Okay, I told myself I'd explicitly try to avoid getting involved in Ponderosa/Post-game drama, but I literally can't hold this in because the way some of you are acting over an online forum game is really offputting to me.
This anger/elitism directed at me and Silas over OUR decisions is honestly, to me, SERIOUSLY absurd, and I'd like to explain why because I have tried – trust me, to see it from you guys's point of view, and it still seems silly/overreactionary to me.
I'd like to remind you guys that we are participating in an ONLINE FORUM GAME. It is not a sport – there is no reward for doing anything in the game. It is all simply for fun. It is not real Survivor. It is not (insert your favorite sport here). People play these games(at least, I do) to HAVE FUN. If a person is not having fun – if something has happened that has disenchanted them with the game in question, why on earth should they feel obligated to stay? You guys are treating us like we have performed some sort of cardinal sin – newsflash: No one has died. We simply stopped playing a game due to our own reasons.
Say, when you pick up a video game or a movie and you decide you don't like it – that you would have a better use of your time and effort, what do you do with that video game or movie? Do you watch/play it through to the finish? I'd assume that most people's answers to this question, unless they are a serious completionist, would say “no.” This is not unlike a situation like that. Yes, we are playing with other people, however, it is our lives and our decisions to make. If we decide that we either have become dissatisfied with ORGs in general, or simply don't have enough time to play, why should we force themselves to play when we could let the other people still in the game, who WANT to be there, stay?
They shouldn't have to force themselves to compete in something they don't want to. If someone doesn't want to do something, plain and simple, they should have the choice not to do it. ORGs are not a job, we are not playing Nazi Germany, we are playing an online survivor game on the internet. Seriously.
I know what you're going to say, “Well, Alina, golly gosh gee! Why couldn't you have quit before we got voted out? It's such an insult!” Well, allow me to refute this. It is not an insult – we did NOT quit with the sole intent to make you angry and/or dissatisfied. In fact, that didn't come into play with me at all, and I'm sure it was the same with Silas, as that would, plain and simply, be comically stupid. Yes, you got voted out before people who decided the game was no longer for them – sorry, but we did NOT have the intent to quit beforehand.
The reason I played this season was not to win – not to LOLKICKEVERYONE'S ASSES, no, it was to make sure that the people I was close to/aligned with would make it far. And I did that to the best of my ability. However, there came a point where it was either myself – who had became fed up with ORGs in general recently, or the two people I was very closely aligned/friended with in the game in danger. Would I have quit the game if that situation did not come into play? Unlikely. And no, it is not because I am a “bitter baby”, Marcus, it is because I WAS NEVER IN THIS GAME TO WIN TO BEGIN WITH. I WAS IN IT TO PLAY WITH PEOPLE WHO I ENJOYED AND WANTED TO SEE DO WELL. If it came to a situation between me and them, obviously, a hundred-times over, I would make the decision I made because I know that they wanted to be in the game more than I did. And, surprise, they both made it past this last round, one way or another, so clearly my decision wasn't a complete waste. I accomplished my goal. I did what I wanted in this game. Because this game is not for money – it is for fun, or whatever reason you so deem it to be. If you guys hate people who aren't complete gamebots who always play to win, are schtickers Satan to you? If not, then I'm sorry, but you're just picking and choosing here.
All of that, combined with the fact I honestly was not in the mental state to deal with all the drama and nonsense that is typical for ORGs, led me to make that choice. I am not going to mentally torture myself just so random strangers on the internet feel better about their e-peens.
The same goes for Silas – I highly doubt it was in his intentions to quit until recently. He went on vacation recently and, I assume, discovered he had much less time for this game than he imagined. He did not quit to insult you guys. I'm assuming his reasoning was that he realized, that at his current point, the best option was for the remaining people to stay in the game and have fun instead of him be there when he didn't really have the time or energy he needed to devote to the game.
So, no, someone should not need a “life emergency” to stop playing an ORG. Does someone need a life emergency to get up and stop playing monopoly? No. So just chillax. There is no reason to be so angry and pissed off and want to “flip out” over an online game with literally no cash prize. There are other ORGs out there. The universe cannot revolve around any one single person. Sometimes things don't go right, and you don't win. You don't get what you want. You don't get that dream ending. It sucks, but that's just the way it is. Just try to have fun and enjoy the experience and set your own goals. It's a game. It's not a slave pen. No one did anything to insult you guys. We did what we did for us and our lives and our fun. And at the end of the day, people should think about themselves a little. No one should feel obligated to do something that they really don't want to do. I made a choice I was happy with, and I'm sure Silas did as well. I'm sorry that you guys take that as offensive, but that was not what we intended at all. That's all.
I realize this was long, rambly, and possibly incoherent, but I'm literally just in disbelief over some of the stuff I've been told here, via AIM, etc, because it's ridiculous. It really is. Just calm down guys, let's not get bitter and passive aggressive and bitchy and shit. That is the kind of shit that makes people not want to play ORGs and drives them away from it. Yes, we're all here in loser-lounge, but let's at least make the most of it and have some fun watching the game unfold. Thanks.
