I was, incidentally, recently rereading some ADoA scenes. Namely the ones where Alexsei came to rescue Ryshassa after the kidnapping, when she was already deeply changed by the emotional manipulation, rape and torture she went through.

(I do still reread the Ryshy kidnapping scenes now and then when in a particularly masochistic mood.)

It struck me while reading them that I truly did not appreciate the powerful feelings my husband put into his posts as Alexsei. They were lengthy but very beautiful, personal and heartfelt, and I knew that he wasn't writing them 'for show'. He was writing them because he wanted to save not just Ryshy, but me as well. He wanted to show me that he loves me even when I hate myself, even when I try so hard to make myself look like a monster.

Unfortunately, I think the impact did not have much weight back then, not even for me. I had trouble writing my responses to him back then. I realize way after the fact that the trouble stemmed from the fact I felt like no one would care about Ryshy any more if she were no longer 'dark'. People (not everyone) seemed more interested in her fall than her triumph, and I felt that the love Ryshassa and Alexsei shared actually alienated some of them.

Back then, it mattered a lot more to me. I agonized because Ryshy was consistently shunted off as a lesser character, and I felt I had to try extra hard to involve myself in things. The culmination of that was acting out all my self-loathing/sexual masochism in the game itself (a buildup from all the other Ryshy exploitation I did -- some people liked seeing her shy, meek, shamed, and I started to play in a way that emphasized those traits rather than her strengths). So I felt that being saved by Alexsei, reaffirming her love and devotion for her husband, and becoming a stronger, more confident and self-respecting person basically meant I'd be tossed back into the garbage heap of boring characters.

There was only a small minority that cared what Ryshy went through, in the first place. (Alexsei, Selina, Izabella and Kanti to some extent.) And the game was already set to move on. Ryshy either would have had to continue with new scenes while dealing with the aftermath in a little-acknowledged side story, or take a significant hiatus from play while she had scenes with Alexsei and intermittent visits from others.

My final decision to leave ADoA occurred, I think, because after I wrote a long scene with my husband starting to deal with how Ryshy's experience affected her, I realized no one else really wanted to read that stuff. For most people (and this is understandable) it was too serious and too personal, too much "Ryshy and Alexsei's stuff" rather than stuff that fit in with the current events, flavor and preferences of ADoA and its players. So I felt there was no point whatsoever in me playing out Ryshy's growth and having it included in the logs. I may as well have her just leave the group and continue her character development in some other way.

And so I did. And I don't regret it. After all this time, my bitterness has started to fade into an acceptance that the people that play(ed?) ADoA are just too different from me. I'm just incompatible with them... and there's noting wrong with that. There's other groups.

Though I've never really 'continued' her story in an actual game, I do think that Ryshy lives on. She struggles in the same way I do, and so her story is in a way my story. I guess I won't know the end of it until I know there's a conclusion to my own struggles with depression, as well. Through it all, Alexsei will watch over his wife, just as Jon watches over me.

My husband's love is something I am in awe of at times -- as much as he will say that is not deserved, because very often I will claim he doesn't really care about me, that he's trying to 'trick' or 'mislead' me, especially when I'm feeling upset and mistrusting. He will say he does nothing special, and perhaps that is true, because for him it comes naturally to love me so purely, determinedly and strongly. I know for a fact though that it is a rare trait, though, for (as I say often) it is difficult to love a person with my illness. At crucial times it can lead me to seriously doubt his devotion, and mistrust those who might otherwise be friends. I can make all the efforts he makes for my sake seem insignificant, in those moments. Yet he still continues them, even if I cannot love him better.

I think that the most difficult task my husband has in caring for me is to protect me against myself. The same thing was true for Alexsei then, and it still is true today. He has to fight the ugliest side of me nearly every day, the side that yearns for destruction and lashes out at everyone as a potential threat.

As it stands, I still give up on myself more often than not... and it's a habit that's hard to break.