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Recent Statuses

2 days ago
Current Snow is coming
2 likes
3 days ago
Not me, having too much fun with tuppers.
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4 days ago
Another late night at work.
1 like
7 days ago
Lo, the plight of flightless birds
1 like
9 days ago
My left shoulder: now with tendonitis. Bleh.
2 likes

Bio

Not born in a log cabin, I came into the RPing venture around 2009 and quickly joined about twenty roleplays more than I should have at the time. I've been around the internet in that time span, participated in and run RPs on multiple forums, and brushed shoulders with a wide variety of players and characters. Getting to work with new people has always been part of the allure of the experience.

My interests in RPing are pretty diverse, and not genre-specific; if there's room at the table and I can think of a dish to serve, I'll cook something up for just about any meal. If you know what I mean.

Most Recent Posts

@Little Bird Good to see you!




Post is up! Let me know if anything needs changing.


Likewise from me to you.

Hopefully there's a place for me and what I have in mind here. Beeb exploring ways to rethink a character of mine from 10+ years ago.

If I'm interested in this, should I familiarize myself with the other "Recollections" RP?
You bring up an interesting point, and there is understandable concerns around the cliques and it’s an important topic in any community, especially roleplay groups. Fundamentally with this hobby, we are creating temporary close-knit communities whenever a GM makes a game. These can sometimes feel exclusionary or difficult enter, especially when it is a game in progress.

However, it is important to distinguish the difference between harmful exclusion, such as elitism or GM’s being ‘Warlords of their Domain’, with the balance of RP groups needing healthy boundaries. Communities thrive when everyone feels safe, respected, and free to express themselves. RP is an intimate experience both in-character and out-character, so trust is important.

Sometimes our decisions to exclude certain individuals from an role-play wasn’t about forming an elitist clique or being unkind to people. This can be making sure that people who join are a ‘Good Fit’ to enter the RP. These decisions can be around ensuring the safety and well-being of our members which has to be the foundation of any healthy community.

So, when someone engages in behaviours like harassment or makes others feel unsafe, it just doesn’t work, and things fall apart. it undermines the trust and enjoyment that makes these roleplay communities so fulfilling. So, addressing those issues is necessary to maintain a positive environment for us all to thrive in.

I think it is good to be open to discussing ways we can make the community more welcoming for our members.


This is (relative in Internet terms) a long standing community, with equally long standing members comprising it; if we go back to the old vBulletin forum that was once the Guild, there's close to/over two decades that have lead it to where it is now.

Inevitably, a place that's been around a while, playing host to people that have been around a while will see the development of groups that are more tight-knit than the average one-off RP cast: people who have been in multiple RPs together, people that have migrated as collectives from one site to the next for whatever reasons, people who have established a sort of lore between their OCs or have collaborated extensively in the past. This is the territory wherein cliques start to lean into exclusionary behavior, I think moreso than people coming together for an RP of common interest.

Wanting to maintain the effiency and consistency of the creative group is one thing. But then, maybe don't open it for the RPing public? Or if if the intent is hold a higher level of skill as a standard, set up shop in the Advanced section wherein the talent sought is more likely to come around.

My personal experiences with cliques in RPing have been situations wherein a few people with history together seemed to relegate those not of the in-group to background noise, and their characters being kneecapped into irrelevance either from conception or through the collaboration and plotting; GMs at the core of it. Fundamentally a GM should bd able and willing to account for players and characters outside of the clique, especially in RPs not driven by an official central plot. When you try to iron out character relations with the GM and their adjacent circle and get told to instead work with the other newcomers... that is kind of a red flag; "you can play near us, but not with us." In essence, a clique within an RP.

This was in the Casual RP section.

If I were in any position to GM, I might well have taken a stab at running my own RP.
Can I join, and if I do I’m running in at the next lesson as if I slept in 😭


This RP is dead.
Intruiging concept. Color me interested in joining if I may. I'll get to work on a character ASAP if allowed. I do already have an idea.
"Hey!" Hoshi recoiled from Leon, and pulled her Keyblade away from him... them? Master of the Forge or not, she wasn't liking how he was treating her only weapon. New to her as it was, she was feeling protective of the sword. She gawked at the small person as they went on in a language she couldn't understand. She looked to the gullperson, but he seemed unconcerned by the procedings. What luck. I find the guy that's supposed to help me and he's making out with my sword. A visible eye roll rounded Hoshi's face at the thought.

"I don't know how I got it. I mean not exactly." Her mind flashed back to the stained glass floors and the eerie, phantom scene upon the island. Echos of her friends questioning her motives filled her head as fully as the strange voice from the Dark expanse. "Those Shadows... they showed up back home. I tried to fight them with another weapon... it wasn't working. Then there was this flare of light around me and next thing I knew," She gave the Keyblade a half swing, "I had this in my hand."

She took a look around before adding, "Is there anywhere else we can go to talk? This is feeling a bit expised. Plus, I need to figure out a place to stay; if those things are stalking around, I can just live on the streets."
Things worth some thought.

Aging Demographics? It's hard to say without grounded data, but it does generally seem that pbp is largely an undertaking sustained by people whom came up on the mid-2000s to early-2010s Internet. Time goes on; people get old; life becomes busy and stressful; people inevitably find other things to occupy their free time (new hobbies, responsibilities to others away from the computer screen). The forum scene has slowed down on account of it being time-consuming for the "adults" and maybe not as appealing to the younger folks who came up more with Discord. But who knows, Discord could bring things back around as those RPing there come to feel contained or restrained by the platform's limitations (character limits, less customization options, generally clunkier thread management).

Insular Communities & Limited Rosters. Maybe it's just me; maybe I'm sseing the past through those rose-tinted glasses; or maybe my life wxperience had left me bitter and jaded. In recent years it's become somewhat more difficult to integrate into communities and groups. Memory of times lomg gone tell me that RPing was, at a time, open to amyome that could pitch a servicable character to the stories they were interested in; times when larger numbers of players might be seen in any givem RP.

But roster spots have become fewer as GMs have preferred to keep things smaller. Given there are fewer GMs running fewer RPs, the field has definitely shrunk. Being denied a spot in RP like being passed over for a job is more of a risk these days as GMs scrutinize more. Understandably, this is a play to keep things more manageable for GMs; small player roster and fewer character=less work to keep things together and everyome on the same page.

More detrimental are the experiences of joining something and being, in some way, kept out of the collaborative process. Seeing an RP you're in steamroll past your turn to post because your at work or in a different time zone and can't post on the same schedule leaves an aftertaste if disrespect; can't say that's happened to me here personally, bit it's happened elsewhere, prompting me to check out.

Being iced in OOC discussions and planning is also a thing, and I've spoken to a few people that I shared those experiences with (in the same RPs). Being ignored or dismissed by GMs isn't an endearing situations; especially when it leads to you being blamed for that indifference. When 4-5 players out of 9-10 actively cloyster themselves from the other half within a single RP, that's a bit of an issue. I don't doubt that it happens pretty regularly to others.

Ultimately, it all kind of ties into RPers getting older. Naturally, busy adult people will be preferrable towards keeping their hobbies within circles they trust. DnD players have their play groups, MTG folks have their preferred LGS they go to. RPers have their collaborative circles. But in that vein, might as well not front otherwise and save outsiders the negative experiences.

Overall if I were a new-to-pbp or new-to-forums person, I'm not sure I'd stick around long enough to find my niche through what I'm seeing. But I've been around a while, and I've learned that if I'm patient, something will come up eventually. Sometimes this means going dormant for stretches.

As an aside, I think that the mass diverting of OOC discussion to Discord (and previously other chat apps) hasn't dome forum world many favors. It does tend to create an ourward appearance that nothing much is going on on-site. While I understand the benefits of Discord, I think forum folks would do well to keep more active discussions in-house. I mean wr talk about the death of forums as if we aren't aiding and abetting the process by migrating to the new platforms.

In summary, things we can do/control to better help the situation:
- Stick with it, even if life gets crazy snd it takes a bit longer fkr things to get moving.
- Be patient. Getting through an RP is about endurance, not speed. (Seems like a lot of people duck out when things don't move quickly enough).
- Be open. Letting people new to the site, RP, or group can go a decent way in keeping the hobby alive.

Idk. Just me having 4am thoughts.
A small blast shook Hoshi off of her feet, nearly dropping her to the ground. She barely managed to catch herself upon the crutch that was her Keyblade. Between herself were two of the most bizarre folks she had ever seen. One, a tall, broad-built, bird looking thing with orange hair. The other was a comically small... were they a gnome? She was still too far out of it to fully process either of them. All she knew off the bat was that the pair's sudden arrival and subsequent attack had taken out three of the Shadows; if they were here to help, Hoshi couldn't have cared less what they looked like.

She propped herself upright and watched the pair work, a gaping, dumfounded expression dominating her face. Her mouth and eyes contorted with slight annoyance when the bird called her a "little girl," though he left her little opportunity for to retort properly. Is... is this guy ok? If not for exhaustion and the anxiousness of her circumstances, Hoshi might have been able to laugh at the bumbling of the feathered one; she nearly let out a dry chuckle when he unintentionally impaled another Shadow on the tip of his trident. Wait... did he just say...?

A burst of energy rushed through her once more when the larger one spoke again. It wasn't her own though; he had given her a boost with his own magic. Not wanting to squander the momentary strength, she charged one of the two remaining Shadows, cutting it half. She rounded on the last one. As she approached it, it backed away, and continued to evade and avoid her as she pursued it. "Ugh! FINE!" She wound up, and flung her Keyblade through the air towards the Shadow. The weapon flew true, spinning perfectly and crashed hard into and through the creature's head.

The Shadow dispersed, and the Keyblade clanged and clattered onto the stone street. It lay still for a few seconds before vanishing and reappearing in her hand. Hoshi breathed in and sighed long and heavy. "Thanks for the help." She turned towards her rescuers. She immediately set upon the shorter one. He different than she had imagined him; she had pictured someone a bit... taller. But if he was who Launchpad had said he was, then she wasn't going to judge. "So... you're Leon? So like, you can help me get settled in here? That's what the guy in that shop told me."
Are we going to Atlantica?
Definitely need to add worlds or flesh out the stories further. Could always have a group in Halloween Town while another is Agrabah.
@King Kindred Honestly, that's the kind of convoluted storyline i was hoping to avoid. Primarily because the entire Ansem story, i feel, is one best avoided, because:

1) It's needlessly confusing
2) It was constantly retconned to try and make it make more sense, but only served to make even less sense
3) It's just not that interesting to begin with.

I was probably gonna make Am and Karre Genomes, whereas Am has accepted her role as Angel of Death (Essentially translating from FFIX to this, an Angel of Death is an artificial Nobody that as had a Heart transplanted into it.) Karre is the one raging against Garlands attempts to sacrifice other worlds to save his already dead one. Both of them desperately trying to convince the other to join their side.


The twist that Xehanort stole Ansem's work and identity was/is servicable; something I wouldn't mind allowing to play out if only for the sake of not changing too much. After KHII (chronologically) though I'm meh about it because that's where everything really got convoluted.
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