end of a character, well, for now

Aeldra

Hello you all,

Enough time has passed, now, that I feel like I can write things down and get them off my chest without being mean to anyone. It took me a while to process everything.

As most of you have noticed, Aeldra disappeared of the scenes from one day to the next and only those in celests section of maincord would know that I took a step back. Later on, people may have also noticed that I disappeared from other places too.

I have had struggles with being in Celest for months before I pulled the plug, there didn't a day go by where it didn't grate my gears and for the  longest time I could not place my finger on it. And my reaction to feeling this disparity was to pour more energy into it, trying to make it work. Trying to push things into the direction I felt  it should be going, ending up ignoring a lot of things that brought me joy in Lusternia and that my character had taken on as responsibility. Both things I'm neither happy with nor proud of.

In the end, after half a year of absence from Aeldra, I can see it now: I don't think Celest's setting works for me. Whenever I come across someone taking the stance of religious zealotry, my very instincts are to oppose their views and to do my best to ensure Celest does not follow down that path. Hating having constant grating conflict with some of my city  maters, I tried to turn Aeldra more towards that path, to be in less opposition with my city mates and have a more unified front to the outside. It simply isn't working for me.

And I allowed that frustration, that internal conflict to splll over into my thoughts beyond the game. It wore on me. When some other (inter character and inter person) conflicts arose that shall remain unnamed here, the combination with my already conflicted feeling about Celest lead me to a breaking point. So, I stopped playing, originally thinking I'd be a while away from it and see how it goes. The more I did, though, the more I realized that I didn't want to be back. That I would be back to where I felt that I opposed a large part of the orgs setting on an OOC level and could not find the footing I needed to make it work.

Celest is an amazing setting, with deep lore, interesting npcs, lovely and diverse skills, and amazing divine before and behind the scenes. I adore seeing it grow and have a blast from afar, don't get me wrong. This is an issue that is to a large portion on me. Reading back on my logs with Aeldra and some going over some interactions, I realize just in how much turmoil I put myself in playing that character. I tried desperately to balance what I felt was to be part of that setting/lore with what I had chosen for my ideals for Aeldra and with whom I am as a person. I made what essentially is a game feel like a high-stress work situation. I've learned that lesson now and will not go down that path again.

I have a few regrets from that time. Some go to @Lantra, who is one of the most lovely divine I have ever had the pleasure of interacting with. I attained avatar and a cult and then (due to the above), never really did anything with it. I feel like I wasn't the kind of leading character in an order that one would have hoped for and I'm still sad for it to have come to that. I wished I would've done better. If I ever find myself in such a position again, I'll do my best to do better, for I deeply appreciate all the lovely moments I had in that order and I hold them in fond memory. (I'll also hold on to my Tavi fan club membership card, thank  you). To you, if you are still around and reading this, you were awesome and thank you for all your time and effort in this game.

Other regrets go to me for not putting a stop to it sooner, for not realizing what I was doing to myself and others. For robbing myself of the character I adored and for letting her become something I never wanted her to be. A hearty thank you goes out to all the amazing friends I made along the way who have supported me when I was super frustrated with the corner I played myself into, or raging and at tears at other things that I ran into that ultimately led to me stepping back from Aeldra. You know who you are and you are all amazing

Alright, long story  short, I wanted to get this off my chest and officially say: Aeldra will likely not be back. Not now, perhaps never. There may come a day where I feel more at peace with the setting and my own role in it, where I decide to try to make this work. But that day is far off.

During that time off Aeldra, I began to realize that I did not have an issue with the game or (largely) the people, that my issues were (mostly) self made, with the setting I chose and the way I pushed my character. So I did make a new character. Who that character is and where they play, is only something I have shared with a few friends and will keep mostly under wraps. If you talk to me regularly, chances are you already know where I went  and who I play. Should you seek to reach me, I'm still in maincord and I am paying attention to discord, so just message me. I do occasionally check  Aeldra's messages and forum messages, but delay there may be vast.

Learn from my mistakes though, do not push yourself into a situation that isn't fun for you. There are many lovely settings and groups of people in this game, but not every one may be right for every person. Find the one that works for you, find the group of people to work for you and don't push yourself into a corner like I did.

be kind to  each other, much Love to all of you and see you around .

Aeldra

Jolanthe

Sometimes our characters and our ambitions for them just get to be too large for what we can reasonably manage. Always the issue with investing so heavily. Been there, done that a few times myself.

Take care out there.