[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Archailist]

So sorry for your loss, Jen - as always, anything you need, just ask.

[Nivel]

Losing a parent is, especially so young is horrible. My deepest condolences. *Hugs*

[Gossamer]

There's so much I want to say, but it feels disingenuous in this form. I appreciate all the sympathy and condolences, but you guys don't know how liberating her death is. It's a RELIEF. I meant what I said about it being a huge release of a burden. That's what it is.

Please don't feel sorry for me. I don't feel sorry for me or anyone else in my family. When someone is suffering, you want them to die. You want them to find peace, especially if you have a good spiritual foundation no matter what your religion.

I even found out I don't have to worry about the disposal of her stuff because she almost entirely cut me out of her Will. Real ladies don't go to college, forgo having a family, and certainly don't become scientists. Yea, that's how the note read. Fantastic huh? See? That makes things easier for me. The only thing left in this dead heart is a little more rage than usual... rage at the fact that I've been running, doing, bending over backwards, and trying to please her for all these years when there's been none of that reciprocated. I should have known when I lived an hour from her and in ten years she only visited me once... once when I bought the house. She probably disapproved of the farm too. I do remember her saying 'Why didn't you buy something in the city?'.

Take a lesson from my life.... please. Don't do the right thing because its supposed to be the socially right thing to do. Do the thing that FEELS right... even if its telling someone to fuck off. If they are damaging for you, don't leave them in your life. Wish for a quick painless death if they are sick and leave it at that. I literally feel like I just wasted my whole life trying to please someone that thought incredibly little of me.

[Marion Kay]

It's really great to hear that this dark part of your life is coming to a close. I hate comparing other people's life-stuff to my own, but my mom's been going through similar trials with her own family. People are going to think it's weird or somehow wrong that you're glad to have a toxic presence gone from your life, but it's entirely normal. And really, since your mother's been in so much physical pain, it sounds like it's better for all parties involved to have finally found some peace. Personally, your insights and honesty throughout all of this have been inspiring. Best wishes for whatever comes next for you and yours.

[Xira Hezmek]

Thought this might amuse you.

[Gossamer]

Things.

It's been roughly two weeks since I've posted in my scrap. It's been telling, I think, that no one has said so much as a peep to me on AIM or on PMs other than the players who needed business stuff taken care of. And don't get me wrong. I don't mind hearing from them. It's been a busy time so I haven't gotten back to all of them, but I will by the end of the day. There was a brief flurry of texts and AIMs when the site was down by odd players and people I don't really know, but I had a hard time remotely caring about that namely because it took Miz being down for someone to take a moment to say hello.

They naturally wanted something. It wasn't a hello for hello's sake. Those sorts of hellos are important to me. I'm not sure why. They shouldn't be. When you care about others and they don't give a rats ass back its hurtful. You tend to shut down. And you do a lot of thinking. In the end, its really revealing.

I won't go into the exact details of what something like that says to me. But you should understand that you don't abandon people when they have deaths to deal with or have been utterly personally humiliated by an action you brought about or enabled. You call them. You drop casseroles by their house. You send them cards and little notes that you think might pick up their spirit or brighten their day. Sometimes you just leave flowers on their doors that you picked out of your garden. And if you live a thousand miles away or three continents, you do what you can virtually - which is a lot. Being a friend is swallowing your pride and being there for a person even if you did something hurtful. It's not apologizing thereafter and walking away. Sure I can pretend it never happened. Sure I can let you off the hook. But its telling... just like I said.

Ignoring someone is not being a friend. It takes two seconds to say hi. It takes two more seconds to ask after someone. If you can't find two seconds in your day, something is seriously wrong with your life.

Sure, life gets busy. You get busy. I tell myself everyone has a super full plate and that plate overflows sometimes. You can't take your plate and hand it to someone else to hold like you would hand a purse to a man you've been married too for ten years. It's not fair and its not fruitful.

Instead you just shake your head, walk away, and understand that things meant more to you than they meant to them and try to get over it. You busy yourself with projects to take your mind off things, and you reorganize and resort your priorities in your head. And you wonder what it all really meant after all.

I tell myself that I kept MIz going for myself all these years. That I needed Miz. But the truth is I don't need Miz. I thought I needed something tangible that I've helped build that others enjoy to feel value. Now.... I'm not so sure. I have a lot of that in real life that I never realized meant so much. Friends, family, groups etc. I have a thriving bee club that has been doing nothing but helping the community out all spring and all of last year. I can grow something in my garden and feel value. I can create something with stained glass and feel value. I can measure my self worth in a hundred ways, not by how many threads my city is running or how many skills my pc has built up. Even at my job, my bosses tell me daily how much value I have to them... which is quite a lot more than I suspected initially.

These last two weeks have changed me. The days have been eye opening. I suspect that the places I have removed myself from don't miss me at all. Which, truth be told, is fine. I've come to terms with it.

And its funny because in real life people are a whole lot nicer than they are on the internet in general. They are a whole lot less self centered. People come here to feel better about themselves because they cant find a way to do so in real life. They come here often to get attention because they are terribly lonely irl. I see that with the younger girls on the site. The younger men tend to try to be shoulders for them because the anonymity of the internet allows them to when in real life usually the opposite sex wouldn't give them the time of day. I know that sounds harsh, but its soo true.

It's who has the prettiest avatar... the sexiest ripped male model face claim. Somewhere along the way what got lost was the story. What got lost was the wonder of writing. I see it every day in the pre-planning in chat, the whispered messages of juvenile magnitude where a girl worries if her char should be nude or not and the impact it will have on her threading partner. These things you shouldn't even have to plan or talk about. These are things that just happen and you see what reaction it has... not go on and on about it like its some life or death decision. If you have to wonder about that (or any other action in a thread), you need to grow up a little and become a real writer. Real writers write fearlessly, take the heat afterwards, and move on. They are the kind of people that invent phrases like.. "It's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission." If you have to ask, you are probably too immature for the site.

If you sweat the little things, you have lost the wonder of the bigger picture or have never found it to begin with. That makes me incredibly sad for you. I bleed for you when I see that.

I'm here absolutely for the stories. I am no longer going to be here for the relationships because obviously they mean nothing much to anyone even though they were kinda everything to me at one point.

I know about moving on. I understand about letting go. I will not repeat what I did with my mom and that's try my damndest to make her like me and respect me for years when I knew it wasn't ever going to happen.... yea I knew it... deep down. Miz is no different. You can't make people love you. You can only be yourself and hope they understand or avoid. I know about 99% will avoid... and that's fine. But my modus operandi from here on out is simply be the best mod I can be. In terms of characters, I'm just willing to write what I want to write about and if I have to do it in solos for the rest of my time here, I will gladly make that happen.

Sounds harsh right? Yea... well it is what it is. I'll still take care of the HD and any and all approvals, but I'm going to be minding my own Cyphrus Business and that's about it. Why? Cause I could care less... literally... how other domains are ran and what people do there. The only thing I will not tolerate now is the normalization of cities. That's when moderators make them all generic and copy any innovation they like that another city does.

I'm going to be innovating the hell out of Cyphrus. And anything duplicated elsewhere I do there better have my prior permission or something is going to hit the fan that doesn't smell pleasant at all. I'm tired of all the calenders, the weather reports, the seasonal challenges, the codexs being carbon copies of things I'm implemented in RF and people have blatantly borrowed. I don't have to use them anymore. I have new ideas... better ideas... fresher things going. And I'm going to spruce Cyphrus the hell up. You won't even recognize it when I'm done. You can also believe I'm going to do it alone, by myself, without a team and without a group decision. Why? Because no one sticks around to fulfill their promises as a storyteller anyhow. Staff burn out. They move on. They find out its real work and bail. I'll leave the groups and teams and buddy system for other domains.

What I promise you for Cyphrus is simply this. You'll get a unique experience. You'll get fleshed out cities. You'll get unique systems and fair treatment. You won't have to be anyone's buddy to get anything done. I have time. I have a schedule now that I can keep. I don't need to depend on anyone else but me to do this. And I will do this.

And I will have a lot of fun doing it because I won't have the worry of others not fulfilling their promises, respecting me, or even being a friend. If you want something as a player, simply ask. If its reasonable, I will make it happen regardless of who you are.

Goss.

[Gossamer]

A Good Hard Look

I've been taking a good hard look at MIz lately and one thing I see when I've been roaming around and one thing I've noticed in repeatedly talking to the veterans is that there's a specific reoccurring issue. That issue is called Chat. It's a give and take. We want newbies to feel welcome there, ask questions, and talk about game mechanics they are confused or unsure of. But in doing so, we also get a lot of ten day experts or even 'just out of newbiedome' experts who give horrible advice and then stress out the newbies. We also have a lot of juveniles in chat that talk about themselves incessantly and drive the older players away when really they are the best resources we could have in chat.

So quietly I've been asking some of the worst apples to leave chat. I'll probably ask a few more. Why? Because the whole self absorbed thing is getting to me. Some folks say its because they are super young. One person even said its a condition called being a teenager and that there are only ever three of them in the world that don't have their heads up their asses to some degree. Okay... I can see the merit in that statement. But I don't want you to think I'm an ageist. I'm really not. I know perfectly wonderful people in every age group. I know people in my age group that act so terrible I want to uninvite them from the world as a whole. It really has nothing to do with age for the most part. It has everything to do with maturity. If you aren't mature, you don't belong here.

Now why would someone like me ask you to leave chat? Let me give you a few reasons.

1. You are supremely judgmental and constantly make snide comments publicly or in whispers about others, especially new people just getting a feel for the ropes. People don't actually like this. You might think they do, but when you whisper to someone that you don't like someone else or that something someone else does annoys you... guess what that person is wondering? Yup. "What in the hell am I doing that annoys HER too? What is HE saying about me when I'm not around?" See my point? You aren't even being sly keeping it private because everyone on here talks about everything. It gets around.

2. You spam chat constantly about yourself, what your doing, feeling, thinking, contemplating, or what your wearing, eating, drinking, and again more about the feelings. It's called being self absorbed. Why don't you give yourself a time out from thinking about yourself and worry more about what your cat, dog, mother, bestie, significant other, teacher, mentor, hero etc is worrying about, thinking about, feeling, etc. If your in a broken MEME loop you really need to bust out of it and come up for some air. Your sense of smell will be completely ruined if your head is (like stated about) shoved too far up something to get any fresh air.

Neither of these two things are what chat is for. I know... shocking! Chat is for the sharing of game information. Sure, you can chat with everyone. But keep it pleasant. Keep it on topic. You don't always have to talk about Miz in chat. It's fine to stray, tell stories about IRL etc. But there's a difference between doing that and being number one or number two or both.

My goal is to bring some of the veterens back into chat and keep them there. You might have already noticed a migration back by some of them. Why? I'm keeping promises I've made.

[Gossamer]

Ever get the feeling that people are just sitting back laughing their asses off at how seriously you take things while they secretly string you along just to fuck with you? Yea. Me too.

I ask myself all the time now why I even remotely try to care about things and let myself hope things will be better. But things don't get better. They get worse. Inherantly I don't think people care. They don't take feelings into account and they certainly don't try to see things from another perspective.

Try to care folks. Just try.

[Ignotus Everto]

While I would love to be all "fix fix there no more apathetic wankers", I cannot. So instead, all I can do is stand all hardcore-like in solidarity, and also post this:

[Gossamer]

It would be extremely nice if for once someone asked to do something for me out of the goodness of their heart and not out of guilt. It would be a bonus if they didn't ask to do something for me AFTER they got done talking about how busy/absent/swamped they'd been.

Yea. That keeps happening. What am I? A douche that will say yes to you volunteering for more work after you've said your overworked in essence? No, of course not. But then again, maybe that's the issue. It's safe to offer because you know I won't say yes and thus your conscious goes away clear. Anyone in their right mind wouldn't say yes to piling on more work on someone already overworked or with a noted lack of time. So what does that mean? That means the offer is a safe one... one that won't gain you more work because I'm inherently NOT a douche. I might be a lot of other things including outspoken, stubborn, but I'm also rather intelligent. And that means I'm not that easily manipulated. And I do recognize what your doing.

Yes, I realize this might offend you. But that's okay. You've already offended me.