CoAIII OOC; just moving it here

It was super mushy. But still very nice. :)

Yes, it's true, and a little sad, that Jalines and I just aren't in the habit of maintaining close relationships with the people physically around us. (I mean potential school friends; family is an exception, of course.) Maybe that'll change someday. The silver lining, at least, is that it makes our contact with you guys that much more special. :)

I would have posted by now, except I've been hard at work on my newest deviation for all of this week! Yes, I'm advertising. Go and see it. Anyway, I'll probably think of something to post in the next day or two, if no one else does so first. (If someone does, then I'll post anyway. :P)

Oh, and I don't know how I forgot to mention it, but Jalines and I have all of next week off of school! It's like a President's Day break, but longer than the actual President's Days.

Hey, it's back to black! Thanks to whoever removed the Lucky Charms background. I didn't actually mind it that much, but it had gotten quite old after staying up so long.

Hey uh, sorry that I've been absent from here and all. I came to a point where I didn't know what I was doing with Aelirsa anymore, and just wanted to avoid the situation until I worked it out.

Well, I can't say things are sorted. What I can say is that running away certainly wasn't the right course of action at all. I just hope that I'm not too late to redeem myself for not giving it my all.

Hey, no worries! I completely understand wanting to withdraw from problems like that... I've done so a shameful number of times, I must admit. I'm truly glad for you, and also kind of amazed, that you've managed to see the flaws in that approach so soon. It's taken me a matter of years to realize how much better it is to be proactive instead. I consider you redeemed just for being willing to reevaluate your course of action and come back ready to give it your all once again.

If you're concerned that changing Aelirsa's direction will make her previous behavior inconsistent, then don't be. Looking back, I can't believe some of the weird stuff I made Ev do earlier on, yet I've just kept going with the new ideas I realized made more sense. I even thought of a rather plausible explanation (which I hope to include IC eventually) for why he would have acted so differently before. I'm sure you could come up with something similar for Aelirsa, if you feel like you need one.

Funny, the day after I decide to try and make things right, the forum takes another dive into utter stupidity.

I've stayed here purely for this RP, but the fact of the matter is that my patience is at its end with some of the people here. And I'm not sure that I can keep coming back here while said people remain.

Maybe this is a good time to take a break, because I'm pretty sure that the stupid ones aren't going to leave, and I highly doubt Eo is going to move the RP again. Figures.

Take a break! But you were just coming back! Not to mention how this RP is slow enough as it is...Well, I've seen a sort-of-solution on my brother's computer - he keeps his web browser window kind of small, so he mainly just sees the gray part and doesn't get much of the stupid background.

That said, I have to agree with you. I never look at anything else on this forum. Still, it's no reason to let our much more mature RP be ruined.

I'm still struggling to overcome compulsions at will. Thank you OCD. Anything that I have made a habit of is very difficult to break. And unfortunately, that includes looking at other places on the forum.

I suppose I could spend a day plotting out my next post. I've been writing Dead Space theme for so long that it's becoming a struggle to keep things interesting. Getting back into the mood may help both worlds, if you know what I mean.

Ah, at least it went away quickly. Thanks again, probably-Eo.

Do whatever you need to do; it's not like much else is happening. :P Um, although a post from you could be helpful in getting things moving again.

Alternatively, Jokie, you could steer clear of the chatbox since "those" people, are usually the most active members in it. I'll talk to Eo about it, but don't expect anything to get done. It's only the chatbox and while there were some silliness, the severity of the situation was actually rather minor.

In any case, I'll be glad to talk more about it over PM's as to avoid clogging CoA's OOC.

Honestly, we can't keep you here.

You guys honestly, truly want to leave, do it. I'd be sad to see you go, but do it.

Find a new forum, transfer the rp there, and who will stop you? At best Eo, but if you don't say where you're going, he'd never know. If that's what you want to do, do it.

If you guys take this and run with it however, that's fine with me. Honestly? I took a long hard look at my notes for this a long time ago and realized nothing whatsoever made any sense at all. So that's why I haven't been posting: I've got nothin'.

I'll officially commit the RP into your hands, and do with it what you will.

Hey hey hey, I overreacted, said some things and left to calm down. It happens, I'm the sort who has a tendency to do that. Not much I can do about that.

But what I can do is just avoid situations I know are going to be bad. And there's no need to move the whole RP to do that. All it takes is a little willpower.

Back on topic, I for one am really sad to see Eo go for real. I was aware that there had been some problems, now I feel really bad for bringing them out into the open over such a silly incident.

But - but - but we don't know where the plot's going!! I know you said it doesn't make any sense, Eo, but we need something!

...Or maybe we technically don't, but I, at least, was looking forward to finding out the sinister plot you had in mind for the enemies. Apparently it's nonsense, but maybe you can tell us some parts and we can change it how we want to from there? No, wait, to keep the surprise, it would probably be better to just private-message one or a few of us. Which means I'm suggesting that, if you really are leaving, Eo, we pick a new GM somehow or other.

That leaves me to wonder, what do we do with Leaf? We could either have someone else start playing her or find a reason for her to scram. I'm thinking maybe she doesn't want to get any more negative attention and would like to reassure her family she's all right (there's been mention of worried grandparents or something). Of course, you could always keep playing her, Eo, maybe riding along with the revised plot we end up making.

Oh, and try not to worry too much about it, Jokie - Eo finding his plot nonsensical is independent of anything you did. Besides, if this is an issue that's been hanging around, bringing it into the open is probably a good thing. If nothing else, I'm glad to know why Leaf wasn't doing anything. :P

I don't think we need to move the RP again unless something drastic happens with the forum later on; continuing here would be fine with me.

(Whoops, Michangs got in before me... I don't really want to bother rewriting all this, so just interpret my repetition of anything he says as an "I agree.")

Oh my! That's... really, really major. You being the creator, Eo, I'll certainly respect your decision, but if you truly want to step down, I'd like to request that you tell us (or at least one of us) what you had in mind for the plot. I can't imagine being able to continue Children of Aurnia properly without an overarching story to follow, whether it's your original plan or some kind of modified version that we/someone can make out of it. Since you're the only one that knows what was going to happen, the roleplay would become very different and much less focused unless someone else were to know what the events so far have been leading up to.

I hope I speak for everyone when I agree with Jokie and say that moving really isn't necessary or something we had in mind. So, thanks for the suggestion, Wolfji, but we weren't looking for anything like a hostile takeover or coup. This forum is just fine for our purposes, at least in my opinion.

Also, Jokie, I don't think you should blame yourself for bringing this issue out; in my view, it's ultimately helpful that at least something is happening. I was starting to sense even more slowness and uncertainty than usual building up, and I was becoming seriously afraid that CoA might actually join all those other RPs in lethargic death. I didn't expect Eo's declaration, but... now that the problem is out there and something has changed, hopefully the roleplay has an opportunity to pick up again.

I don't mean to sound insensitive about your departure, Eo; I greatly respect your roleplaying and GM skills, and I wouldn't want to see you go if it could be avoided in any way. In fact, now that I've been thinking some more, maybe instead of just giving one/some/all of us the plotline, whoever gets it could collaborate with you to turn it into something that makes more sense. I realize there may well be other reasons you want to pass the RP on, but if the story is your only concern, then you could keep administrating with the edited plot. I've come up with a plethora of stories that seem cool at first, only to realize how utterly flawed they are later; I just cut away the nonsensical details and reconstruct reasonable ones with the same underlying idea I started with, and then they turn out pretty well. The same thing can be done for CoA. It'll be harder to do with an RP in progress, of course, but I think it's quite possible. That is, again, if there aren't other reasons you want to step away. It's always your choice, but I want to make sure the faulty story alone isn't discouraging you that greatly.

What!? Eo's leaving!? But...what will we do without a plot to work off of? And who will run it? This just happened so suddenly! Dangit, this is why I'm supposed to keep up with the OOC!

Is there any way we could at least know the direction we're going in, or some way we could help revise the plot into something more manageable? To be honest, I'm not really sure what this group would do without you--I certainly have no guesses or ideas for what could happen next, and I don't really think that any of us are really ready for leading a roleplay; we do move a bit like herding cats, sometimes. ^^;

I really want to see a proper end to this roleplay, not one where we suddenly disband, like so many others...and I'm not sure we'd survive without Eo or some sort of script-plotty thing sent to one or a few of us.

I'm really determined to keep this roleplay alive, even if I've contributed to all the lethargic-ness. I was almost finished with this next post, too...

In summary, I really think that you should at least give us some sort of plot we could revise, if you won't come back to us. This roleplay really shouldn't die...

(I can imagine bringing in a character to drive the plot in the right direction, or have Val fill that role, since he was off adventuring away from the group, if JTC's still interested. It wouldn't be the same, though...)

I assumed my departure was common knowledge at this point, honestly. I'm sorry I didn't say something about it sooner.

I can try to get in a few more posts and set things going in a vaguely proper direction of some sort. I just need to sort some things out first.

You know, Miirik, I'm sure your post is still as valid as before. Having a change in the overall plot just affects what we'll do much later, not really right now. And I don't think this RP could die off so easily when we're such devoted fans. We're only done when we say we are! :)

No problem, Eo. It seems to me that everyone else is busy too, so there's no major rush.

Hey guys, just so you know, Michangs and I are going off on a short college tour; we'll be away for the rest of today, all of tomorrow, and the start of Thursday. I just didn't want there to be any confusion in case a post happens that needs our attention. If any of you have a post in mind, though, don't let this discourage you! Activity is always good.

I would say more, but that's all the time I have. Goodbye for now!

Good luck on your tour.

Several of the players need to check their PM's, by the way.

That last post of mine is basically an invitation to skip ahead whenever we want. Since Eo won't be doing much GM'ing anymore, I can't say I know what we're supposed to find at Luis' address, but all things considered, I think it would be fine to make something up and run with it. Our record slowness has me worried, in case you can't tell. So, any way of inspiring a few more posts is fine by me.

I'm not so concerned with how disorganized we are at the moment; since there isn't such a defined plot we're going after anymore, it kind of frees us up to invent whatever. Ideally we'd have a clearer idea of who should be running the show, but I think it would be okay as long as it would be helpful for enough people. Of course...we can't do much here about being busy. :/

I'm sorry I haven't been on here in awhile. Life has become... hectic to say the least. Schoolwork has intensified, extracurriculars have been increasing, multi-week headache, etc. I promise to try and come on here more, might be able to help with creating a sort of plot too, if needed.

So, I've pretty much been waiting for the end of the school year to put in much activity here, because I figure that school business has been holding up at least a few of us. Well, now that that general time is upon us (just a few more days for me), I'm thinking we can start discussing what we'll find at Luis' house and then promptly skip there. Or if we'd rather do something else, I was also thinking I could come up with something on my own, since Tem's the one who "knows" how to find the place.

Well, those are my two proposals for getting a little more activity again. We might also decide on a new GM...despite suggesting that I could decide on a setting by myself, I'm not exactly pining for the position, partly because I like the suspense of not knowing the story. I'm open to the possibility, though.

Also, keep well, Wolfpaw! Or Lupus! I hope things have calmed down since your post.

Ok, I've returned from my two recent trips and have a few weeks before I leave again. I think that heading over to Luis' house would be best, maybe employing a quick time-skip to the arrival would help speed things along as well.

I'm open to doing some collaboration over PMs with those that decide to act as GMs. I don't mind knowing what the end result will be as long as this rp remains moving.

Thanks for the concern, Michangs. Things have actually gotten quite a bit better now. :)

All right, but what I really meant was that we should decide on specifics - I know we're skipping to Luis' house, but what will we find there? Is it a well-off area of the city or not so much? Who would be living there for our characters to talk to? Would any danger suddenly pop up? Those kinds of things.

Well anyway, I'm glad that things have improved. :) Is your school year going to end soon, by chance? Jalines and I actually just graduated yesterday (yay!), so I expect most other schools to wrap up in the next few days or weeks.

Yeah, I was waiting until the end of school too... although I feel really guilty for not making that clear beforehand. Sorry for my very lengthy silence.

Now, I'm not among those who received a PM from Eo, so I don't know anything about the rest of the plot... or how much of it the PMs even addressed. However, I want to mark myself as a candidate for refining the upcoming story, and even becoming the new GM, if no one else is hoping for that position. I'm quite willing to take on the responsibility of the plot so that it can stay fresh for everyone else - especially you, Michangs, since I know how much CoA means to you. Don't get me wrong; I totally love this roleplaying experience too, but I'm most interested in aspects that aren't much determined by the plot: Ev's personal growth and his relationship with Kaden. That's why I'm open to knowing the story beforehand. Well, that and I think I'm pretty good at story-crafting, but... mostly the former.

If anyone else has more plot information or more strongly wants to take over, sorry to sound so presumptuous. I'm just saying I'd be willing to put some central leadership back into this if no one else has the inclination.

Anyway, regarding Michangs' questions, I'm reluctant to decide until one or some of us are certain of the intended plot, but I'd imagine it would probably be a poorer area. I guess his parents would be there... and maybe he has siblings? I don't know. As for danger... I feel like there should be a little sign of the creatures, like a suspicious movement right as our guys are about to go in or come out, but not an open attack yet. Eh, just some random suggestions.

Lastly, that's good to hear, Wolfpaw!