[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Gossamer]

Communication

I just wanted to say something very simple here. There was life before there was chat. We have so many communication forums here it isn't funny. We have Q&A forums. We have The Help Desk. And we actually have tiers of coordination threads for every level of staffer from the lowly JrST to the RS's and Founders and everything in between. If someone removes a channel in chat, that doesn't mean your line of communication is completely and utterly cut off and you can't talk to anyone. It simply means that you should probably use the forums on Mizahar as they were intended. Do you want a discussion with the staff? Use the Staff Lounge. Or if you want to directly talk to someone, there's always DMs on Discord and PMs on Mizahar.

I've been accused of cutting off the staff's line of communication by removing the staff channel in Discord. If that was true, I would have to remove the ability for DMs on Discord, the main chats, all the city chats, remove the ability for people to PM, remove all the forums or altogether take down Mizahar.

Why did I remove it? Because it was full of vitriol and anger. I was done seeing that. So I removed it not only once but twice... until such a time as everyone can be civil.

I find it astonishing what people will accuse a Founder - especially me - of doing without a single thought in their head. I am remarkably uncaring of people's feelings after they have presented me with a false front or shown true colors in their behavior and activities. Someone is not as sweet as apple pie if they tear down someone else behind the scenes and then act all smarmy nice to their face.

At least with me, you get what you get and I don't treat you one way to your face and in public and rip you apart behind your back to my peers. I will take none of that shit and if it happens, people get excused from Mizahar and from this site as a whole. And if people profess how they feel about how this place is managed or say they have zero faith, trust, and shits to give I act accordingly.

I want people to care. I want people to be who they are at face value and not be some fake puffed up fluffhead. If someone is doing something irritating, take it to them face to face. Then if they don't respond, go ahead and vent about how irritating they are. But give them a damn chance first. Don't just talk smack about them to others without even remotely giving them a chance. We've survived all these years because I give a shit and because we have an amazing coder. Lesser games and greater games have gone down for far less.

Yes I throw staff off here when we don't have the staff too loose? Guess what? No staff is far better than douchebag staff or staff that aren't active. If I have to threaten, beg, cajole and otherwise urge people to actually do their job then it's not worth it to me. Especially since people promise and promise and promise to do things and when they don't, they expect me to understand even though they've gone back on their word. You see people who are active, but you don't see what requires them to be active behind the scenes.

It's exhausting and I'm not doing it anymore. If someone isn't active for roughly thirty days, even if they are the very last person on this site in a staff position, they still will be removed. Why? Because they promised to be there for you players and when they stop being that person or start being someone else behind the scenes... I'm done with them.

They can be mad all they want. They can wage a smear campaign from here until tomorrow. I don't care. It's none of my business what you guys think of me. You either tolerate me or like me and stay here or you move to another site that offers what we offer you... a place to write.

It's not fair to you. It's not fair to me. I'm done being the big bad wolf. It's going back to the way things used to be. If you aren't around. You will return to find you don't have an account. Same goes if you turn into a shithead behind hte scenes. You'll find you don't have an account and that there is no longer any welcome mat laid out for you when you get back then you'll understand I found you smarmy.

Communicate or not. Post or not. Be present or not. It's all up to you. You know what to do. You know how to do it. Either do the right thing or move on. I'm no longer interested in being friends with everyone and letting them off the hook for every excuse under the sun. It's just not fair and its just not right to be taken advantage of that way.

[Gossamer]

[Dash]

I'm 82% judgey!

[Gossamer]

Some Thoughts

I really love this sign. It speaks to me in a way that relates a lot to recent happenings. I honestly believe that you are rewarded in life by being your genuine self. That doesn't mean portraying yourself as what you want others to see you as. Being exactly who you are, to me, is the best most honest thing you can do for yourself. And that also means acting in a way that remains true to yourself.

I've run this site for a long time. That's going on far more than ten years. I've always tried to keep the best interest of the site in mind. And to do that, I need to look at a larger more inclusive picture than a picture that is narrow and self-focused. Mizahar isn't about me. The focus of Mizahar is very very simple. It is a place and a backdrop to tell stories IC. It provides a platform for writing. That will always remain its focus.

I often don't relate to the vast majority of the people on here. I can easily relate if they are in my cohort and we have similar experiences or values. This is independent of age, sex, color, creed, or religion. I rarely consider someone a cohort just because they fit one category. I am pagan, for example, but I generally find many people that follow a faith similar to mine a pain in the ass. I was raised pagan and didn't adopt the religion and massage it to fit my personality. I think that's a big difference there. Age? I rarely find people fit into neat boxes if their age is a specific number. Color is only skin deep. And even if you have completely opposite politics, I can still love you for you and call you cohort. I tend to like males more than females in real life, but that's because my interests overlap a lot of typical male interests more so than my more feminine interests. For example, do you know there are more male stained glass artists than females? True story. Creeds... now that's a whole different ballgame. We just don't have one creed. We have many. Some overlap, some don't.

I do dislike it immensely when people say really stupid statements online like "I don't like this person or that person, but I love their writing!" Why? Its the internet, people. You don't KNOW that person you are claiming to dislike. You can dislike things about them, but to blindly sum up their actions and make that the whole of their selves and label it something distasteful is just so painfully shallow. That is especially true if you don't understand their motivations.

I've always known that people have a tendency to like people that like them. Let me say that again. If someone seems to like you, you will often gravitate towards them and like them. It's the oldest trick in the book to fit in with a new environment. Be accepting of the situation and be expressive of your admiration and likes. Compliment sparingly but generously. If you want to fit in with a new situation, all you have to do is pick a few key people, like them, get to know them, and take some clues from their behavior and soon the herd is accepting. But you can't go too deep. If you do, you risk a whole lot and you open yourself to wounding. The same goes for getting new people to like you. Compliment them. Find the positive in negative situations. That's fairly easy for anyone to do, anyone that is but someone who is protective of a site and an enforcer of lore or rules. I don't have those liberties.

People also have a tendency to be hellishly protective of themselves because they don't want to get hurt. Hurt equates to pain. And everyone's been hurt and are in many ways in pain. People who like you tend not to hurt you. It's a win-win situation. People that don't like you openly tend to not mind hurting you. That makes them dangerous. I get that. It's common sense and in many ways so incredibly sensible. So if someone is seemingly nice, you gravitate towards them because that's how you want to be treated. If someone has the power to hurt you - like wields a ban hammer - you avoid them like the plague. Smart.

We walk around daily brushing shoulders with people who are incredibly wounded inside. I think if we could actually see emotional health on the inside as some sort of outward physical reflection, you'd find yourself on a sort of Hollywood Set like The Walking Dead. What do I mean? I think everyone around us would be outwardly presenting this emotional damage as actual open wounds, missing limbs, gruesome scarification, and a whole host of other horrifying things.

We all have big bleeding wounds and none of us want to willingly add to them.

I know that Mizahar is a refuge for people. It is, however, not a safe space or a place to live in a bubble. Our stories here are hard ones; things that make us laugh or cry and should be full of risk versus rewards. If you aren't writing like this, why are you even here? Why are you even writing? If you take no risks, you earn no real rewards. Life isn't about shallow superficial interactions where people just gently brush up against things and interact lightly. Life is about making things mean something. You should mean something. I should mean something. Our characters mean something. We all have value.

The social scene in terms of the community is the same way. You can keep it casual and happy, but I think the connections you make will only be superficial at best. Terms like 'bubble gum' come to mind in both the literary and social sense with this site if you approach it in a casual light manor.

Real-life is a lot like roleplay life. The more chances you take the more you stand to gain and lose. I've taken so many chances, both in and out of character, and have had some work out and some have crashed and burned. I've had my wings broken so many times and then had assholes tell me to fly. And so many people have judged me and expected me to stand by their sides. Guess what? That rarely happens. I've taken such long-shot chances fully expecting to be burned broken or beaten and they've worked out. My marriage has been like that. I am slowly creeping up on 20 years of absolutely love and joy after inviting a stranger into my life whose writing I fell in love with more than 25 years ago.

Life is like that. My world is full of horse shit because I love and care for horses. Most people would count that a huge negative. And yet every spring I plant a vegetable garden in that shit and eat off that garden's bounty all summer and well into the fall. To me, it's one of life's miracles.

That's how friendships go too.

Sometimes they are here and last and sometimes they are not what you thought. More often than naught you see people picking sides, getting angry, and when something happens and no one comes to you to talk about it or ask your side, you realize they don't want to know or have no faith in what you would say anyhow. More wings get broken. More judgment occurs and then they become shocked and angry that after they judged you, that you didn't stand by them when they didn't stand by you. It happens.

Life is rarely black and white. It's shades of grays with values and tones that are more necessary than you realize. They make up the fabric of our being.

What was my side? This site is the home that I have built from the ground up. I've had help - a lot of it - but a lot of it is 100% me. This site is a substantial part of my life. I can't do it alone. And I don't have too. But I won't be forced into being something I don't want to be in order for it to continue. And as I've said before - it is exhausting to have to push and beg and threaten and cajole folks into fulfilling obligations they've voluntarily agreed too. Help only helps if they bring something positive to the table. They have to enjoy their own motivations and get fulfilled by something here that keeps filling up the emptiness inside them for their presence to work.

It's also true that I can like someone - and have - and yet lose all trust in them because of their willingness and ability to hurt me. I can still love them even, tolerate them, but not be willing to trust them with that which is ME again.

But if someone tells you how they really feel about you - something they are fully entitled to do - do you have to then stand there and let them carry on if you don't like what they have to say? The answer is no. You don't. You don't get to stand there and hand someone a knife and let them cut you over and over again. That's insanity. They aren't innocent in this. They are brutal in it. And if you stand there and take it you are a fool submitting yourself to dark things like pain and abuse.

Why would you ever do that to yourself? Why would you even remotely consider their feelings, after they've done something like that, and allow them to keep at it? None of you would tolerate this unless you are very very very damaged.

It's exactly like someone saying they love your house but can't stand you - do you mind if they hang out? Because, after all, the house is cool. They enjoy the amenities. Maybe it's hot, the house has AC, and the cool pool is relaxing. Maybe the media room has a killer surround sound and the fridge is always stocked. Just leave them be to enjoy your home and things will be fine.

No! Just hell no. Because then that person will stand in that home, enjoy its beauty, and never realize that beauty is the home owner's soul. Where you live IS your soul. They will tell themselves its something else. And worse yet, they will share their opinion and their reasoning - in other words, their own personal internal wounds - to others who are also equally protective and pretty soon you'll have a house full of folks who are just as scared and unwilling to take chances and brave pain. I know because this has happened before. Sharp quick severings are far better than long slow deaths.

I get it. Pain sucks. I don't like causing it. But I won't stand here and take a knife slice over and over to make a point and eat it because people think I am unable to be hurt. I won't smile and be polite to someone who hasn't offered me the same compromise. The saying is right:

You can't expect to give bad and receive good.

You can expect to receive what you give. Some people would still be here if they hadn't been so reactive, said such things, caused such stress and then judged so badly. This house is only so big. My heart is only so strong. And its also fairly telling to me that almost no one but a select few has talked to me about 'things'. To those that have, I feel the love and the friendship and appreciate it. You are getting what you give.

Words reveal soul.

I'm here to write. I have spent countless hours working here so that the writing goes easier and the parameters to write within are clear. I'm not here for much of anything else anymore. The dissatisfaction, the vitriol, the slander and gossip only hurts yourself. Enjoy your daggers, your slices, your wounding actions. Enjoy your opinions about disliking people and not hesitating to share with others - uninvited - how much you dislike others. I only really want to write with the people that want to write with me because they enjoy the writing and they enjoy me. I enjoy them in equal measures because I enjoy their writing and their souls. If you are one of those people, I appreciate you more than you know.

And if you've made it this far, you might realize this is me showing all those internal emotional wounds just a little bit. I'm sorry if I do look like a Walker with them showing. But they are all there because someone thought me important enough to wound. They only did it once.

[Gossamer]

Apologies - Accepting & Demanding

We all get hurt by the actions of others. I am no exception. However, I am downright rotten at accepting apologies from people. My husband and I were having this conversation the other day and he spoke up and said that he never apologized to me and probably wouldn’t because I rarely accepted them. Its so true. And almost without thinking I responded right back to him. “I don’t accept them because people don’t apologize for the right things or aren’t actually sincere!” He blinked, gave this some thought, and we talked more about it. He actually wanted to know what I meant with examples included. And of course, I gave him some. They weren’t about him because we weren’t fighting. We have these long drawn out philosophical discussions and often talk about our quirks or things that make us really disappointed in humanity as a whole.

One of my biggest hang-ups with people is that I feel they get mad at me over something I do, but never confront me about it. Instead, they display anger at something totally different almost as a side effect of that first rage. Then when they apologize at the anger or behavior they did do, I get really disappointed and stay disenchanted with them a long time because it’s all bullshit and they’ve never actually addressed what made them mad in the first place. It’s like they let me down as a friend and we weren’t really friends to begin with. That’s the part that hurts. I honestly don’t care if people act out or behave badly when I realize it's not even remotely related to what they are mad about. I know what they are mad about. I’m not stupid.

That might not make any sense at all, but I bet it has happened to you. Someone gets pissed at you… unholy hell pissed… and later rather than say anything at all about it, they go on rages unrelated. Nine times out of ten they won’t even talk about the elephant in the room. To me, when this happens, it always feels like judgment is already cast and minds are already made up.

I have a hell of a time accepting that apology because I know damn well and good what the core issue is – not the thing they are apologizing for. I don’t care that they yelled at me for the unrelated thing because I’m human and I know where the anger stemmed. And because I don't accept them too gracefully, I don't ever demand them. Nor do I often give them.


I’d just feel terribly let down that I was judged without being directly confronted and talked to about the real issue. This goes doubly so if they run around telling everyone else BUT ME about how upset they are on the topic of the core issue. Like anyone else in this scenario, I can feel the eyes on me and the whispers behind my back.


I’m like any other human out there. I want a chance to explain. I want to be given the benefit of the doubt. I want to tell you my side. But no one ever seems to want to hear my side. We bat this word ‘transparency’ around in the room like it’s the end all be all, but the truth is no one wants transparency. Everyone wants to gossip and he said she said drama. What’s the point of that? Do you need someone to blame and the guy doing most of the work behind the scenes is the easiest? Once something happens, judgment is immediately cast and no one hears anyone else out.

I just want to stand in the middle of the room and shout “I did it. I’m guilty. Let out all your anger instead of this passive-aggressive shit you have going on. How about you talk to me about it instead of everyone else?”

The other thing that actually happens a lot is that people ‘apologize’ without offering a real apology. There’s a huge big wide difference between “I’m sorry you felt hurt.” And an “I’m sorry I hurt you.” The first one is just condolence. I’m about the last person that offers sympathy or empathy for people going through shit. I don’t feel like it helps a lot, because it has never really ever in my life helped me. I went through hell last year and the year before physically until I got my diagnosis and a very amazing hematologist got me on the road to recovery. Everyone was super sorry I was feeling bad, but no one offered any sort of real help to manifest their feeling sorry. Did anyone show up to clean my house when I couldn’t get out of bed? Did any of those sorry people take any workload off of me? Nope. They were just sorry. Saying I’m sorry is so fucking easy and weak. Actually, acting is the hard part.

The second one – “I’m sorry I hurt you.” - is a true apology. I don’t like people that do something rat bastardly and then skimp the apology by offering condolence and thinking that’s fine. When I hear these, I genuinely like to say… “It’s okay.” Which is a whole different ballgame and often trigger people into thinking I’m being passive-aggressive when I’m actually just saying its fine, its okay… I get it, no worries.


To me, sympathy is useless, and I am super uncomfortable with it and with that kind of health-related attention. I rarely give it to others, and I’m really weird getting it from people. If you folks know me at all, you understand this about me. I don’t like the spotlight and I don’t like the attention. Remember when you guys tried to make me contributor of the month? That didn’t go over so well. The only reason I accepted an award for my PC recently is that Shiress approached it in a very unique way and got me to do it as part of a plea deal for me getting her to do something in return that she refused to do before.

And frankly, I don’t understand AT ALL the people that need condolences all over the place. If I ask after someone’s wound or someone’s Aunt Betty that’s sick, it’s because I’m genuinely curious as to the state of their wound or the state of their Aunt Betty. Those things are interesting. Someone on here has a bad knee. I’m genuinely fascinated to find out what’s wrong with it. The whole situation was weird. Its just about as weird as they come. Aren’t you curious too? If that same person had a cold, I’d not be sorry they were sick. It’s not that I don’t like them or am unfeeling.

Cold’s happen. If I were closer irl, I’d take them a big pot of chicken soup or offer to run them around for errands and that’s all. That way they don’t have to cook and its super helpful. IM SORRY YOUR SICK is not. It’s just sickness is a state we all go through and me being sorry they got sick doesn’t help them one bit. My sorrow isn’t going to make their cold or situation change any time soon. Its like that doc that prescribes you antibiotics for a viral infection. He’ll tell you that you’ll get better in a week on the antibiotics or in seven days if you just tough it out.

My own health issues are very private. When I got misdiagnosed with cancer, I told the staff because I was scared and didn’t know what was going to happen. When I get infusions, I tend to mention it because the people in the infusion center are so frigging amusing I usually relate or share a story about something going on there. Otherwise? Feelings are damn uncomfortable for me to deal with or expose. It’s like a girl walking out of the house accidentally without a bra and being a DDD. It’s just… awkward. Cage those girls, eh? No one wants to see you bouncing all over unless its pervs.

Someone once told me that INTJs are like crossing a samurai style code of honor with the idealism of Gandhi and then give it imposter syndrome, you have a working model of the INTJ’s emotional core. Yep. That’s me alright. That’s why I like hanging out with INTJ’s. We don’t have to do all the posturing, going through the social niceties, and dealing with butthurt that happens when we don’t act like normal people are ‘supposed’ to act. We can grunt at each other in a room all in our own little comfortable private corners and be super happy.

It doesn’t make me a monster. It makes me really reasonable, in my mind.

I take a lot of crap and hold it in. It takes so much to get me riled up its not even funny. Even in real life, I have a type A personality and can have truckers screaming at me all day and I’m just smiling and shrugging it off, and offering them solutions to calm them down which makes me pretty invaluable in the position I hold. Truthfully, angry people amuse me. Often they get themselves into their own situations and then rage about the situation they caused. Dumbasses.

What pushes my buttons? When someone affronts me personally and acts like something I did was utterly off the rails when in my mind it was utterly justifiable. That sets me off. This links back to the ‘hear my side’ instead of just listen to the wounded victim go on and on. Incompetence pebbled with excuses for bad behavior is another trigger. If someone DARES blame their poor behavior on something outside of their control, I call bullshit in my mind immediately.

I don’t care if you were attacked by a shark and now afraid of the ocean. I am not buying that you were once eaten by a lion and won’t either go to vegas or a zoo. And I certainly won’t believe that your freak accident being run over by a crappy purple scion causes you a terror of crossing a street or driving at all. If you did something, you did it. You were wrong. Excuses are no excuse at all. Stop defending your bad behavior with more bad behavior.

The third thing that really bothers me is unjust action. If I’m friends with someone and someone else is friends with that same someone and me and the someone else has a fight and the person unrelated in the middle takes a side immediately… that’s unjust and they’ve just pretty much told me where I stood in their mind. The same goes for new friends coming down on me because they think I should act a certain way in a certain situation and I simply don’t. They don’t know me. How the fuck dare they impose their values on me when my values have been doing just fine for me for forty years plus? How arrogant is that? Either accept me as I am or just decide I’m not your cup of tea and flat out tell me you’d never go out to coffee with my type.

As rude as that is, at least its honest. It takes a lot for me to blow. And when I finally do, I will get indignant as hell, non-cooperative, and confrontational. I rarely get angry unless the situation is something that is so inherently stupid that my frustration is off the charts pegged. Then I get pissed. Then I act out. Then I tell you what I think. Until then, I tend to keep my mouth shut and just be amused by the whole thing because drama washes over the internet frequently. Just read the comments on social media sometimes.

What happens when I get pissed? It is pretty simple. If its something I can’t control, I rant. All INTJ’s do this. If its something I can do something about it, I rip into it with withering critique and in the case of Miz, people get banned, lore gets written, posts get posted, etc etc etc. I ooze stubbornness and throw up roadblocks and easily can ignore someone the rest of my life if I feel like they didn’t give me a just chance. I wipe them off the face of the ‘you exist’ or ‘you matter’ board because I refuse to give them a chance to hurt me again. Doing so would be plain stupid. If I didn’t matter enough to them to come to talk to me about their hurt, then I don’t matter enough to worry be their friend.

Anyhow... I just wanted to get this all out. I hope it makes sense. Apologizing isn't something I readily accept. Apologies from me? I won't make one unless I'm truly sorry.

[Gossamer]

The Art Of Not Giving A Damn

Some Background...

While I was cruising through last year’s BuJo I found some notes that I’m turning into an article for this year's BuJo that will become part of my normal printable toolset in the back. I actually switched from a leuchtturm1917 back to a Filofax because I really really enjoy the 6 ring binder situation and the ability to take pages in and out as my mood changes.

Some of you think I am too forthright and not enough of an ass kisser to others. Yea I use that word because I see that is often truer than the term people pleaser. Kindness goes a long way, but I’ve been walked on and stomped on a lot and now I am just who I am. Being among my own kind reminds me of how fucking refreshing this is. We aren’t like everyone in the world, but we’re pretty damn great and will give you the shirt off our backs if your one of those people who manage to make it into our inner circles.

When I was very young, I was a people pleaser. I mean, way back in childhood. I was like this because I wasn’t accepting of my background, who I was, and where I came from. I wanted to be ‘just like everyone else’. Yea. Fuck that shit, ya know? As an adult, you learn to embrace the differences and we gain some sort of weird fascination with our background and where our family came from. I grew out of it fast and hard when I figured out that people ‘just like everyone else’ walked all over you, took advantage of your time and money, and often displayed shallow friendships that only went skin deep. Basically, when you are there for everyone and no one is there for you, then you are with the wrong crowd. I grew up in a family that has a mixed background and was dysfunctional in a lot of ways. But I had rock solid grandparents whom I loved dearly and still miss every day of this life.

So anyhow, that’s the background. Here are my notes for giving myself permission to not give a damn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Art of Not Giving A Damn
Aka How To Stop Caring About What Other People Think!

There is so much pressure in the world to fit in. That pressure is probably one of the singular most unhealthy thing on the planet. Most of it is driven by tangible things – instant gratification – doing things my way right away. We want food immediately and all that fast food is killing us. We want big houses, new cars, and fancy educations we often times can’t use. All that debt is crippling. And most of that is driven by peer pressure and societal pressures. Trade schools are looked down on. Thrift shopping is not the art of a bargain it should be. And DYI is often thought of as ‘desperate’ instead of creative and crafty. All that is complete and utter bullshit. Food should be prepared carefully, cooked of whole fresh produce and meats, and savored. Our homes should fit our lifestyles and needs. Martha Stewart doesn’t live with us and Better Homes and Gardens images are fake. Our produce should be spotted and natural, not picture perfect and draped in carcinogenic pesticides.

We are all hyper-connected and post our life highlights on social media like its some sort of competition as to who’s having the most fun, looking the best, or who has acquired the most stuff. We forget the highlights aren’t real life, and there are a lot of quiet sweat pants moments in between. We work ourselves to death to fill up our social calendars with things we can’t afford. And in the end, does this make us feel better? It really doesn’t. It perpetuates feeling like shit as you drive your beater around or can’t afford to keep the lights on so you never take a vacation. It’s a vicious cycle. It needs to stop.

It starts with the guilt and anxiety we all ply ourselves with. We are guilty of not going, not doing, not sharing, etc. And we get guilt-ridden if we don’t assign ourselves a whole bunch of tasks, especially when we have so many we can’t finish and then feel like crap because we ‘failed’ ourselves. Worse yet, it's hard to say no and stop trying to help everyone or worse yet fix everyone’s lives. It's even harder still to stop stepping in uninvited and offering advice or observations. We need to learn to let people make their own mistakes.

There is another way to live. And if you can start living this way, multiple things will happen.

• You will break vicious cycles in your life of guilt and anxiety.
• You will open up more time to do what you love rather than what is expected.
• You will get to know yourself better.
• You will build self-love.
• You will discover hidden talents.
• You will understand that self-care is not selfishness.
• You will cut down all kinds of unnecessary drama.
• You will start allowing yourself to feel happy.
• You will build your own personal wealth because you will stop spending it on stuff you don’t need.

How? First things first. Its time for introspection.

1. Get to know yourself better. Honestly Interview Yourself.

You need to get to know yourself better. Start taking notes, journaling, write down the things that make you happy. What thrills you? What are your successes and what things do you absolutely wish you had a lot more time for? What do you value? If you don’t know who you are, you have no clue how to go about making yourself happy. That’s a big part of this… learning yourself… being yourself… finding the true inner soul.

2. Learn To Firmly Say No.

No is a powerful tool in your toolbox. You aren’t rude or mean saying no, especially if you say no with kindness and reasoning. Don’t go into long involved reasoning why you can’t or won’t do something. Keep it simple and honest. Don’t become a liar in firmly saying no. “No, I don’t have time.” It doesn’t work unless you honestly have time. Say no for the right reasons. Say no for honest reasons. Sometimes something as simple as ‘I’m overcommitted.” will work just fine. Use it. Don’t preface or follow this up with “I’m sorry.” either. You don’t need to apologize for not being available for someone else. If you have time, want to help, and can do so comfortably then, by all means, say YES. Think about this from the other perspective too. You want people to help you or commit to things with you when they have time and WANT to join. You don’t want people that are pressured to help join you in your endeavors. This will get easier over time and people will appreciate you more because they know you will only commit when you are… well… absolutely committed.

This also gives you the chance to have more time on your hands to be yourself, do things you love, and that will make you a far better person because when you do commit to things, you’ll show up as your best version of yourself and not your tired, overwrought, pissed off, grumpy self.

3. Understand Other People’s Problems Are Not Your Problems And They Are Not Your Responsibility To Fix.

You don’t have a red cape. You don’t have superpowers. You can’t make everyone feel better all the time and it's not your job to do so. When you get so far along in life, you figure out that working on yourself is its own massive project and no matter what anyone else does, ultimately your own happiness is up to you.

The same goes for everyone else.

Their happiness is up to them. I know this is super hard to understand. For some reason, we can take responsibility for our own lives and our own happiness, but we want to care to give and handhold everyone else’s lives. We think loving people means not letting them make mistakes, fail at situations, or fall down. Let people make their own mistakes. Let people rise or fall on their own merits. You don’t have the power to fix everything and everyone. You never have had that power and you never will have that power. You need to remind yourself of this. The only life you can control is your own. Sometimes there are lessons needed to be learned. Just telling someone something isn’t necessarily going to teach them anything. Life is the greatest teacher of all. Let life itself do its job. Someone needs to really experience being burned first had to understand how dangerous fire or heat is.


4. Put People And Their Opinions Into Context.

It's easy to judge. It’s doubly easy to judge when you just know someone on the internet or causally in real life. If people are not busy, they are not minding their own business. It's just a fact of life. Too many people sit around doing jack and squat with their lives and think its more than fine to obsess over others and what things they have going on. But if you watch, often their unhappiness makes itself known. You have to put their words and actions in context. Bored people are often mean people. It’s not a reflection of you… it’s a reflection of them. If you see warning signs, don’t ignore it. Take your instinct seriously. It’s rarely wrong.

Remember this. Remember all of this. It’s important.

[Gossamer]

Public Service Announcement

Hi Folks.

I just want to let you know that as a Moderator I feel kinda frustrated and I'm putting my foot down. It's NaNo this month, and honestly, I'm doing NaNo as a PC. I've sat around asking people if I could do anything to help them for months. I've been online every day - day in and day out - and this is NOT the time to suddenly ask me for a moderated thread or for a treatise of details on something listed in the calendar. It's been up since the FIRST DAY OF FALL.

If you post something to be reviewed, nudge me. I'm a Founder and I'm all over the place day in and day out (mostly deleting spam and keeping the site running - and now running multiple unmoderated cities via the HD) on the site and the chances are I don't see things posted when they are posted in my own domain because I am focused on the entire site. Other DS's just have to focus on their little space and catch things more easily. So... NUDGE ME. Don't nudge me like a month after you've posted it and then be all judgy that its sat for so long. You have to manage YOUR PC or PCS... I have to manage multiple domains, multiple people, the HD, my domain, and still try and play.

I've literally been bored off my ass for months asking people if I can do things for them or help them etc... and suddenly EVERYONE wants something. And they tend to ask me EARLY in the morning (like 2am my time) when I've just gotten up to head to work. They DM me nuding me but people aren't saying PMing me where I have a solid record and will SEE IT LATER and can deal with it when I'm not at work busy as all hell but instead home at my PC where I can reward things.

And when it comes to rewards for things... I don't mind giving them. I love making quest prizes!

However, if I bust my ass getting you rewards for your writing and you do nothing to claim them IC and they just sit in your CS.... I'm not going to be in a hurry to give you even more rewards you can just sit on your laurels until they are convenient for you to go fetch.

This is doubly true if you demand one out of the blue that you had earned ages ago and didn't talk to me about getting. I understand people get busy. I do. But I get busy also and NOW is not the right time.

This is my busy time at work. This is NANO. This is not my time to babysit you. If you finished something and had it coming, ask for it immediately and get it. If you get rewarded something, claim it in a thread as soon as you can.

My own PC has about 90% of her award stuff claimed even if its not listed where its claimed because I don't add in links until threads are graded. I don't see why the rest of you can't do this.

I don't mean to be bitchy, but people - you are ALL being unreasonable right now. Just today alone I was approached for THREE moderated threads that you folks want me to start RIGHT NOW after I've been sitting bored for MONTHS... and I've been warning people this is my busy season at work. I can't work the hours I work and moderate threads for all of you and arrange all your stuff that's months overdue. I'm tempted to even put limits on your ability to claim things after they are awarded just to motivate people not to lose things.

LAST MINUTE SHIT SUCKS. It really does. If something on the calendar interested you, why didn't you ask AT THE BEGINNING of the season? I've warned everyone repeatedly this is my busy season. I'm in retail distribution and Christmas is insane. INSANE. I'm not going to sacrifice my own NaNo plans to make you happy. I'm really not.

Sorry. I'm just not that interested in making people happy when I've been around for months to do so when it hasn't been that busy.

Goss

[Gossamer]

I'm Not Feeling It

The statement "I'm Not Feeling It" sums up my life lately. I should be posting here on Mizahar, but honestly, I've gotten out of the habit and gotten completely clear of the inspiration. Life is hectic for me as it is for a lot of people. I'm not sure it's hectic in the same way, but I realize we each live different and unique lives. I'm feeling beyond stressed and a whole lot of uncertain in uncertain times. My scrap has always been a snapshot of my life and a reflection of what is going on. And tonight, instead of staring at the site and doing nothing yet again, I decided I'd scrap.

Many many things in Washington State have changed quickly. Tonight, our governor just announced two more weeks of the 'stay home' order. The bitching over this has intensified on social media and I can't deal with the 'I'm bored.' posts on places like Facebook anymore. I really can't. I would give a lot to sit at home for a week and just fucking detox and relax. So many of us - my immediate friends - are just busting our asses, going without breaks, working long hours, and doing our damnedest to cater to these people that if they'd just act normally would have almost normal lives.

My husband, who works at the same place I am, has had his company realize his sacrifice and what they are asking of their folks and have given them huge raises on their hourly rates for 'hazard pay' plus bonuses for coming to work in these uncertain times. My company has given us all a bit of TP and Hand Sanitizer plus cans of Lysol to use to help keep us safe. And while any other time I'd laugh at this, right now you can't buy TP in WA state at all and folks are running out. So yea... I'm grateful for a six pack of TP once in a while.

I was even told recently we'd all have to start pulling even more OT and work 6 and 7 days a week to get things done. Mandatory. No choice. I don't want to work 6-7 days a week while others are sitting at home bitching or moaning about their 'restrictions' and "constitutional rights being walked on". I want to personally stab each of them in the sternum with a finger and a huge "Fuck you, you selfish bastard... I wouldn't have to be doing this if it weren't for idiots like you."

And while many of you might be thinking "Stop bitching, I'd kill for OT" let me explain something to you. I'm a Middleclasser. That means the liberal government of WA State taxes the shit out of us Middle-Class folks to support all the poor and all their inflated 'social programs' in this state. How? The more OT you work in WA State the more you are taxed.

My last check was huge gross-wise but I got taxed at such a high rate my take-home was actually smaller than my normal 40 hr work week pay because of my tax bracket. When I'm at that overwhelmingly inflated tax rate, I'm actually making closer to minimum wage and honestly would make more on unemployment at home if I qualified during this shutdown. And I could relax. I wouldn't bitch about being bored - which I am NEVER bored at home relaxing. I wouldn't be living this never-ending cycle of hurry up and sleep, work my ass off, go home and sleep more. We are chronically understaffed as they rob hostlers from me to send on runs and do stupid errands.

Add that to the exhaustion factor and its laughable. No. It makes you want to cry. Seriously. I could so easily quit my job right now, but I need to keep it about ten more years to retire happily and not have any worries because my house is paid off etc.

And because I'm in this sort of 'fuck it' mindset, problems on Miz are about at that laughable 'Really? This is a problem?" stage for me too. The site is plagued with people that don't seem to understand that they aren't the only ones around and that I don't see their PMs, HD tickets and chat DMs five seconds after they send them. I'm lucky to see them on the same day. Real-life is coming first for me. The site is so far on the back burner it's not funny.

You see, things here are what I consider bad. They aren't terrible. But they aren't great either. We do not have basic essentials. You can't access basic necessity supplies. I've heard rumors that you can get TP and things like flour and sugar in the grocery stores really early in the mornings, but for those of us that work all day and can only swing by after work, thats not something happening. We simply can't keep up with the demand being major suppliers.

What sucks is that I work for a place that has warehouses full of basic supplies that I need at my house, but I can't touch because I'm shipping out for others... others who are sitting at home bitching and at the grocery stores first thing to by the entire stock of TP as its offloaded from our trucks... trucks we loaded and drove to the stores. Hear the bitterness? I'm not the only one...

I really hate people. Moreso these days than ever. Animals are much more intelligent creatures.

Gillar managed to get some paper towels off the internet somewhere and I managed to get some TP off Amazon for the five minutes it was available a couple of days ago. The paper towels got delivered but we'll have to see if the TP shows up. I hope it does. Otherwise, not sure what we are going to do...

Our grocery stores have no flour, sugar, rice, pasta etc. We've had no bread for about two weeks. Now there are huge shortages on soap, laundry detergent, and things like handwashing dish soap, dishwasher liquid, etc. You can't get bleach, general cleaner, hand sanitizer, masks, Lysol, or anything like that. It's just not available. Even Costcos doesn't carry any of it anymore or if they do get it in, its sold out immediately. People that are working 6-7 days a week can't get to the store early to get these supplies. When they do get shipments in, its gone within minutes.

Eggs are a thing of the past in grocery stores, so to is butter and a lot of dairy. We can get milk, but tea and coffee is hard to find. Luckily I have supplies of both. We have chickens, but we don't put lights on them year-round (which causes them to lay hard all year round) because we don't want our chickens to lay eggs in the winter since we don't butcher them at a certain age. We keep them for the life of the chicken as a pet, and they will live and lay longer if they are allowed to only lay seasonally. Remember, females of any species are just born with so many eggs inside them and once they are gone, they are gone. But this being the case, we have such old chickens they lay slowly and are only starting to lay their spring/summer eggs now. To remedy that, we have 13 total Rhode Island Red Pullets on order for the end of the month to replenish our laying flock.

That's good news. You can evidently get chicks. I'm not sure we will be able to get flock raiser/maintainer feed, but heh... we'll cross that bridge when we get there and we can always free-range our chickens and feed all our pesky slugs and ants to them. They love bugs.

You can get flour on Amazon currently, but it's running about $15 bucks a 5lb bag. That's not a lot of loaves of bread... remember we can't get bread easily atm. It's usually around 6 cups of flour for two loaves of normal bread. That can be a lot of the percentage of a 5lb bag. Or you can get deals like 4 bags of 5lb Flour for $56 on Amazon. Do you realize flour were a couple of bucks a bag before all this started? Higher-end name brands were topped at about $5? I've even tried to get pancake mix and waffle mix which to me is a huge no-no because it's so easy to make great pancakes from scratch.... if you have flour.

I've had very little luck until I managed to grab a lone box of waffle mix the other day... so we can have waffles and pancakes again for a bit! Nice! I like breakfast for dinner sometimes. I might even have some breakfast for dinner tonight... because I haven't made dinner and I've been too tired to make it... but now that I'm talking about groceries on my scrap I kinda want some.

Fresh produce is still somewhat available, though we couldn't get potatoes for a long time. Nuts are gone. Things like box cereal and what I call 'crap food' is widely available. I have a huge stash of oats laying around the house because Oatmeal is a favorite and good for you... so I'm set there. With this extension on the stay home, I have no idea how things are going to change but we are hedging our bets.

My kitchen looks like a war surplus for animals. I kid you not. I have bags and bags of food and boxes and boxes of canned food laying around. I have a lot of pets, and we've been stocking heavily on pet food and bags of horse grain, alfalfa pellets, dog food, and cat food. I haven't stocked people food like I have stocked pet food. I know that sounds terrible, but we people can forage for food far easier than I can provide for more than ten cats with the nutrition they need to stay healthy. And I certainly can't manifest senior horse grain to my geriatric draft horse that will drop weight if I don't give her lots of high protein calories. She just can't graze enough to keep weight on with the amount of grass in our pastures. I even have bags of grain/alfalfa pellets in the kitchen because my cans in the barn are full up of feed and I can't leave bags of grain lying around because I don't trust mice/rats/coons/squirrels to not bust through the bags and eat the grain in mere seconds.

Even meat at the grocery store isn't well-stocked. They usually have hamburger, but chicken and pork are more difficult. Canned foods, especially vegetables, are in short supply too. They usually have some peas and chickpeas. Who eats that shit? Oddly enough you can still get all sorts of canned fruit and tomato products like paste.

I can't see the drive-through at McD's closing anytime soon without emotional turmoil... but there's no McD's for Cats and Dogs. I might be naive. Hell, maybe all restaurants will close before this is over. Weirder things have happened and the National Guard just got fully activated in our state so who knows. What I do know is that there are shortages of pet food right now, and I suspect it will just get worse. So we aren't using from the supplies, but rather scrounging for more as soon as we work through a box of canned food - it is replaced if possible... with the hopes there won't ever be a time it can't be replaced.

That hope is getting slimmer and slimmer as I've noticed my local grocery store empty of pet food and tractor supply getting low too. They used to have stocked shelves... now you're lucky to snag a single box of Friskies Wet Food for cats.

When this whole thing started, I checked out Chewy.com to see if I could get some extra sent my way. They were out of stock across the board on EVERY major brand. To me, that was a huge red flag. Huge. And it sent me into panic mode. So I hit up my local feed stores and leaned hard on Tractor Supply which is where we buy major amounts of pet food due to prices and the fact they carry some of the better pet food brands. We don't feed Purina for anyone, not even livestock. I can cook for the chows and cats, of course, but it's hard to feed straight meat without supplementing them with rice and other things which we can't get to give them good nutrition. Plus it's hard to actually 'cook' for them when you are never home.

Let's talk about gardening now. Its time, in the PNW, to plant. And gardens are going to be more important than ever atm.

Seedlings are hard to come by because all the nurseries are closed as non-essential businesses. Seed, are easier to come by, but harder to do in WA since our weather this year has been all over the place. Tomorrow we have a chance of snow again. SNOW! Tonight its obviously below freezing. Ugh. You can get garden soil at places like Home Depot but its hugely inflated. Seed packets are available there too. Thankfully we have a greenhouse and I can start seeds any time atm when we stop having freezing nights, but I need to be home to do so. And when I am home, I need to be more functional than just collapsing on the couch for a nap because I get home too tired.

I'm not sure how things are where you are, but here, I can tell you for certain... things are weird. It's just not the availability of food. It's everything. It's now about how people interact and how they behave. It's not being able to go someplace I'm used to going... if that makes sense. I'm worried about the availability of gas in the future too. You also can't get ammo anywhere. I know that sounds odd, but when this whole thing started, ammo disappeared everywhere. I'm used to seeing it around.

So for me.... the things that are different.

• I'm doing three times the work with half the help.
• Basic food is scarce, especially staple supplies.
• The streets are empty.
• I don't watch the news because I don't trust the networks.
• There's tons of free TV on.
• My internet sucks harder than ever due to all the people being home on it.
• I've grown addicted to phone app-based games. I love Lily's Garden and Race Rivals. I do crosswords too... the really hard ones. They are my only escape these days... and kinda mindless.
• I can't remember the last time I read a book... a real book. I listen to audibles right now... at work... to make work a bit easier. There's just no time.
• I can't get out of my car anywhere but at the grocery store and Home Depot/Tractor Supply. That feels weird that people bring orders out to you from various businesses now. Curbside pickup is a thing... it has never been a thing before.
• We count squares of TP and Paper Towels consisting them precious.
• I'm not sure how much writing I will ever do again. I feel like writing isn't a thing I even want to tackle atm. There's too many other things going on.
• I follow Q and Qanon and I hope its real, worry its not real, and think what kind of hellish world do we live in if it all proves to be true and what they say is happening happens...

Anyhow... that's the gist of it. That's my worry... my world... and I didn't even go into the fear of getting sick. I'm not afraid of that. I think when you've had a cancer diagnosis (even a false one), nothing else much can terrify you. I worry about others getting sick. I know one of my favorite country music singers died of Covid-19 today and I can't even process how I feel about that. And that inability to process worries me more than anything else. I know I'm in a full no-holds-barred say it like you feel it mode and that's not gonna make me any friends. You all think I'm like that normally, but I'm really not. I hold a lot of things back, but nowadays it might be too late to hold things back.

Tell people you love them. I do. I love this site and I love most of the players here. Some of you could jump off a bridge and I'd only be able to muster mediocre feelings at best. It is what it is. I just do know that I find NOTHING funny anymore... not even the best of memes or parodies (which I've never tolerated well in movies). Absolutely NOTHING. And that kinda worries me too.

I need to cut this scrap off somewhere. Here is a good place. Its midnight, I'm working tomorrow, and I don't even care. I'll be tired anyhow. I'll be grumpy anyhow. And its maybe better to be working on a scrap than laying in bed with a jingle playing in my head or wondering how something is made. Maybe I will actually sleep. The naps don't help... I know that. But this time of night its more that my brain is busy.... too busy... for comfort.

[Gossamer]

When ST's Have Had Enough

Today I was accused of being a bully.

And what did I do to earn this title? I dedicated hours and hours of my own personal time – free of charge – to help a character get started in a city. The character tried on then tossed profession after profession, and then had a ton of questions once one was firmly selected. Sometimes it’s easier to bomb a mod with questions to acquire information than it is to actually go look up your own information. At first, this is fine. So, you don’t want to do one thing, then do something else. But selecting and discarding profession after profession kinda sucks. So you can’t pick a job? Do nothing… be a bum. Jobs aren’t required. Seasonal expenses can be paid a multitude of ways. But continue on this avenue of uncertainty and before long, my frustration will grow. Why? Because you don’t understand one diehard important thing about Mizahar.

You create a character to tell a STORY. You can tell whatever story you want to tell. I like reading stories. That’s why I started Miz with my storytelling buddies. Let me repeat this. It bears repeating. Mizahar is here to tell stories. You create a character to tell STORIES. It’s not the box codes, the avatars, the minor details of a race.

If you dwell on IMAGE aka box codes, photoshopping Avatars, etc you lose sight on what’s really important here… the story. And yes, in my deep mean state of bullying, I was asked and gave clear photoshopping advice – even did some photoshopping work to help ease what I saw was a player being anxious about playing a new-to-them race. This was total bullying, am I right?

But my bullying continued. I don’t like getting grilled day in and day out for details a player should go find on their own. Yet I stupidly answered these questions just like a good little bully. I like talking about things that interest me… and if your questions involve some of my interests, I’ll gladly talk to you until you are begging me to stop. I’ll provide you with youtube videos, websites that have more info, and resources outside of Miz that are above and beyond. But if it’s not my thing, it’s not my thing. I’ll help, but only so much because I have a full-time job, a life outside of Miz, and a dozen other players that need attention as much if not more than you do.

However, if I do answer your questions and those questions end up in your writing word for word, its plagiarism. I can’t tell you how annoying this is, especially on a writing site. And yet… I’m the bully. Why? Because I stopped answering the questions, called them on the regurgitation of my thoughts verbatim, and told them they needed to think for themselves.

And when that plagiarism started, I was tired of answering questions. Wouldn’t you be? No one expects their answers to be parroted back in posts word for word. And the final straw was a series of questions on an unopened domain that wasn’t even fully developed. And when I very politely said I didn’t know and they needed to use their imagination, I magically became a bully. It’s not like they couldn’t go read the said domain’s forum and see for themselves that it was half built and unfinished. But that’s too much effort isn’t it? Way easier to bug Goss and pick her bullying brain ain’t it?

Why am I a bully? I said no. After all the yes’s and bending over backwards, I said no. And boom. I’m the bad guy. It’s a standard coping mechanism for people that refuse to deal with their own shortcomings or take critique when feedback is given.

And today? Today I get a long-winded DM in Discord stating they were leaving my domain because I made them feel small and I was a bully. You know what? No one can make you feel small but you. And if someone is bullying you, for god’s sake don’t tell them they are getting to you and you are leaving because then you are giving them the satisfaction of a bullying job well done.

This is, in fact, my reward for hours upon hours dedicated to easing this player’s transition into Syka, which isn’t the easiest domain to start in. You don’t just walk into Syka and start rping. You have requirements you have to fulfill – simple enough things – like talking to the Founders there, asking to stay, arranging lodging and a job with them… etc. I do this because it’s a way to get people to quickly get introduced to the very small pool of NPCs Syka enjoys and get familiar with the terrain all around them.

It’s the same list of things everyone gets asked to do when they start in Syka. And if you don’t do them, I will nudge you and tell you that you must. Mean huh? Fucking horribly mean. Don’t worry though. Instead of actually doing a thread like this, they took their one existing thread and altered like five lines in it and called it good. Neat. Princess much?

So why am I writing this? I’m pissed off… I’m mad at myself that I gave someone so much of my time just to have them turn out to be self-centered and entitled. And I’m mad enough that I hope you all think twice before you ride a mod hard for answers to questions you should be finding yourself because we are all just volunteers here.

And I want you all to give to others, as much as they give to you, and if others aren’t giving in your relationship with them? Drop them. They will always be victims, abused, and mistreated…. In their own minds not in reality. Why? Because they don’t live in the real world where real people have gratitude and enjoy and appreciate the generosity of others.

[Gossamer]

Writing And Arting

Work is kicking my ass. It's been kicking my ass for most of this year. Why? Covid. While people were sheltering at home going stir crazy, I was one of those fools that had to be at work 24/7 getting TP into people's homes and keeping the masses relatively calm. And if Covid wasn't bad enough, the busy season is here... and we are processing holiday stuff in full swing. Why does everyone gift exchange and spend spend spend during the holidays? I get it they put on huge feasts and that's why grocery and liquor are going batshit crazy... it's about to the hoarding level that Feb/March was.

I'm sick of greed.

I want to get back to more core values. I want to do less collecting and gathering and more doing and seeing and creating. I want to start with more writing. I want to write every day. I forget when I am not writing how good it is for my soul. It really is healing. I'm making a pact with myself to write every day, regardless of its long or short or just making notes.

I want to honor my characters and tell their stories. I can do that here. I will do that here. I will keep doing that here until the day I die.

Then there's art. Art is a huge part of my life. I need to do art daily. I really do. I draw really well. I always have. But I love more than just hanging out with a sketch pad and PS. I have to do tangible art. I love ceramics and stained glass... and have recently discovered card making. There's this whole culture of folks that love making handmade cards and sending them to each other. I love this concept. It's like sending a hug in an envelope and a piece of oneself. I thought it would be a really great idea to start a little group where everyone makes some sort of card and sends it out weekly. I put together the group on Facebook and called it Arting From The Heart. I hope the people in this group will make and send each other cards or other arts to feed thier souls.

Above is the heading... made up of pictures of my various arting. I've been gathering stamps, inks, blank cards or cardstock, and once work settles in I'm going start making cards in mass. I hope some of you might like some of them too. Both sending and recieving. Let me know. And if you'd like too share some of the things that are good for your soul. I'm always curious. I'll be posting some of the things I make in this scrap.