Neutrality

[AdaMaS]

If I understand correctly:

Because of the fact that someone who wears a neutrality isn't necessarily neutral, there is a problem with the neutrality cloak?

Is the solution renaming the cloak or getting rid of it entirely, if either of those things are options?

The solution is to stay the hell on subject, which you've proven time and again to be incapable of.

The topic was, in some mangled form, are individuals considering Neutrality correctly? With some filler in there about things being able to happen...I'm not entirely sure. I'm fairly certain drugs were involved, though.

I really wish individuals would stop running around like children on a scavenger hunt, pointing their fingers at random things and attempting to find a fix or solution to them, though. It's an object. It's not broke; you are. You can't even define Neutrality, correctly.

[Alex Ayres]

If I understand correctly:

Because of the fact that someone who wears a neutrality isn't necessarily neutral, there is a problem with the neutrality cloak?

Is the solution renaming the cloak or getting rid of it entirely, if either of those things are options?

The solution is to stay the hell on subject, which you've proven time and again to be incapable of.

The topic was, in some mangled form, are individuals considering Neutrality correctly? With some filler in there about things being able to happen...I'm not entirely sure. I'm fairly certain drugs were involved, though.

I really wish individuals would stop running around like children on a scavenger hunt, pointing their fingers at random things and attempting to find a fix or solution to them, though. It's an object. It's not broke; you are. You can't even define Neutrality, correctly.

There were six questions asked and I think every one of my responses correlated to at least one of the questions (the main one being "is there a stigma against neutrality?" and all of the worms that that particular can contains). I mean, you even say in your post "the topic, in some mangled form..." it wasn't a very straightforward topic. There's a lot to take apart and consider!

But yes, I was indeed confusing neutrality with non-violence.

And I agree about it being an object and not broken! It's not the object that's broken, but potentially the people who use it!

[Julia]

If I understand correctly:

Because of the fact that someone who wears a neutrality isn't necessarily neutral, there is a problem with the neutrality cloak?

Is the solution renaming the cloak or getting rid of it entirely, if either of those things are options?

The solution is to stay the hell on subject, which you've proven time and again to be incapable of.

The topic was, in some mangled form, are individuals considering Neutrality correctly? With some filler in there about things being able to happen...I'm not entirely sure. I'm fairly certain drugs were involved, though.

I really wish individuals would stop running around like children on a scavenger hunt, pointing their fingers at random things and attempting to find a fix or solution to them, though. It's an object. It's not broke; you are. You can't even define Neutrality, correctly.

There were six questions asked and I think every one of my responses correlated to at least one of the questions (the main one being "is there a stigma against neutrality?" and all of the worms that that particular can contains). I mean, you even say in your post "the topic, in some mangled form..." it wasn't a very straightforward topic. There's a lot to take apart and consider!

But yes, I was indeed confusing neutrality with non-violence.

And I agree about it being an object and not broken! It's not the object that's broken, but potentially the people who use it!

Jesus fuck, are you just learning about life choices now?
Seriously... you're an adult right?

[Reyna]

My favorite trend lately is people having a go at Alex for straying from the topic only to turn around and derail the topic themselves just to insult him.

As for the topic itself, I was taught when I learned about powers and the city as a fledgling that neutrality and battle cloaks were only for cowards and blood lovers. It was never presented as anything other than being a 'smurf' or wearing pink panties to get yourself out of trouble.

In a perfect world it would be easy to check a box and say neutrality is a perfectly acceptable alternative, but we don't live in one and I'm not sure the stigma will ever really go away. Not because of the choice itself, but, as repeated above, because of the people who abuse it.

[Alphadragon]

Perhaps a change of name of the 'Cloak of Neutrality' would clarify things for people?

And for that matter a change of colour. I can only imagine what the sobriquet 'Pink Panties' does for peoples opinions.

[Ember]

As for the topic itself, I was taught when I learned about powers and the city as a fledgling that neutrality and battle cloaks were only for cowards and blood lovers. It was never presented as anything other than being a 'smurf' or wearing pink panties to get yourself out of trouble.

In a perfect world it would be easy to check a box and say neutrality is a perfectly acceptable alternative, but we don't live in one and I'm not sure the stigma will ever really go away. Not because of the choice itself, but, as repeated above, because of the people who abuse it.

This is what I learned as I came to in the city. I heard the words cowards and blood lovers referenced so many times in regards to battle cloaks and neutrality that it was almost sickening; they were talked down upon as if they were the most terrible thing in the world to have. I can see, why, to some extent people hated them, having seen it happen multiple times first hand. They were used as a tool to hide, instead of what they were intended for, and as such, could be abused in many respects with little to no adverse effects but being labeled as one of the above. Once you took it off, though...

True neutrality is hard to come by; I honestly don't know if it fully exists. And no, we don't live in a perfect world, so the stigma will remain. It will remain, like anything else, as long as there is one person to believe in it and spread that word. Or so long as there are people who lend it credibility with its misuse.

Perhaps a change of name of the 'Cloak of Neutrality' would clarify things for people?

And for that matter a change of colour. I can only imagine what the sobriquet 'Pink Panties' does for peoples opinions.

It might clarify, but will it change the mindset?

But for the color pink, I always relate that to the tale of RoD's pink thong. Not so much neutrality. (But that's off topic, so ya know...)

[ophelia]

For clarification:

Battle cloaks had nothing to do with loving blood but about the attempted enforcement of 'resting' and I don't think I've ever heard of a blueberry being considered a blood lover, just a dingbat that donned a cloak that no one really followed suit on because choices.

Years ago, people wanted an enforced resting rule and went to RavenBlack. The suggestions were making it a power or just making it something that happened naturally to vampires when zeroed (which at the time was considered ten or less) Raven was having none of that forced nonsense and the battle cloak was introduced for those that wanted to fight and have a formally enforced resting period, and it backfired spectacularly in that respect and never really took off. There were a few instances, and Lucius comes to mind in which he donned the battle cloak to escape attacks, only to have a group of his attackers do the same and he then turned around and dropped the cloak (which you can do one time).

Neutrality aka pink panties was introduced for vampires that didn't want to be attacked at all and suffer a significant blood loss aka blood lovers, pussies etc etc.(<---called this in large part because they typically weren't 'neutral' by any means and simply wanted to not have to bleed for their actions/words)

[Alex Ayres]

After thinking about this a little, I don't think that the stigma around neutrality is strictly because of the fact that people abuse it.

The stigma around neutrality, from my perspective, is rooted in the fact that it is an object that aids in doing everything that this community is against.


Upon re-reading the wikipage, I realize why I made the mistake of confusing neutrality with non-violence.

"Neutrality is a power that designates a vampire as 'non-violent.'"

In a community where the members throw vials and ask questions later, neutrality makes it so you can't throw vials, and throwing vials at you is staggeringly less effective. In a community where people blindly follow the commands of a matriarch or patriarch, and this is propagated as loyalty, a very radical form of partiality (opinion), neutrality gives you the tools (whether the individual chooses to wield them this way is another matter) to be impartial. In a community that thrives on war and violence, neutrality is given to you by the Peacekeepers, and severely dampens your ability to act violently (at least, in the physical sense within the rules of the city grid. The "power" of neutrality doesn't stop you from walking into the taverns and punching someone in the face).

For me, though, this begs a few questions. And, fair warning, this may de-rail slightly from the topic at hand, so if someone delving deeper into a discussion and not strictly adhering to the topic at hand in some way triggers you, I return to the various topics presented in the strictest sense starting at "As far as renaming neutrality goes..." which I have made bold and italicized for your convenience.

Am I wrong? Is the stigma around neutrality actually strictly because people abuse the power and use it in a way it's not meant to be used? And if this is the case, I have to ask how most of the people who are against the abuse of this system who have employees that launder money for them every day justify their abuse of that system? From an objective standpoint, said people are on equal footing as someone who abuses neutrality. The difference is that one abuse more widely adheres to and facilitates the physical violence, whereas the other is abused in a way that facilitates someone lobbing verbal insults from behind a shield (which, to be honest, people who don't have neutrality do this anyway, except that shield is "my family is bigger than yours and is better at laundering money than yours so I can verbally insult you and you can't do anything about it").

Are you only against abuse that doesn't directly benefit you? Is abuse only okay if it aligns with goals?





As for as renaming neutrality goes... I think from a purely linguistic point of view, it should be renamed. As AdaM and Vex pointed out, it doesn't actually make one neutral. The question then would be, what to name it? Even something like the "Cloak of Peace" isn't strictly true because you can still sow discord with the power. I could see "Peacekeeper's Cloak" as it takes any sort of connotation and responsibility of validity off of the cloak and just says what it is: A cloak that is given to an individual by the Peacekeeper's. Of course, the power of neutrality would have to someway be sewn into the cloak, but I imagine that isn't difficult.

And then we can add derogatory terms like "Reeses Peaces" or "Cowardkeeper's Cloak" to our list of abusive, intolerant phrases levied at a general group of people who don't agree with our point of view.

[ophelia]

After thinking about this a little, I don't think that the stigma around neutrality is strictly because of the fact that people abuse it.

The stigma around neutrality, from my perspective, is rooted in the fact that it is an object that aids in doing everything that this community is against.

The stigma is rooted in the fact that generally folks that donned the cloak of neutrality used that particular aide to run amok unchecked, insulting and provoking without any real and painful consequences because they do not want to lose their blood but they do want to be ~insert whatever description tickles your fancy~ . Aka- blood whores. Cowards. A variety of other colorful names a lady won't repeat.


Then there are those that take on neutrality because they have no dog in any particular fight, don't want one and it offers protection from blood loss should they get caught in the crossfire of a skirmish and simply enjoy an existence of gaining blood and coins

[Alex Ayres]

After thinking about this a little, I don't think that the stigma around neutrality is strictly because of the fact that people abuse it.

The stigma around neutrality, from my perspective, is rooted in the fact that it is an object that aids in doing everything that this community is against.

The stigma is rooted in the fact that generally folks that donned the cloak of neutrality used that particular aide to run amok unchecked, insulting and provoking without any real and painful consequences because they do not want to lose their blood but they do want to be ~insert whatever description tickles your fancy~ . Aka- blood whores. Cowards. A variety of other colorful names a lady won't repeat.

Is this true, though? You say generally people who took the power of neutrality behaved this way, but where are the numbers to support this?

I'm not doubting that the experience of someone using the power this way was very frustrating or annoying.

But hypothetically, I would imagine that people who take neutrality and use it the right way wouldn't even be on most people's radar. They'd wake up in the morning, read the papers, go on their daily, or twice daily, run and then go about their business not engaging in politics, war, etc. etc. Whereas, people who use it the wrong way would be in your face. It seems that this could be a case of a very active, vocal minority creating a stigma against a peaceful, quiet majority.

Of course, I would be interested in seeing how many people have had the power and what percentage of those people went out and insulted people and provoked them before landing on either side of the issue.

Anecdotally, the only experience I have with someone who has the power was when they posted in this thread, and DezMarie seems like a reasonable, in fact, brave, person to take on the power amidst the strong negativity surrounding it.