Fan the Flames!

This was an RP blog for Doom from DOTA 2, who had defected from the Dire and joined the Radiant. This blog is currently abandoned by the Muse for personal reasons.

[hellishheretic]

After seeing everyone get all mushy and polite after today's events with that particular meme, i must admit, I'm tempted to come back here. Though, setting up Radiant Doom as a thing might be a little difficult.

idk. I'll consider it.

[rpfunstuff]

Stop what you’re doing and send someone you admire a really nice anon message telling them why you admire them so much.

[hellishheretic]

I'M OUT OF RETIREMENT... for a post.

(I'm half an hour into writing this and ho-boy this is gonna be a long one. I apologize, but this is such a sensitive topic, that I felt that it was only fair I give it it's due. To those of you who currently don't have the time to read the whole thing, I'll put a TL;DR at the bottom)

Hello everybody. Long-time no see. I don't know how I still have 40-something followers here, considering my last post was half a year ago. I offer warm greetings to anybody who has joined the fandom while I was gone, even though I doubt anybody new followed my blog since I left.

I'm here, making a post for the first time in six months, to address this Rp Fandom "directly." Though I doubt I have either the clout nor the fanbase necessary to do such a thing. Still, even if I'm not huge in this fandom, I wish to offer some advice that seems relevant in light of recent events.

To clarify WHY I'm giving this advice, I used to be a admin on a roleplay website. That site lasted roughly 8 years or so before everyone left (mostly to go do Tumblr RP) and I was an admin there for about a year before it was abandoned. I got made an admin because I went around offering people advice, and tried to mediate when people had problems. I'm here to try and do much the same thing, because there has been quite a bit of drama going on. So, as someone who used to talk to people and solve roleplay related problems, here is what I think of what has been happening.

Most of today's trauma has been caused by a post on the war-always-changes blog. It's worth disclosing, before we go any further, that I have RPed with the mun on both this account, and my OC blog. As a matter of fact, she seems to be one of the two people from the DOTA fandom who followed me to my other blog when I left, so my opinion of her and what she said is likely highly biased. And since making the post, she has also made a counter for people who're "missing the point." This is situation #1.

But a lot of recent trauma was caused by something that I didn't even notice until I hoped onto this blog itself. Living-Revelation, a blog which I will admit I have never interacted with, posted their thoughts on shipping. And then things went out of hand from there. Let's call this situation #2.

This might seem strange, but we're gonna start with situation #2.

For those not-aware, the mun of Living-Revelation said that he/she/they were fine with ships that weren't canon, as long as they didn't "[sic] rape canon." People responded in a myriad of ways, ranging from reaction gifs, to saying it was hypocritical of them because they did crossover ships. 

As someone who was a mod on a roleplay thread, I think the blame would lay on both sides in this case. For one, I think it's shortsighted to tell someone with utter certainty what they can and cannot do on a roleplay blog. Everyone has their own experiences with roleplay, and what they like. To Living-Revelation mun, crossover RP is totally fine! But to others, that's heresy! To others, weird, obtuse ships are totally fine! But to Living-Revelation mun, that's heresy! People are obviously going to have differences over opinions, because we're people, and different people like different things. When you state something concretely, like "You should ONLY ship this!" or "You CAN'T ship that!" it trivializes other people's opinions, and naturally makes them upset.

That being said, I cannot excuse the reaction he/she/they received. While it might make sense to reblog a text post and add your own text to start a conversation, you need to understand that we are on a social media site. When you reblog something, it is NOT a private conversation between you and the other individual. Suddenly, by reblogging the post, you have taken someone, pointed to them, and yelled to your followers "LOOK, I DISAGREE WITH THIS PERSON!" If you replied in a calm, collected manner, this would be okay. But considering the bulk of responses I've seen are either arguing or reaction gifs, I would hardly call this discourse calm or collected.

Instead of focusing on "This is my opinion, so your opinion is wrong!" or posting reaction gifs of people eating salad, you guys need to be more focused on discourse when a disagreement comes up. When you're talking to another member of the fandom over something you disagree over, your goal should not be to "win" the argument. Your goal should be to figure out why the other person thinks the way they do, while calmly explaining why you think differently. Your end goal in an argument should be understanding each other, not "winning."

So, what can you do to these ends to make discourse more polite and avoid all this drama? Here are my recommendations

1 - If you see something you disagree with, DON'T reblog the post. Even the most polite discourse can get heated, and you don't want to expose your followers to that. That's how drama starts. Instead, send the person an ask detailing the problem. Or better yet, if you have the person's Skype/Steam/KiK/etc, send them a message there, since those are FAR better platforms to hold a conversation over.

2 - During discourse, don't insult or demean the other person. It makes them more defensive, and unwilling to listen to you. If someone is not willing to listen to you, then you will get nowhere. This means no reaction gifs or images, no pictures of people eating salad, no insults, and....

3 - No harsh language. Yes, we're all adults here, and I will admit I fucking love cussing. However, debates over the internet are especially volatile and sensitive. Regardless of how you personally view cussing, in an online environment where tone cannot be read like how it can face-to-face, it makes you seem angry regardless of your intent. And once someone reads you as appearing "angry," they get defensive, and it makes them less willing to listen to you.

4 - If you and the other person still can't come to an understanding, try and get a mediator involved to offer a neutral position. This option should VERY rarely be used, but it is still worth considering if talking to the other person and explaining your own feelings alone is getting you nowhere. In my year of acting as a mod on my old RP site, I only had to act as a mediator ONCE. Yet, it did help move things along far faster than just those two yelling at each other. When choosing a mediator, you'll want to choose someone unbiased as a neutral point. This means you SHOULDN'T bring in your bestest friend who the other person doesn't know. This also means you SHOULDN'T bring in someone who you know already agrees with you on the subject. Remember, your goal is to reach mutual understanding between yourself and the other party to see WHY you disagree, not to "win" the argument.

Now, let's move on to situation #1. The War-always-changes post.

As I stated earlier, I am biased in my opinion on the mun. I RPed a lot with her on both this, and my OC blog before she decided to go on her current hiatus. 

From what I see, for this situation, there are two main problems. Firstly, the fact that the mun keeps adding fuel to the fire by publishing her ask-arguments publicly, and by adding to a "missing the point" counter. I already covered this up above, debates shouldn't be made public, and you shouldn't actively mock people you are interacting with. And this is why I prefer using Steam/Skype for problem solving, as opposed to sending people asks on Tumblr, because there is no guarantee whether the other party will publish the post, or reply to you privately. 

The second problem is the fact that nobody seems to be getting that the post was satire. This is why I hate tags and the fact that, sometimes, people put vital information in them. Even I thought she was serious until I read the tags (my grasp on satire is poor, to say the least.) The post seems to be meant as a criticism of the exact things I was talking about up above -- publicly hating on other people and showing them very little respect. If that was the intent of the post (I can't be 100% certain since I'm not her) then I would say that I agree with it. What I don't agree about is the tone.

Whether or not you think the DOTA 2 RP community is doing bad, it isn't appropriate to call people out publically, by name, and say you hate them, even if the intent was to point out the absurdity of the frequent public hate in the fandom. Adding more fuel to the fire by publishing asks, and saying people were 'missing the point' without explaining the point wasn't helping. If you think the DOTA 2 RP community is doing bad, then you should bring water to help quell the flames, not throw fireworks into it.

TL;DR

A lot of this drama can be avoided if you guys change HOW you talk to one-another and discuss things. A lot of the actions some of you guys take are highly volatile and can escalate the situation to where drama gets caused. Here's what you should do if you want to avoid drama, and want to have healthy discourse with another member of the fandom, or anyone in general.

1 - When you are arguing with someone, your goal should be to understand the other person's point of view, and why they think the way they do. Your goal shouldn't be to "win" the argument.

2 - If you want to have a polite discussion, the last thing you should do is reblog the post you disagree with. Try to talk to the person privately, over Steam/Skype/KiK/or other messaging sites. If those methods aren't available to you, then contact them by sending them an ask. It's a much more private and polite way to hold a conversation than doing it publicly, in front of EVERYONE.

3 - Don't cuss during an argument

4 - Don't use reaction images or gifs during an argument

5 - DON'T put stuff in tags, because sometimes people will ignore them, and then those people will miss vital context. If you don't want to say something enough to put it in your actual post, don't put it in at all.

6 - If all else fails and discussion and discourse with the other person is breaking down, then find a mediator to help you two reach an understanding. I'll personally volunteer to mediate for anybody who gets into an argument and needs help resolving it.

For my closing statement, this is what I have to say. We're all here because we share a common love for DOTA. How that love manifests is different for almost all of us. We all see the game, the characters, and even aspects of the lore in different ways. We all know what it's like to be so in love with this game that we want to roleplay the game's characters, despite the fact that all we have to go off of is two paragraphs of lore AT BEST. So, when someone loves the game or a character in a different way than you, your immediate reaction should NOT be to try and tear down that person's interpretation in order to reaffirm your own feelings. Instead, when you see someone who sees things in DOTA a little differently from you, you should try and see why they like it. If you don't like it? That's cool. Just don't let your own disapproval of something be so vocal that you upset others. And likewise, don't try and force something onto someone else (whether that be a ship that they hate, or the fact that you hate their ship.) We're all reasonable adults here. Feel free to share your own interpritations and feelings over the DOTA lore, and unspoken RP rules, as long as you don't shove them down anybody's throats.

I apologize if this post is long and kind of rambly, I just needed to get this all out here. I also apologize if there are any typos, because i currently don't feel like going back through and spellchecking this. 

And I still stand by my offer made earlier in this post. If any of you guys have a problem with another member of the community, and want to solve it in a civilized manner, I will mediate for you two if both parties agree to having me there.

[hellishheretic]

(( So yea, as previously stated, this blog is done. Sorry ‘bout that. 

I’ll be on this blog if anybody wants to do anything with me. I’m perfectly comfortable if playing that OC in the DOTA 2 verse, in case anybody is worried about that. ))

[new-age-of-knowledge]

{It’s not that I don’t want to RP with you, it’s that I am super slow and crap at replying. :( Also, who in the community hates you? I didn’t think anyone did! }

[hellishheretic]

(( Nono, I wasn't referring to any one person in particular. I'm very happy you RP'd with me and I absolutely love your writing! I actually posted a large rant-thing about stuff here a week or so ago.

Nobody was mean to me directly, and I don't feel like anybody hated me. It felt more passive-aggressive than anything else. Sending memes to someone and having them reply to seemingly everyone but me, not being able to get many long-term RP's started, constantly getting anons asking for sex stuff.... those kinda things ))

[hellishheretic]

(( So yea, as previously stated, this blog is done. Sorry 'bout that. 

I'll be on this blog if anybody wants to do anything with me. I'm perfectly comfortable if playing that OC in the DOTA 2 verse, in case anybody is worried about that. ))

[hellishheretic]

Leaving.

Okay. Yup. I'm done even trying anymore. 

I've replied to open starters, I've sent out several memes to try and spark RP (a majority of which have been entirely ignored or never posted), I've done memes myself, and even retooled my character to distinguish him from the more popular Doom..... and I've still gotten fucking nothing. 

It doesn't help that a few blogs I've liked have deleted themselves or otherwise dropped off the face of the earth. Meanwhile half a dozen really amazing art RP blogs are popping up and are taking away a ton of exposure from people who can't draw. Which, in all honesty, I can't say I blame anybody for that because those blogs certainly deserve recognition for their skills, but it still makes it hard to compete. 

Coming onto this blog every day is just pure disappointment, time and time again. I thought following a ton of blogs would get me a ton of roleplay, but it's honestly done the opposite -- I have much the same amount of stuff that I used to reply to, but just a sea of posts twenty times bigger to wade through to get to the things I want to actually look at. It just feels like I have much less to do, which is a shame because a lot of the people in this community write very well, and I would love to be able to RP here more.

But, I've tried several times to get RP started here. I've tried literally everything in the books by this point. What had gotten me several very good RP partners and friends on my OC blog, has gotten me fucking nothing on this blog. Plain and simple, I just get far less out of this blog whenever I try to do something than I do on a blog which I usually have more motivation for. So there's honestly no reason for me to even try with this blog anymore. At this point, it feels like a lost-cause, a waste of time, diminishing returns, or whatever other term you might think fits best.

To those who have RPed with me over this course of me trying out playing a canon character for the first time -- thank you for that, it's very much appreciated. I'm not leaving because of any of you, but simply because I don't feel welcomed or wanted here. If you want to continue to communicate with me or RP with me, my main blog is demonicdiligence 

To those who didn't RP with me... ehhhh I can totally understand why. I don't hold anything against you.

Also, I won't be deleting this blog, but I will change the url just in-case anybody in the future wants it for any reason.

And, here's a little video that will act as my TL;DR. Hopefully I can at least make someone smile with that before I leave (because that joke is still fucking hilarious to me.)

[hellishheretic]

8, 10, 12

8 -- Favorite Song

According to iTunes it's Jaw by muzeOne but I've recently been listening to a lot of Ken Ashcorp.

10 -- Is there one person you want to be with right now?

Not really. I'm kind of a loner, and I haven't had a girlfriend in nearly a year. But if I was given a chance to hang out with one of my out-of-state friends I'd take it in a heartbeat.

12 -- Is there something you'd like to say to someone?

Nope. If I wanna say something to someone, I almost always do. I'm pretty blunt.

[hellishheretic]

AWKWARDLY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS CAUSE MUNDAY

01: tell me the truth, what made you start liking the person you like right now?

02: what on your body is hurting or bothering you?

03: what was your last thought before going to bed last night?

04: what are you listening to?

05: what’s something you’re not looking forward to?

06: where do you think your best friend is right now?

07: have you kissed anybody in the last five days?

08: favorite song ?

09: kiss on the first date?

10: is there one person you want to be with right now?

11: are you seriously happy with where you are in life?

12: is there something you would like to say to someone?

13: what are three things you did today?

14: would you rather sleep at a friend’s or have them over?

15: what is your favorite kind of gum?

16: are you friends with any of your ex boyfriends/ girlfriends?

17: what is on your wrists right now?

18: ever liked someone you thought you didn’t stand a chance with?

19: does anyone have strong feelings for you?

20: are you slowly drifting away from someone?

21: have you ever wasted your time on someone?

22: can you do the alphabet in sign language?

23: how have you felt today?

24: you receive £60 without any reason, what do you spend it on?

25: what is wrong with you right now?

26: is there anyone you’re really disappointed in?

27: would you rather have starbucks or jamba juice right now?

28: why aren’t you in ‘love’ with your last ex anymore?

29: how late did you stay up last night and why?

30: when was the last time you talked to one of your best friends?

31: what were you doing an hour ago?

32: what are you looking forward to in the next month?

33: are you wearing jeans right now?

34: are you a patient person?

35: do you think you can last in a relationship for three months?

36: favorite color?

37: did you have a dream last night?

38: are you wearing jeans, shorts, sweatpants, or pajama pants?

39: if someone could be cuddling you right now, who would you want it to be?

40: do you love anyone who is not related to you?

41: if someone liked you right now, would you want them to tell you?

42: do you like meeting new people?

43: are you afraid of falling in love?

44: ever self-harmed or starved yourself?

45: has anyone ever told you that you have pretty eyes?

46: have you ever felt like you weren’t good enough?

[hellishheretic]

( Whenever people ask me why i don't like LoL, I'll just point to this game I just had where I was Syndra, and called mid first and nobody contested it in the chat. Then Garen went mid despite him having called Top before the game, and proceeded to give Ryze first blood before minions spawned. And when I politely asked him to go bot with our ADC, who was soloing lane when we had a duo top, he said "yea" and then never went bot and continued to come mid. And then he somehow managed to end the game with 0 kills, 0 assists, and 10 deaths.

This game is literally easier than DOTA in every way imaginable, yet pubs are ALWAYS worse in LoL. THE WORST even. )

[hellishheretic]

☽

"Struck from grace, vengeful in all things. I can sympathize."

[vengeanceismymistress]

Shendelzare measured the demon with her eye. "Did i ask for sympathies?"

[hellishheretic]

A deep, rhythmic chuckle echoed through the demon's windpipes. Though he was around an ally, and intended for the laugh to sound friendly a jovial, his sheer sized ensured the snicker sounded unsuitably sinful.

"No, no I suppose you did not. I'm just saying... I know what it feels like, being struck down from grace into something you never wanted to be."

He shuffled for a moment, as if unsure of his next move.

"And, that is why I offered my sympathies."

[hellishheretic]

☽

"King of bones. He puts useless marrow to surprising use."

[hellishheretic]

☽ -askskitskurr

"A master of insects and time. Two professions rarely linked...."

[hellishheretic]

☽

"An angry, furious, radiant troll. Though your aim is superb."

[hellishheretic]

☽

"Struck from grace, vengeful in all things. I can sympathize."

[hellishheretic]

☽

"A noble duelist. It’s unfortunate more don’t pertain to honor."

[hellishheretic]

☽

"A pesky insect. Though I respect your mental strength."

[galleryofrpmemes-blog]

Send ☽ and my muse will describe, in 10 words or less, how they feel about your muse!