#also I'm not trying to trap anyone into discourse with this I just genuinely want to know

[skaldish]

Y'all…I'm having a very disturbing realization dawn upon me. I don't really have a way of articulating this clearly yet, but I wanted to bring it up in case other people know about it:

I'm noticing that many people (namely white Americans) seem to act as branded-versions of themselves rather than who they genuinely are. Specifically, what I'm beginning to understand how insanely pernicious it is. I knew it existed because I grew up in it, but didn't realize how uncanny it actually looks when you watch it happen, nor what the implications are that we do this instead of connecting with each other as people.

It seems like any descriptor under the sun can become a brand, so long as it's understood that way more than it's understood as just a descriptor. "Man" is a brand. "Punk" is a brand. "Conservative" is a brand. "Left" is a brand. "Queer" is a brand. "Protestant" is a brand. "Catholic" is a brand. "Anticapitalist" is a brand. "Young professional" is a brand. "Good" is a brand. Words like "BIPOC" are also interpreted within a brand context.

I'm not sure if this is something that has always been there, but I only just noticed? Or if it's on the rise with commercialization? A bit of both? Something else?

[zykamiliah]

Hey, sorry to bother you, but I've been seeing something in the fandom that kind of confuses me, so I'm leaving this ask to my favorite svsss blogs.

I've been trying to get more into Shen Jiu's character, as he is pretty interesting and arguably a fan favorite, and I've noticed that, so far of the fanfics I've read, he is more often than not depicted as a good teacher. A harsh one, but still good? Or not terrible?

One that likes teaching, is involved with his students, taking the little of what we've seen of Shen Yuan's teaching methods and just, giving them a twist, "improving" them even sometimes.

Often it ends up being a show of how Shen Yuan was clumsy, not that good of a teacher (or of a Shen Qingqiu) and I'm... Kind of confused by this trend? Like, is it rooted in canon? Obviously this is still more interesting to read than the "SJ is just a tsundere that never did anything wrong ever" thing, but it feels kind of similar.

I cannot imagine a character as genuinely bitter and angry as Shen Jiu enjoying being a teacher, having a nurturing bone in his body or even being hands on in the teaching of his disciples, several of which he literally bullied out of his peak. But maybe it's just me and I'm wrong?

Was Shen Jiu a good teacher?

I guess I'm just curious of where it comes from. I like Shen Yuan's character, and it often feels like people take Shen Jiu's to show how bad at everything SY is, even if it isn't consistent with SJ's character and often lack nuances, in my opinion.

(Or even if the story claims loving SY while also stripping him away of everything that makes him interesting other than his obliviousness, but that's a whole other thing.)

Sorry again, and I also apologize for the long ask, I'd just figured you or someone that follows you might have an answer.

(Also, I get that fandoms gotta fandom, and I'm not saying people shouldn't write it or anything, I may be a strickler for canon but I'm not the police. Write what you want. I just wonder where it comes from, as I figure that knowing its origins might help me in the future, but I promise I'm not trying to start discourse or anything, so I hope I've made my point clear enough without offending anyone.)

hello!! :DD

well sj being ooc in fics is a common thing by now. people tend to portray him softer than he's in canon, to the point it sometimes turns his whole character upside down. in extreme cases, you'll be dealing with a bitter, more tsundere version of sy with sj's backstory, which is secretly what many people want IMO lol often this people also perceive sy as an incompetent dumb nerd that only knows about monster lore and has no other skills or abilities aside from that-- essentially, they fall for the unreliable narrator's trap of believing every lie he tells about himself.

it's never outright stated, but sj didn't like children, so is fair to assume he didn't like teaching or caring for them either. taking into account qing jing peak's toxic atmosphere pre sy's transmigration, AND the fact that sj was paranoid about being overthrown since he hadn't developed a golden core even after becoming a peak lord and taking lbh in, I don't think he'd be interested in teaching anyone anything. in a lot of cultivation novels, disciples are just given manuals and left to self-study them (like he let lbh use the fake manual, expecting lbh would die from using it. haha. such a good teacher!). this could be the case. aside from that, I don't personally think sj would want to provide any kid guidance. and that's not mentioning how he allowed and enabled bullying, targeted talented disciples, and overall was more worried about his own cultivation and survival and reputation than other things or people.

so where this fanon sj comes from? I'm not sure, really, but I think some people just want a version of him that's palatable AND defensible, like my friend furby says, a declawed sj that's just a poor misunderstood meowmeow who deep inside is secretly good and nice. it's a thing that people who struggle with liking "villainous" or "morally bad" characters do: twisting the narrative around to justify this character's actions. It doesn't help that he's SO complicated, and people who have very black-and-white thinking struggle to place him in either side of the spectrum-- it's the problem mxtx outlined through sqh and sqq's voices

ch.14 house arrest

ch.19 shen jiu

really, the fandom has just proved mxtx's point xD

anyway, there's a lot of misconceptions about sj. there are some pretty wild theories around. some fans also treat his abuse as The Worst Abuse in comparison to the Child Abuse he did, because of the (unconfirmed) hints that sj was sexually assaulted by qiu jianluo, as if SA is the worst kind of abuse and child abuse falls back on the tier-list ¯_(ツ)_/¯ because obviously anything that involves sex in inherently worse, apparently

in other cases, people are simply more familiar with the fanon version of the characters, and that's who they portray in their writing. after all, many people read the novel once and then go on to read dozen of fics; it's normal the fanon sticks more on the brain than canon (not judging! it happens to me as well lol) and those fanon versions are more popular because, as i said, this version of sj is more morally palatable (and bland and less fun ┐(︶▽︶)┌)

thank you for the ask!! :DDDD ❤️❤️❤️ i love receiving asks~

[lockedtombbrainworms]

Patriarchy and the Nine Houses

I've been mulling this one over in my brain on long drives recently, and as I'm currently at home resting up after an insanely busy few days and also some sort of illness flareup, I want to put some of what I've come up with into writing. These are coming from the perspective of a somewhat masculine-presenting queer trans woman with some degree of familiarity with anarcha-feminism, a lot more familiarity with anarchism in general, but not really much academic feminist background. I'm also white, which may well impact what I'm taking away from this here.

Something else that might influence what I've written here are the frankly insane doses of decongestants I'm currently on, but here goes.

So firstly, I don't think 'Patriarchy' as common feminist discourse uses the term exists within the Houses.

In terms of "Evidence Against", for one, there is seemingly no gendered violence in the Nine Houses - I've seen more than one post about how at no point does Gideon Nav feel like she's in any sort of danger of sexual assault or anything like that from the men she interacts with - she's quite happy to walk into Silas and Colum's room, and at no point does the narrative mention her being concerned about sexual violence while she, a teenage butch lesbian, is trapped in a room with an older man whose intentions towards her are unknown. She gets worried, sure, but mostly about swords or necromancy, not sexual assault. Our Griddle may be a bit sheltered, sure, but she's read a lot of adult-oriented comics, which in my experience tend to be fairly lurid about any and every fucked up thing that happens in the society that produced them, and none of those, nor anything she's been told by Aiglamene or witnessed on the Ninth, seem to have instilled any fear of patriarchal sexual violence in her.

The houses also don't seem to have a concept of homophobia or particularly rigid gender roles - at absolutely no point does anyone take issue with Gideon's sexuality and gender presentation, despite various other characters being absolute shits to her in various other ways throughout the book - Crux, Naberius, Silas, the Reverend Parents - at no point is it even hinted at that any of them were homophobic or shitty about gender-non-conformity. I don't really think you can get rid of any of those things entirely without also at least taking a big chunk out of patriarchy, if not eliminating it - they're all too tightly linked together.

I honestly don't think you can describe, for instance, Palamedes or Silas or Naberius as benefitting from "male privilege" in the context of the books without getting into some weird gender-essentialist bollocks about how being male Just Does That For You, at which point you may well be sliding into terf shit and I don't really think we have much of a common ground to discuss this from. The fandom's treatment of gender (and race, while we're at it) is another matter, but in the context of the books, I genuinely don't see "male privilege" or "patriarchy" existing within the wider society of the Nine Houses. You can look at the necro/cav dynamic as a sort of metaphor for gender, and I do consider them through that lense in some cases, but it's not a 1:1 map for gender and I don't think it's trying to be.

You could argue there's some weird patriarchal ideas of manhood in Mortus' treatment of Ortus - the guy very clearly abused his son to try to "toughen him up" and make him into a warrior when Ortus wanted nothing more than to write poetry, but while that's arguably written with a patriarchal bent to it from a doylist perspective, at no point does anyone actually tell Ortus he's less of a man in the text. What they do tell him is that he's less of a cavalier, which is why I actually view that dynamic as much more of an exploration of cavalier-hood as a metaphor for gender - 'toxic cavalierhood' rather than toxic masculinity, albeit via a dynamic that's unforunately very familiar to a lot of us.

The big flaw in my argument is that, unfortunately, in the literal sense of the word, the Nine Houses very much are a capital-P Patriarchy. They're run by an immortal God-Emperor dude with some fairly intense catholic shit going on! John actually was raised in a patriarchal society, and while his experiences as a he remembers it, and while he seems to have done an OK job of not passing homophobia, misogyny or strict gender roles onto the society he built after literally fucking nuking the one he grew up in, I don't know if someone in his position of power is really in a position to unlearn anything more at this point. To a lesser extent we see it with Augustine as well - the Saint of Patience definitely reads as a misogynist at times during the text (telling Mercymorn "you have made yourself unlovable" and his whole thing about Ianthe chosing to be broken spring to mind), and while he may not remember the pre-resurrection world, it still shaped him (and his brother, who is as much a part of the man we meet in HtN as the original Augustine who was resurrected).

Also none of this is to say the society of the Nine Houses is perfect - far from it! There's all sorts of fucked up abuse dynamics present, and the entire thing has been a fucked-up expansionist empire since it found someone to do expansionist imperialism on about five millennia before the story takes place, before which it was still a fucked-up death cult living on the reanimated wreckage of a dead solar system. If anything, the lack of misogyny, homophobia, rigid gender roles and the like are a parable - it doesn't matter how inclusive and egalitarian the society of the imperial core is when it perpetuates brutal violence on the imperial periphery.

[sharptoothed-gaze]

man, thank you for being normal about q!phil and about qsmp in general, i woke up and saw discourse and immediately ran over to your blog because i knew you would be level-headed about everything. i don’t know what it is, but people misunderstand our bird man all the time! he’s flawed like any other character, and that’s part of what makes him so interesting. maybe people are unkind to him because there aren’t a lot of crows on tumblr? it seems like just about everyone who’s angry about it doesn’t watch phil’s pov at all, which is where the misunderstanding comes from, and as a multi-pov watcher it makes me shake my head sadly. i am shaking ur hand though if you’d wish. crows are in this together

Thank you anon! I had no idea that anyone would bother seeking out my blog like that, but that's very cool to know. I love being a crow blog (tho I do watch a lot of other povs), and yeah I do think there aren't too many of us on here. I will gladly shake your hand lol.

Anyway, I appreciate being seen as level-headed in this space. I genuinely try to understand as much information as possible when it comes to storytelling and fandom. I'm not entirely neutral because I have my biases, but I still try my best to be logical.

Personally, I think the only way to get a full picture of a character is to consume different perspectives. It also helps to watch qsmp with the idea that "everyone trapped on this island is fucked up and trying their best." I don't think anyone here is malicious or trying to harm their eggs, instead they're mostly just filled with trauma and 100% accidentally passing it onto their kids. This is true of Philza and Tubbo, but it doesn't make them evil or terrible parents. They're just flawed people/characters and that's how it goes.

I think the Tubblings vs Crows discourse thing is pretty mirrored on both sides. I've seen people on both kinds of blogs grossly mischaracterize these characters and be very hostile to the other group. It leads to hella defensiveness because we all want other people to understand why we like our favorite block people (and we obviously know our guys aren't evil).

It sucks to see though because both Tubblings and Crows do and say pretty much the same things to each other. We gotta start being more charitable to each other since it just creates a horrible cycle.

[ladybeug]

was scrolling thru your art tag enjoying your comics when i suddenly discovered you were the one that wrote strangers in the bright lights. having gotten into miraculous only very recently, was tickled to experience a very small identity shenanigan of my own

incredible fic btw; i love it soooooo much. brilliant, hilarious, sweet, poignant. out of curiosity have you read much postww1 modernist stuff? i adored the usage of free indirect discourse for the narration, drunken and in motion and alive, almost reminded me of virginia woolf in a weird way lol. sorry if this is weird

Hello!! I'm about to get long-winded and self indulgent in this reply, fair warning :)

here goes:

Wow!! I don’t know how you found strangers in the bright lights if you got into ladybug in any time frame that can be described as “very recently”, I wrote that in 2018 when I was digesting some personal stuff and in a fantastic ladybug renaissance (of which I have now had several, I think I’ll die in this fandom).

But I’m so glad you somehow did. I only write every couple of years when I get really specific ideas, and the time I spend on it turns into memories of who I was when I wrote it. I feel like that must happen to actual writers too, ones who write often, but I haven’t written “often” since like 2009 and have never asked, so there you go.

But I guess that’s all to say that I am very attached to that story and it’s also one of the only things I’ve written that still feels like it hit the chord I was aiming for. It is so cool that anyone still reads it!!

To actually answer your question: I have never read virginia woolf, and the only modernist stuff I've read was years ago for school classes. I have to admit none of the style was inspired by classics, but instead inspired by the weird disassociation of trying to be alone in a crowd.

I have a final self-indulgent thought, it is a fun fact I realized as I was going down memory lane about this:

I associate ‘strangers in the bright lights’ with a friendship I made that stands out as one of the luckiest and rarest friendships I’ve made – I went to a mountain goats concert alone, and stood up at the front early, and met someone else who had gone to the same mountain goats concert alone and had stood up at the front early. It was one of the fastest and most comfortable connections I’ve made, and we liked each other so much we stayed in touch, even after they moved away. We are still in touch every so often, and as far as I’m concerned in a few years they’re going to publish the best fantasy novel you’ve ever read, so watch out for that.

The fanfiction is in part inspired by that beautiful feeling of meeting someone new that you want to talk to, and they want to talk to you, and a drink or two has propped up your self esteem and you don’t have to worry about who you are tomorrow, just who you are right now. It’s escapism. You feel important, and carried by that feeling, for as long as you are there. Lonely who? Not me. Trapped by past versions of myself, who? Not me.

Anyways the fun fact is - I found out this morning that concert was a year AFTER I posted this fanfiction. I didn't know about that moment of my life as I was writing this. The two are so connected in my mind that this is genuinely surprising, but the concert was in September 2019 and I published the fanfic a year beforehand.

In the words of mr. mountain goat himself: we held on to hope of better days coming, and when we did we were right!

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

I would love to know your rankings of the live action (+ podcast) Bruce Waynes. :)

Janie you are one of the best tumblr mutuals anyone could ask for. so reasonable, never absorbed by stupid discourse, so fun to talk shit with. you were also sent from hell to kill me.

disclaimer 1: I'm excluding the 40s Batman serials because I haven't seen them and even I don't love committing to a bit so hard that I'm willing to watch them to make one (1) 5 note post.

disclaimer 2: all of my opinions are right and I'm not interested in arguing with anyone about any of this.

anyway, let's get rolling. as with the Riddler, we'll be proceeding chronologically!

Adam West (Batman '66) - 10/10

the sixties Batman series gets a lot of shit for being excellent, and I for one will not stand for it! its biggest crime is, I think, being itself and having a good time; it's stupid and charming and really funny, and I think Adam West is a rock solid foundation on which to build the show. his Bruce is a freak of the unflinching normie, devastatingly upright and pathologically wholesome while also a bit of a skank. I suspect he's too chummy with Republicans and yet I trust him with my life. I could write entire essays about what's going on with this man's masculinity. also worth noting that Batman 1966 is like, easily my second favorite live action Batman movie of all time. I love him, your honor.

Michael Keaton (Batman 1989 and Batman Returns) - 10/10

my BELOVED. for those of you wondering when I said '66 was my second favorite movie YES, Batman Returns is the first! Michael Keaton's Bruce is a grade-A freak of the week and I want to wrap him in a weighted blanket about it to see if that will possibly calm him down. his films are great because he's used sparingly, something that no fucking Batman movie knows how to do anymore, and it makes the screentime he does have so much more effective. his Bruce/Batman contrast is stunning - his Batman is an unblinking stalwart lunatic in a suit so crunchy he can barely move; his Bruce a charmingly inept sad sack in a sexy little sweater. and I can't even start talking about his dynamic with Michelle Pfeiffer's electric Selina Kyle or we'll be here all day. chef's kiss, Mr. Keaton.

Val Kilmer (Batman Forever) - Kiss From a Rose/10

right off the gate I would like to acknowledge that whatever else I may say about him, Val Kilmer has the most kissable mouth of any Batman. look at him! good for you, Mr. Kilmer!

anyway, I'm gonna level with you gamers: I've made absolutely no secret of my distaste for Batman Forever, which I think is genuinely dumber and worse than Batman and Robin. Kilmer's Bruce is serving us almost nothing; he's a stale whole wheat cracker to whom things are incessantly Happening. he's being aggressively propositioned by Nicole Kidman when he's Batman and by Jim Carrey when he's Bruce; Tommy Lee Jones keeps trying to murder him while giving a performance that would seem absurdly over the top if he weren't right next to the aforementioned Carrey; and he's just adopted a poor little 25 year old orphan with some serious attitude problems. everyone in this film is so much at all times, and between that and Joel Schumacher's intensely questionable direction I don't really blame Kilmer for deciding to say fuck it and make Bruce more of a mannequin than a man. I think there are some intriguing glimpses of the Batman that could have been here and there in his role, but he's ultimately done in by being trapped in an unspeakable clusterfuck of a movie.

George Clooney (Batman and Robin) - Bat Credit Card/10

where West's Bruce sidles through life with a veneer of normalcy that seems to be just barely concealing the potential to throw someone out a window at any moment, Clooney's Bruce genuinely seems like he's got his shit together. he actually seems to be reflecting the character arc he's limped through across three previous films and two recast actors, and as a result is so well-adjusted and fatherly that it's almost unsettling. who is this very normal man? why is dressing up like a bat to fight Austrian Mr. Freeze and drag queen Poison Ivy? surely he should be filing his taxes or going to a parent-teacher meeting to discuss his 30 year old son's behavior in class.

Christian Bale (Dark Knight Saga) - 3/10

real talk, friends: I don't remember Bale's performances that well, because I haven't watched one of his Batman movies since the Dark Knight Rises came out in theaters. I do not recall liking the movie, nor having any particularly favorable reaction to Bale at any point in the trilogy. I always felt his strongest performance was "Bruce Wayne being Batman playing idiot billionaire Bruce Wayne," portraying the pretense of Bruce better than he played either a sincere Bruce or Batman. dare I say it, I don't think Christopher Nolan let him be enough of a weirdo. disappointing underutilization of a man who who is extremely willing to be unhinged. three stars.

Ben Affleck (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League) - 10/10

I'm just going to say upfront that Ben Affleck's self-written/produced/directed/starred in Batfamily movie is my pop cultural white whale and I'm going to die mad about it, which should probably give you an indication of where this one is going. Batfleck is so perfect to me. that is my baby baby 40-something year old boy with manic depression and homicidal tendencies. is he going through a bit of a grimdark phase? yes. duh. it happens! but he feels soooo bad about it, and he spends the next movie getting bullied by literally everyone to make up for it. he's just so TIRED. this is a Bruce who's SEEN SOME SHIT. he's canonically lost a Robin; he's a grieving dad! he's broken and he's trying and more than any other Bruce I can see him driving around a minivan full of bastard parkour children. every day I miss him.

Robert Pattinson (Thee Batman 2022) - 10/10

when I heard certified real-life freakboy Robert Pattinson had been cast as my personal favorite fictional freakboy I felt hope about a DC movie announcement for the first time in years. and you know what? it was justified. Pattinson is a very specific take on Bruce Wayne that I definitely don't think works in all settings - a Bruce for all seasons he is not. but within his own miserable, wet little Gotham he can do no wrong. I love this pale, pathetic insomniac. I love that he hates eye contact. I love that he barely seems to willing to eat or sleep. I love how obviously confused he is in his attraction to Zoë Kravitz's Selina. I love that after the film's climax we find him covered in filth and working tirelessly to dig civilians out of rubble, offering comfort where he can. I'm so genuinely excited to see this version of Bruce continue too grow. that's my SON.

and since you threw in podcasts for no reason that I can immediately discern

Winston Duke (Batman Unburied) - 10/10

Winston Duke's take on Bruce is so profoundly dear to me. like Pattinson I think he's not exactly an archetypal Bruce but what he's serving is perfect for this universe, not least of all because Duke is voice acting his ass off. his Bruce is warmer and more emotionally vulnerable than most - he tells Alfred he loves him! - while maintaining the requisite cocktail of mental illnesses that makes Batman what he is, which makes him a wildly compelling narrator to ride along with. his Batman voice arrives late in the story but is absolutely worth the wait; Duke is bringing something positively primordial to the Bat that makes you understand instantly why the folks of Gotham might assume he's some kind of inhuman monster (something that also plays well with the fact that Duke's Bruce is, presumably, meant to be understood as a Black man, which puts his vigilante activities and difficult relationship with the police in a very different light than any white Bruce's). cannot wait to get more of him when the blessed second season drops and drills holes in my brain; you've all been warned that I will be unhinged at that time.

[enigmatic-elegance]

Hi I'm super curious but what's the house of nobles and why did it fail? And what was the lesson to learn from that? If you don't wanna answer that's okay, I'm just super curious

Okay, let’s strap in, this is gunna be a long one. Before I begin, there are two quick disclaimers I wanna get put on the record.

1. This is in no way an attack on the members of the House of Nobles or any particular people. In fact, most of the people involved I know to be amazing people OOCly with fantastic ideas and who are genuinely stellar writers and content creators. My intent is to put light on the mistakes that were made, in efforts that they not be made again. It’s to offer perspective from someone who was by and large totally against the HoN from start to finish, and a very vocal critic of it. Understand my critique is just that, critique of the event(s) and the way it/they operated. It does not in any way reflect my personal opinions on those who were involved who for the vast part I respect immensely.

2. I never have and never will advocate or support hate. There is a vast difference between offering genuine negative feedback and simply beating someone down and making them feel like shit. While I do feel the HoN leadership ignored a lot of potentially helpful feedback, I also know they received a share of blatant hatred in tow and that is unfair to anyone.

With that out of the way, let’s begin.

So who were the House of Nobles?

I’ll directly quote from the website and the tumblr, both of which are still up and available to browse.

The Stormwind House of Nobles is a body of players on the server of Wyrmrest Accord in World of Warcraft that role play as members from the Kingdom of Stormwind and it’s allies who form the governing body under the guidance of King Anduin Wrynn.

As the website goes on to explain, it is derived in large part from the Moon Guard project of the same name, with small adjustments made in efforts to better tailor it to the needs and the layout of the WrA community. It was made up of a body of mainly noble RPers, but there were some military and legislative RPers mixed in as well, and this was served with the hope of creating a platform not only to designate more city-based RP and events but also to engage the WrA community at large with passive-centered activity on the day to day life of Stormwind.

It is a lovely idea, but like many ideas there is the plan and then there is the execution. The plan was decent, the execution fell through. But we will get there.

Mind you, the House of Nobles was not a new thing to the WrA community. In fact, it had been attempted once before lead by another guild and GM. This project ultimately fell apart, and the reasons behind that were a little more sticky then I should get into here. Suffice it to say, it left a very bad taste in the mouth of most WrA RPers in regards to any house of noble project. I am not saying the issues of the first HoN should influence the second one when they were run by nearly totally different people, but we can’t deny that the reputation inherent to the name/idea didn’t help people swallow the concept any better.

So why did it fail?

1. People were being forced out of public spaces. And not once, or twice, but many times over the course of a month. The Pig, the barracks, people were being told OOCly to actually go and RP elsewhere because the space ‘belonged to the HoN’. Do that, people will get angry. no one owns any RP spots in this game.

2. The HoN was a popularity contest. Myself and other people on the server watched as people tried to run for positions and were not simply denied..but flat out ignored. People pushed, sent messages, tried to get into the HoN RP and were just brushed off. Those that got in, I noticed, were popular guild members, or those who were in good with the primary guilds. It soured the whole image of HoN.

3. The House of nobles fell into the same trap of ‘opt-in’ events I have made like a dozen posts on. It was not opt in. It created something that was supposed to change the face of the city, placing RPers in positions of real and city-wide power. And to say 'just ignore it’ is not accepting responsibility in any adult sense. Because half the city accepted it, and the other half did not. This meant that half the city of RP was in one storyline, the other half was not. It rifted the whole server, something the HoN never acknowledged even during the whole time being told they were creating massive lore conflict.

4. They were flat out telling people how to RP at their events. This is just rude, and should never be allowed. If you open an event to public, you can ICly ask for silence and respect. But if you open an event to the public and people RP being angry and yelling, that’s discourse. It’s expected at political events. To then OOCly rudely cast said people down..I got a LOT of whispers and talked to a lot of people who totally wrote off HoN when they were OOCly told to be quiet and stop RPing.

5. And above all this, the biggest issue is they did not once take steps to improve. To this day when I hear some people speak on what happened with the HoN, it is dismissive along the lines of ‘well people just don’t like noble RPers’. There were legit and powerful critiques. I was saying ALL of this as HoN was going on. Telling them these issues that the server was VERY mad at HoN over. And nothing happened. Instead we got posts from a few HoN members and others saying 'We will keep on despite all the haters!

HoN could have been amazing. But like the first HoN, it fell to it’s own trap of making it’s members feel themselves above reproach, and above the server. The server didn’t tolerate it, and what people saw was the reaction.

Now all of this sounds very harsh, and again I need to restate that this is in no way an attack on any of the members who took part in the HoN or enjoyed it. By what I saw, there were a few parts that actually were enjoyable and made for good RP. But I know from experience that we grow the most from negatives then positives. When I do an event, I would rather know more of what went wrong then what went right, because those are the areas we need to improve on. I feel it is vital that we not forget what went wrong, so in the future we can strive for better and better events that serve the community rather then divide it.

So what was the lesson?

I feel there were a few standing lessons to be learned from this, and what we as a community can do across the board.

1. Don’t shun negative feedback. As much as I say I value negative feedback, I too fall into a defensive stance when I receive it. It’s only natural, if we put time and heart into something we want to defend it. But we need to remember at the basis of any anger is hurt. Someone feels slighted or wronged, and while we don’t have to condone the anger, we do ourselves a disservice to discard what could be a very real complaint. Even aggression is a chance to grow, dismissing it as ‘haters’ is only going to show you have no intent to better yourself or your events. Take the negatives, process them, grow from them.

2. Slapping ‘opt in’ before your event does not immediately make it so. If I make an opt-in that I blew up the cathedral in SW, and half the server accepts it and half does not, I’ve just split the server in two. By trying to create inclusive RP I have in fact done the exact opposite. It’s important, when making any opt in, to ask the question ‘how does this affect people who do NOT opt in?’ It’s easy to say ‘just ignore it’ but if you are RPing the major ruling body of the city then you need to understand those not opting in are totally in a different playing space then those who do. A proper opt-in does not at all affect those who do not opt in. Good examples are the Holt’s kidnapping, or even the mermaid RP. Both of these RPs did not at all impact those who did not wish to take part. In fact, most people who were on the server had no goddamn idea they were happening! This means that those who wanted in could engage them, and those that didn’t lost absolutely nothing not being a part of it. Good opt-ins, both of them.

3. Understand this is RP. We have a responsibility to this server that our events and contributions contribute to a creative environment. We need to sometimes make concessions to that endeavor, it’s a collaborative effort. I was speaking to a friend who spoke that if nobles heard you speaking ill of them in the time you’d just be executed or imprisoned. True, that is true, but is it fair to say ‘because of my RP choice, I have rule over your character’s plot, path, and story.’ See, it’s touchy. Because there is a balance to strike between realism and the fact that we are writing with other players who have equal right to their character’s story and path. This is where OOC communication comes into play, but HoN taught us not only the value of that communication but what happens when that communication severs. HoN did not have an open dialogue with the server, yet they played a massive and forceful part of it’s collective story. This was the spark that lit the powder keg and in the end, that lack of dialogue set it up to fall from early on.

4. It is not ‘hopeless’. Often I see things akin to ‘well HoN failed so we can’t do any more RP events ever!’ I think that is unfair to say. Just because one thing fell short does not mean we need to be hopeless. Indeed it’s important if not vital to the server that we learn from where we made mistakes and grow from them. It’s how we better as RPers and as writers. For all my critique, HoN had a few things they did right. I saw in that group a love and passion for what they had created. I saw real effort and genuine care. I saw a lot of people coming together to create. These are beautiful things. And if we learn from where we failed, I know for a fact the server can make things like this in the future that will soar.

Conclusion

WrA is a fickle thing sometimes but it has some amazing and brilliant writers and creators. People who put real time, love, and even tears into their projects. And I am one of them. I feel those who call out the faults of others need make statement of their own failures and I will do so. I’ve failed before, with my guild in fact. The first time I made it, I fell flat, my character was shit and I got like three members before I gave up and deleted it. But I tried again a month later with a new angle and new outlook. I learned from where I went wrong, and the things I could improve on. I even learned from the angry critique others gave me on how I was doing things. And with that feedback, I changed by angle, and now operate the guild I do which is vastly successful and grows daily.

The biggest thing I can say we all should learn from HoN is that we are never going to stop learning. We are never perfect. And all feedback, positive and negative alike, should be taken to heart and used to grow and better ourselves. In this way, we can achieve the brilliance I know everyone on this server to be capable of.

That’s all I got. I hope I helped shed a little light on it. As always, I am only one perspective and there were many. Others may have totally different accounts. I hope if nothing else, the message rings true, and I hope it serves this server as we move forward to amazing things.