Seeking and how it has impacted you

Fallen London
1

“Renouncing things is less difficult than people believe: its all a matter of getting started. Once you’ve succeeded in dispensing with something you thought essential, you realize you can also do without something else, then without many other things.”
-Italo Calvino, If on Winter’s Night a Traveller***

In preface, this post is for the most part all about Seeking the Name, and as such will contain a multitude of spoilers about the process of seeking, enough to make spoiler tags pretty cumbersome. I will not, of course, be discussing the End (firstly because it is a thing to Not Discuss and secondly because I am writing this on my final cycle of fasting and meditating and have not actually reached the Gate), but rather anything up to that point will be fair game. If you are interested in preserving the surprises for yourself and wish to Seek with no guides from others, I would recommend you not read past this point. However, if you’re just curious or if are a seeker yourself, I am speaking to you.

Onwards.

I would like to take a moment and discuss how seeking Mr. Eaten’s name has affected you as a person, in your day to day life. Have you found yourself giving things up? How many metaphorical “fag breaks” have you taken (to use Alexis’s words from a certain interview) ? Has anything taken on a different meaning than it had before? As I am writing this, I realize I may have taken a very Romantic viewpoint on this whole process by letting it (or rather, fallen london in general) get so tied up in my emotions, so I am curious as to how other people have reacted, or not.

As for myself, my recollection of the past few months has easily grown above 2k words, I’ll post it in a document and share below. There’s something about the forums that makes it hard for me to read anything longer than a couple of paragraphs :P

Here ya go:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16LCBFeXnEUoju15yA8BhHvqsCHNvQiz5qTRnlv9gJ88/edit?usp=sharing

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***(I came across this quote while I was reading one day, and it struck me as incredibly fitting. By the way, Calvino is incredible and I’d highly recommend If on Winter’s Night a Traveller if just for how meta it is)

2

That’s a remarkably touching Seeking memoir you’ve got there - thank you so much for sharing it! I’m always delighted when I’m reminded that there are real people behind these characters and forum avatars, and I hope you think whatever is beyond the Gate is worth it. I may just have to write my own SMEN retrospective one of these days. Seeking was an extremely liberating thing for me as well, especially being so caught up in the bleeding edge of it over in the IRC in those first, utterly mad, few weeks. Being encouraged, not only by the game, but also by a lot of people that I consider friends, to throw around two years of on-and-off play into a well - valuable items, money, the qualities that, in-game, my character had worked so hard for - was incredibly freeing, and really made me stop and think about how seriously I took certain things, and how much I tend to care and obsess over things that, really, do not matter at all.

Of course, I cannot lay claim to being truly liberated in the way you so touchingly describe. I returned from the High Gate, partly because I may have been the first to do and science decreed it, but partly because I just could not let go at the last step: my possessions are one thing, but this game is something that I was not ready to let go of (let it be known that I am far, far too lazy to level an alt).

SMEN is one of those weird game experiences that I think has impacted my life and will impact the people who play it above and beyond the way a standard game will. So much of the time so much focus is placed on gaining things - power in RPGs, numbers in clicker games, followers on Twitter, whatever - that this bonkers, self-destructive rollercoaster towards doom was truly novel. Obviously the fabulous writing helped as well.

You may have noticed that I share your Romantic sensibilities. I agree: Calvino is fab and everyone should read him! Your doc, and often Seeking in general, reminded me of Elizabeth Bishop’s One Art:

&quotThe art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster…&quot

Hearing other people’s stories is one of the things that still keeps me playing. Thanks again for sharing.
edited by Barselaar on 9/4/2016

3

Thank you for sharing your story. Just thank you.

4

One of the things that has most amazed me about Seeking are the many fascinating, poignant, funny, brave narratives that it’s inspired.

Thanks for adding to their number.
edited by Teaspoon on 9/3/2016

5

For me, not what seeking, but what london taught me in the first place is… i don’t obsess over these things because they’re important. I obsess over them because I can, because often no one has done it before, and Because even if everything goes wrong- my account is destroyed, even- it’s ultimately something I can just shrug and say oh well.

Like any hobby, obsessing over it is fun because it doesn’t matter, not because it does- at least for me.

6

I admire everyone that Seeks. Because I am far too materialistic to do it myself.

7

As a Sunless Sea player who only recently took up (or rather, began to be consumed by,) Fallen London, I have heard rumors about this storyline both from various SS/FL websites and even externally in the gaming media and I am very curious to read your account. :) While I am trying to play mostly spoiler-free, from everything I have heard about the storyline it is not something that I feel like would fit with the character I am playing*, but it also seems like something I would be absolutely fascinated to read as a story, so this is a great opportunity. If it starts spoiling too much about the game that I don’t want to know about yet then I will come back to it later!

*there seems to be a lot of &quotthe goal of the game is to do everything in the game&quot-type thinking from my brief time spent on this forum, so I’m not sure how common it is to just role play a clearly defined character and only do things that the character would logically do even if that cuts one off from interesting storylines and opportunities.

8

[quote=Grenem]For me, not what seeking, but what london taught me in the first place is… i don’t obsess over these things because they’re important. I obsess over them because I can, because often no one has done it before, and Because even if everything goes wrong- my account is destroyed, even- it’s ultimately something I can just shrug and say oh well.

Like any hobby, obsessing over it is fun because it doesn’t matter, not because it does- at least for me.[/quote]
I’m completely in the same place. Obsession is investment and its in the enthusiasm people give that ecstasy is found. I’m currently reading Either/Or and I love the feeling of going down the rabbit hole of another’s conceptual constructs. Failbetter (like Kierkegaard) is to be congratulated for making something that so rewards the enthusiasm of those who experience it, but it is in the passion itself that that wild joy is found.

9

Except Fallen London is fictional and none of it has actually occurred (unless there is some kind of crazy multiverse). Your actions have no direct impact on anyone but yourself. The people on tumblr are real human people with real lives who you are directly emotionally affecting. The world would be so much more unbearable for me without websites like tumblr to show me that I’m much less alone in the world than it usually feels across the course of my everyday life where almost no one I come into contact with would have any idea why I have the interests, passions and hobbies that I do. It may not mean much to you but if you’re curating something &quotbeautiful&quot on tumblr you probably mean something to someone or many someones else, even if you don’t know it. Just knowing nothing about you but what you had written in the preceeding paragraphs, I already wanted to see what someone like you would consider a beautiful montage. And then you had to go and write the next paragraph ;)

Not judging you or questioning your decision, just something to think about. And apologies if I misunderstood the thrust of your comment.
edited by Morgan Joylighter on 9/4/2016

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Wow guys, thank you all for the time you took to respond, it really means a lot to me :)
I’m a anxious writer in all aspects and it greatly pleases me that other people have read what I’ve written and have understood what I mean. I’m also glad people have shared differing opinions! I’d be more worried if everyone agreed with me than otherwise.

Barselaar, thank you for what you said, I looked up Elizabeth Bishop and her poetry and greatly enjoyed reading the entirety of the poem you quoted. I wish I could reply with more depth at the moment, but just know that I especially enjoyed by your response.

And Morgan Joylighter! Wow, I am glad you have had such a positive experience with tumblr. It really is an interesting and unique way to connect to people across the world who have similar interests as you. I am not suggesting that giving up all your social media is the right thing for everyone! Just that was the right thing for me. Maybe I overextended a little bit, but I elaborated on what I said about tumblr in the spoiler tags below. I hope it helps you understand how I was thinking at the time :)

This could be seen as sort of an addendum to my previous post maybe

[spoiler] I feel like I was in a similar position as you when I first created my tumblr account! I went to high school in a small town in the southern united states, which is typically seen as very “conservative” and closed off from the rest of the world. Personally, I am very sensitive to sensory deprivation (kind of the opposite to sensory overload?), so when I am doing the same routine day after day, I find myself easily slipping into dark depressive moods. Tumblr was my escape into a bigger, more colorful world. I found blogs that echoed my interests, “fandom-wise” and aesthetic-wise, and from there I was slowly introduced to the progressive, leftist views that I hold today. It made me feel less lonely, and the blog that I curated revolved around life in the ocean and just in general very beautiful natural thing (the irony of this btw, is that I’m am passionately afraid of water, and can’t even willingly put my head below the surface. I love going to the beach but you’ll never see me dive below the surface, even for a big breaker. Oh the joys of having grown up in a landlocked state).

The first year-ish of that was a very pleasant experience, and I had a reasonably healthy relationship with the platform and how it worked. However… I found that the more I used it for escapism the more of a hold it had on me. It became a part of my schedule and as time wore on, the joy it gave me turned to some kind of addiction. And yet I was fascinated! It allowed me to stretch and expand my aesthetic tastes, while also introducing me to new things and people. I felt trapped where I lived and in my routine for high school, and this, at the time, was one of my few escapes.

Time went on and I found myself trying to break from the hold it had on me. I would leave for a week, block tumblr from my computer so I could get work done, and yet, I found myself returning again and again even when I thought my usage of it was almost reaching healthy levels. This does not put me in a good light, and I know how easy it is to point fingers and say “yes, but it was a choice for you to go back and you made it unhealthy for yourself” but… it’s more complicated than that. As I think my previous post shows, I’m something of an impulsive person, and I developed a very strong urge to check tumblr at every minute that I was bored. I’d get antsy when my feed was empty, and I stopped paying attention in classes that I thought were useless (which were a lot of them considering that most teachers in my high school stopped caring once you reached second semester of senior year. After college apps are in, why teach? I was very very frustrated with the whole thing).

And then college hit. I was very very fortunate to be accepted to a certain school in NYC. I am so so much happier here, and the world is big enough for me to explore comfortably without having to resort to creating my own world to feel happy. And yet for some reason, I still found that I was attached to my tumblr in a way that was unhealthy, almost to the point where it interfered with my work. I blocked myself from it several times, even gave it up for lent, but each time I found myself returning to it in the same way no matter how many days, weeks, or months I spent off. I knew that one day I would have to quit cold turkey, but I still couldn’t bear to lose what I gained.

(This is all very embarrassing to write down! I admit that none of this is something I like to talk about, especially to strangers. It absolutely does not portray me or my habits in a good light.)

So in total, last June I decided I had had enough of it. I would swallow my pride and admit that this was a problem I just couldn’t fix by gentle intervals. I couldn’t wait it out and hope that time would fix everything, or else I would second guess myself and everything would settle back to how it had been before. I talked with my friend about it, and he tried to get me to stay on, but he eventually realized what a hopeless cause that was. I felt lighter after deleting it, and to this day I do not regret my decision. And this whole realization was directly influenced by Seeking in that Seeking sanded the edges of the pain of loss, and allowed me to approach my decision with the taste of renouncement already in my mouth. This sounds sappy! And it is. I’m such a useless romantic in regards to everything :P

But in total, if someone has had a positive experience with tumblr and with the internet, I say that’s fantastic! I glad that people carve out places for themselves where strange and good things can happen. But as for me, I can’t really do these things in a way that is good and balanced with how I live my live. [/spoiler]

11

I find myself both feeling like I’ve a new goal, but also as if I’ve been oddly cut adrift.

There’s many things I was thinking of getting, little slow long term projects that don’t seem to matter anymore because if I got them, seeking would consume them.
In the end, seeking consumes everything.
So why do anything?
It’s the ultimate in nihilism, and yet…
… and yet, I do it to myself.

12

I mostly just didn’t realize I’d feel this bad about betraying my boneless consort :(

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[quote=maricolous]
And Morgan Joylighter! Wow, I am glad you have had such a positive experience with tumblr. It really is an interesting and unique way to connect to people across the world who have similar interests as you. I am not suggesting that giving up all your social media is the right thing for everyone! Just that was the right thing for me. Maybe I overextended a little bit, but I elaborated on what I said about tumblr in the spoiler tags below. I hope it helps you understand how I was thinking at the time :)
[/quote]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, I’m sorry I did not see it sooner. Personally things like tumblr make life better for me because I am more of a watcher than actually getting emotionally involved in anything, it just comforts me to see that there are other people who think and feel in similar ways to me. But I can understand how it could be problematic depending on how your brain and emotions work. Mine are sort of broken in particular PTSD-ish ways so mine is probably not a typical experience at all ;) I don’t have a problem with the idea of compulsively checking tumblr because as long as I am filling my subscriptions with positive-spirited tumblrs that is actually better than the places my heart might be in a lot of the time if I was doing something else. So I just wanted to make sure you knew that tumblr and whatever else you put on the internet can positively affect people’s lives even if you don’t realize the specifics :)
edited by Morgan Joylighter on 9/11/2016

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I can’t say I’ve had the kind of revelation that Morgan Joylighter reported, but I do have a mildly interesting psychological insight to share.

I’ve been playing Fallen London since it was still called Echo Bazaar. Since before these Forums were created.
I created my alt by accident. All I really wanted was to be able to choose to play FL either through my e-mail or via Twitter. But I realized, as I clicked buttons and typed in choices, that what the game was actually doing was creating a New Character. And I was afraid that, unless I let it make me a New Character, it would roll over the two or so years of progress I had made to date, and at the time I couldn’t stand that thought.

So I created my alt, but I had a really hard time enjoying playing her. Mostly I used her to take the opposite course I had taken with my main character on a story, so I could see different outcomes. I resolved not to spend Fate on developing her, and mostly stuck to that position.
Eventually, she began to take shape, not as a character who was more like me than my main FL character, but as a very different one–frivolous, reckless, interested more in amusements of the moment than anything else. Often bored, in a dillitantish sort of way. Yet once she does something – like starting an Orphanage-- she won’t give it up, because she doesn’t want to look bad in front of her friends.

Or she didn’t want to give it up–until now.

Making her a Seeker has not only it made me more interested in playing her (because I get to see the nifty Seeking content that way), but it’s changed my perception of her. She seems to have acquired a new focus to her life. Though she’s still willing to do things for the odd pleasures they might bring, she’s always brought back to the stark reality of Seeking–and it’s bringing out her good side. It’s giving her life, such as it’s been, meaning.
When I started her down the Seeking Road, I originally figured I’d go to the very edge and pull back–refusing to open the gate. Now I don’t think so. I think I’ll leave her with her bizarre quest for meaning. She can open the Gate. I’ll learn the only real secret content in Fallen London, and then I’ll throw her down An Individual’s Well.

15

Seeking has rekindled my interest in FL. I had not been playing for some time, before coming back to seek. I used my main, an account I’ve had longer than my current job. Over the course of a few months I chased and grinded. Upon waking, SMEN was the first thing on my mind.

Sylvester went all the way north, just as I planned. I knew full well I was going to lose him, and I had no regrets. The end came more abrupt than I expected. It was heavier and more matter of fact. I don’t know why I thought it would be any less punishing. I thought I was ready to leave FL behind, kill all my characters, move on. But the sacrifice of Sylvester made me realise I still love this game. What a cliche, I learned to cherish only through loss.

I have a few more accounts, and I decided to make them turn back. I can’t go on another self destructive journey again, at least not for a while.