[RESCINDED] CourierBravo Tries To Get Deputized, on ice!

[CourierBravo]

Ckey/BYOND Username: CourierBravo
Discord Name: courierbravo#0420
Position Being Applied For: Deputy Loremaster
Past Experiences/Knowledge: 2 years creative writing experience
Examples of Past Work: Applications for changes to Assunzione and Mars
Roadmap bullet points:

• Expand any human planets with small culture sections
• Create example characters for the wiki for each human planet, including non human examples
• Help expand Diona lore however I can and foster a Diona lore arc
• Run several "feel good" events and have multiple arc's that aren't gritty/dramatic and not war based
• Update any lore arcs that have left places with ambiguous unrest, or otherwise a lack of elaboration on the situation since then (Mars, Sol as a whole, Coalition)

Criticism: My only real complaint with the server's lore is that its too war focused. We have so many arc's that are built around war, civil unrest, or violent crime of some kind. While its a great tool for moving the plot forward, I feel like we're forgetting to write anything that elaborates further. We don't see any resolution that isn't immediate. Mars is still written from the perspective of right after the events of Violet Dawn. Sol is still fractured heavily without much elaboration on how any of that is going. We also don't see all that much good. Very little good happens, its just bad thing after bad thing. The most memorable event that happened to me while playing was when that Tajara soda was added, and the care packages that were sent. I'm so much more attached to that memory than most of the arc's that have happened since then. Its hard to be invested in the server's lore when its just war happening. We have too much yin and not enough yang.

What can I bring to the table?: Aside from the obvious, a fresh set of eyes and writing ideas, I believe my skill set can be best served in re engaging people who have lost interest for similar reasons I have. I think having someone on the team who wants to push forward with expanding culture is huge. Humanity and Diona are where I want to focus my efforts which are both sections that just dont see a lot of input compared to Skrell or Tajara. There's just a massive amount of work to be done, and I think I'm one of the handful of people who will focus on the area's that I think more work can be put into.

[Alberyk]

3 hours ago, Bejewledpot said:

Past Experiences/Knowledge: 2 years creative writing experience

Where? In aurora?

3 hours ago, Bejewledpot said:

• Create example characters for the wiki for each human planet, including non human examples

I think this is taking a step back. These were removed from pretty much everywhere since they were not popular with anyone in the team. Why are these examples needed?

I also think you have a big issue you should work on before considering joining any team: you are quick to accuse people to bad intentions out of character due to things they have done in character. This also applies to lore. I have seen you a couple of times claim that writers were insensive just because they wrote something negative that was somehow close to something that happened irl. The biggest example was complaining about the Mars' violet dawn because it was similar to a tornado you experienced. I think this is really a big thing that would cause a lot of conflict between someone who has a lot of administrative power over the team and the writers.

[Faris]

You made a comment on discord that implied you were applying for a laugh. I’m not saying that this is the case because I might be missing larger context on it. So I’d like you to clarify if your you are being wholeheartedly serious about this application or there is some other motive here.

 

I’d also like to echo the concerns that Alberyk brought up when it comes to accusations.

[NewOriginalSchwann]

Hello.

I, both in my position as a human lore deputy and as a person, have found your attitude, particularly as it applies towards lore, to be improper. While it was a year ago, your conduct on Danse Macabre's Visegrad application was so inappropriate that it required intervention by the staff team, and required the deletion of every one of your posts. This conduct included accusing the writer of creating a xenophobic and fascist Polish ethnostate. The post I am referencing has since been deleted and hidden by staff. This is conduct that is unacceptable for a normal community member, let alone a prospective member of the lore team's management.

Furthermore, I concur with Alb: you are very quick to assume the worst when it comes to the intentions of others, and often bring in-character spats into the out-of-character realm. As one of the main writers of Violet Dawn, I find the allegation that it activated some form of real-world trauma related to a tornado to be flippant at best and outright offensive to those that have survived similar disasters at worst. Your more recent comparison of the Mictlan arc to the Russo-Ukrainian Invasion is, in my eyes, highly disrespectful due to its use of a real and very current tragedy to get a "gotya" over the lore team.

With that aside, I'll get into the body of your application.

As a member of the human lore team I, much like Alberyk, do not support the re-addition of character examples on wiki pages. They were removed following a discussion with the broader team, and I cannot recall a single member of the entire lore team (at that point) arguing for their retention. To add them back onto the wiki pages would be taking a step backwards.

Our setting is a dystopia, bad things are going to happen. War is one of those bad things.

To conclude, you have consistently shown yourself to be incapable of the level head required for a managerial position and have not given me confidence in your abilities to do so in the immediate future.

 

[SilverSZ]

Hi, I think alot of concerns have been raised by my colleagues in this thread already that are certainly concerns of mine. The position of Deputy Loremaster and Loremaster at their core are positions based in cooperation with all of the lore teams and their members and if the attitude that you have displayed in the past, such as that shown to Danse in his Visegrad proposal, is remotely close to how you would act in the position it would be entirely unacceptable. You need to act on good faith with your colleagues and work to implement their ideas into the lore, whilst sometimes they will need to be changed or given a no, it can't be done in that manner.

I also agree with points raised by Schwann on the roadmap, I don't think adding character examples back onto the wiki is a good idea, and I wouldn't want to see that happen as well. I also don't like this idea of wanting to focus on specific aspects of lore from a loremaster. You mention wanting to expand Diona and Human lore specifically but then if you focus on those areas you will not have the time to look at other stuff. If you ask me synthetic lore needs the same attention as these parts of lore too, will you be able to focus on this stuff whilst seeing to other lore at the same amount? 

Finally, my own criticism. You point to your applications to change Assunzione and Mars as examples of your former work. Your Mars suggestions are to put it bluntly, not what I would consider an example of good work. In general it reads more like a mess of ideas at best rather than anything close to a suitable submission at the quality I would expect of anyone on the lore team. And the loremasters sit in a very important role of being a quality control check for lore and their approval to lore is essentially saying that it is quality enough to be used. Your Assunzione work was also what I would consider sub-par in terms of lore submission, whilst it is workable. It is is below the quality I would want to see as well and would have required substantial work in my opinion before being added to in order to flesh it out for the future.

Going forward, do you think you can produce work to the quality of the usual submissions placed on the wiki and perform the role of quality checking and reviewing other submissions in an unbias manner?

Thank you for your responses, and best of luck with your application.

[CourierBravo]

2 hours ago, Alberyk said:

Where? In aurora?

Personal work I'm really not inclined to share. (I know that's a major cop out, but its mostly writing work I don't want anyone but the intended handful of people to read.) For public work, it would only be the last couple of months.

 

2 hours ago, Alberyk said:

Why are these examples needed?

When I first started playing, I found these examples incredibly useful for wrapping my head around the intended "average joe" for a planet's character. I feel like this feature was crucial for the new players experience rather than any old players. Especially concerning planets like Eridani, who have skin tone restrictions based off its original settlers.

 

3 hours ago, Alberyk said:

This also applies to lore. I have seen you a couple of times claim that writers were insensive just because they wrote something negative that was somehow close to something that happened irl. The biggest example was complaining about the Mars' violet dawn because it was similar to a tornado you experienced. I think this is really a big thing that would cause a lot of conflict between someone who has a lot of administrative power over the team and the writers.

You're absolutely right to call that into question. I feel like I've done a lot of growing up since then, and I'm really not proud of a lot of that. I just assumed that writers were malicious outright because of something I experienced, rather than actually talking to them in any capacity. Turns out, writing about bad things doesn't make you a bad person, I was just an idiot. Shocking, I know. Specifically in relation to the natural disaster as a big one, at the time I was still processing the trauma of the situation and making a major ass of myself. I know I also took a similar issue with Caelphon and the Mictlan arc, but that was more an instance of bad timing/not understanding why that arc couldn't have been delayed a week or two.

[CourierBravo]

2 hours ago, Faris said:

You made a comment on discord that implied you were applying for a laugh. I’m not saying that this is the case because I might be missing larger context on it. So I’d like you to clarify if your you are being wholeheartedly serious about this application or there is some other motive here.

I'm completely serious about it, while my tone probably did come off as joking about applying, I sat and thought with it and I feel like even though I have a very low chance of getting the position, I'm missing 100% of shots I just dont take. As I outlined, I think there's several things I could bring to the team that would be beneficial. My personal goal is only to have the position for a short while to make the contributions I'd like to, help Caelphon meet the deadlines he wants to, then step down so someone with a different skill set and desired focus can take up the spot. I'd ballpark that at around 8 months to 1 year.

[CourierBravo]

2 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

I, both in my position as a human lore deputy and as a person, have found your attitude, particularly as it applies towards lore, to be improper. While it was a year ago, your conduct on Danse Macabre's Visegrad application was so inappropriate that it required intervention by the staff team, and required the deletion of every one of your posts. This conduct included accusing the writer of creating a xenophobic and fascist Polish ethnostate. The post I am referencing has since been deleted and hidden by staff. This is conduct that is unacceptable for a normal community member, let alone a prospective member of the lore team's management.

Thank you for bringing this up, even though I thought that this was water under the bridge and a year ago, but I digress. Yes, my conduct was improper. I was punished accordingly, which has since been removed from active record. And I apologized for it, and anther time since then to Danse. If you would like verification of punishment, you could ask a moderator of some flavor, I'm sure they could look at my profile and confirm that for you.
 

2 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

As one of the main writers of Violet Dawn, I find the allegation that it activated some form of real-world trauma related to a tornado to be flippant at best and outright offensive to those that have survived similar disasters at worst

At the time I was dealing with the trauma of surviving a natural disaster (Wildfire). That doesn't excuse my behavior a year ago, but that's an awfully hard accusation to make that I was being disrespectful. We all handle trauma in different ways, and I was just doing an incredibly shit job and causing problems. That's not okay, but that was also a year and a half ago, I would hope I've done some growing up since then.

 

2 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

Your more recent comparison of the Mictlan arc to the Russo-Ukrainian Invasion is, in my eyes, highly disrespectful due to its use of a real and very current tragedy to get a "gotya" over the lore team.

It wasnt a Gotya. If you read the full thread, we talk it out, come to an understanding, and have it resolved. In my opinion, it was disrespectful at the time I maid the complaint, to keep the arc going and to keep it as it was named. But again, if you read it, that was the secondary concern. My primary concern was the lack of any elaboration about questions and concerns I brought up privately to Caelphon.

 

2 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

I, much like Alberyk, do not support the re-addition of character examples on wiki pages.

See my response to Alberyk on why I want to bring those back.

 

2 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

Our setting is a dystopia, bad things are going to happen. War is one of those bad things.

Schwann, I feel like you're ignoring the points I'm making in my post. I explicitly say we're too war focused. Yes, war happens, but that's all that ever happens. That's an area of writing I'd like to focus on personally with this position. It is incredibly foolish to dismiss the idea that good things can happen too. Even the edgy-beyond-edgy-grimdark-uber-dystopia-war-is-happening-24/7-because-there-is-only-war-Warhammer 40K has good things happen in it.

Edited April 16, 2022 by Bejewledpot
spelling, wanted to bring a little humor with my last reply

[CourierBravo]

58 minutes ago, SilverSZ said:

You mention wanting to expand Diona and Human lore specifically but then if you focus on those areas you will not have the time to look at other stuff. If you ask me synthetic lore needs the same attention as these parts of lore too, will you be able to focus on this stuff whilst seeing to other lore at the same amount? 

My intention with focusing on these areas is that I feel like they're just not receiving much of anything. I feel like the synthetic team, currently with the Trinary arc, is doing a great job of showing that A. This section of lore is now actively and regularly being developed and B. the individuals who want to focus on synthetic lore dont need to be poked or proded at all. Area of focus for what I want to contribute doesn't necessarily mean I cant or wont help in other areas. My job would be primarily whatever both Caelphon and the lore team needs of me, secondarily the lore projects I want to tackle.
 

1 hour ago, SilverSZ said:

Finally, my own criticism. You point to your applications to change Assunzione and Mars as examples of your former work. Your Mars suggestions are to put it bluntly, not what I would consider an example of good work. In general it reads more like a mess of ideas at best rather than anything close to a suitable submission at the quality I would expect of anyone on the lore team. And the loremasters sit in a very important role of being a quality control check for lore and their approval to lore is essentially saying that it is quality enough to be used. Your Assunzione work was also what I would consider sub-par in terms of lore submission, whilst it is workable. It is is below the quality I would want to see as well and would have required substantial work in my opinion before being added to in order to flesh it out for the future.

That's fair, I can see exactly where you're coming from with that. I would hope that being able to work with and workshop my ideas with the team would overall be a boone to my ability to write. Though if that's not what the team is looking for in a deputy loremaster, I'd be fine taking that as a good reason someone else might be picked over me.

[Marlon P.]

I like your answers and you show maturity in acknowleding past behaviors. I understand your trauma experience. I think your plans are good.

+1

[CourierBravo]

45 minutes ago, Bejewledpot said:

My primary concern was the lack of any elaboration about questions and concerns I brought up privately to Caelphon.

Actually, I wanna come back around to this. I think this is a super important thing for writing staff to do. And if Caelphon is regularly too busy doing either personnal life things to be able to do this, or too busy with Aurora management/work, I would love to have this be apart of my role under him. If people want questions answered that lore staff cant or dont want to answer, I'd be happy to talk to the person for them. Even if that means reinforcing that "no, they dont want to talk about it right now", I can take that and ask the person later or someone on their team later if they're willing to elaborate at a future point (either to me or to the concerned person) . Then I can talk it out with the individual.

Edited April 16, 2022 by Bejewledpot
additional clarification

[ryder]

"Feel good" arcs can often suffer from a lack of substance. When you consider these things and how you might approach events, how do you aim to provide substance and ensure these things are engaging with the playerbase beyond a superficial level? How can we see good in a universe that hasn't shown it in lore for quite some time? The idea of fluff, unfortunately, seems antithetical to Aurora, and I'm just curious as to what ideas you have on your approach with that.

When it comes to goodness, is there another side of corporate oppression we aren't seeing? I.e., what else do you think there is that isn't living and suffering where people either support each other or go against the grain, and how can you make this believable?

If you've already answered this, ignore me. I skimmed a large portion of the thread. I second Marlon in that I think you handle and reflect on things maturely. It's all about working on that knee-jerk reflex, which we all have.

[Caelphon]

Hi there. A few questions. 

Quote

1. How do you feel about the planet ban implemented by the Lore Team Administration? Do you feel there is too many planets, or not enough?

2. You mention expanding / assisting Dionae Lore. What do you mean by this? 

3. You mention updating lore arcs that have been left up in the air. Lore Team Administration doesn't have the ability to do these alone, and requires oversight by the respective team, in this case the Human Lore Development Team (Mars). What if their view doesn't align with yours?

4. What do you mean by "feel good" arcs? Can you give examples?