PERSONAL

25

2,748

Alora Fane Discord - What Would You Want?

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago1,557 words

I'd like to build the Discord I set up a while back into an actual community, but if you're interested in joining that, what would you want from it?

Depression's been the constant dark background of my mind for a long time now, though there are times when it flares up and gets in the way of everything. The past couple of weeks have been this way, as I at least hinted at in ∞ Saturday's dev post ∞.

I've already gone on about it so many times over the years though, and I feel like it's not something anyone really wants to hear about (yet again), so I thought it best to just keep it inside rather than posting here about it. If I'm hoping to make a living from games development, it seems I should at least try to pretend I'm a functional human being who can actually produce the things I talk about.

All the dark tangles - born of multiple traumas to the point where I often wonder if it's some form of PTSD - festered, though, for days, preventing me from really doing anything. Eventually I had to really force myself to at least make some minor progress on one of the things I've been putting off for a while: finishing setting up the Discord server I made a few weeks ago.

I didn't really do much towards that, but just talking with a couple of people there for a bit helped more than I expected it to!



I don't exactly have a support network, and I go days without talking to anyone, which really takes a toll on my already poor mental health. I end up avoiding a lot of things I should be doing - like promotion - because I feel I'm too mentally unwell and it'd be a bad idea to put myself out there in that state. Depression tends to make people isolate themselves anyway, ∞ because they have no energy, 'don't want to be a bother', etc, though it only makes things worse ∞.

So it is noticeable how much of a difference it makes when I do actually talk to someone. It makes me want to take more steps towards building a proper new community of my own, to add another place to the world where I and others can gain energy, but - as I've written about in past posts - I've been conflicted about the idea for a while.

Those of you who've followed me for years will know that I originally ran a site called Fig Hunter, though the community became really toxic and I felt I had to get away from it. I changed it into (an older incarnation of) Alora Fane, hoping a change of scenery might lead to a change in the feeling of the community, but that didn't quite work out. I built a couple of private, invite-only sites to hide away for a bit, but ultimately just ended up drifting away from the very idea of online communities for a long time.

My time running Fig Hunter left me with a lot of mental scars, which still haven't fully healed. I was scared to read comments for years, and I'm still deeply affected by negative ones because of all they bring back. I could never really use social media because I was scared of familiar old trolls following me.

I blame most of it on my own broken mind. I come from a broken home, I was never really raised properly, so I had a lot of strange beliefs and just wasn't the sort of person suited to managing other people. The rules I put in place on the site naturally brought out a horribly judgemental environment. It was my fault, and I take responsibility for that, though that makes it harder to bear than if it was something that some external villain inflicted on me. It's tough when the monster's in your own mind. You can't exactly escape.

A few people have mentioned Discord to me since I returned to games development a couple of years ago, though I've always been reluctant because of these scars. I wonder how people who've been in deeply abusive relationships feel about the thought of trying to date again. Maybe it's similar.

I did eventually set up the Discord a few weeks ago, but currently it only has about half a dozen invited members. I know I need to do more with it, but I've been avoiding it for weeks because of the mental scars, the depression, not wanting to drag people into my pit...

But as I said, I did go in there and talk for a bit, and that did help. I do feel bad about it at the same time, though, for inflicting my madness on others even a bit.

While getting my Psychology degree, I found that the interactions I feel most in my element in are one-on-one intimate exchanges about feelings and personal issues, which I feel isn't really what most people would go to an indie developer's discord for. I don't feel at ease with group discussions about politics, strategies, or comical banter, which I get the impression most people naturally do prefer, or at least gravitate to?

Still, I was thinking about this after waking up in the middle of the night (another annoying thing about depression), and I read ∞ this article ∞ about Twitch streamers who stream for months or years to 0 viewers, how disheartening that can be, and how so many people do that kind of thing because they're introverted and longing for connections.

It also talked about success stories, though, and how having a close-knit community - 'we're like a family' - can be such a wonderful thing.

I'd love to have something like that.

It's been interesting watching how people made life-long friends from their time on Fig Hunter. Some even met up in person, got into relationships. It seems to have been a formative thing in at least a few people's lives.

So it'd be really nice to build something that could be that for people, again. Just in a nicer way this time, less toxic.



Another reason I've been dragging my feet with it is because I'm unsure about how to actually achieve that. I'm worried that I might set it up, it might grow toxic, and then there'll be no return from that. Just another scar. I feel I have to get it right the first time, and when my only past experiences have been failures, it's hard to have confidence about the path forward.

I've been investigating it a bit, and I know that establishing things like appropriate rules, and trustworthy mods to enforce them, is crucial. It's hard to choose mods though because I don't know if anyone would help shape the community in a way that I'd be comfortable with. We all have our different biases that determine what we consider acceptable or not, and I feel that the way that my mind works isn't exactly in line with how the majority of young(ish) people I see online seem to think.

The rules I've written so far strongly urge towards compassion and curiosity, and encourage a mix of lighthearted silliness and deeper discussion. I really want to add a space for people to be genuine about their mental struggles and supportive of others', and I wouldn't tolerate any kind of bullying. Nothing too unusual there.

However, I don't like the thought of punishing or silencing 'wrongthink' like it seems many people do. I'd have a problem with someone directly hurting another with intolerant beliefs, but I'd be less opposed than many people to expressions of those beliefs in a general, abstract sense (I'd be mostly just curious about the underlying psychology).

I prefer the thought of a community which feels comfortable for everyone and their issues, not just certain politically acceptable groups.

Maybe that's a really naive hope, though, and maybe such a community could never exist. I'd like to think that by moving the discussion away from politics, disagreements about such things might not even come up, but so much seems so politicised these days that it's probably impossible to avoid.

There's also the conflict between wanting a place where I could personally belong, and a place which might not exactly be in line with my outlooks but which is more acceptable to a greater amount of people. Considering I'm hoping to eventually build up enough of a community to keep doing this games thing, prioritising the latter might be the better option.



I don't know. I know what I'd like the ideal end result to be, but I'm still trying to figure out how to get to that point, or if it's even possible.

If you've read this, would you be interested in joining a Discord server I'd set up? What would you want from it? Any specific suggestions for rooms, rules, etc? I'd be very curious to hear about your experiences in other discord servers; what you liked, what you didn't, what attracted you or drove you away.

(Sorry if I've said much of this in past posts; I don't remember.)