In regards to ending duels prematurely

[PrlUnicorn]

I went digging in old posts including looking for something I addressed in the past.

There is at least one recorded exception to the Ward of Gondar being exclusive to the Arena and Arcade, the IFL Garden.

viewtopic.php?p=174357#p174357
The second set of three have raised boundaries circling them, perhaps an inch high. A core of wizards retained to extend the protections of the Ward of Gondar to the Garden for these three rings, the boundary circles are composed of sand from the arena and bound into place through their talents. Seating has been reserved for Raye and Kal to the edge as well as two unnamed others.

And while we're on that subject: if the Ward of Gondar is specific to the Arena and Arcade, and the Isle ward is specific to the Isle, then what ward is serving DoS and DoM duels in the Outback? Is that why some staff said those duels aren't warded at all? Because some characters cannot be expected to participate in DoS and DoM duels in the Outback without warded protection. Other staff said "there can be a ward for that", and I think that is because they recognized that not having a ward could make the Outback a Fists-only land for many characters, and they would prefer that the venues avoid trying to be insular and/or favoritist like they used to be back in the day.

So if these details are important--and I'm getting the sense that they are--then this needs to be worked out and given a canon explanation. Is the Outback ward unnamed and vague like the Isle ward? I would like DoF staff to weigh in on this matter if we end up making a new thread.

This should help in answering that question.

Hi everyone!

Kal's assumption is, in a nutshell, the explanation that the DoF staff considers pretty darn accurate.

If folks want to RP their characters as having Wards (or not) in the Outback for DoM/DoS matches, that's ok. We believe it's a player choice and as we've seen in the past even with DoS matches in the Arena, there're some characters played as if the Wards don't protect them. For a DoF fight, sorry, you're gonna get your nose bloody.

That being said, there have been methods taken to protect the Outback from past mishaps (i.e. it's not gonna burn down again) and from wayward spells blowing out walls, destroying the inside of the place, etc. Basic rules apply...just be respectful of the setting. If you wanna destroy something or have some in-setting consequence stemming from that misfiring Keeper spell, please chat with one of us on the DoF staff and we'll see what we can do

Thanks!

--Your DoF Staff

The impression I got from the response to my own question is the Outback has its own protections. I could be wrong on that.

As for duels being to the death, and this isn't me as coordinator talking, this is me as a player who's been watching and participating in these duels for years at this point. Death, in all sports, is a possibility. There are characters that the wards do not work on, so what would happen if they took too much damage? Possibly death. What happens if a fight happens outside of the rings because it was an off the cuff match? Death could happen. This is, of course, the choice of the players - as the player is the only one who can choose if their character lives or dies.

I'm pretty sure there's been deaths in the Arena, I've had my character Jesse be mortally wounded multiple times in each location and the homunculus body being left behind as nothing more than a corpse.

Just a couple references here:
Charlie Jericho, who I believe was resurrected or brought back into play in some way, is an example of a character that died in the rings. Dalamar was presumed to be dead after losing to Marzan. Whether or not he actually was, only his player and likely Morgan le Fay's know for sure. IIRC, Morgan was the one that removed Dal's body from the arena.
In Matt's alt timeline story, Elements Askew, Maggie died in the Arena dueling with him. There were special circumstances there.
Point is, death has always been a possibility. There's a difference between a player choosing to have their character die in the ring and old guild style death matches where a match would end in a character's death.

[PrlUnicorn]

Okay. So what this reads to me as--and please correct me if I am wrong--is that there never had to be any explanation at all for where the proxy avatars came from. If I'm reading that correctly, that's awesome, because that opens some important doors! However, you mention earlier in your post that you thought Ellie could have done it herself, and that's something I would not want readers to take away from that if I could help it. It does seem like the more I leave unexplained, the more risk there is of attributing it to something Ellie specifically can do. Maybe I could have made it clear that Ellie didn't put them there while still not providing any explanation. Would that have still been okay? Because that may have implied the ward did it, even if I didn't say that the ward did it, and I had written from the perspective that even implication wasn't okay for settings fixtures. If in fact, it was and is okay, then canonical settings accommodations to let characters leave the ring--regardless of what their abilities are or what they think beforehand to take into the ring with them from an equipment rack--don't actually have to exist at all.

I think Max, Karma, and Royal covered a lot of the answers and clarifications you were asking for. However, you did ask my personal thoughts on something. So, here goes.

You are correct, there was no need for an explanation.

When I was saying Ellie could have acted on her own without depending on something Neo had done, this is what I meant. Ellie was already taking action that fit with her known personality and behaviors. Offering a hug to a distressed Lillian is very much an Ellie thing. Trying to give comfort to someone she senses is in pain, hurting, etc. that’s very much in line with how you have played Ellie over time. When I said Ellie is a capable person, I didn’t mean she was a superpowered omnipotent being. Ellie gives comfort to people through her hugs and homemade cookies. She brings joy to people when she dances. I don’t believe that she needed to look for something someone else had done as a guide when she has all those things inside her. Instead of having her go with her heart, which is the Ellie I have seen played for ages, you felt the need to have her look to Neo for an answer. As I said, your character, your choices. My comment wasn’t about Ellie doing something with the wards, it was about Ellie being Ellie and using her own gifts and talents to find an answer.

As for the balance of your post, I think much of the tangent discussion should fit the topic of the thread Kira started.

[Neo Eternity]

I am so profoundly exhausted by this thread.

I have been doing my best to participate in good faith. I have spent literal hours on every previous reply I have made to try and make sure things move forward and to do the best I can to avoid ruffling feathers and take responsibility for what wrongdoings I have done. But where I am right now, where this is right now, it makes me not want to play. I feel like if I do not give relief to everything that is nagging at me, I won't want to play here again.

So from here on, I am being entirely candid. I will try to avoid being unnecessarily harsh, but I'm not holding back my feelings anymore. People will be disappointed by this, including people I consider friends. I am sorry for that, but I need to do this.

It has not that the discussion hasn't made progress. It has. We know it is acceptable to finish a duel without RPing it. We know it is acceptable to spawn proxies without explaining where they come from. Those are all good things to have clarified, though they offer me no sense of security. I will explain why that is later. This conversation has made progress completely and solely on the terms of those in opposition to my ideas. That is not fair to me, even if I have committed wrongdoing.

I have felt utterly stonewalled and forced to chase around distractions through the course of this entire conversation. And I feel like those participating on the side of this discussion of "we should at least give this some consideration" have been stonewalled as well. Serenity has not been back to continue participation. Robert has not been back. Arthour has not been back. The responses to them have amounted to what comes off as, "you don't understand accurately, so your participation is not valid." While they cannot confirm it themselves, we should consider it to be the case that they've been chased out of the conversation, leaving me as the only person advocating for my position.

I posted the idea of forfeiture with penalty nearly a week ago, and it has not received any sort of response. Sure, we all have other things to deal with, this is something I strongly sympathize with. Even here, you all have been running a site-wide pride event all week, and I imagine that there are cases where people who would have wanted to respond couldn't because the energy they had for engaging with the site was used on pride. But the post has had responses since then, all of which utterly and completely ignore that idea. Again, keeping the conversation on the terms of those in opposition to my ideas.

The only people who have participated in this conversation consistently are me, DoM staff, and Collie. Kira and Dris offered valuable contributions to the conversation, but they haven't been back since. (Though Kira has started the off-shoot setting consistency/clarification thread, which I am grateful for.) Serenity, Robert, and Arthour were chased out. Staff from DoS and DoF have not said anything, and neither have any site-wide admins. Nor staff in the non-dueling roles; but not their monkey, not their circus. I know there are many reasons for staff from other sports to not want to participate in this; they could offer an opposing view that affects the perception of DoM staff's participation, or they could be on board and not want to make it seem like I'm being dogpiled more than I already am. Or other reasons. But this issue isn't going to affect only DoM. In fact, it already has affected DoS. Are we going to end up in a situation where some sports have different stances on forfeiture than others? Is that something we really want? I understand why that can has been kicked down the road, but I am not sure that lack of participation from the other sports' staff is healthy any longer.

I am all but certain the reasoning for manipulating the conversation comes down to this:

I think my own thoughts regarding how to deal with people forfeiting, without valid reasons, especially those that do so a lot, might be too harsh for some people’s liking. I’m looking forward to seeing the changes in the DoM rules regarding this and other issues.

I am no longer willing to accept this stance, because this stance has been poisoning this entire conversation. You have a harsh stance on forfeiture, the DoM staff seems to be generally in agreement with you, and you specifically are making sure that the discussion cannot continue in a way that gives my ideas any sort of momentum, so that you can maintain the status quo--heck, make sure it gets codified--and roleplay according to your harsh stance. It's no longer productive for me to beat around the bush, so I'm just going to say it: I no longer believe this discussion is occurring in good faith, and I am calling you out on it.

I said earlier that there is a reason that the RP accommodations don't offer me any sense of security, and that DoS has already been affected by this issue. I feel like we are generally in agreement that OOC quits should not have IC consequences, right? Well, too late. We already failed on that, with the March All-Ranks Tournament in Swords. Ellie reached grand finals from winner's side, and Reign reached grands from loser's side. The two of them had already fought earlier in bracket. Reign--or more specifically, her player--wanted to bow out. An OOC quit. Both characters wanted different prizes and Reign's player did not want to continue. Because Reign offered to concede and because Ellie was in the finals on the winner's side, she was declared the winner of the tournament.

Maggie and Rachael utterly went off on her for taking the win without fighting a duel. The scene was very stressful, and the only person in Ellie's corner, Mira, could only help her escape the situation. I was assured by both players at the time that there was no blending taking place, but I no longer believe that to be true. After all, by this point, I had already brought up the forfeiture issue in the green room. I believe both players held grudges against me because I feel that we should take measures to allow forfeiture, and that grudge affected Ellie's concession victory of the ART, and all of her interactions with both characters since, one of which caused me even more stress due to manipulative conversational tactics that occurred.

I am not doing this exhausting topic any service by continuing to act like this grudge is not poisoning the conversation, because it is. And it has repercussions on the topic at hand; the fact that this happened contradicts one of the anchors this conversation has been taking for granted: we are not supposed to give anyone any grief for OOC quits. It's too late; it's already been demonstrated that we can't do that, and even though I should feel reassured by the safety net of the RP accommodations we have been assured exist, I don't. I don't at all.

So the dirty laundry is aired, and the finger is pointed. Is it a good move? I don't know. While it is not tactful or diplomatic to point out what I believe to be foul play and bad faith participation, it is potentially enlightening, and addressing it can help the conversation move in ways that it was prevented from moving before. Do I feel relief for getting this off my chest? I do, and at the end of the day, no matter how much I care about this game and community, I have to tend to myself first. I needed to do this.

Will I face consequences for this reply? Probably. Maybe I'll get banned, maybe I'll be stonewalled by the players I have indicted, or other players who support them. Maybe my DMs will get lit up by people who don't like that I've made this reply. But the situation where I keep stifling these feelings to participate in a conversation that is only allowed to move on the terms of a group of strong-willed, strongly-opinionated players and I am unable to point it out? Well, I already don't want to play in such an environment. So if I get banned or stonewalled from playing, it doesn't actually end up making any effective difference. Except now that I've spoken out, I feel relieved. So whatever happens next, happens.

[Claire Gallows]

Hey Neo,

I’m going to take some time out of my busy holiday weekend to respond to this since you invoked my name regarding the Reign vs Ellie match in DoS. So here goes. As a disclosure, I am doing this solely from my point of view as a player, someone involved in the match you mentioned, in the Green Room convos during the initial events, and (as you did) as a former Duel of Magic Coordinator. You likely aren’t going to like this. The powers that be aren’t going to like it. But if we aren’t mincing words, then that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

I am so profoundly exhausted by this thread.

I’m sure you aren’t the only one.

I have been doing my best to participate in good faith. I have spent literal hours on every previous reply I have made to try and make sure things move forward and to do the best I can to avoid ruffling feathers and take responsibility for what wrongdoings I have done. But where I am right now, where this is right now, it makes me not want to play. I feel like if I do not give relief to everything that is nagging at me, I won't want to play here again.

So from here on, I am being entirely candid. I will try to avoid being unnecessarily harsh, but I'm not holding back my feelings anymore. People will be disappointed by this, including people I consider friends. I am sorry for that, but I need to do this.

It has not that the discussion hasn't made progress. It has. We know it is acceptable to finish a duel without RPing it. We know it is acceptable to spawn proxies without explaining where they come from. Those are all good things to have clarified, though they offer me no sense of security. I will explain why that is later. This conversation has made progress completely and solely on the terms of those in opposition to my ideas. That is not fair to me, even if I have committed wrongdoing.

You know, I understand your feelings and they are valid to feel like the conversation has been stacked against you. But by and large, the community as a whole has not expressed support for the changes you are proposing or the things you are wanting. That doesn’t mean the conversation is progressing on the terms of those in opposition, that means your view is in the minority and the community is driving the conversation. If you feel others have support for your view, ask them to speak up because otherwise, the 3 other things you’re citing as having been stonewalled and pushed out is a gross misrepresentation of the conversation and I will explain why in a moment.

I have felt utterly stonewalled and forced to chase around distractions through the course of this entire conversation. And I feel like those participating on the side of this discussion of "we should at least give this some consideration" have been stonewalled as well. Serenity has not been back to continue participation. Robert has not been back. Arthour has not been back. The responses to them have amounted to what comes off as, "you don't understand accurately, so your participation is not valid." While they cannot confirm it themselves, we should consider it to be the case that they've been chased out of the conversation, leaving me as the only person advocating for my position.

Buzzer sound

Wrong. Serenity posed questions that were answered. If they elected not to come back because it was sufficient, that is not stonewalling. Arthour came in, admitted he did not read the thread or conversation, offered something that confused those participating, got offended when someone asked for clarity, and then didn’t come back when it was further explained. Robert came in and from the get go said if the powers that be were not willing to give him what he was asking for that he didn’t want to hear or participate in the conversation and then had the audacity to outright write off the reasons that were given and essentially told everyone that they weren’t valid and weren’t true. So fuck that. If calling that out means someone doesn’t come back to the conversation, then so be it, because it was explained. Thoroughly. And if someone wants to be rude and unkind in the conversation then I have minimal patience for the back and forth with that.

I posted the idea of forfeiture with penalty nearly a week ago, and it has not received any sort of response. Sure, we all have other things to deal with, this is something I strongly sympathize with. Even here, you all have been running a site-wide pride event all week, and I imagine that there are cases where people who would have wanted to respond couldn't because the energy they had for engaging with the site was used on pride. But the post has had responses since then, all of which utterly and completely ignore that idea. Again, keeping the conversation on the terms of those in opposition to my ideas.

DoM staff was pretty clear on their stance and had already mentioned that they would be amending the rules to align with their stance. You were welcome to offer more alternatives, but DoM was pretty clear about it, in my opinion, that while it was being discussed, they did not intend to change their reasoning or processes. Your follow up posts indicated you may not have read Max’s initial response to begin with before proposing follow up posts so honestly, I personally wouldn’t have expected a follow up until it was shown that you at least had an idea of what was said to begin with.

Additionally, the site-wide pride event is a player run event, not a staff run event. But just the same, these discussions are not required to be the priority of anyone, community or staff. Nobody owes you their time, emotional labor, or words. None of us are entitled to that from others here, so if a response takes a day, a week, or a month, then that’s that.

The only people who have participated in this conversation consistently are me, DoM staff, and Collie. Kira and Dris offered valuable contributions to the conversation, but they haven't been back since. (Though Kira has started the off-shoot setting consistency/clarification thread, which I am grateful for.) Serenity, Robert, and Arthour were chased out. Staff from DoS and DoF have not said anything, and neither have any site-wide admins. Nor staff in the non-dueling roles; but not their monkey, not their circus. I know there are many reasons for staff from other sports to not want to participate in this; they could offer an opposing view that affects the perception of DoM staff's participation, or they could be on board and not want to make it seem like I'm being dogpiled more than I already am. Or other reasons. But this issue isn't going to affect only DoM. In fact, it already has affected DoS. Are we going to end up in a situation where some sports have different stances on forfeiture than others? Is that something we really want? I understand why that can has been kicked down the road, but I am not sure that lack of participation from the other sports' staff is healthy any longer.

Lack of participation in these conversations comes down to a lot of things. 1) They are exhausting. Absolutely freaking exhausting. 2) They are not applicable to a lot of people or they don’t have strong enough feelings on it to warrant coming in with a response. 3) You may flat out not have the support that you are looking for. 4) People are busy, see also my mention of nobody owing anyone a response or participation in my previous paragraph response.

Behind the scenes, assuredly the sports staff have discussed this but by and large, it’s been mostly applicable to DoM despite your attempt to wrangle DoS into the fray. I can extrapolate further on that, since I was expressly involved in it.

The site-wide admins you speak of are the board and Max is a member of the board. So, you *have* had a site-wide admin weigh in. That said, to the best of my knowledge, the board does not administrate sports matters unless absolutely necessary and the RP-coordinators do not impact the sports side rulings, so trying to tattle to the other parents, so to speak, to get them to offer a contradiction of some sort is a bullshit tactic best left to kids going through parental divorce. The only other viable staff opinions on the matter would be those of the DoS and DoF teams, who I’m sure have seen the conversation but may not have felt it necessary to weigh in since the bulk of the conversation has centered around DoM matches and the DoM ruling. If you want other people to weigh in, here’s a pro tip: Reach out to them privately and ask them to.

Simple. It’s a wonder what communication can do instead of simply hoping people see what you want them to see without telling them. Nobody here is a mindreader.

I am all but certain the reasoning for manipulating the conversation comes down to this:

PrlUnicorn wrote:
I think my own thoughts regarding how to deal with people forfeiting, without valid reasons, especially those that do so a lot, might be too harsh for some people’s liking. I’m looking forward to seeing the changes in the DoM rules regarding this and other issues.

I am no longer willing to accept this stance, because this stance has been poisoning this entire conversation. You have a harsh stance on forfeiture, the DoM staff seems to be generally in agreement with you, and you specifically are making sure that the discussion cannot continue in a way that gives my ideas any sort of momentum, so that you can maintain the status quo--heck, make sure it gets codified--and roleplay according to your harsh stance. It's no longer productive for me to beat around the bush, so I'm just going to say it: I no longer believe this discussion is occurring in good faith, and I am calling you out on it.

Great thing about these conversations is you aren’t required to accept anyone’s stance. Just like nobody here is required to accept yours. Nobody is making sure the discussion can’t continue, you just don’t like the responses you’ve been given because they don’t affirm your feelings and they don’t bow to your wants. Sorry bud, this is simply a discussion that didn’t go your way and you aren’t getting what you want out of it. That happens sometimes.

I said earlier that there is a reason that the RP accommodations don't offer me any sense of security, and that DoS has already been affected by this issue. I feel like we are generally in agreement that OOC quits should not have IC consequences, right? Well, too late. We already failed on that, with the March All-Ranks Tournament in Swords. Ellie reached grand finals from winner's side, and Reign reached grands from loser's side. The two of them had already fought earlier in bracket. Reign--or more specifically, her player--wanted to bow out. An OOC quit. Both characters wanted different prizes and Reign's player did not want to continue. Because Reign offered to concede and because Ellie was in the finals on the winner's side, she was declared the winner of the tournament.

Maggie and Rachael utterly went off on her for taking the win without fighting a duel. The scene was very stressful, and the only person in Ellie's corner, Mira, could only help her escape the situation. I was assured by both players at the time that there was no blending taking place, but I no longer believe that to be true. After all, by this point, I had already brought up the forfeiture issue in the green room. I believe both players held grudges against me because I feel that we should take measures to allow forfeiture, and that grudge affected Ellie's concession victory of the ART, and all of her interactions with both characters since, one of which caused me even more stress due to manipulative conversational tactics that occurred.

Now this is the part I’m excited to engage about. Because you are misrepresenting things and making it to be something it isn’t. I have the conversation you and I had that night about wanting to bow out but it isn’t like you’re making it out to be and I am not okay with being invoked to further your cause.

Reign’s request was IC. My request to you OOCly came after Reign had already ICly expressed she was tired and asked if Ellie knew what prize she wanted. Ellie asked why but answered her and Reign expressed she was exhausted and after their last match, wasn’t keen on a rematch if they could both get the prizes they wanted. This happened close to 5 full minutes before I DMed you to ask if that was okay. I let you know at the time that my partner was under the weather and it was our halfiversary so if I could sneak away to get more time with him, I’d gladly take it. It wasn’t an emergency, it wasn’t any big deal on my side, and had you or Ellie said no, I would have fought the fight. I was super grateful to get to duck out but it wasn’t the end of the world if I couldn’t have. Reign, being who she is, would have groaned, nodded, and jumped into the next fight had she been told she needed to keep going. Instead, since everyone was in agreement, staff included, she thanked Ellie, took her prizes, and went and spent the rest of the night in the lagoon, as she said.

There have been plenty of tournaments in which the final round has not happened because the final two fighters knew what they wanted from it and if you can agree to it, precedent already supports stopping earlier and divvying out the prizes from there. We even had joint winners of a Megacast because of it once. Wild, right?

Secondly, this was between rounds. We had not started the next match and therefore it wasn’t a forfeited match through the bot. It was simply the end of the tournament at that point.

Thirdly, as mentioned, this was a tournament, not regulation that standings keepers have to sift through and review and put together each week. It was also overseen by the literal head of Duel of Swords so that ICly and OOCly, it could be signed off on, instead of having to wrangle a DoS member to arbitrate things in the moment.

As for the RP matters, had Reign (and myself) known that Ellie was catching flack for it, she would have been inclined to say something. That said, to the best of everyone IC’s knowledge, the concession was In Character. Not everyone was privy to our private DM conversation and even if they were, our IC interaction and request came first, so I would say that they were truthful in saying there was no bleed because to the best of everyone’s knowledge both IC and OOC, it was an IC thing.

But you wanna know what’s great? If you had felt like there was something going on or that people were being too harsh, discord has these lovely things called direct messages where you can hit someone up and talk it out. So much of what I’m seeing here in this entire damn thread and the initial events leading up to this, could have been resolved by people talking like ***ing adults instead of expecting others to know what they think, what they want, and what they expect.

I am not doing this exhausting topic any service by continuing to act like this grudge is not poisoning the conversation, because it is. And it has repercussions on the topic at hand; the fact that this happened contradicts one of the anchors this conversation has been taking for granted: we are not supposed to give anyone any grief for OOC quits. It's too late; it's already been demonstrated that we can't do that, and even though I should feel reassured by the safety net of the RP accommodations we have been assured exist, I don't. I don't at all.

As mentioned above, to the best of everyone’s IC knowledge, it was an IC quit. Not an OOC one. So your statement about saying it’s been demonstrated we can’t do that is an argument in bad faith, a misrepresentation of the situation, and a flat out gaslighting of those involved and I’m going to call that out.

I think you’re mad that IC actions have IC repercussions and didn’t like that someone’s response to Ellie was something other than rainbows and sunshine.

So the dirty laundry is aired, and the finger is pointed. Is it a good move? I don't know. While it is not tactful or diplomatic to point out what I believe to be foul play and bad faith participation, it is potentially enlightening, and addressing it can help the conversation move in ways that it was prevented from moving before. Do I feel relief for getting this off my chest? I do, and at the end of the day, no matter how much I care about this game and community, I have to tend to myself first. I needed to do this.

Will I face consequences for this reply? Probably. Maybe I'll get banned, maybe I'll be stonewalled by the players I have indicted, or other players who support them. Maybe my DMs will get lit up by people who don't like that I've made this reply. But the situation where I keep stifling these feelings to participate in a conversation that is only allowed to move on the terms of a group of strong-willed, strongly-opinionated players and I am unable to point it out? Well, I already don't want to play in such an environment. So if I get banned or stonewalled from playing, it doesn't actually end up making any effective difference. Except now that I've spoken out, I feel relieved. So whatever happens next, happens.

Trying to put the idea out there that you could even possibly be banned for simply speaking your mind is gross and I expected better from you. Jfc, you should know better. Do better. I hope the “relief” is worth the burned bridges because that’s really all you’ve served to do with some of those statements.

Changes have already come from this thread (and Kira’s). DoM has updated the setting description to include tribal knowledge for newer folks that aren’t familiar like the wards and the magical items rack, the rules have the forfeiture part codified as requested, the rules were updated as promised. To act like nothing has come from this is disingenuous. It just so happens it wasn’t what you wanted.

--Claire
Retired DoM Coordinator

[Alasdair Galloway]

In regards to this thread:

I haven't felt the need for an official DoS response as the position for DoS is the same as DoM.

We may end up adding the same language to the DoS rules as DoM has recently done. But in all honestly, forfeiting mid-duel has never really been much of an issue to my recollection, so it's something of a lower priority.

As for my personal opinion, I think allowing IC forfeits would harm the game, as then it might become part of the meta, or could be used to troll players/characters. This would also give more work to standings keepers, as would the idea of taking away wins. I think it would introduce more problems than it would solve.

In regards to the all-ranks tournament, it is not uncommon for the final two duelers to discuss their prize choices beforehand and if they come to an agreement, end the tourney without any further duels. This is done between duels and not in the middle of one, which is an important distinction when it comes to comparing the situations.

If there are any further questions or concerns, my door is always open here or on Discord for conversation.

Alasdair
Duel of Swords Coordinator

[PrlUnicorn]

It's going to take me a while to process Neo and Claire's posts. However, I want to thank Alasdair for weighing in in both an official and player capacity.

In regards to the all-ranks tournament, it is not uncommon for the final two duelers to discuss their prize choices beforehand and if they come to an agreement, end the tourney without any further duels. This is done between duels and not in the middle of one, which is an important distinction when it comes to comparing the situations.

This is indeed a very important distinction. During the last ART of Na-rae's time as DoS Coordinator, Tass asked Maggie want prize she wanted before the final match. He sometimes asks that if he's willing to offer a tie. Maggie told him that she had to do it on her own. She had her heart set winning on the Dragon's Gate ring in that single elimination tournament. He understood that and they went on. I have always believed if that if a tie was not allowed that Na-rae would have said so before allowing things to proceed.

[PrlUnicorn]

Anyone that opens discussions like this should always be prepared for dissenting opinions. They should also be prepared for the long haul as historically speaking they go on for what seems like forever. They are exhausting and, sometimes, soul draining. In my experience, players tend to avoid subjects that don’t interest them. Many do not speak up on duel related posts because they don’t take part in dueling. To be blunt, some people are just not interested in having a huge discussion about what they don’t view as a problem. That I recall, Neo is the only one that has actively pressed questions regarding forfeits in the last few months.

Neo, you might want to refer to the following threads A Call For Mutual Respect in Our Community and Age Appropriate Live Play which refer to issues that concern the entire community. They will give you a good idea how some of those things can go from what appears to be an inquiry/request into a flaming trainwreck. I’m going to offer an unspecified trigger warning regarding them for that reason. Some players just don’t have the spoons for what might happen. Others, to quote Sweet Brown, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Many players prefer to focus on the positive things like the Pride Events going on rather than getting bogged down in rules discussions that sometimes end with someone losing their ever loving mind or getting pissed off and digging their heels in because a decision didn’t go their way. I can’t say that I blame them for wanting to keep their sanity intact as best they can.

With one exception, I have done my best to not lose my temper on those in this discussion. When someone says they don’t understand, sensible people would take that as a cue to explain their position to someone seeking clarity. When one chooses to not do so, they are responsible for that lack of action. The interpretations of others are not really acceptable substitutes, I nor anyone else is sharing that person’s head with them.

Let’s talk about this first:

I am all but certain the reasoning for manipulating the conversation comes down to this:

I think my own thoughts regarding how to deal with people forfeiting, without valid reasons, especially those that do so a lot, might be too harsh for some people’s liking. I’m looking forward to seeing the changes in the DoM rules regarding this and other issues.

I am no longer willing to accept this stance, because this stance has been poisoning this entire conversation. You have a harsh stance on forfeiture, the DoM staff seems to be generally in agreement with you, and you specifically are making sure that the discussion cannot continue in a way that gives my ideas any sort of momentum, so that you can maintain the status quo--heck, make sure it gets codified--and roleplay according to your harsh stance. It's no longer productive for me to beat around the bush, so I'm just going to say it: I no longer believe this discussion is occurring in good faith, and I am calling you out on it.

I said earlier that there is a reason that the RP accommodations don't offer me any sense of security, and that DoS has already been affected by this issue. I feel like we are generally in agreement that OOC quits should not have IC consequences, right? Well, too late. We already failed on that, with the March All-Ranks Tournament in Swords. Ellie reached grand finals from winner's side, and Reign reached grands from loser's side. The two of them had already fought earlier in bracket. Reign--or more specifically, her player--wanted to bow out. An OOC quit. Both characters wanted different prizes and Reign's player did not want to continue. Because Reign offered to concede and because Ellie was in the finals on the winner's side, she was declared the winner of the tournament.

Maggie and Rachael utterly went off on her for taking the win without fighting a duel. The scene was very stressful, and the only person in Ellie's corner, Mira, could only help her escape the situation. I was assured by both players at the time that there was no blending taking place, but I no longer believe that to be true. After all, by this point, I had already brought up the forfeiture issue in the green room. I believe both players held grudges against me because I feel that we should take measures to allow forfeiture, and that grudge affected Ellie's concession victory of the ART, and all of her interactions with both characters since, one of which caused me even more stress due to manipulative conversational tactics that occurred.

My stance is as follows, anyone forfeiting, without a valid OOC reason, on any given night should not be allowed to duel for the rest of that session. Penalties should escalate accordingly. That’s not my call to make, it’s just my opinion on the matter. Had you asked, I would have been glad to clarify that for you. As I said, some might find that too harsh.

As for calling me out, I’m now calling you out.

You should go back and reread that conversation. Maggie was upset with Ellie because when she asked if Ellie offered Reign a tie, which to Maggie would have been a fair thing to do, Ellie hadn’t even considered asking if it was allowed. Maggie let it go after a few days, but you via Ellie, continued to bring it up in narrative for some time. I believe the issue of thoughtpoking/sniping has been addressed ad nauseam. You constantly put things in narrative that players should not/cannot respond to. It is exhausting, at best, to constantly deal with that. I am sure I have brought that up with you at least once in the last couple of years.

I want to point out that this has been in Collie’s old Dragonsmark profile (For some reason, it didn’t transfer to the RoH when the profile was carried over) for years because I got tired of people using that technique. The thread related to it in the Dragonsmark OOC area is long gone.

A note on telepathy - all animals includes people. Collie tends to avoid reading the minds of others unless it's directed to her or about her. She feels it's rude to prod the minds of others without permission unless their life is at stake. (Such as being unconscious) However, if something even perceived as an insult is "thought" at or about her, she is likely to respond verbally or with her own thoughts. In short, if it goes to screen, it's fair game.

Maggie and Pearl also have that ability, but I temper it. So, yes, Maggie was able to feel that negativity toward her coming from Ellie. I didn’t have her openly react. This is much like I don’t always let it be known that she understands any given language.

Because of that behavior with what I saw as thoughtsniping, I nearly withdrew from Zodiac. I can’t speak for others, but I did notice participation slacked off some once the ‘Pesky Oxen’ and other narrative comments started. Constantly seeing negative narrative that was directed at people involved in that tournament was also exhausting. Rather than withdrawing, I let Maggie take the lead. Her answer was go duel her ass off, become overall MVP, help Ox win and help Tiger get to second place. Maybe it didn’t occur to you that what you were doing was being taken that way, but it was. You talk about the scene with Ellie, Rachael, and Maggie being stressful, yet, you were poking at both of us and possibly others this way ALL THE TIME. You think that’s not stressful? It saddens me that your behavior might have caused a lack of participation in what was meant to be fun and an extension to the usual game.

It’s also clear to me that you haven’t noticed that Maggie has pretty much been avoiding dueling with Ellie since she started telling people she preferred, for lack of better phrase, low impact duels. I want to touch on that. (Maggie has been in a war zone for the last year, she’s grown more selective about when she duels certain people. She can't always control how hard she hits someone. ) Ellie telling people she has never dueled with is a no harm, no foul situation. However, depending on how it is approached with someone that has previously dueled with her and never harmed her, the request could be seen as hurtful or insulting. The implication is that even though they haven’t harmed her, they might purposefully choose to do so in the future. Think about that for a bit. Would you not feel hurt or insulted if someone made that accusation toward you? That’s how I, as a bystander, saw Ellie treating Rachael one night.

Now this is the part I’m excited to engage about. Because you are misrepresenting things and making it to be something it isn’t. I have the conversation you and I had that night about wanting to bow out but it isn’t like you’re making it out to be and I am not okay with being invoked to further your cause.

Reign’s request was IC. My request to you OOCly came after Reign had already ICly expressed she was tired and asked if Ellie knew what prize she wanted. Ellie asked why but answered her and Reign expressed she was exhausted and after their last match, wasn’t keen on a rematch if they could both get the prizes they wanted. This happened close to 5 full minutes before I DMed you to ask if that was okay. I let you know at the time that my partner was under the weather and it was our halfiversary so if I could sneak away to get more time with him, I’d gladly take it. It wasn’t an emergency, it wasn’t any big deal on my side, and had you or Ellie said no, I would have fought the fight. I was super grateful to get to duck out but it wasn’t the end of the world if I couldn’t have. Reign, being who she is, would have groaned, nodded, and jumped into the next fight had she been told she needed to keep going. Instead, since everyone was in agreement, staff included, she thanked Ellie, took her prizes, and went and spent the rest of the night in the lagoon, as she said.

There have been plenty of tournaments in which the final round has not happened because the final two fighters knew what they wanted from it and if you can agree to it, precedent already supports stopping earlier and divvying out the prizes from there. We even had joint winners of a Megacast because of it once. Wild, right?

Secondly, this was between rounds. We had not started the next match and therefore it wasn’t a forfeited match through the bot. It was simply the end of the tournament at that point.

Thirdly, as mentioned, this was a tournament, not regulation that standings keepers have to sift through and review and put together each week. It was also overseen by the literal head of Duel of Swords so that ICly and OOCly, it could be signed off on, instead of having to wrangle a DoS member to arbitrate things in the moment.

As for the RP matters, had Reign (and myself) known that Ellie was catching flack for it, she would have been inclined to say something. That said, to the best of everyone IC’s knowledge, the concession was In Character. Not everyone was privy to our private DM conversation and even if they were, our IC interaction and request came first, so I would say that they were truthful in saying there was no bleed because to the best of everyone’s knowledge both IC and OOC, it was an IC thing.

I’m glad to see this! Bottom line here is that I, the player, was not aware of any inkling of OOC circumstances that prompted Reign’s IC desire to concede in the tournament until the IC conversation with Ellie, Maggie, and Rachael was over and done. So, no, there was not any blending going on there.

Between rounds is not after a match begins and, as Alasdair already pointed out, there is a distinction. I was under the impression that the original subject of this thread was about forfeiting regulation duels after they had begun and things that sprung from it on the night it was brought up in the Green Room. Did we somehow get sidetracked from that even further?

I think you’re mad that IC actions have IC repercussions and didn’t like that someone’s response to Ellie was something other than rainbows and sunshine.

I happen to agree with this. Ellie, for whatever reasons, started to change several months ago. She was different and wasn’t always the creature of light that I had become used to. That kind of change prompts reactions from characters.

I have been doing my best to participate in good faith. I have spent literal hours on every previous reply I have made to try and make sure things move forward and to do the best I can to avoid ruffling feathers and take responsibility for what wrongdoings I have done. But where I am right now, where this is right now, it makes me not want to play. I feel like if I do not give relief to everything that is nagging at me, I won't want to play here again.

There’s honestly no point in trying not to ruffle feathers in this kind of discussion. It’s usually best to say what one needs to and get it over with. Saves time and sanity.

I have felt utterly stonewalled and forced to chase around distractions through the course of this entire conversation. And I feel like those participating on the side of this discussion of "we should at least give this some consideration" have been stonewalled as well. Serenity has not been back to continue participation. Robert has not been back. Arthour has not been back. The responses to them have amounted to what comes off as, "you don't understand accurately, so your participation is not valid." While they cannot confirm it themselves, we should consider it to be the case that they've been chased out of the conversation, leaving me as the only person advocating for my position.

Buzzer sound

Wrong. Serenity posed questions that were answered. If they elected not to come back because it was sufficient, that is not stonewalling. Arthour came in, admitted he did not read the thread or conversation, offered something that confused those participating, got offended when someone asked for clarity, and then didn’t come back when it was further explained. Robert came in and from the get go said if the powers that be were not willing to give him what he was asking for that he didn’t want to hear or participate in the conversation and then had the audacity to outright write off the reasons that were given and essentially told everyone that they weren’t valid and weren’t true. So fuck that. If calling that out means someone doesn’t come back to the conversation, then so be it, because it was explained. Thoroughly. And if someone wants to be rude and unkind in the conversation then I have minimal patience for the back and forth with that.

I also got the impression Serenity’s questions were answered.

Like Neo, Robert tried to interpret Arthour’s idea for me. I appreciate that attempt, but I said, none of us are in his head. Perhaps Neo and Robert understand Arthourese and I don’t.

As for Arthour, well, this was not my first experience with the player dropping into the middle of a discussion, not reading the rest of the discussion, dropping their opinion, and leaving others in any given discussion facepalming because their lack of interest in giving anything other than those two pence was glaringly obvious.

The only people who have participated in this conversation consistently are me, DoM staff, and Collie. Kira and Dris offered valuable contributions to the conversation, but they haven't been back since. (Though Kira has started the off-shoot setting consistency/clarification thread, which I am grateful for.) Serenity, Robert, and Arthour were chased out. Staff from DoS and DoF have not said anything, and neither have any site-wide admins. Nor staff in the non-dueling roles; but not their monkey, not their circus. I know there are many reasons for staff from other sports to not want to participate in this; they could offer an opposing view that affects the perception of DoM staff's participation, or they could be on board and not want to make it seem like I'm being dogpiled more than I already am. Or other reasons. But this issue isn't going to affect only DoM. In fact, it already has affected DoS. Are we going to end up in a situation where some sports have different stances on forfeiture than others? Is that something we really want? I understand why that can has been kicked down the road, but I am not sure that lack of participation from the other sports' staff is healthy any longer.

I have known Dris over two decades. During that time, I have known Dris to say what's on their mind and stop posting. PERIOD.

Max was appointed to the Board on 2 Jun 2022, before this discussion began. It is possible that one might interpret her being on the Board and being Coordinator of DoM as presenting a conflict of interest in this case. I don’t view it that way, but some might. Given that her appointment was before this discussion began, she has been reading. I’m troubled by the fact that her additional position seems to have gone unnoticed by you.

Sadly, what I have seen here by trying to bring the Board members and other staff members into a discussion that involves sports rules is the equivalent of a child or children trying to pit the family elders against each other.

I’m also reminded of a somewhat distant friend that never seemed to understand that it's ok to agree to disagree and insisted that I MUST agree with them. Even with a safe word in place to change the subject in any given discussion to avoid hard feelings, they always pushed past the boundaries.

I posted the idea of forfeiture with penalty nearly a week ago, and it has not received any sort of response. Sure, we all have other things to deal with, this is something I strongly sympathize with. Even here, you all have been running a site-wide pride event all week, and I imagine that there are cases where people who would have wanted to respond couldn't because the energy they had for engaging with the site was used on pride. But the post has had responses since then, all of which utterly and completely ignore that idea. Again, keeping the conversation on the terms of those in opposition to my ideas.

Did you post a link in Player Announcements on the server to let people know the discussion was taking place? One of the staffers can verify if that’s acceptable. Not everyone using the server reads the forums.

I believe there’s a poll feature on the boards. Again, perhaps staff can address that. Did you consider creating a poll as part of your post that allowed people to choose where they stand on forfeits without necessarily adding opinions to the thread?

Those are possible options open.

When I did the bartender and other things gig in SEB, Etrigan was in charge. Something he used to say seems apt for this discussion, “Some people wait for answers. Some people wait for the answers they want to hear.”

[Neo Eternity]

I intended to post this on Wednesday, but I didn't because I was busy. And then on Thursday, it wasn't really the right day because the SCOTUS was doing stuff. And then on Friday, it really wasn't the right day because the SCOTUS was doing stuff. I imagine that many of us spent Friday protesting--I was at the one for my area--and I imagine there were protests going on Saturday as well that you all may have been involved in. For that reason, even though I retired Neo's Barony for the ART on Saturday, I held off on replying even though I was worried about speculation on why. That speculation can now end.

Last weekend, I read the replies since my last post. There are ways in which it exploded that I was surprised by but should have expected in retrospect, and ways that it didn't explode that I was afraid it would, but am relieved it didn't.

I want to start with some matters that I realized in reflection necessitated addressing. First, I raised a claim that the March DoS ART's handling was in contradiction to the necessity that we need to handle OOC quits gracefully. I ultimately agree with Claire's counter-claim and will address that in a bit, but more pressingly, I realized that I've already contradicted myself. Because although we wanted Ellie vs Lillian to be an IC quit, it ended up becoming an OOC quit, and Ellie responded with various internal remarks about the ward. We've already addressed why it's problematic in a setting integrity context, but this narration also failed in hand-waving away an OOC quit, which I do believe is important for us to do. All I should have had Ellie do was remark "oh, it stopped" and then move on with her night, but I made a thing of it. I apologize for that.

I also realize that I never addressed some of the concerns that Max raised in her original reply to me way back when. One thing that sticks out to me is the implied ad hominems she found in my wording where I implied that various ways of thinking about and approaching situations where quitting a duel becomes a relevant option were the only reasonable ways to do so, or the most by a large margin. Tying into the reasonability thing, I do still strongly believe that the insistence from multiple players that Ellie should have just continued the duel just because Lillian said she could is shockingly and troublingly tone-deaf at best--that leads into why I'm leaving--but the implied ad hominems I originally made were not fair either, so I do apologize for them.

Also regarding Max, I indeed was not aware she was appointed to the board, but I don't know how that is troubling. I'm not staff anymore, and I was just a player who participated with a smaller subset of free time than most other players here. I know where to find the information if I need it, but I don't keep up with it. I don't see how it was necessary for me to. I am not sure that I believe there is a conflict of interest in Max being a member of the board. It does seem that any word she makes regarding dueling does have more weight because of that position, but I don't know that this is bad. Despite attempts to portray me as a child for wanting to know what staff from other sports think, there was really no further motive than simply knowing how they will be running their shows with regard to this matter. It is possible that because of the added weight of Max's opinion, it's less necessary for other sports to speak up on a given matter because it could be assumed that they'll just follow what she says. Whether or not this is bad is a matter of perspective that I just really don't care about anymore.

I would prefer not to partake in tone policing, so I'm not going to address how Claire said what she said, but I will address what she said. And she is right: when Ellie and Reign settled the DoS ART, it was only presented as an IC matter. It stuck in my mind as an OOC matter, but the OOC facet was not communicated to the others. I remember feeling at the time that it was not prudent to go telling Claire's business to everyone to try and get Ellie out of the flack she was catching. But it stuck in my mind as OOC, and it also felt to me like it was related to the first time I raised this issue. I do agree that this situation was very much misrepresented by me. It was not out of malice, it was not an attempt to gaslight. I remembered it differently because my perspective in that matter was different. I concede that I was wrong and apologize for the misrepresentation.

There was mention that I should have started a poll, or I should have asked people to come to the thread to express support. I do think in retrospect that I maybe should have, but I'll explain why I didn't do those things.

First, I thought that a poll was not well suited for what I wanted to do here: collaboratively discuss and explore ways to enable ending a duel without making it exploitable. It obviously didn't work. The "other ways to achieve the same outcome" was meant to be toward the outcome of preventing exploitation while allowing quits, although what it did result in wasn't bad. A poll wouldn't work, because the way I hoped the conversation would go was that people would come in and post a bunch of different ideas, and I couldn't really go and make a poll until a bunch of ideas were pitched. A poll could be made now, but there's not much point for me to do that anymore. If anyone else wants to, go nuts.

Second, directing people to go participate in a thread hoping to bring about your preferred outcome is frowned upon in other types of communities I participate in; it is called brigading there. I felt that getting people to come here in support of my ideas would be manipulating the conversation, and I didn't want to do that. However, after having it pointed out and thinking on it further, it could very well have been true that getting others to come here would have been a perfectly valid thing to do in the context of this community, especially if I used wider avenues like the player announcements channel to bring a wide variety of people here, rather than just asking people who I know agree with me to come here.

And so, in not having done that, I did not give my ideas the chance to succeed that they deserved. I think the ship has sailed in asking people to discuss this, and for all intents and purposes, unless someone else dissenting comes by to reopen the discussion, this matter appears to be settled. I am not dissatisfied with the ultimate result of the debate; I had a feeling that nobody would budge on this. That said, we have elaborated many ways to resolve duels that accommodate a myriad of IC situations and are supported by staff and popular players, so in that manner, the situation now is better than it was before the thread started. That is true regardless of what I feel.

If anyone else does want to make a poll or further discuss ideas, there is an additional one now on the table: disallowing anyone who quits a duel from dueling for the rest of the night. I have a lot of strong grievances below the fake horizontal rule, but regardless of them, I actually think this is a really great idea. Think about it: for a large majority of situations where an IC duel quit would become relevant, if not all of them, the quitting character would not be in any condition to duel for the rest of the night anyways. It was pitched as cruel, but I believe it is actually very kind. I am not interested in any further discussion, but if anyone else thinks there is more discussion to be had, then I think this is a great jumping-off point.

--- --- ---

And the fact that we have the fake horizontal rule means that we're getting back into my feelings.

I feel super gross about continuing to participate in this community. It's no longer about the forfeiture issue. Ellie's treatment has been poisoned by much worse factors; I'm leaving because I'm deeply troubled by things that have come to light during the course of this debate. It is going to be very difficult to police my own tone here, because the things I've read are honestly very upsetting.

Let's start with the second most upsetting thing first. The least upsetting thing gives me a segue into the most upsetting thing. You're upset about the thought-sniping that can happen due to Ellie's narration style. Which other players have been very open with me with and (I thought) have trusted me to improve on. Which you had been open with me with as well. I entirely agree that it is a problem, and I have done my best to work on it. I have done my best to avoid having Ellie's inner voice or narration make any observations or thoughts regarding other characters without corresponding reactable narration, like a facial expression. I thought that I was doing a good job.

So why is that being brought back up now? As some sort of receipt that you've been holding on to throw at me or something? There are two conclusions that can be drawn from this, and both are upsetting for different reasons. The first is that I actually have not been improving; for whatever reason, I am unable to remove the influences from her writing that lead me to write thought snipes. That's very disappointing if that's true, because that means I can only write Ellie around players who are able to work around that. And to be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being unwilling or unable to work around thought snipes even if they're unintentional. The second is that I actually have improved, but that improvement is being ignored, or actively erased, for the purpose of holding a grudge against me or dragging my name through the mud. Which then begs the next question: Who else is doing that?

Now on to the least upsetting thing. You held a grudge over Ellie having referred to the Ox team as "pesky Oxen." I have two things to say about that, but we're going to start with the most complicated thing first so I can get the segue to the most upsetting thing next. Participation did end up slacking, but not because of Ellie's squeaky clean trash talk that can barely even really be considered trash talk. It is because the Ox team ended up being actually, legitimately unbeatable. I didn't want to rain on the parade of an event that the DoM team worked very hard on, and in most aspects, did a really great job on. But this had actually bothered me the entire time. So if you're bringing up the Zodiac Trust here and now, then I am shooting your nonsense down here and now.

The Ox team was unbeatable because it had a team full of dedicated players and the other teams did not. Let's look back at the lineups, shall we? And we'll only consider people who scored points. Ox had Maggie, Mira, Xanth, Jackson, Szuzak, Michelle, and Morgan as scoring participants where the players had no other characters in the competition on other teams. Tiger had Rachael, Uriah, and Tass. Rabbit had Droet. Considering that I stopped playing Neo since I put him on Ox and I could not move him anywhere else, we can also consider me a sole Rabbit player as Ellie. Let me say that again: The team arrangement of the Zodiac Trust caused me to stop playing Neo in regulation duels for most of the competition. Ox was already inevitably going to run away with it; why play Neo and make it that much worse? And yes, Ox's victory really was inevitable. Look at the numbers: seven dedicated Ox players vs three on Tiger and two on Rabbit. Ox had more dedicated players than the other two teams combined! And when you consider the players putting up significant points, the disparity gets worse: Four players on Ox scored 100 points or more vs three on Tiger and two on Rabbit. Two players on Ox scored 200 points or more vs one on Tiger and one on Rabbit. And only two players scored over 300: you and me.

There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the Zodiac Trust; it was a great idea and I am sure it will be a great event when it gets run again, but it lacked some protections to keep things from getting lopsided. Players should have only been able to enter one character into the competition. Some of the players with multiple characters ended up dedicating the majority of their efforts to one team. I cannot speak as to why that happened; the reasoning for some players is likely not even related to the competition at all, thanks to the event's rich setting expansions. But it did happen, so that should be a rule for the next one. In addition, leaving the choice to fate should ensure the teams end up better balanced.

Ellie and Droet were the only people who were consistently showing up for Rabbit. It was a veryfrustrating experience for me. I could not hold it against any of my teammates; they have every right to play as whoever they want for whatever reason they want. So I wasn't upset with them at all, just the situation. And I had to keep that from bleeding into Ellie. Poor Ellie who was the sunshine of the team and couldn't get people to come out, but just wanted to participate in a team event with friends. And you're upset that she dared to call the--again, legitimately unbeatable--Ox team "pesky?" Come on.

My opinion actually diverges from what Ellie's opinion would be here, so here's mine first. I could not invent more sanitized, squeaky clean, friendly competitive talk if I tried. I know because I did try! That was the best thing I could come up with! When there is a team competition, there is certain to be a degree of trash talk. It was Ellie's first (and now, only) time participating in any sort of long-term team-based dueling competition. I gave her the most squeaky clean way of having friendly, teasing trash talk. She doesn't want to actually talk trash. She just wanted to get into the competitive spirit. I've never heard of anyone being upset at being called pesky. But some people don't like being teased in any way at all, which is something that Ellie is happy to accommodate. She was ready to have a talk with Maggie about this, and make amends on that. Here is her divergence of opinion on mine. She does not want to upset people at any cost, and will always concede to satisfy others and make amends with them. Part of that is due to her profoundly friendly nature, but part of that is due to something called fawning. Fawning is a realistic trauma response where you go so far out of your way to appease another person that it has an adverse effect on you, out of fear for any kind of retaliation from that person. Fawning has the unfortunate effect of leaving someone vulnerable to having their thoughts, feelings, and speech controlled by others.

And that's the segue into the most upsetting thing. Ellie's depictions of trauma are meant to be realistic. I know that I have the option to lean into more fantastical depictions that hand-wave more things away. I think it's perfectly fine and valid to lean into fantasy depictions and coping strategies for trauma, but that is not what I want to do, because I feel that I am not doing proper service to writing a queer female character as a cis straight man if I just hand-wave trauma away. That is my decision to make, and while at times I certainly miss the mark, I was not under any impression that the community found the decision to write Ellie with realistic trauma to be invalid.

Until now.

Because of all the things that players in this thread have said about these traumatic situations. "Ellie should have continued the duel just because Lillian said she could." This is something even staff said, which makes it particularly troubling. I called out why that was problematic and nobody had a damn thing to say. And you, specifically, Collie. All of these cruel things you have said about her, and harsh treatments from Maggie and Rachael, which I will expand on soon.

"Ellie is no longer a creature of light"??? Are you kidding me??? She has been recovering from trauma that just keeps happening to her from December all through March! Do I need to summarize it? No, I don't think I do. That's part of why I posted the last two chapters of Ghost in the Mirror that I had been sitting on; the other part is because I think there are players who legitimately did love her exactly as she truly was, and would want to see those follow-ups before I go. The problem is, I have no idea who those players even are anymore.

The one significant part of trauma that is not covered in Ghost is Ellie's duel with Uriah in March, because those chapters occur before it. But that event leads into another part of trauma mishandling that is disturbing me. Ellie went through a very violent duel. She had to not only figure out how to not be in those situations anymore, but she had to heal from that trauma somehow. As has been pointed out by staff here, violence is an inherent part of dueling. The only options are to just take her out of the rings, or have a coping strategy. Which in this case, is making sure that anyone she steps in a ring with is safe to duel, friend or no.

I have tried, at the request of a friend, to think of any way in which finding offense from this can possibly be a reasonable response from someone who considers Ellie a friend... and I can't do it. I can't figure out how this could possibly be reasonable. She went through powerful trauma from an especially violent duel, and is trying to cope so she can spend time with her friends! It's not like she forgot about her past with those friends; the fact that she did remember is part of why she tried at all! You would think that friends would be able to understand how this works and would be able to reason through and understand and empathize with this in order to help her continue to participate in something they enjoyed together, but clearly, that is not the case. Or were they really ever her friends at all? Rachael is definitely no friend of hers, since she could not stop herself from being petty and used dishonest, manipulative conversation tactics to try and deny it when Ellie called her out. You two are definitely in cahoots on Ellie's mistreatment and have been the entire time.

This mishandling of realistic trauma is extremely gross. It may not be fair to attribute this conflict with you, Rachael, and who knows whoever else to the community, but the "who knows whoever else" is the problem. Nobody has posted in support of your opinions, but nobody has stepped forward to rebuke you either. And I know that many players don't even know this thread is happening, because I failed to do my part in expanding its participation and because everyone has other things to do. But regardless, it means that I have no idea who I can trust. What other players have been holding on to the thought sniping receipts so they can hold grudges against me? What other players share these harmful ideas regarding trauma? I don't know who I can trust and I just do not have the time or energy to deal with that anxiety anymore, especially when I have other things in my life that bring me joy without any of this baggage.

That is the reason why I am leaving once again. And I think you are particularly guilty, Collie. Ellie's willing to give ground on any sort of teasing at all, but I think that the response to "pesky oxen" was an attempt to be offended on purpose. The fawning response could have been exploited to control and shape Ellie into what you think she should be rather than what she actually is. Not the creature of light that other players already saw her as--again, I don't know who, but there's no way it was nobody--but your version of what a "creature of light" should be and do.

I was building up toward a storyline where someone was going to get into a relationship with Ellie and use her trauma to manipulate her into a warped version of who she really wants to be, impacting her happiness and relationships. And to think a microcosm of it almost happened anyways, right under my nose! I do not know if this is what you want for Maggie, and that's something you will have to reckon with on your own. I want Ellie to keep whatever friendships she has after I leave, but she can't be friends with anyone who would have exploited her fawning without taking any accountability for that.

It is one thing if characters mishandle trauma. That is a building block of very strong stories, and I already have built stories based on that with players I trust. An exploitation of fawning is a building block for a strong story. But this isn't our characters. It's you. You are the one who has said that Ellie is no longer a creature of light. You are the one who is asserting these harmful opinions.

You're one of the longest-lasting and most popular players on this entire website, and you've set a horrible example for others. So I have to worry: who sees it the same way as you do? Who already did see it this way before this thread even happened? Who is going to read this thread and see it this way now?

I can't participate in this community if there is any possibility that these harmful views on trauma are endorsed by a large percentage of players. If it's just you and a few others, I can block them, they can block me, we can move on with our lives. It's the fact that I don't know, which is so problematic. So I'm going to leave here and just write with the people I already know I can trust.

I noticed something pretty messed up. I sure have been making a lot of apologies. Way more than anyone else in this thread. I don't know if I deserve an apology for anything else in this thread just because I have been willing to offer them in the interest of responsibility and accountability for wrongdoing, as well as understanding and compromise... that last bit which I now know was not mutual from most of the thread's primary participants. I've been portrayed as some sort of problem child. But I know that I absolutely do deserve an apology for this gross mishandling of realistic trauma, and I know I'm not going to get one. So I'm going to indulge in the picture you've painted of me and take a parting shot. Your participation in Zodiac was spite that I was ignorant of that entire time. So I'm cashing the check I'm owed; here is *my* spite.

You only beat me in the Zodiac Trust by ten points. Those ten points could have been scored by me never having played Neo and only using Ellie, or by winning a duel during the last few nights I wanted--and was able--to participate. I couldn't find a duel those nights. I think it really was the case that most players just weren't feeling duels those nights. However, it is distinctly possible--mayhaps even probable--that I was intentionally snubbed by a different subset of players to make sure I could not get the ten points needed to tie it up. I really wanted to try for competition-wide MVP mainly because Droet and I could not possibly bring Rabbit up to where Tiger was, let alone Ox. That achievement was the only consolation I could have had given the rules stated in the Zodiac Trust's OP, which did not say that the MVP of the third place team would get anything. You said yourself that you went out of your way to make sure Tiger got second. In so doing, you went out of your way to ensure that me and Rabbit team would get absolutely nothing, zilch, nada, despite me having the second-highest score in the entire competition. Well, despite my frustration with DoM team's rigidity, they're not heartless, they do have sense, and they could clearly see how messed up this was. I got 5000 nobles regardless, and gave most of them to Droet. So you failed to make sure that I would get nothing. When you think about the possibility that I was intentionally snubbed by some players to make sure I could not tie for the point lead in the Zodiac Trust, it really gives credence to the staff's stance that players are chomping at the bit to exploit the rules. If one of the longest-lasting and most popular players did that, then what about other players?

You had so much more time to give to Rhy'Din than I did in that entire competition, and you did beat me in the Zodiac Trust, but you only beat me by a single win. That 80 point streak I picked up early on was thanks to isolating after Frosty Faustings and being unable to partake in my other activities for a week. If I could have dueled at that pace the entire compeitition, I would have been untouchable, because I'm one of the best players Duel of Magic has ever seen. I am tooting my horn, because I'm in spite mode. But I did partake in those other activities, and they brought me so much more fulfillment than this does. After all, they don't have me spending hours on typing up a reply to someone with a chip on her shoulder who went out of her way to grief an entire team to specifically spite me, because my character called the strongest team "pesky" when she was just trying to participate in the spirit of competition.

None of that is my problem anymore. This isn't "burning bridges". This bridge was already on fire, and I'm escaping it.

[Royal]

Well, despite my frustration with DoM team's rigidity, they're not heartless, they do have sense, and they could clearly see how messed up this was.

This is false.

You do not know my reasoning, you never asked me about it, and you never spoke to me about the Zodiac Trust outside of asking if Neo could switch teams.

You have apologized for misrepresenting what happened between Reign and Ellie, then proceed to misrepresent my intentions later in the very same post as a way to try and thrust me into your quarrel with another player. For someone who keeps going on about their feelings, you had no issue of not thinking of mine as you threw me under the bus with this snippet of post.

Fyi, I gave you the prize because I wanted to be nice. Anyone who had gotten third place MVP would have been given it.

[Angelic]

I haven't wanted to touch this thread with any pole of any length for many reasons.

One, I agree with DoM's ruling, and think that the changes to wording that came from the discussion were very productive. It cleared things up on all fronts brought to light.

Two, I am, at best, scatterbrained and terrible at debate, argument, making myself clear, etc. I have this problem a lot. My brain don't always work right.

Let me be clear here in saying first and foremost that I come here as a community member.

Calling Morgan a heavy hitter is... wildly inaccurate. As for the Trust itself, seeing it reduced down to only the meta of it really irks me and makes me feel that you discounted the work that went into the *story* aspect of it. This was shown best by the player of gatito, who took their zodiac symbol and ran with it in a very narratively driven way, regardless of their points or position on the "leaderboard". In fact, that you did not mention them, or many others, while choosing instead to focus one who you thought were "heavy hitters" (Did you reference the individual scores before your rant?) makes me think that maybe you really either A.) Aren't paying all that much attention beyond your close circle/sphere or B.) just wanted something else to complain about. And considering the content of your last post, I know which one I am leaning more toward.

I don't think I've made some huge secret that there are members of this community I do not get along with, but I also do what adults do, put them on ignore, and move on. I do not sit here and attack them in threads. The things I've read here (all of it. Just... All of it.) have left me shaking my head.

On the subject of your thought sniping, I remember publicly asking you not to do it in the green room (Do I need receipts? The word keeps coming up.) and you continued to narrate in ways I had no way to respond to against the character associated with this very name, and so eventually, I really just did not want to play anymore. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't think you're improving nearly as much as you think you are. Or at least, not enough that people outside of your close friend group and people that are totally fine with that sort of play want to really deal with it. I know I got tired of it and didn't want to play Angel around Ellie at all anymore. I tried, at first. I really did. I am a person that enjoys playing with people of all types, even through conflict. I love conflict! As long as I can react to it.

I would touch on trauma... but don't have the spoons to touch on that whole... thing. You know. As a queer woman that has experienced trauma.

I end this with this thought:

While I hate to see anyone leave the community, I understand and support your decision wholeheartedly, if it's not a place you feel comfortable or welcome. I hope that, at the very least, a little time away gives you the opportunity to level high running emotions, and you can come back to us one day with a clearer mind and ready to write more amazing stories with us.

[PrlUnicorn]

I probably shouldn't do this, but... catharsis is needed.

Should you return to the server in future, Neo, I hope you learned a few things from this discussion and that history doesn't repeat again.

1. When someone disagrees with you, that does not mean they hate you.
2. When someone doesn't like an idea, it doesn't mean it's because it's yours. Read the boards, I have disagreed with Royal and Claire several times on varying subjects. I have also liked and supported ideas from each of them.
3. When someone tells you, "No," accept that that is their personal decision on any given matter. It's probably best to not do a deep dive beyond that with any individual. Trying to force agreement can cause resentment.
4. When something stops being about the logical reasons and potential benefits of why one wants to see a ruling changed and becomes about how someone feels, it is no longer really a discussion about rules. (I refer you to your own references about the recent SCOTUS activities. Those decisions are sound examples of why rules/law and belief/emotion need to be kept separate in such discussions.)
5. Don't call someone out unless you are prepared to be called on your own behavior. Your reaction in this entire thread is to redirect to how others made you feel without considering the reverse. Even when you are told how crappy you caused someone to feel, it was still all about you.

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Remember: “When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.” - Louis C. K. This does go both ways.

You didn't understand why you not knowing Max was a recently appointed board member bothered me. It bothers me because it told me that you didn't pay attention to anything outside, for lack of a better phrase, your personal box. You complained about sitewide admins not weighing in and never took the time to learn who they currently are. That begs the question, "What else did you miss?"

For someone that goes on and on about your own feelings, you don't seem consider those of others. I often lose track of conversations I have with people and when I check DM/PMs, I realize that I sometimes drop the ball and end up apologizing profusely because a week suddenly became months. (Sometimes, it is too late because the person on the other end broke off contact.) This is especially true with people I don't contact on a regular (meaning daily/weekly) basis. My last DM conversation with you was 13 Apr 2022 and we talked about Ellie and Maggie meeting up to chat. Seven days later, my elderly father, who had been very ill for months, died. What you wanted/needed from me became septenary to what I needed to do and am still doing. And this ... is what else you missed. I thought you had simply missed that post, now, I'm not so sure. So, while you're going on about your character's trauma, mine at losing a parent was very very real.

As for history repeating, I remember the last time you presented an idea on another platform, similar path and result. I had hoped you had learned then to stick to your ideas for possible rules amendments and not bring emotion and personal feelings into it. You continue to do it and continue to open yourself to emotional harm then blame others for it. IIRC, you did more harm to yourself than good in that discussion and, much like this time, left that group afterward.

Despite my ire at your behavior, I sincerely wish you the best of things. If you wish contact me in the future, my PMs are open to you.

Peace out.