Friends Chat

Nate and Tina, may I introduce to you my girlfriend Kilikina. Yes, she actually uses that name as a call name. I do not know her real name, but I've told her all of yours. Kitty, these are my very close friends here in Conway.

You have all been very close friends to me during this strange struggle of mine and I wanted y'all to meet and get to know each other on a format outside of the game and away from the boys. I have no topics in mind. You have expressed a desire to chat to each other, so I am open to talking about anything. I'll keep my ears closed I promise... not, lol. I have opened my heart to all y'all, so please feel free to poke me or tell me to go away.

Hello Kili!

I'm not sure what to say to introduce myself. Me and Tina (Teth) are married, live in Arkansas, and know Rod via a co-op homeschool that our kids attended together, at least prior to the pandemic.

I'm a certified nerd / software developer. Tina is a lawyer, but the good kind, not the evil kind. She hasn't practiced that much for the past few years, due to complications arising from us taking is her cousin's son. There's a big story behind that, that I'm sure we'll get to eventually, but not the best starter to a conversation.

We have a couple of kids, a boy and a girl. My son has the gift/curse of inheriting my Asperger's genes. My daughter has inherited Tina's gift/curse of a deeply empathic personality. They are 13 (almost 14) and 11, respectively.

And I have had a blast exploring a different avenue of creativity in the game. I'm a big reader, so I've got a lot of stuff to plagiarize pull from. But not the overarching storyline to inspire usage.

Oh, and I'm sorta obsessed with building little (and sometimes big) metal models.

Dude. You need more storyline then. I was thinking you were the Howard Roark of Fountain Head.

Well yes, Kitty has pointed out to me that I overstated myself. She has told me her first name, the knowledge of which I will treasure, but it is not relevant here.

I got distracted while typing that part. What I meant to say is that I don't have the creative element to craft an overarching storyline. I've got the mental resources (from all the reading) to flesh out a character or possibly a scene. But not to create a story from scratch.

Hai Nate!

I feel bad, I hate that I know your names but you don't truly know mine. So I do answer to Kili and it is the name I prefer, but my name is Christina (ironically what Kilikina means in Hawaiian - I'm not Hawaiian though lol). I'm from North Carolina and I know Rod because I asked to join the campaign, and almost backed out of it actually. I think it's amazing that you guys homeschool your youngins, I grew up homeschooled myself.

I'm currently unemployed, but I'm working on my M.S. in Special Education with emphasis on Deaf Education. I'm working on getting my license to practice as an ASL interpreter currently while I'm finishing what should be my last year of school. Please feel no pressure to share anything you don't want to or aren't ready to.

They sound wonderful honestly! I don't have any children of my own blood, but I do have an 18 year old who has viewed me as her mother figure for the past 2-3 years and I do consider her my child honestly. She too has the gift/curse of Asperger's and I don't truly see it as a curse. Everyone else just doesn't understand it well enough.

I too am a big reader so I completely understand getting the plagiarization inspiration from that kind of writing. I haven't done much metal work myself, I did some during camp as a teen. I have done lots of LEGO building growing up, but my main creative passions are ballroom dancing and photography.

Oh I'm the same! Creating a whole story isn't my forte, but a scene or two, bring it on!

Lol. Well, the "curse" of being Aspy, as I see / call it, is more about the difficulty of living in a world where you don't "fit in." Not that there's anything wrong with being an Aspy, it just makes life a little more difficult / frustrating. Both living as one, and living with one. Not bagging on Aspies, just recognizing reality. :)

As far as sharing... I probably will end up oversharing, lol. But, mostly I just wasn't sure what all to say at first, and the story about her cousin's son is a long one. So... figured we can share that one over time, rather than all at once. hahaha.

Rod sent us the Ballroom dancing photos. That's really cool. (not sarcasm or half-hearted. I actually think it's cool). I, personally avoid dancing... because I just do NOT have the moves. Or any moves. It's closer to muscle spasms. Hahaha. And photography is awesome, too. My sister does a lot of photography.

And, just to clarify, I don't "create" models from metal out of the blue. I build these laser-cut metal models, which I will try not to get oversharing on, because I can go on and on about. (So much so that I ended up actually starting a blog to share tips and tricks and pitfalls of builds. Yeah, like I said, nerdy. :)

No, please do overshare about the models! I'm not sure how that works so feel free to educate me on what that is!

That is so great! I had several people tell me that I should be a teacher when I was in college, but I am pretty high anxiety and worried that I wouldn't be able to work with kids all day long. Of course, now my kids are stuck with me all day long. Lol Sped teachers are some of my favorite people!! And being a parent is definitely not limited to blood! One of the most frustrating things that we went through with our little guy was people not treating him like he was really our son. We even had extended family and friends who referred to our bio kids as "your own kids," as if Alyster wasn't our child too. Even kids who have good bio parents can use extra support. The world is a rough place!

Well, they are sheets of steel that are about a quarter of a millimeter thick. They use a laser cutter to cut and etch them (including perforations for folds). You clip them out from the sheets, fold and shape the parts, and attach them together with slot-and-tab construction. They have tons of different style and designs. I mostly build a few brands, Metal Earth the most.

Here are a few examples of the results:









(I include the Lego Chewbacca in the photos to give a sense of scale)

I completely agree, but it's hard to get a lot of people to see that blood doesn't mean you're not family to someone. I actually had a moment earlier this summer where I was laughing hard because of how much I realized I really am mom to her. She messaged me asking about a pain in her jaw every time she moved it "this one certain way" and was wondering if she should go to the emergency room. It felt like the most child to parent question ever as I've had those same kinds of questions for my own mom when I was her age. I say that and sound so much older than I am. I'm only 28 years old, but truly, I don't feel it.

I'm sorry you two had that issue as well. I really do hope for a world where we can all be understanding and loving to each other. I love working with kids, I did it all the time in high school, was even an assistant teacher in one of my sports. There's just something so enjoyable and fulfilling about it.

Oh wow, those are so cool! I really love the My Little Pony ones. Never seen the show, but I love how cute they are!!

Leave it to Tina to get to the heart of the matter. We do understand the struggle of people not recognizing atypical family structures. What makes a family is love and choice, not blood. So much of the world today, though, doesn't seem to have the capacity or inclination to try to see things outside their own limited world view. It makes it hard for people who live outside the "norm." But I've found that many of the best people I know have lived outside the "norm" at least some, if not continuously.

I'll be bold and direct, you can feel free to just be yourself with us, and not feel like you need to project a certain type of person. Not saying that what you've said so far is inconsistent with that. But I just want to be open about that. I'm not the type to judge or anything like that, and I get the feeling, via the way you've played the game, that you are what Rod said you are: "good peeps." He also used that word to describe me and Tina, and I think it applies to him, too. I pointed out, at least from my own experience, that people don't have to be unblemished, unbroken, or perfect to be good peeps. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to accept that descriptor.

But anyways, that's me trying to break the ice and just say, feel free to tell us what you really think about stuff. lol. For an example, not assuming this was the case, but if you have no interest in the models, I won't be hurt to learn that. I know it's a niche hobby, and I know that I am obsessive about it. lol. I try to keep that in mind. But anyways, like I said, I didn't assume that your words were false in regards to that at all, just that... feel free to be yourself.

And I'll just be myself. And, also, feel free to tell me if I said something that sounded rude or felt mean. Cause I am crap at communicating and sometimes say stuff the worst way possible without realizing it. Haha. Then again, you have a little experience with someone like me. I do enjoy the perks of my genetics, but I am self-conscious about my communication failings and would prefer to know if I've offended, so I can clear it up.

Also, have I mentioned that I am long-winded and tend to over-compensate for my communication difficulties by just writing way more than anyone normally would, in the hopes that I can be more clear in what I say? haha.

And, because this isn't long enough already, I forgot to say, we're glad you joined the "game" as well. You add a lot of fun flair to the game. And make it a lot less testosterone driven. lol.

Man, dudes, if this family fest gets any better we are all going to end up related into an extended family unit soon and then DukeLovesKit is going to get just awkward.

Nate, I do love how you referred to all this as a (quotation marks) game (end quotation marks) and that you are glad Kilikina joined. I concur. I have the same sentiments about all of y’all and the boys. You are the closest friends I have ever tried hard to foster a friendship with because I love you all. Back in college, making friends was easy. With kids, you are at the minimum social with other parents, but good peeps are hard to find like y’all. *eyes tearing up*. My own marriage has been one of isolating oneself. Hell, I came to Arkansas for it. How isolated did I want to be, I ask myself now. And then to find Nate and Tina and now you Kitty, I count myself lucky. Three years ago, I lost my lovely wife to mental illness and have only realized that in the last very month. My world was centered on her and must shift to the kids. Tina, you were there for me three years ago for her break and now I have adopted Nate too as a brother in the same way that Duke has adopted Storm, slowly and with a great deal of sibling rivalry and reluctant fist bumping, lol. Y’all accepted me roll playing a doting husband to Kit from day one of the game, but I couldn’t have expressed to you then how much I had really lost my heart to Kitty for her companionship. In an attempt to challenge her conflicted back story, I exposed my vulnerable inner self to her supposed manipulations, but she flipped her character to include me in her world instead. Kitty and I struggled as to how to role play Duke and Kit in the group setting, while we continued our backstory. I flattened Duke out to make him more of an NPC. I don’t know if anyone noticed besides us and certainly my long time friend aka Jacob, that Duke wasn’t himself. I then decided to play him as a full character, me, and yet not the DM’s stooge. It’s so hard to be honest in a game, but the party became family, and Duke and Kit grew even closer. As silly as saying this about a game is, your characters are my family, especially my wife, my barbarian and my wise Amazonian.

And the family gets bigger lol. Duke and Kit would like to make a private announcement to you. We are pregnant! The die rolls are clear. It took a while for even our characters to roll good enough medicine checks to know. Shush, keep it on the down low. The boys would be upset now to hear we are making this any more reality tv than it already is, lmao.

But there is a softer side too. Even up to last night, Christina and I try to define our relationship. As friends we all are supportive for each other in our daily and lifetime challenges. As hopeless romantics, Christina and I have an online love affair with each other. As a man going through the worst moment of his life and a woman just now finding herself in her education and career and self, we don’t know where we will be. We have decided to include our friends in on the love fest. I’ve chatted with her daughter in the Netherlands, Kitty with Aslan over FaceTime and now y’all here. If nothing comes of it all, Kitty will at least have fallen in love with Aslan and steal his cute self away lol. I love Kitty and want her to have y’all as good friends, too.

Nate, you said to just be yourself here. I suppose I can be no one else.

Oh there's a lot to catch up on! It would be nice to be myself, I'm honestly a shy person upon first meeting people, but I've been trying hard to push past that fast and start saying more in the OOC. And while I don't ever see myself actively seeking to become an expert in metal models, but I would never tell someone not to "nerd" out about their passion and hobbies. Not only does it reveal a side about a person you wouldn't see otherwise, but sometimes, it's genuinely fascinating even if I don't always understand it lol.

And no worries about oversharing or talking too much. I actively tell people who are new friends that sometimes, I forget that my mouth hole can close and stay closed so feel free to tell me to stop talking lol. I have my struggles with not always saying things in the most clear way myself and I have a tendency to overshare as well, so I understand and I'll let you know if you offend or upset me.

Yes, there was a bit of a toss up in the development of my own backstory. Funny enough, my character was originally meant to be a prankster kind of character that was charismatic, but used it to get what she wanted, not for the diplomacy she usually goes for now. A bit of oversharing myself, my last relationship was a mentally and emotionally abusive one. It ended last summer, but every few weeks, he'd reach out to me for about a week before blocking me again to keep me on his hook to play with essentially whenever he wanted. I did recently cut myself off from him finally for good recently, but I really struggled with the concept of love and romance as my ex had used that to hook me onto him and used it as a way to keep me around. But Rod showing his hopeless romantic vulnerability, which I at first didn't realize was him, I just found that part of me unlocked again and we both enjoyed our characters' dynamic so much, neither of us could bare to separate them. So I changed up my character and I'm really glad that I did! I love the dynamic for her, for Duke and Kit, and for her with the group so much more! And I'm really glad to be a part of the group, you guys are wonderful people!

It has certainly been a struggle to figure out the group dynamic, especially without causing any awkwardness or frustrations for others. Neither of us want it to be or to seem like it's the Duke and Kit Show or something like that, because it's not. But yes, from the role of Duke and Kit, we are pregnant, that was a funny situation! So many jokes had been made about it and Rod said let's roll the dice, to which I thought it'd be highly unlikely to happen so amused I agreed under the terms that a d20 had to be above 15 for it to happen. This man through some kind of high luck roll ended up rolling an 18! Twice! So after much laughing, our character are now expecting lol. But yes, definitely don't want to tell the guys just yet. I really don't want to upset anyone or make anyone feel like they aren't enjoying themselves just because I enjoy the game differently than they do.

As far as Rod and myself, I hope that's okay and doesn't cause you to see either of us, especially him any differently due to the high coincidence of events. Between trying to find myself, figure out my own life, finish my degree, find a career, and become what feels like a "proper adult," I have a lot just on my personal plate without adding in helping my mom who is (she wouldn't use this word yet and I'm not sure what to replace it with but,) disabled. I've been enjoying the ability to just enjoy each other while getting to know each other. But yes, Aslan could win me over in a heartbeat; those freckles and dimples are beyond precious lol! I will say though, please don't feel pressured to like me just because he wants us to be good friends (sorry dear). I'm fully aware that not every person we meet is going to be our "cup of tea" so if you don't like me, I promise there will be no hard feelings!

Now I'm seeing how I make it hard to reply to me sometimes. You both write as long of messages as I do. It's hard to keep track of what all you want to respond to! haha. And my first instinct is to respond to the last thing I read, but then everything is backwards, and I mix everything up and miss something.

So... I completely understand the shyness factor. I'm what would classically be called anti-social (but not the psychological definition of that term, cause I'm not creepy). It's a result of my Aspy brain. I don't handle small talk well, and am not an "average" joe to begin with. I live in Arkansas as a result of meeting and marrying the most amazing woman I know (no offense to you, Kili... is that an okay abbreviation, by the way?). But I do not fit in here, at all. At least as a guy. I have no interests in sports or hunting. Instead, I'm more interested in the nerdy things, like science stuff and video games and metal models. I love learning new things. It doesn't make for great small talk with very many other men anywhere, much less in Arkansas, where hunting and football reign supreme (sorry Tina, I'm not trying to rag on Arkansas... just the prevalence of over-stated testosterone among the male population of Arkansas).

Rod, I'm not calling this chat section a "game." I'm saying that I'm glad she joined the Magical Maztica campaign, cause I've enjoyed how she added a lot of nuance and atypical storyline content (at least, it seems atypical to me, without any background in actually playing D&D, but seeing it from the outside as being heavily weighted in the testosterone side of things). I definitely do not mind the additional layer of story of your character's relationship, it gives a fun aspect to play into interactions (such as Dukalu riding to the rescue and ignoring everything else). So, even aside from your two's budding relationship, I was glad that Kili joined the campaign. It's been a LOT of fun.

Speaking of, and being totally out of chronical order, I do not see either of you as less or different due to your relationship. My wife mentioned Alyster, who is her cousin's son that we took in. Okay, strange direction to take this, I know, but it'll make sense.

The best way to describe him is extremely damaged. We were able to rescue him from his situation days before he turned 3 years old, but as it turns out, it was already too late. We didn't know at the time, but he suffered from an extreme case of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), as his bio-mom drank heavily during his pregnancy - because she was on probation for drug charges and couldn't do drugs at the time. FAS is basically brain damage, because the brain doesn't develop correctly, and the effective result is a loss (or lack) of impulse control. In the 3 years after he was born, he was passed around between bio-mom, bio-dad, and bio-grandma at random and unexpectedly. He was threatened with knives if he didn't behave. He was in the room while bio-dad and girlfriend had sex. His bio-dad sold his food stamps to buy drugs, and then let the kid starve until he stumbled out of the place and walked across the yard in the middle of winter in only a diaper to a relatives house to ask for food. Sadly, I could go on, but the point is that this added another layer to his challenges, one called Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). Basically, post-birth, while his brain was continuing to develop, it was so often in a fight-or-flight mode that it because almost permanent. Instead of developing communication skills, he developed manipulation skills. When first took him in, he knew, at most, 5-10 words, two of which were shit and dick.

Again, we didn't know about all of this, but we knew that he was not being taken care of properly. We managed to take advantage of an opportunity that presented itself (her cousin, bio-dad, called us, scared that DHS was contacting him and blah blah blah. Of course, we were the ones who called DHS on him, for the third time) and we were able to get his parents to sign him over to us as guardians. He was violent, mad, and scared out of his mind (all related). Tina researched the crap out of RAD, once she figured out that's what he was facing, and we tried all the approaches to help him. Then someone, a doctor maybe, suggested that he had the physical characteristics of someone with FAS. We had him tested, and it turned out to be true. So Tina researched the crap out of that, too. We loved on him, put our lives on hold, and did everything we could to help him. He made vast improvements, but was still delayed, developmentally. He was, to all appearances, incredibly sweet. He called us mom and dad, of his own choice, and from then on, he was our son. It was tough, and hard, and painful. Because he was horrible to us when he was triggered. Verbally and physically. Same to our other two kids (but they were amazing about loving him anyways. I'm so proud of them). But we pushed through it, using all the psychology research and therapy research Tina had done, and love, and actual therapy sessions with a counselor (went through 4 different ones, several of which said that he would be a good candidate for a paper / case study).

After 4+ years of hard work, though, he started regressing. By choice. He was using the violence to try to get what he wanted, or to "punish" us for when he didn't get his way. He would say mean things or attack our other kids, because he knew it would hurt or upset us. We reached a breaking point after having the police called on Tina while she was holding him so he couldn't hurt her outside the local library. We finally realized that we couldn't do it alone. Because we did a private guardianship, we had no support from DHS or foster-care systems. But we explained that he was physically attacking us and threatening to kill us or our kids. We had a security alarm on his bedroom door while he slept at night. We had him admitted for an acute 7-day stay at a behavioral hospital, at the age of 7. After he was released, we had him for a week, and then had to have him re-admitted. This repeated for a month, and then he was admitted to long-term.

While he was in there, we realized a few things. One, he was more dangerous and had a much worse affect on our lives than we realized (we were slow-cooked into it). Two, he didn't actually love us. He only pretended to love us to get things. There are stories from when he was in and coming home for "passes" that could explain that conclusion, but it was true. And Three, he wasn't improving, even with their "help." He didn't act out while he was there because he was in a controlled environment, so they rarely had to say "no" to him. But, after being there for 6+ months, they up and decided to discharge him because some BS reason. And we realized we couldn't go back to living like we had before. So we turned him over to the state, to DHS, so they could find him a facility where he could live. All during those 6+ months, Tina had been trying to find a place, and nobody was available or had an opening or anything like that.

We loved that little guy. He was our son. But he traumatized the crap out of us. We know what it's like to live with someone who makes your life a living hell, even as you love them. We understand, in an indirect not-equal-but-tangentially-related way, what Rod has been going through. As he said, he lost his wife to a mental illness long ago. He was finally reaching out for help, and he found you, and me and Tina. I think he was a little more hesitant to bring it all to me and Tina, but you helped him through a lot of it, Kili. And that's going to form an emotional bond, and Lord knows he was not being emotionally supported as things were. So, no, I offer no judgement at all. It's not like this was something either of you was actively seeking, anyways. So don't worry about that at all.

Wow, that was really long. I have more stuff to respond to, from everything you've both said, but I think I've typed enough for now. Wrote y'all a novella of a post already.

Feel free to write a novella, I love it! But I'm so sorry to hear about that! I can't imagine how hard that's been on you two and your family as a whole! I wish I knew what to say to help, but all I can do is offer an ear, shoulder, and lots of virtual hugs!

And Kili is perfectly fine, my friends call me that so feel free to!

Sorry, that kinda all came out at once. It was kinda to help me express how I understood Rod's situation a little. We are doing better now, it's been a while. And you don't have to say or do anything to help, but I appreciate the sentiment. But it wasn't really about telling you our awful history. We all have our own challenges and baggage and hurts. And I completely forgot to relate it to your experience with an abusive / manipulative relationship, which was also part of the intent of telling that story. To show empathy and understanding. I mean, honestly, none of us can truly understand what another has been through. But when people who you love take advantage of you and hurt you... it's a deep cut, whether that's a significant other, a parent, or a child. I told Rod this when we were chatting the other day... I've given up on trying to find the right words to comfort someone or tell them it's okay or it'll get better. Because most things you could say end up being hollow platitudes. So I've changed my approach. Instead, I acknowledge the suck. What happened to you, with that guy, sucks. He's a horrible human being and you didn't deserve that (nobody does). None of it was your fault, and you are not in any way responsible for what he did to you. And you have every right to be hurt, angry, mad, etc. Because it sucked. And it probably still sucks. Cause stuff like that doesn't just go away. It sticks with you for a while, until you get good at knocking it back down every time it pops it's head up. Because I guess it never really goes away, we just learn to live with / around it. To acknowledge it and how it has become part of us and helped us grow, maybe in directions we weren't planning, but grow we usually do. And there I go getting all preachy or philosophical or whatever, sorry. I just. I don't know. I overexplain my views on things sometimes. haha.

Another thing i wanted to respond to, from your initial post, and completely forgot to, was how awesome I already think you are, just from hearing that you are getting into special education stuff. I mean, I liked you from how you've interacted with everyone in the table forum, to begin with. But that was a shoe-in. If you are the type of person who cares about kids enough to want to teach special education and help those that were dealt a difficult hand... then you are already a kindred spirit to me and Tina. Before we ended up taking in Alyster, we had applied to be foster parents. Because we both have a heart for kids. We got turned down on our application, because the person that came for the home-inspection just didn't like us, and that hurt. But it seemed to work out, because we were able to take Alyster in. And while we did suffer trauma at his hands, I can't say that I would have done it differently. Because he's so much better off now than he would have been if we hadn't intervened. And I know that, at least for a few years, he knew true, unconditional love from parents who wouldn't hurt him. Sadly, I think he's actually incapable of truly understanding or giving love, but all kids deserve to be loved.

I also meant to ask you, what kind of photography you do. Like... nature, landscape, portraiture, candid real life, etc? Just curious. And also, how did you get into ballroom dancing? No, I'm not just asking cause you showed interest in my models, lol. And I've probably now made you think that I'm denying it, just because I said something. It's a catch 22 of being neuroatypical - I'm paranoid about how things I say come across, then think of the worst way, and make sure it's clear that I didn't mean it that way, which then makes it seem suspicious that I said that at all, etc, etc. Hahahaha.

Oh, and I just remembered the whole in-character preggo thing! Lol. I totally understand your reluctance to address that in the general forum. I have a hard time reading Jacob and Kon, but they definitely seem to have ideas of how RPGs "should" be played. That, and I feel like I'm constantly tweaking one or the other off about something. Like the recent headbutting with Jacob over the "left me behind" narrative. I couldn't tell why he brought back up the idea that I had been asleep in my saddle, and felt like he was calling me out with the reference to Storm not being consistent with "the narrative." I may have been being sensitive, but it seemed like he was trying to tell me that I was delusional, and the narrative was clearly what he saw, and I was insane for sticking with the narrative that I crafted. So, I went back and checked (because I also second-guess myself a lot). And posted the explanation about why I chose to craft the narrative I did. And he then acts like I'm the one making a big deal out of it. So... yeah. I understand. I decided to just move on, cause I don't know what, if anything, to make of that interaction, and I just want to have fun playing the character in the grand campaign. Wow, that rabbit-trailed! Anyways, virtual congratulations to Duke and Seafox!

I understand your frustration with Jacob. His deeply sarcastic humor does not translate well over text and then he flip flops on his seriousness about what he said. I have had to address various comments of his and explain to him how what he says affect people. Unfortunately he is not Aspie, and doesn’t self criticize And over correct himself enough. I do hope we can let his comments roll off our backs because the boy needs some family and support like we all do. But damn it sometimes, I just want to slap him silly with what he says to touch others nerves. Maybe it is my own insecurities about doing the same thing. *looks over at Stormslayer*. Kitty is very good about catching me in the act and nudging me to correct course and be a better man. It’s one of her very appreciated talents. *love you!*