The Fate of this Site
I'm sure you've noticed the slow traffic here and lack of members... two admins, one lurker that never even said hi, and two regular members - one who has been very busy with life and one who really doesn't like RPs but played because he likes me (Pappa Peach really is sweet)... but it's really hard to write for no one. Many time I wondered why I bothered to keep this place open. To sustain the existence of this world requires me to write the lives of my main characters (at least), but since I really have no reason to do this motivation to do so has been really low, especially as I can never use these stories for anything else as this place is so encumbered with various franchises. So what am I to do? I know as well as anyone that a slow site never attracts anyone. I've been thinking about this and have come to a decision, but to understand my decision you might need a little background history of all this. (If you don't want to read all that background just scroll down to my conclusion at the end.)
The History
My first contact with forums and the internet on the whole was at Nintendo's official forum. I saw my son (the other admin here) having fun there and decided to join, taking on the name "Mamma Peach". Though I was probably one of the oldest people there, including the staff I made myself at home. I argued in the Zelda Time Line thread (introducing a whole new way to look at the Zelda franchise), wrote a couple of short stories, entered some art contests (getting one of my works in Nintendo Power) and even had my own comic loosely based on my family life with everyone portrayed as Nintendo characters (hence me as Peach and Mr. "Peach" as Link in my sig). I even ran a "ComiCon" in comic form for the other comic writers on the forum to meet each other and gain exposure. Then suddenly, and without notice, Nintendo forums closed down and everyone there was left scrambling for a place to meet (some pretty much left the internet altogether).
I went to a small forum run by Falcon6 who I knew from his comic on Nintendo Forums (which he continued for a while as a web comic but has since deleted... promising to someday start a new one, though it's anyone's guess if he ever will). Though I was a stranger there I was welcomed and began to feel at home. At that time there was a general decision to build an RP world, with Regali's preexisting Organization XIII Cookie Cafe as a starting point. This was my first experience with a forum RP, though I had heard of them in Nintendo Forums (where they were prohibited) and had played table top RPs before. I contributed the land of Aleriand to the new world called Locura (though I knew that no one would probably ever go there because it was too peaceful) and offered to draw the maps (where I included the Pokemon Islands for B-Man, who never really RPs, and the Beast Islands for Ryusei as well as other places people requested). I had a hard time coming up with a character to actually play in Locura (the Librarian was merely there to run the Library which was to disseminate information to newcomers and display the information I collected and maps I drew), but decided on a dragon character named Lien Hua, and that her place of origin was Aleriand. Even as a dragon she seemed pretty weak compared to the other characters in the RP so I gave her fairy armor to keep her alive. Also as a citizen of Aleriand, a land dedicated to God, she had a relationship with God much like I do. Both of those things would become a problem in the future. As her character's motivation I decided that she was going out into a world that her people considered evil and to be avoided but that God wanted her to help, sort of using the template of the Church hiding behind stained glass windows while God wants it to go out into the world. In time I added Griselda the goblin chef to the Cafe (the hub of activity) with the motivation of overcoming prejudice against goblins (similar to Remy in Ratatouille) and Father Asa (as a response to Anime wanting a church for his characters to get married in, and since Anime is Jewish I made Father Asa a Jewish/catholic priest son of a rabbi and Nazi experiment, mistaking the enemy Nasbies and their "Hitler" as Nazis). Several times I got into spots where it would be normal for my characters to ask guidance from God, but not being in control of the game I had no idea how God would respond to them, so I actually asked God what He would say... and He answered. You have no idea how that made me feel to realize that God had actually deigned to play a game with me like that, but it was awesome. Other kids think it's pretty cool that I play video games with my kids and watch anime... but to have God do the same... Anyway the first problem occurred when I explained Lien Hua Fu's fairy armor, and that she would have died in the battle currently raging without it, but it was insisted that she couldn't have it (and was too "over powered" even without it)... and so she died and went to heaven. Naturally her people never wanted to have anything to do with the outside world again. Then others expressed regret at her dying, so I asked if they wanted me to resurrect her. They agreed and so I did, without any special abilities except ordinary martial arts, not even dragon form, and so she was pretty much sidelined. Weak characters had no place, and she wasn't popular enough to be a damsel in distress. She was pretty much ignored, which was no fun for me as my other three characters were pretty much place linked and had no reason to participate in the various adventures. So I started thinking about how I could make her more usable again, and I came up with the Dragonsword which would literally put her in the condition of the various people she had met (making her permanently tied to other franchises in the process), giving her their abilities and hang-ups in keeping with her original purpose of reaching out to the people around her to help them. Little did I realize that she would be perceived as "over powered" again, but in the end that wasn't the major problem, it was God's involvement in the game.
I was preparing a major arc of my own to complete the keyblade that would open up Aleriand, involving the remaining Great Fays of Primavaldia - one in the unused Hueco Mundo that Shin brought in with his Bleach inspired character, one in the unused Pokemon Islands, and one in my newly invented "Demon World" where a character (Prince Conchobhar) I invented to be Lien Hua's stalker/love interest (since it was obvious that the Dragon God had a love interest of his own and Lien Hua/Xin Le Hua was obviously going to have a problem in that area) came from; when it happened. I posted the information on Demon World and it's two rulers believing in God. Suddenly I started receiving objection to including God in the game (even though He had been evident even before Lien Hua's death) and creating the history of Primavaldia and by association Locura (even though no one ever cared about Locura's history). The objection to God being in the game dwarfed all other considerations. My explaining my position (which was rather like a person having to tell her colored friend that they don't allow colored people in their club) made no difference, and though most of the players could care less if gods were in the game or not, and some even welcomed the prospect, none would say that I was within my rights to include Him and three were adamantly against it, saying that it was their game and that I would be welcome to stay only if I made Him out to be not real. If it was my game it would be different one of them said, but since it was their game they didn't appreciate what I was doing. How could I betray the One who loves me more than anyone, the One who came to play the game on my level, and even pretend that He wasn't real. So I pulled my characters out of Locura (with the exception of Lien Hua who was promptly locked up in Aleriand, shut off from the rest of the world). A number of people regretted my leaving the game (mostly the same ones who regretted Lien Hua's death) and I racked my brain trying to think of a way to "have my own game" so I would satisfy the reason I left Locura in the first place and still be able to play. I finally came up with a world split (instigated by Aleriand trying to pull out of the world altogether) that would create a second world, Triudomhan, that would have both Locura and Primavaldia as it's past, but that Locura would have no memory of anything at all pertaining to that new world. Everyone agreed that I could do that so I set to building Triudomhan on Falcon's forum. I waited a long time for Ryusei to get to a point where the arc splitting the two worlds could occur, and before I even got to the world split the players in Locura decided to abandon Locura and create a New Locura, and so old Locura died... and Triudomhan and New Locura were born. (To my surprise one of the most outspoken against God joined Triudomhan where God was treated as real. I never suspected his motives, not once.) So now I had my own world, and God continued to play with me. I dedicated the future of that world to Him, putting it in His hands. (I also participated in a couple of other RP's without any religious reference there.)
Some time later Falcon announced that he was going to change his forum (away from it's web comic base) and get rid of the lengthy, multi threaded RPs. New Locura had pretty much died by then, so that only left Triudomhan. I volunteered to make a new site for Triudomhan, and so began the lengthy process of setting up a new forum. Those who were not coming to the new Triudomhan (pretty much everyone except The Archangel, who created the Three Cities and has yet to show up) wrote their characters out of the world. Before I even finished Falcon had his new forum up and the old one archived, temporarily. (Around that time other problems between me and some of the members there were beginning to take their toll, but I had come to really care about the guys there so I still held out till fairly recently when things blew up, almost literally, this coming on top of my son's death from which I have finally recovered, I believe.) So now Triudomhan is nearly complete, all the areas are up, but the archives are still unfinished, and major arcs are pending... but hardly anyone is here and it looks unlikely that others will come. I have no real reason to keep it going besides sheer stubbornness, which is not enough to keep things going... except... except for one thing...
The Conclusion
... except for love. I love God passionately... more than anything in my life... even more than Mr. Peach! Sure, among all the things that exist this site is just a trinket, on the order of things you find in a crackerjack box or a gum-ball machine, but it is a trinket that I gave to the One I love. A person can do all kinds of silly things for love (Mr. Peach made an effort to RP just because he loves me, and he has a pretty low view of fantasy role playing games). Triudomhan really only exists because of Him. If no one had objected to His presence in Locura my characters would have just died there when it did (and most would never have even existed in the first place.) So it is His, to do with as He pleases. If He wants people to come here He will bring them. If He wants me to close it down He will tell me. Until then I will keep it going, not motivated by whether anyone will read it or in hopes that someone will play because they probably won't, nor by stubborn will because that won't sustain anything, but just because I love Him I will do this foolish, silly thing and keep this world going in spite of nothing else ever happening.
So it's likely that Triudomhan will be around a long time, trinket though it is.
