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Just don't burn yourself out!
Just won a pub quiz, and one of the key questions was 'what is oneirophobia?' Spend ages racking my brains, then remember I'm in @Omei's cong and remember it's dreams! Thanks to this game for teaching me random Greek words.
Last week I went from having my own house alone with my dogs and a cozy office to moving everything of mine and said office into my attic, and having a 21 year old brother and 61 year old grandmother living with me.
Brother's been in a rut for the past... while. In the last two weeks of working with me he's lost 20 pounds (he's got a lot to go, I know that sounds like a lot), applied for a better job, has initiated the process for bariatric surgery, and is looking into trade school this upcoming semester.
After week 1 with my grandmother she's walking without assistance in short bursts for the first time in a long time, and is overall far more mobile and in much higher spirits. Things are looking good despite an oncologist visit lingering tomorrow that may have some bad news.
When I thought things couldn't get crazier, or more chaotic, this happened. I'm now taking care of my grandma and playing life coach for my brother while working 50-60 hours a week, and it's easily been the most insane turn of events I could have imagined possible in a single week, but this feeling of actually making a difference for these two makes every stressed out and exhausted minute worth it.
Hug your family and friends ladies and gents. Times may get crazy, things may seem like they suck, but there's always a good side lingering somewhere.
/end diary post thankyouforbeinganoutlet
Sometimes being a teacher is worthwhile. Now I just wish I'd remembered to pack my boots and heavy coat last time I was home >.<
Bunches of love to @Sessizlik for doing those awesome drawings she does. Still can't look at the drawings you've done for me without being in awe at how awesome they look. You the real MVP.
And a ton of love to @Oleis and the rest of the administration and devs who have been working diligently to keep the game fresh and fun.
Avatar of Fyrren drawn by the amazing Sessizlik.
Avatar of Fyrren drawn by the amazing Sessizlik.
I'm generally fairly apprehensive towards OOC gatherings of players. All too often, I see them slowly descend into metagaming or they can sometimes get outright nasty based on IC events that happen. For me, the old #NoT IRC was a source of toxicity and killed a lot of my enjoyment for Aetolia back in the day. Granted, I brought a lot of it on myself. All in all though, it was just not a nice or pleasant place for a few folks and it eventually died out.
Hooooweever, the Aetolian Discord has been a much better and more inclusive group of folks than I expected. I was initially apprehensive about joining it purely because I was afraid of another #NoT situation, but that quickly went away. I've gotten to know many of you (some of which I already knew well), but also some players on the other side of the game that I've rarely spoken to. While it can sometimes veer a bit too closely to metagame territory because of RP discussions, it has been an all-around pleasant experience for the most part.
The other thing that I am really grateful about from said Discord was that I've had a number of people take me to the side personally and comment about how much I've improved as a player, in terms of disposition, friendliness, and how approachable I have been. After all the nonsense from years back, it's pretty comforting when you have people in the community embrace you wholeheartedly when you felt shunned and excluded before. So thank you guys. Really.
Regarding IC matters, I've been having an absolute blast as of late both in Duiran and the Sentinels. Duiran, as an organization has improved so much from where it was one year ago, and it's largely in part to both the administration and the players really working to make it a more chill and relaxed environment like it used to be. I want to thank @Aymah for all the hard work she puts into the Sentinels. She has been a good Prideleader who had to inherit a very turbulent atmosphere and has made the best of it, including when she has had to make some difficult decisions on the guild's future. I want to also thank folks like @Mihaketi, @Mieke, @Emelle, @Sibatti, @Drestyn, @Aisling, @Maizin, and pretty much everyone that I've interacted with since I've been back. I really do appreciate having the chance to interact with all of you and I look forward for what is to come.
@Kanivara - Axius' mother. Someone who cares about him, someone who actually showed him what actual family is like, by extension, all of the Sor'Tirivan fall into this particular name. This might be the shortest of the thanks I leave, but that's because I feel like there's not enough words in my vocabulary to explain how much you and the family mean to me and Axius.
@Eleanor @Akaryuterra - These two provided for me a safe home, and plenty of initial RP to build my character from where I only had bullplop and a vague symbol for my character to create with. You both make me happy I picked Cabbie for my initial class, and have continued to make me feel entirely welcome, even beyond what I could even begin to reasonably expect, not to mention the amazing work you do both in game and out of game, both of you.
@Sessizlik - You do a lot of good work, you've brought me a good bit of joy. Your art work is something I love looking at, and you did something I entirely did not expect: You made Axius handsome in his final IRL days in my mind's eye before he ascended.
@Xenia - You are someone I don't interact with much, but that's okay, I'd love to RP with you more, but you have been nothing but kind to me and my difficulties, heck, you actually listened to me, and were kind enough to talk to me and help work out some plans. I'm hoping our future RP works out for the best as far as @Iosyne's order goes!
@Alathesia - You my friend are someone who is working hard, I have nothing but praise for the difficulties you are working through, and I understand that not everyone has been kind about recent changes. I think the guild will more than likely need -time- to recover, and even after it does, it may not be as healthy as it was before, but that's perfectly -fine-. You are doing well with the hand you have been dealt, and I want to thank you for your hard work nonetheless.
Bonus shoutouts:
@Quellisonde : You have proven to be one of the people I log in to look forward to, when you tend to lose interest in this game, I sort of start growing a bit listless myself. my mind drifts, and I kind of lose a bit of creativity. Our fun today in the eloping RP, and just doing what we normally do, fishing and chattering and talking after we had that spur of the moment elopement was fun, planning out what our next steps were, and continuing to work on our Castle.
@Iosyne - I'm still working on joining your Order, I may not have the mental capacity to be a decent combatant without stupid amounts of automation and code backing me up, but that doesn't mean I won't try to join the Order on my ability to RP, and I know that gross-out RP isn't what my goal should be, but I hope that we might find some interesting points of convergence in Axius' life, his personal tastes and habits, and the Iosyne order that makes everyone feel just as welcome with him as they would if I were a combatant. (I also hope that you and I will find points where we can RP as well. Everyone keeps telling me that Axius caught Iosyne's eye somehow, and it'll be interesting to see just what about him caught Her eye)
That was so awesome.
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries
We have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet,
Sparkling with color, bountiful with life.
Within decades we must close our eyes again.
Isn't it a noble and enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun,
To work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.
Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.
The potential people who could have been here in my place
But who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara.
Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton.
We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people.
In the teeth of those stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds,
How dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,
Having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one;
And that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity,
From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Cute-Kelli by @Sessizlik.
Additionally, I want to thank a few players that helped me out the other night. As a player, I am sometimes prone to anxiety, of which some of you can relate. I had an irrational fear that people perhaps weren't enjoying their interactions with me, were ignoring me intentionally, and just wanted nothing to do with Seir in general and, as result, I felt really out of place in Duiran. I had deja vu from my playing time a few years ago back when I found validation purely through PvP and I lashed out at others. However, I was descended upon by lovely folks like @Eleanor, @Mihaketi, @Drestyn, @Mieke, @Dzekk, @Emelle, @Lin, and so many others that affirmed that it was all in my head and that people have had fun interacting with me both as a character and a player. Since then, I haven't had this fear and I owe it to those folks. In the 17 years I've been playing IRE games, I've never seen a more welcoming and accepting community and that is something to really be proud of. I've seen other IRE games and their players, which will go unnamed out of respect, devolve into pure polarized disdain for one another for some of the most trivial things. I know I've said this many times already, but I'm incredibly grateful to all of you.
(Spinesreach): Xiuhcoatl says, "Oh man, grab the children-corn. This is gonna be good."