other rogue forestals

Rangor

this isnt a msg

Oceana

Rangor said:

@reihaneh @Gaia's done good things for Eleusis so far. She turned the Druid House from a mostly useless house who had no influence on the overall game at all, into a contributing house that has been a great addition to Eleusis. I want her to go into overdrive and continue pushing us though! Still so much she can do for us.

A mostly useless house? @Rangor that depends on your perspective (also slightly hurt now). Before the house joined Eleusis as a whole, we already had many members and allies of Eleusis. The house was also involved in Oakstone and in the Patrol Clan (guessing @Penwize's response here: ... Patrol... Clan...?), and still is. 

@Reihaneh We still permit HR5 to opt-out and leave/not join Eleusis. Especially for the new, younger players, it has been a good move. The only thing I regret is that our estate had to move to Eleusis.

Rangor

Well to anyone not in the House, we never saw anything of the house. Kinda invisible to the world.

Oceana

Reihaneh said:

---snip---

But really. I was one of the original members of the Treehuggers under my first character back when if you didn't think Eleusis and Oakstone were always right you were TEH EVIL, and now I am around to see the dogmatic, legalistic hot mess Eleusis has become since Lady Gaia's return...yuck.

---snip---

@Reihaneh You don't have to agree with everything Eleusis or Oakstone or your House thinks. If you really believe your point of view is better, work with it. Lobby, talk to people, write posts, ... try to change it, step by step if necessary. Just remember that change needs time, and quitting is not going to change anything.

Valdus

Rangor said:

I think that's plenty of response. See what happens when you call @rangor, @valdus? Made me go out on a rant! Shame on you.

Totally going to mention you when I need you again. It's like calling for help when Superman is around. He hears that shit.

Silas

Man.

Mishgul

Homo sapiens

Oceana

Have some bamboo to keep this thread going in the right direction.

Adet

"In the right direction" = "Towards image macros"? 

Edit: That looks far snarkier than anyone who posts as infrequently as I do has any right to be: sorry.  It was funnier in my head.  (I'll leave it for context, though.)

Tekk

I would find @Reihaneh 's comments relevant if she did not flip flop on the issue a few times. Fact of the matter is @Gaia is the faction, she defines it, sets the precedent for the houses/city that are a part of it, and allows us to push back when something is just unbearable. (and she's a total bad ass) 

Wysteria

Oceana said:

Have some bamboo to keep this thread going in the right direction.

Don't bring up that bamboo infestation we had in Eleusis again!

With the derailment of this thread it'll end up like this really:

Melodie

Oooh. I want to come blow up bamboo in Eleusis and set the whole place on fire again! With -permission-!

Totally made being a Mojushai worth it. :>

Reihaneh

Rangor said:

Reihaneh said:

In Eleusis, to me, it has always felt like things are very dogmatic. Either you subscribe to Eleusis's version of what serving Nature means, or you aren't a forestal. (The same case used to be with Oakstone...since Oakstone has become less of a force in the world, it's different now.)

Yes, yes, yes, YES, YES! Subscribe or gtfo please. These "hippie" "forestals" that feel they are true forestals while sitting in their grove or their city chatting with their friends and family. They really aren't doing much for the "RP". If people actually went a little bit deeper, they would find a LOT of lore around Nature, the past gods, the current gods, the abilities that are used and could build really cool conversations/debates/rituals/RPstuff around that.

Exactly.

The problem is, if you don't subscribe to certain people's interpretations of those things, you're a bad forestal.

Regardless of how much you RP, how much you are into lore and ritual, how much you know about forestal history.

And that's screwed up.

Reihaneh

Tekk said:

I would find @Reihaneh 's comments relevant if she did not flip flop on the issue a few times. Fact of the matter is @Gaia is the faction, she defines it, sets the precedent for the houses/city that are a part of it, and allows us to push back when something is just unbearable. (and she's a total bad ass) 

I've never flip-flopped on the issue, @Tekk.

One of the things I was always taught, in every part of the forestal community I've ever been in, under every character I've ever played, is that Nature comes first - before even the Divine. And the Divine - even the forestal Divine, even @Gaia - have done things to harm Nature in the past.

So the sudden "if you're not with @Gaia GTFO" thing in Eleusis where it's her/Rangor/Penwize/Delphinus's way or the highway makes me sick to my stomach, personally. Targossas is supposed to be a theocracy. They're up front about it. Eleusis wasn't a theocracy, and that was what a lot of people loved about it, until @Gaia returned. Now if you don't want Eleusis to be a theocracy, you're...how did @Rangor put it? "The little clique you surrounded yourself were mostly seen as the people we had to prevent from getting leath'ri positions at all costs, else they turn us into another lovable, uninfluential, non-com city."

God forbid anyone have an opinion that differs from those in power in Eleusis. (And at least the fact that I managed to get 30 votes and Logi's support, among others, in an election against Delphinus at the IC age of...27? 28? is enough to give me a little bit of hope for the future.)

And while it doesn't shock me, it does make me sad that you'd accuse me of flip-flopping, @Tekk, considering you and I have had this discussion dozens of times and I've maintained the same position.

Reihaneh

(Also, why can't we have a single effing thread about rogue forestals where the whole thing isn't a peer pressure pile-on about how Eleusis is the be-all end-all? Jesus H. This is the -rogue- forestal thread.)

Arditi

Here's a Nature analogy for you:

"The tall blade of grass is the first hit by the lawnmower".

Penwize

Ummm... Gaia is the voice of Nature.  There's really no disputing that, that's kind of exactly what she is, unless you want to just completely disregard Achaea's canon.  When she says something, that is by definition the will of Nature.  Since Eleusis focuses on the protection and preservation of Nature, yes they damn well should listen to Gaia.  That does make it sort of a theocracy, sure, but in less of a worshiping way than theocracies normally are.  We question her and work with her, but at the end of the day her voice is still that of Nature.  We're about working with Nature, cooperating with it, and defending it at all costs.  Ignoring Gaia's voice in that regard is just completely ridiculous, honestly.

I've gone over this entirely too many times, and it really feels like people are comparing it way too much to RL nature, the sort of trouble Shallam had with people comparing Good to RL good.  What gives?

Arditi

Penwize said:

I've gone over this entirely too many times, and it really feels like people are comparing it way too much to RL nature, the sort of trouble Shallam had with people comparing Good to RL good.  What gives?

Because @Gaia may have killed and eaten a cute and cuddly squirrel, ergo, She is also a Nature abuser and on par with Mhaldor. We shouldn't worship @Gaia because She's just as bad as Mhaldor, and She causes us to harm Nature when we get into fights with Mhaldor and they come in and exterminate because they're mad at us. We should hold out until there's a perfect manifestation of Nature who will delete extermination and the red fog and then we'd never have to fight ever again.

Arditi

In all seriousness, it's the classic "good enough is the enemy of perfection" problem.

There's never going to be a faction identity that meshes 100% with what your character would want. Sorry. It's not going to happen.

For a personal example, take the @Kaitali stealing @Sartan 's scroll incident. 99% of Mhaldor wanted to raze Hashan to the ground for it, and rightfully so: It was a huge embarrassment and made a lot of people in Mhaldor pissed off.

I wanted to take a more subtle approach, i.e, get someone seemingly unaffiliated to buy the scrolls off of Kaitali, get the scrolls from the unaffiliated person, and solve it without razing Hashan. I set things in motion, but I'm just one guy with a master plan, and I was subsequently overruled because, well, Hashan delenda est. As could be expected, Mhaldor raided Hashan a lot, and it caused a lot of discontent because nobody likes guard killing and sustained raiding, with the exception of @Dunn. From my perspective, if someone's got a hostage, you don't go over and start killing the hostage-taker's family because they're far less likely to cooperate.

Would it have worked? Maybe. Probably not. Was I disappointed? Very much so. Did I quit Mhaldor in a huff because it wasn't working the way I wanted it to? Not a chance in hell. It's one black mark in a sea of "Mhaldor fits Arditi like a shiny new pair of Boots of Dexterity™". Ultimately, I don't think that Mhaldor would have gone with my plan because, let's be perfectly honest, this solution is entirely selfish: Nobody else gets to play save me, Kaitali, and my potential middleman.

If you want to affect change in your faction, you have to bring change that other people will want to work with. Going isolationist is just going to drive out people that want to kill other people, and going full military is going to drive out the snugglebunnies. It's a balancing act, and people that quit in a huff because they feel like they can't affect change in an organization need to look at the perspective that other people might have. You have to work towards the benefit of the group, not the benefit of me and maybe a few of my friends.

Tekk

Reihaneh said:

And while it doesn't shock me, it does make me sad that you'd accuse me of flip-flopping, @Tekk, considering you and I have had this discussion dozens of times and I've maintained the same position.

Flip-flopping was a bad phrase and not what I intended. My apologies there. That came off much more dickish then it was meant in my head. We're still faced with the point that even the Goddess of Nature says it is this way, so it's this way. If you don't agree, fine, but you are wrong. 

Wysteria

Nature came before Gaia.  

Nature needed a physical voice. 

Gaia is the manifestation of Nature's spirit. 

Gaia is Nature's voice. 

Ergo She is the Goddess of Nature. 

This is the same as Artemis being the manifestation of the Nature's cataclysms. 

She is Nature's Wrath. 

If anything, Pen and Rangor (and myself) are of Artemis. So don't think there's some bias happening here and we're just kowtowing and whoring ourselves to Her for TFs or whatever. You left the House and Village under questionable circumstances and that's in-house politics I will not divulge it here for all to see. You did a lot for the House, but you didn't exactly leave in the most mature of ways in my eyes. In regards to the election, there is no real way to know who voted for you either. Yes 30 votes is quite positive for what it is, but it was't exactly a tight win/lose either.

Be a rogue but don't be a whiner. Start a group, get some ideas going, get people interested and see how it grows to something more. If you want to play bandit, don't be a douche. Be something we will respect in spite of the role you play. Give us something to fear and salute with our respects. If you're gonna be a reject, be one noone hates because of ooc reasons. 

Right now, all we sense is high school drama and another episode of Days of our Lives. 

/end rant

Wysteria

Ugh last sentence should be don't be a reject people hate because of ooc reasons.

Dunn

Wat I'm always the guy talking @Jhui OUT of guard killing, @Arditi.

Silas

You should kill all of Mhaldor's guards to show them the error of their ways.

Dunn

Sartan has that strategy on lockdown, sorry.

Reihaneh

I find it both funny and sad that people are incapable of separating OOC and IC "hate."

The reasons I left the house weren't questionable at all. I made a personal choice based on the fact that ICly, I had been miserable in the House and thinking about leaving since y300 and Prythe, Herm, and Lucine convinced me to stay. When I hd to go dormant and was as up front about it as possible, as well as staying in communication w/Luci and Minxie about/during my dormancy, and I was still treated like I dropped off the face of the earth and kicked out of Sages for reasons Lucine TOLD me were OOC...that is what cinched it for me.

I have never had the respect of of the ruling clique in Eleusis. I used to care about having the Sylvans' respect, especially yours, Wysteria, but I definitely don't now. Caring about whether people like or respect me is a large part of what caused aIl of this IC drama for Reih in the first place.

/end rant.

And I don't care if anyone is "kowtowing" to Gaia or not. My main IC issue with Eleusis and Gaia isn't about Gaia personally. It's the fact that Nature comes before ANY Divine, in my eyes. If IC history were to repeat itself, I would hope those of you who identify Gaia as Nature itself would be capable of acting in its best interests, rather than Hers.

Arditi

Dunn said:

Wat I'm always the guy talking @Jhui OUT of guard killing, @Arditi.

Eh. You Occultists look all the same with your chicken heads and your flaming chariots.

Dunn

I haven't boarded no chariots since I was like twenty, doe.

Eld

Man, you guys have elections where someone can get 30 votes and lose?

Anedhel

Reihaneh said:

(Also, why can't we have a single effing thread about rogue forestals where the whole thing isn't a peer pressure pile-on about how Eleusis is the be-all end-all? Jesus H. This is the -rogue- forestal thread.)

Yes. Only opinions that agree with the OP please. Goddamn, you people can all be so discourteous sometimes.