Dear Chaos,

I've been in the trenches with a lot of you.

You might not have seen me RP for long periods of time, or even at all. But I've been in the trenches, I've yelled at the monitor, I've sat in backrooms and bitched and moaned and hyped and raged. I've plotted, I've waged war, I've led crusades and Major Factions. None among ya'll can say I haven't.

I make habits of leading from the front, and making sacrifices for this community. It's part of the gig. It's what I signed up for when we started getting big and I looked at the numbers and said "oh @#$%, this is happening" and Chaos started becoming it's own thing.

I know the toll it takes on a person, to have people ask you to RP out of one side of their mouth while making requests for special privilege out the other. And I know how this messes with your head, how it makes it all very easy to just Obi Wan it up and live the hermit life. I know, because it's what I do.

Which is why I hate it so very much when I see it happening to other people. You don't get to decide who your Role-play Judges are, Chaos. That choice is mine, and you agreed to it when you walked in the door. But when you ostracize them for doing their duty to this community, for doing the one job we all want them to do - just because you don't agree with their decisions - you are creating more hermits, chasing off more people, and ironically undermining your own reasoning for being here.

I love salt.

I love the blood pumping. I love challenging the status quo.

But I also love tradition, ceremony, and duty. Things we get to enjoy and sleep well knowing they'll return because RPJ's exist doing a job you don't want to do. I'm not asking you to worship the person. You don't have to chase for clout. You don't have to even respect them. We're a community, and several others have been appointed within the community to help share the burden of duty Chaos demands.

Don't chase these people off, we need them.

Respectfully,
T