Aimless and Adrift
"The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation." - G'kar
I don't think it is in any way a surprise that losing a roommate of six years and coming home daily to an empty home is a big change. I'm sure it's affecting me on levels I'm not even aware of. Consciously, things are different, but not necessarily bad. There are uncomfortable aspects like glancing instinctively toward a clock no longer there only to see an empty room, or being able to hear bumps of the neighbors more than music from the room. There is also a certain freedom in not having to worry about anyone save myself. I can eat what and whenever I prefer, rather than having to consider someone else's tastes and schedule. It's a mixed bag of circumstances.
Similarly, I find myself torn on what remains. There are still things such as wall decorations and kitchenware that are not mine around. Part of me wants them to stay out of familiarity and simplicity. I don't have any great desire to make the decisions and spend the money on getting new paintings or dishes. On the other hand, part of me wants to make a clean break. "If these aren't mine, they could go away - so they should go away, so I don't rely on them," says this voice. It's a weird feeling, and I dislike not knowing what I want.
But then, I've been "too" neutral and indecisive for a long time now.
Guild Wars has been awkward for me the last few weeks. I still feel my ritualist is only a so-so fit for the current campaign, but still haven't gotten any ideas I want to go with more. Being a "foreigner," I get a different, shorter set of quests that leads up to the Consulate Docks mission, where the plotline merges with the one native to the expansion. So I did those, and on group nights, I've been running around with no real idea what's going on (except dim memory from when I did it before) trying to help get people caught up to that point. Most of them are finally there, so Sunday I'll probably at least feel included in what's being done again.
WoW feels like we've reached a stasis point, though I'm sure that's perception more than anything. The only person I know after a specific drop is off until probably Friday (maybe later). My tanking gear set is as good as it will be for a while. With increased presence of certain other guildmates, there's less need for me to expand my other sets right now - though I am seriously considering changing my secondary talent set back to Retribution. We've been making good progress in Naxxramas, but that's only Saturday nights. So right now, I'm sort of "available, but not pushing" for runs. Though we did successfully manage a late timed run of heroic CoT: Culling of Stratholme last night, and got our first bronze drake (which Tiik got). That was fairly fun and intense due to the constant push forward.
Furryfaire is Furryfaire, and my love/hate relationship with the place continues. I log on out of habit and/or a desire to socialize with my few friends there, but I typically don't RP there anymore. Oh, now and then there's a one-on-one scene to play out, but even those barely count as they feel... I don't know, somehow lacking in canonicity or development. They're usually "side stories" in some sense.
Someone I've played with in the past asked me to make a character for an ongoing campaign/plotline there, but I've never fully managed to get into it. I mustered a philosophy that puts a good spin on a questionable religion. There never seemed much opportunity to roleplay there, though, for a mortal character when most of the others involved are deities and separated by regions. "I walk for a month just to chat for a couple hours," messes with my suspension of disbelief. It seemed expected that my character would see play in carrying the divine word to the people and followers, but they're all NPCs and I don't have much desire to RP with myself over it. Plus, I feel the campaign as a whole missed its mark, and a majority of those involved seem... uninvolved after a few months now.
Of my standard roster of characters, almost all suffer from a cliquishness that's always annoyed me, but seems very difficult to avoid in the medium. I play Character A. They end up mostly interacting due to Characters X, Y, and Z - sometimes due to schedule, or whatever else. This is okay, because X, Y, and Z are run by friends. But after a few months, maybe X isn't around much anymore, anytime I log A in Y or Z want to play, but Y and Z don't really play well together. So I'm left with logging in a specific character and playing a scene with one or two other specific characters. To break out of that, I would probably have to tell a friend to leave me alone and let me go do something else for a while - something I'm not likely to do as it makes me feel guilty, and that fouls my mood. So, Character A is now filed in my mind as really only playable if I specifically want to play with Y or Z, and given that those combinations have been played for months already, I have ideas for "new" scenes there only very rarely.
The psychology of all that really frustrates me, but I've been unsure what to do about it for the seven-or-more years I've been aware of it. Even trying to make an unattached character, those bonds seem to develop somehow. If I throw a character in another direction entirely, they tend to end up with a different clique, but otherwise not much different from normal. I don't really want to go making new characters every six months.
Rawrgh!
The World of Darkness game is in a little lull due to scheduling. I hope we'll pick up next week, but there seemed to be some question since at least one person wouldn't make it and I may be late due to a meeting. At last check, my character was one of two driving things forward. I guess that's better than being the only one, but I'd still like to see others step up, at least now and then. Maybe it's early in the game yet.
Of course, none of this is helped by the dreary, cold, rainy weather this week. I wouldn't say my current mood is bad, but perhaps vulnerable to downward spirals.
I don't think it is in any way a surprise that losing a roommate of six years and coming home daily to an empty home is a big change. I'm sure it's affecting me on levels I'm not even aware of. Consciously, things are different, but not necessarily bad. There are uncomfortable aspects like glancing instinctively toward a clock no longer there only to see an empty room, or being able to hear bumps of the neighbors more than music from the room. There is also a certain freedom in not having to worry about anyone save myself. I can eat what and whenever I prefer, rather than having to consider someone else's tastes and schedule. It's a mixed bag of circumstances.
Similarly, I find myself torn on what remains. There are still things such as wall decorations and kitchenware that are not mine around. Part of me wants them to stay out of familiarity and simplicity. I don't have any great desire to make the decisions and spend the money on getting new paintings or dishes. On the other hand, part of me wants to make a clean break. "If these aren't mine, they could go away - so they should go away, so I don't rely on them," says this voice. It's a weird feeling, and I dislike not knowing what I want.
But then, I've been "too" neutral and indecisive for a long time now.
Guild Wars has been awkward for me the last few weeks. I still feel my ritualist is only a so-so fit for the current campaign, but still haven't gotten any ideas I want to go with more. Being a "foreigner," I get a different, shorter set of quests that leads up to the Consulate Docks mission, where the plotline merges with the one native to the expansion. So I did those, and on group nights, I've been running around with no real idea what's going on (except dim memory from when I did it before) trying to help get people caught up to that point. Most of them are finally there, so Sunday I'll probably at least feel included in what's being done again.
WoW feels like we've reached a stasis point, though I'm sure that's perception more than anything. The only person I know after a specific drop is off until probably Friday (maybe later). My tanking gear set is as good as it will be for a while. With increased presence of certain other guildmates, there's less need for me to expand my other sets right now - though I am seriously considering changing my secondary talent set back to Retribution. We've been making good progress in Naxxramas, but that's only Saturday nights. So right now, I'm sort of "available, but not pushing" for runs. Though we did successfully manage a late timed run of heroic CoT: Culling of Stratholme last night, and got our first bronze drake (which Tiik got). That was fairly fun and intense due to the constant push forward.
Furryfaire is Furryfaire, and my love/hate relationship with the place continues. I log on out of habit and/or a desire to socialize with my few friends there, but I typically don't RP there anymore. Oh, now and then there's a one-on-one scene to play out, but even those barely count as they feel... I don't know, somehow lacking in canonicity or development. They're usually "side stories" in some sense.
Someone I've played with in the past asked me to make a character for an ongoing campaign/plotline there, but I've never fully managed to get into it. I mustered a philosophy that puts a good spin on a questionable religion. There never seemed much opportunity to roleplay there, though, for a mortal character when most of the others involved are deities and separated by regions. "I walk for a month just to chat for a couple hours," messes with my suspension of disbelief. It seemed expected that my character would see play in carrying the divine word to the people and followers, but they're all NPCs and I don't have much desire to RP with myself over it. Plus, I feel the campaign as a whole missed its mark, and a majority of those involved seem... uninvolved after a few months now.
Of my standard roster of characters, almost all suffer from a cliquishness that's always annoyed me, but seems very difficult to avoid in the medium. I play Character A. They end up mostly interacting due to Characters X, Y, and Z - sometimes due to schedule, or whatever else. This is okay, because X, Y, and Z are run by friends. But after a few months, maybe X isn't around much anymore, anytime I log A in Y or Z want to play, but Y and Z don't really play well together. So I'm left with logging in a specific character and playing a scene with one or two other specific characters. To break out of that, I would probably have to tell a friend to leave me alone and let me go do something else for a while - something I'm not likely to do as it makes me feel guilty, and that fouls my mood. So, Character A is now filed in my mind as really only playable if I specifically want to play with Y or Z, and given that those combinations have been played for months already, I have ideas for "new" scenes there only very rarely.
The psychology of all that really frustrates me, but I've been unsure what to do about it for the seven-or-more years I've been aware of it. Even trying to make an unattached character, those bonds seem to develop somehow. If I throw a character in another direction entirely, they tend to end up with a different clique, but otherwise not much different from normal. I don't really want to go making new characters every six months.
Rawrgh!
The World of Darkness game is in a little lull due to scheduling. I hope we'll pick up next week, but there seemed to be some question since at least one person wouldn't make it and I may be late due to a meeting. At last check, my character was one of two driving things forward. I guess that's better than being the only one, but I'd still like to see others step up, at least now and then. Maybe it's early in the game yet.
Of course, none of this is helped by the dreary, cold, rainy weather this week. I wouldn't say my current mood is bad, but perhaps vulnerable to downward spirals.
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