the way the situation came about pushed me over the edge.
We also began making some admin decisions on how the game will be run in the future, though we want to hold off on final decisions until we have the new moderators on board and SQ officially announces the re-opening. Part of the agreement there is that she should write the email and she has the right to state her side of the story, including talking of in-fighting and sluggishness and lack of respct amongst the moderators. That email should go out sometime today and until then, I am answering all inquiries by players with “Official Statement: Negotiations are still in process. Please wait for an announcement.” Not terribly exciting but everyone else has had their say in the matter and I believe that SQ has the right to explain why she did it and that she had reasons and while I don’t agree with her method, I do see the train of thought. In fact, she admitted that it never occurred to her to ask people for help in getting the game going again, but on the other hand, and she’s right, no one really stepped up and volunteered (except me two weeks ago). A year and a half ago when the game was dying the slow death and I simply didn’t have the will do anything with it on my own as NetPoet was in one of his MIA modes (which happen fairly regularly, usually at pivotal points in storylines), SQ asked to take over the game and while I do not regret turning the decision over to her, I do regret giving her technical ownership of the game. I do believe, and I told her, that she did a good job with what she had and she did bring new life to the pbem. I told her that we took her for granted and maybe it’s good this happened to remind us of everything she did for us and how she kept the dream alive.
She and I (mostly she) came up with an interesting analogy for the evolution of the game. The original creator was the mother of the game and when she left, she sort of unexpectedly dumped the game on me and I became the Foster Mother, but SQ took the game and adopted it and made it her own and it is her child and she wanted to protect it from a slow, agonizing death. That bit about the game surviving even if there’s one player left is downright silly. We discussed the minimum number of players that we would consider the game in trouble and right now we have 15 players (including us, NetPoet, and J) who want to play and most want to help make the game work and want to help run stories and help with admin tasks. The game is always about the players, but there still needs to be a parent, a moderator, someone to watch over and protect. SQ will be the adoptive mom and the other mods and I will be the protective aunts and uncles. SQ will have right to make decisions that need to be made when no one else will make them, but for the most part, we are meant to work as a democracy of sorts.
I think things will be o.k.
Now, if I could just get my blood pressure and heart rate down…and another five cups of coffee wouldn’t hurt my constant need to curl up under my desk and sleep.
And by the way, I restarted my diet on Monday and I have successfully lost 2 pounds, eaten a lot of food, and not cheated once even when there were donut holes, piles of doughnuts, cookies and brownies laid out in the common work kitchen. I think I deserve some sort of standing ovation for not once thinking that a rice krispy treat or a sundae would solve all my problems.
And also, I was so glad to talk to SQ on the phone. I really like her. She really is all bubbly and babbly and blunt and honest. I admire her. I think she will make a good friend, even if neither of us is perfect and we admit it.
Tags: PBeM, dysfunctional drama, wellness, South Beach Diet
SQ still won’t give up the game and now she’s mad that I got the original creator of the game to “harass” her. What I did was talk to the original creator and she was upset and agreed to appeal to SQ. SQ also thinks I put NetPoet up to his angry email, but honestly I didn’t talk to NetPoet until after his email. I figured since he had stepped down as an admin to just be a player because of other interests, he probably wouldn’t care one way or the other if the game died as it would free up some of his time. I was wrong and he’s angry. Lots of people are hurt, angry, confused, or some combination.
Meanwhile, J says she forgives me for inadvertently being hurtful the other night but she doesn’t want to take sides. I hate to tell her that by not standing up for the game and the other players, she has chosen her side. NetPoet said he talked to J on the phone and she was just as surprised as the rest of us.
Meanwhile, one of the players got a weird email back from SQ stating that she had her reasons and to trust her. He thinks this is some sort of stunt to get everyone riled up and going again. While the conspiracy theorist in me wants to hope for this, I’d still be very pissed off since I was more than a player and my biggest complaint has been a lack of communication between the moderators of the game. This is a prime example. :angry:
I’m supposed to meet up with SQ online in IMs tonight after my art class but I’m wondering at the moment if I’m going to make it through the day. My blood pressure has steadily gone up since Monday morning and this morning it was 140/105! My resting heart rate was 101! A few hours later it was 134/93 and 128! I’ve taken a lorazepam in hopes of calming myself down. At this point I’m not sure if this condition is due to the stress over the game, the new sleeping med I started taking Friday night, or the first phase of the South Beach Diet that I started on Monday. Maybe it’s too many new things all at once? 
Part of me now wishes I could just go curl up in a corner and have the whole thing go away. I wish I cared a little less about the game I put four years of my life into and sadly, if I hadn’t gotten so many positive responses from people rallying to the cause, I would have let it die. I still would have been grumpy about it, but I would have eventually accepted it. But now I’m the player’s champion and I’m leading the show. I can be a leader; I just don’t usually care to do it, especially for long periods. The responsibility weighs on my mind. 
This is what happened to me before which led to me handing control over to SQ. I should have listened to Uncle Ben: “With great power comes great responsibility.” In the short term, SQ did a fabulous job. Real life and other unknown factors got in the way in the last few months — it did for all of us (me especially) — and now rather than letting go and moving on, she’s being selfish and squashing the dreams and wants of the people who counted on her.
But now the ball is in motion and I have to do every possible thing I can so I can at least say I gave it my best shot. Meanwhile, it’s all making me sick quite literally, I think. The high blood pressure is triggering a migraine and I can feel it coming on. Now I can record another known trigger at least. :satisfied: I just don’t want to have to go to the ER over this…how would I explain it to the doctor?
Meanwhile, I’ve been invited to play in another pbem set in the Marvel Universe. I’ve heard about the game before and I think it’s been running awhile. One of my better players is the mod. The one thing I’m wary about is that I think SQ is in it and I heard from another player that she is being obstinate in the games she’s in. I’m not sure I want to play in the same playground with SQ at the moment. The wounds of betrayal are just a little too fresh and we still have unfinished business.
All of this makes me wonder what is going on in SQ’s real life. What sort of stress is she under? Everyone keeps commenting on how uncharacteristic all of this is for her, but some have noted that in the last few months, she has changed from her usual bubbly, if blunt, self. Certainly she’s been staying away from IMs, even before the new job. She’s been slow to respond to some e-mails while answering others right off. She has been my friend in the past and I worry for her. I hate being angry and suspicious and I would think that if I did something this unfair, inconsiderate, and disrespectful to the other people in the game, people we call our friends, that she would call me on it…or she would have.
If she were Superman, I’d wonder if someone had given her a good dose of red kryptonite. :hehe:
Tags: PBeM, dysfunctional drama, wellness, blood pressure, anxiety
SQ simply refuses to give the PBeM game back to me or anyone else. I can’t believe she’s being such a selfish bitch. Just because she doesn’t have time to play or run the game anymore doesn’t mean that she should deny everyone the right to continue the game where it originated four years ago. All of that hard work and creativity, the different owners, different moderators and different players, all put to an end because she has a bug up her ass. I’m not the only one trying to get it back and her answer is that we can start up another game if we want somewhere else. Well, this game wasn’t hers to destroy this way. It shouldn’t have been shut down the way it way. I just don’t understand and I want to cry and it’s over a stupid game. And I haven’t been able to talk to her about it, which is one of the problems with her recently anyway.
Tags: PBeM, dysfunctional drama
A year and a half ago, SQ asked me to give her ownership of a PBeM I had been half-heartedly running. She had grand plans for it and I reluctantly did so. I was not the original owner of the game, but had been on the game the longest. I had shared the burden of running the game with another player. The three of us became co-moderators and eventually brought a fourth into the fold.
The game went really well for about a year and then in December something just went wrong, I guess. I know that I had lost my job and was dealing with that. I am told that the others all had real life crises of some sort. The game pretty much wilted over the last six months.
But there had been talk in the last few weeks of getting things going again. The moderator I shared the burden with originally backed out of that position which left three of us. We began to communicate or at least I was trying. My main complaint about how things had been running was that there was little communication going on particularly among the moderators which meant that if something came up in real life, no one else could pick up the story line and run with it because no one was sharing story lines. I said over and over that the way to fix this was communication.
Last night without discussion or any communication or any warning, SQ shut down the game and she and the other moderator unsubscribed themselves from the moderator mailing list.
I am so pissed off. This game has been running for five years. It has stalled and been brought back to life before, usually with the help of new moderator blood. I would rather do a hand-over to new moderators than have this game die. No one asked me and I no longer have the power to do something about it.
I’ve sent emails to both J (the other moderator) and SQ asking what happened. I assume that they had a fight of somesuch. I also told SQ that I want the game back and I plan to revive it. I sent an email to everyone on the list asking if they are still interested in playing. I’ve already got back a response. I am hurt. I feel betrayed. I have put five years into this game and I think the players deserve something better than the sudden appearance of an email telling them the game is over, particularly since there was recently an email saying things were in the works to get it going again.
I am so upset I might cry. I wish I knew what happened. I feel betrayed.
Tags: PBeM, dysfunctional drama
The Naked Truth
& Other
Discombobulated Thoughts
of a displaced Southerner in New England -- from just daily annoyances to conspiracy theories to political views.
The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe