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~starbreaker

Being a self-aware NPC is exhausting.

It's tough knowing you're the lead of your own story but often an extra at best in others' if not an outright villain. My own preference has always been to focus on my own life and let others worry about theirs, to spare no more thought for others than they spare for me—but such benign indifference might not suit you, or seem as benign to you as it does to me.

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~oracle wrote (thread):

I can't say I worry much about what they think of me or anything quite like that. If anything it's sort of a relief to know that any imagined scrutiny is likely brief or straight out just anxiety speaking.

But I do find it's useful to bear in mind that people regard themselves as a main character when communicating and trying to understand why they might have made the decisions they did. People don't generally do bad things out of malice in work settings. I often find they thought they were making a rational decision for themselves and their workload without considering what their actions do to the workload of others.

I also try to keep in mind that doing double duty for anyone isn't a way to curry favor. Most people believe it's owed to them due to some special circumstance only they would deem qualifying as the very special main character of this story.

But of course, sometimes, as with this week, it's for my own good in order to keep the ball rolling without any giant issues. It just also makes me so frustrated that all I can do is laugh at the shit storm before me, rising from a sewer of 14 year olds in grown adult bodies.