FrankenDaughter

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

@Mao Mao Probably hours before I was informed that the proposal had gone through. q:

I was holding off celebrating until the changes went live. So, tonight, I get to go drinking and eat something fancy.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

We did it.

I want to express a sincere thank you to everyone who added their voice to the proposition that lead to this amendment. A lot of eloquent and thoughtful motherfuckers really came out of the woodwork and helped refine/expand the scope of what needed to be done. Good-good stuff.

Hopefully the next step, holding one another accountable, will reinforce the groundwork accomplished this month.

GGs.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

Legitimate question: What attacks have been going on toward marginalized groups on this site? Maybe my social circles here just haven't overlapped with those that have seen it, but I've never come across anyone who's here to terrorize or belittle someone from the groups mentioned above. I've also got some concerns about policing speech on the Guild unless this issue extends beyond one or two jackasses who could be dealt with by alerting the mods about their behavior. Adding rules doesn't stop people from being bigots, after all, and there will probably always be a few skulking around.

@Dagger

As the discussion on the Discord server has become quite in-depth and involved recounting some of the history you're asking about, I'm loath to retread that history here when I am actively managing participation at present. If someone else wants to, I welcome them to do so.

Second question: If this issue is prevalent enough to warrant action, what solutions are being suggested to handle it? I'm interested in hearing the specifics.
[/quote]
The immediate proposal is exactly what it says on the tin. Support for marginalized groups should be included in the rules. It affords both community members as well as staff accountability for themselves and one another.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))_

Y'know I was about to quote

• Respect all members. Be pleasant to each other and treat people how you would like to be treated. Remember that respect comes in all forms and should be applied in everything that you do. When disagreements arise in discussion be sure to address them in good faith, ensuring that you avoid escalating them into any unnecessary conflict.

as being an anti-harassment rule but, as it turns out, this one is worded super lax. Still, I think the spirit of a rule called "respect all members" naturally umbrellas into "also respect the members of a more marginalized identity", don't you?

@Ammokkx

No, because the spirit of that rule's laxity does nothing to expose/speak to implicit bias. On the one hand, members are expected to make the same decisions staffers have to with vague rules on matters they may have little to no understanding of. This occurs every time they might speak out in a channel and every time they feel inclined to PM a staffer. On the other hand, staffers' implicit biases are fit to come on display whenever they decide to take a proactive role in enforcing the rules. This is the precident by which such abuses of power have been carried out, both by members and staffers.

Otherwise I mostly agree with Dagger here; if there's harassment, I haven't seen it. If it's private enough, then I'm sure the members in question should be reported and dealt with accordingly. The mods on this site are pretty open folk; I really doubt it's a systemic problem. I'd also really like not to be stalked on this site; people can report me if my conduct is out of line (though most of my warnings come from the status bar, so I'm basically painting a target on myself, really)

I'm not ruling out the possibility of there being nasties on this site, but I really doubt they're ubiquitous enough to be much of a "root cause" problem.

@Ammokkx

I'm inclined to believe that the main site is, at present, much less likely to be seething with subtle bigotry than it used to be. But I have not been an active member for some time outside of the Discord. I am still a writer, but I am in between my days of writing for roleplay. What I am not is an absentee. I have seen enough history on guild ti know that it has not always been so tame as it is now.

I am not under the impression that the calling out of individual abusers or bigots is necessary at present--I will state explicitly now that I have no interest in this. But setting more explicit standards by which we can hold one another accountable to will make it less likely we will need to do so in the future.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

(This is a mirror post. Another has been posted in the Off-Topic forum, but, as this is likely a time-sensitive manner, I felt it worth the effort to post here as well.)

An open discussion on our Discord is presently being held. For years, RPG's staff and members have had a difficult time enforcing the rules regarding respect for individuals when attacks against such people could be veiled as attacks on specific groups. The examples over the years of this kind of bigotry are myriad. I have taken it upon myself to give voice to our concerns--ones that I think center around the future accountability we deserve to see from site staff as well as an improvement in our community's ability to care for and reassure one another.

Because of the open nature of the discussion, I am asking marginalized peoples throughout the site to come and offer their support for this endeavor. Staff should be made to witness the difficulties that this has caused for POC, queerfolk, disabled persons, and marginalized peoples the world over. RPG is an international community. It should be held to intersectional standards of accountability for the safety of its members. Please come join the discussion.

(Remember you need to be signed in through the Discord link at the top of the bar in order to view our discord server.

The channel in question and the beginning of the discussion:
discordapp.com/channels/3139427885364…

A more coherent restating of the case for changing the language of our rules to support marginalized groups, and a TL;DR for those not willing or able to sift through the first day's talks:
discordapp.com/channels/3139427885364…

I would also encourage anyone who would like to post here to use this as another avenue of discussion. I have no idea how many people don't use our Discord server, but I assume that number is at least a little higher than those that do.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

An open discussion on our Discord is presently being held. For years, RPG's staff and members have had a difficult time enforcing the rules regarding respect for individuals when attacks against such people could be veiled as attacks on specific groups. The examples over the years of this kind of bigotry are myriad. I have taken it upon myself to give voice to our concerns--ones that I think center around the future accountability we deserve to see from site staff as well as an improvement in our community's ability to care for and reassure one another.

Because of the open nature of the discussion, I am asking marginalized peoples throughout the site to come and offer their support for this endeavor. Staff should be made to witness the difficulties that this has caused for POC, queerfolk, disabled persons, and marginalized peoples the world over. RPG is an international community. It should be held to intersectional standards of accountability for the safety of its members. Please come join the discussion.

(Remember you need to be signed in through the Discord link at the top of the bar in order to view our discord server.

The channel in question and the beginning of the discussion:
discordapp.com/channels/3139427885364…

A more coherent restating of the case for changing the language of our rules to support marginalized groups, and a TL;DR for those not willing or able to sift through the first day's talks:
discordapp.com/channels/3139427885364…

I would also encourage anyone who would like to post here to use this as another avenue of discussion. I have no idea how many people don't use our Discord server, but I assume that number is at least a little higher than those that do.

Xayah and Rakan!

Unto inferno, vastaya

hillo

hello

The First Magical Incursion

Posting this character in its current state to clear their magical ability with the showrunners herein. Let me know if its within bounds.

Also, should I bring Poet in again? I wouldn't be porting in her old intro--she'n Doorman would be working as a twosome this time around. I could also just work them in as Guilders if there's a disparity to correct for.

Doorman & ???

Walter 'Doorman' Glassier

Image Pending
Name: Professor Walter Camden Glassier
Sex/Gender: Male/Male
Age: 57
Alignment: Dark Shadows - Radicalized
Rank within Organisation: Cell Leader? (Pending)

Birthmark/Details: A waxing moon roughly four inches round. At birth, it was barely a sliver of brown tissue underneath his left nipple. Over the course of his life it has overtaken his chest like some bizarrely over-sized areola. Its texture mirrors the moon's face towards the earth, and Walter is rather convinced that the mark will form a perfect circle near the end of his life. There seem to be another two inches to go.

Magical Ability: Portals!

The Guild describes Professor Glassier's magical affinity as Aperturence or Portaumancy. It is an exceedingly rare affinity, doubly so given that the subtlety of its manifestations in a budding mage leaves one vulnerable to a wide array of fatal mistakes. Scientifically, Aperturence can be accurately described as the creation and alteration of wormholes, but this belies the Lovecraftian curvature of spacetime and how radically magic can twist it like a knife into one's intentions. Fixed portals to alternate realities or other parts of the globe is the realm of conjurers, who used spellcrafts of every kind in the magical eras of yesteryear to achieve precise control over reality. Aperturence is instinctual, effortless, and terrific. An apprentice Aperturant can cross a street as easily by walking through the invisible portals they intend to master as by crossing it with their own two legs. An adept Aperturant can pull the portal past themselves, crossing the street without moving a muscle. A Master Aperturant can open and pull that same invisible portal around someone a football field away and close it just so to slice their skull in half.

Feats In Recorded History

---Possibly the most devastating use of Aperturence in all of recorded history involved voiding the contents of an active volcano onto a city some three hundred miles away from where the volcano was. By all accounts this would have required a level of focus and familiarity with the space involved so fine as to be unthinkable in the modern world.
---Before The Vanishing, it was theorized that Faeries traveled exclusively by Aperturence, not by the power of flight as is understood through folklore. These theories have prompted present day Guild scientists to look into the study of winged insects. Findings suggest that dragonflies and fireflies both achieve a crude level of Aperturence, though they use it in wildly different ways.
---It is a common legend among mages from across the world that cats have a natural affinity for Aperturence. Statistically, the only thing the Guild can be certain of is that an affinity for Aperturence has manifested with disproportionate regularity in cat owners or households that keep cats.

Limitations And Strengths

--Successful aperturence relies equally on focus and familiarity. An aperturant needs a good deal of focus to open and maintain the portals they use, with size and distance putting great strain on their mental faculties. Emotion, fascination, and puzzles are an aperturants first and worst enemies, and many a master aperturant performs their best when immersed in a lifestyle where physical and mental exercises can afford them a clear mind at a moment's notice. Focus is the easier skill to hone.

Familiarity is another matter altogether, with wider implications for what it means to practice and understand magic in the modern world. Familiarity to an aperturant doesn't just include a mage's sense of spatial awareness and knowledge of their surroundings, but their knowledge of matter, physics, and atomics. The greater an understanding of the world around them, the easier aperturence becomes. Familiarity includes a good deal of esoteric knowledge like air quality, the chemical composition of every item that might go through a portal they control, and other details. Everything an Aperturant doesn't know about the portals they're manipulating or the places those portals are can put a strain on them.

There's a working theory that Familiarity is a double-edged sword and that the more humanity's collective knowledge increases, the more of a role Familiarity plays in limiting aperturants from greatness. Most mages (Professor Glassier included) dismiss this theory as post-hoc nonsense, as the decline of Magic has affected all affinities the world over. While there are no aperturants that can cross a continent in an instant as was possible only centuries ago, the fine control afforded to aperturants today by their expertise can allow them to perform stunning subtleties of magic like telethrombosis (artificially clotting blood through microaperturence) and translocal ballistics (a technique using a portal on a mid-flight projectile to relocate it directly into an intended target with perfect accuracy). In short, MAgic has closed a very large door, but left in its wake a number of open windows for aperturants to explore.

Biographical Information

Place of Birth: Baltimore, US
Currently Residing: New York, New York
Personality: Pending
History/Bio: Pending

Relationships

Pending

The First Magical Incursion

There can definitely be ambiguity within each faction.

Also, uh, heya. I'm willing to give this another go.

OBLIVION— a linear superhero roleplay

Eternity lies
ahead of us and behind.
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