I quit.
I should be used to low blows from the universe by now. They really shouldn't hurt anymore, especially when they deal with things that are constructs of my imagination, but they still do.
I lost two characters in the last 24 hours. On the upside, this means I'll have plenty of free time to do my research.
James' Imagine game died the premature death I'd been expecting it to, given the combination of character backgrounds and world constraints that were going on. I was looking forward to getting into a meaningful character discovery with that one, but with the game suspended until next semester, it's highly unlikely I'll be able to get into that one because next semester is when I'll be finishing the bulk of my dissertation work.
And then there's Amber. I was having fun in that game, building my world, going along happily. Then I made the mistake of playing in character knowing where it would lead. As expected, it got me into a spot where the combinations of rule changes caught up with me. Not being psychic, and not having matched the GM's definition of illogical, I blew myself into atoms. And owing to other characters' previous actions, there's no good way back into the play group - and going up to help GM doesn't really appeal to me because I won't have the time to put independent thought into it, and I really don't want to be a marionette in that position.
My fault. I should have known that it's not worth being honest in social situations. It always gets me burned. Not again.
Never again.