The Memoirs of Phrygiana Sedai

I first came to DM and the Tower at the very end of August, 1999. Why did I come? Because Yveva made me. I had listened to her talk about this strange place and all the strange people in it throughout the summer and finally got to the point where I just couldn’t stand not being part of it anymore. I was bored and looking forward to being a Novice and more than anything to scrubbing pots. I was so excited about the prospect of scrubbing pots that I had composed several pot-scrubbing songs.

That was august and DM was still back on the Bravenet boards in those days. Not only that, be we were still at the point where we could be on the Bravenet boards and not have to worry about the messages disappearing before you got a chance to get there and read them. I posted a five part, yes, five part introduction before I even got to the Tower. That was August.

And then came September. This was back in the day when the raising system was new and still having the bugs worked out of it. There were fewer things for Novices to do back then as far as classes went. I took a few of the earlier classes which were on an entirely separate board and really had a good time with them. But there was a catch to the whole thing. Ah yes! These were the days when Alosha was the Mistress of Novices (insert scary, doom-filled music here). The first big problem I ran into was getting raised.

Anyone who was around back in the days of Alosha knows how that was without me having to relate the whole thing here. There was an interesting catch to the whole thing from my side though. Alosha was the only active member of the Gray Ajah at the time and I was definitely bound for Gray myself. This was also the early days of the mentor program, and Alosha was my mentor. Things started out fine at first. I talked to her a few times and thought I was sorting things out. But once I had completed all of the requirements for being raised and was still not raised, I started to get nervous. Then I got annoyed. Then I got downright pissed off.

There was something else going on at this time, early October now, as well. One night when I was sitting around in real life minding my own business I got a phone call. It was Miriam, the alter ego of Yveva. She called me up and said in a very excited voice, "Guess what?" I said, "What?" She said, "You’re Saidar!" I said "What the heck are you talking about?" Well, she explained to me that I had just been voted to be the newest Incarnation. I was taking the place of Serafelle, who had stepped down for personal reasons. (note: this becomes important later on).

So there I was, the newest Incarnation and a Novice in the White Tower, in a huge fight over being raised. Looking back now I have to smile, but only because I know things turned out just fine in the end. I ended up in a chat finally when I was ready to explode over the whole thing. It was me, Alosha, and Kathana, duking it out in an ICQ chat. The actual events and details of that chat will remain forever a mystery between me, Kat, and Alosha herself. But the irony of the whole situation was this: There I was, arguing with two people who had no idea that that very day I had been voted to a position that, as far as RP went, was above them. It was surreal to say the least.

That whole event actually started a chain reaction that had far-reaching effects. Apparently, after I left the chat, Alosha and Kat continued to talk. I’m not sure what they talked about, but the week after that the strange story of Alosha walking out in front of a bus came into being. For those of you who weren’t there, someone claiming to be Alosha’s brother (later proved to be Alosha herself) sent an ICQ message out to everyone saying that because of the pressures she was under at DM, she had purposely walked out in front of the school bus. Ooo! Attempted suicide! What a convenient way to make people feel sorry for you in a hurry! It would have been great, except for the fact that no one bought it. To make a long story short, Alosha was fired and excommunicated soon after that.

At this point I was an Accepted. Being raised was fun in that I got to write a great three arches post! Anyone who wants to know why I hate the Green Ajah IC so much should go read the three arches post. Heh heh heh. But before I go on to my short but memorable Acceptedhood, I have to go back to the pranks. Yes, I was the queen of pranks! I was responsible for about two dozen froggies being liberated from the Tower pond and plunked into the bathtub of an unlucky Green Sister. That was a prank that lived in infamy! After that I was responsible for baking several loafs of bread with two cups of salt instead of two cups of sugar. That was actually a legitimate mistake IC though. Not only did every Sister in the Tower end up eating bread that was so salty it inspired the most stalwart sister to scream profanities at the dinner table, it marked the end of Phryg being allowed to do chores in the kitchen.

And then there was the prank that went too far. (insert doom-filled music here) It was actually a group prank. Believe it or not, I can’t remember all the people involved. I’m sure they would all volunteer to come forward if you asked them. There was a small group of Novices in the laundry room getting themselves into a bunch of trouble. I think Markieta was there. They had been told to do the laundry and for some reason thought it would be loads of fun to pull bottles of dye off the shelves to tie-dye all of the Accepted dresses with. Phryg was out in the garden at the time, digging up a bunch of worms. The two pranks intersected when Phryg came dashing down the hall with a covered bucket and ran into the tie-dyed Novices in the laundry room. She spilled the worms briefly before running on to the kitchen and plopping them all in the soup! Yes, the soup.

Needless to say, the Amrylin and the Mistress of Novices were not happy with the whole thing. They had about half of the Novices at the time involved in being very very bad. It was a short time after that that the announcement was made that all pranks were forbidden from that point until further notice. Yes folks, you can partially blame me for that one. It was months later that the rule of having pranks allowed if they were cleared by the MoN and the Amrylin came into being. But the reason why you need to check now is because a few of us, all respectable Sedai now, got way out of hand.

I think I hold the record for shortest amount of time spent as an Accepted. A lot of you know that I am a teacher and a writer in real life (whatever that is) and the idea of being able to teach a class really appealed to me. So I whipped up some classes speedy quick and taught them very fast. But the thing which really made me able to be an Accepted for the shortest amount of time ever was the fact that I did a project (I highly recommend this, by the way). And then I was an Aes Sedai.

And then there was Winter. November, December, and early January consisted of one major thing for me: Incarndom. You all have no idea what it was like to be an Incarn back in those days (unless you were one!) For the record, because it isn’t very well or widely known, this was what the Incarns did. We were in charge of coming up with ideas for the "major plotline" of the Dragon Reborn. Phoenix would ask for out opinion about what he thought he should do, specifically as far as the Rhuidean RP went (but that’s another story all to itself). What we did more than anything though was to OK or No-No various things that people wanted to do. People used to appeal to the Incarns when they wanted to have a certain character trait or item in their possession, or if they wanted to do a certain RP. We, all 9 of us, would discuss the benefits and drawbacks to the request, both in terms of reality and in terms of how it would effect the overall atmosphere of DM, and especially whether the requester would be able to handle the added element or power they would have. Some people were denied things because we knew they would not be able to handle it seriously. Contrary to popular opinion, the Incarns were not the RP police and we did not make our judgements based solely on whether or not it would happen in the book. Reality was not an issue as much as you might think. The main concern we had was for the benefit and furtherment of DM.

That said *smirks* oh boy did we fight! Man! You wouldn’t believe the things that people said to one another! There were low blows and stirringly emotional pleas. There were short, sharp rebuttals and long, humorous explanations. All of this took place over the Onelist list that all of the Incarns belonged to. If you think some of the things that people post on the boards now in anger or frustration are shocking, you should have seen what we all said to each other on this list! And more than anyone else, the people who fought, who were on the opposite side of every issue, and who said things to each other that even butch Australian rugby players would blanche at were *drumroll* me and Serafelle. Yes folks, we fought like alley cats! And I’m sure Sera would admit it too. We really got into it, but underneath it all was the mutual understanding that we both cared so much about Dm and wanted what was best for it to such a degree that we would stop at nothing to make sure it was as perfect as we could make it. If you ever worry and think that the people at the top don’t care or only have their own interest at heart, let me assure you that this is so far from the truth as to be unimaginable. Sera and I cared so much, and still do, that we both ended up in very vocal tears on many occasions. We tried so hard to make things as perfect for the average DMer that we drove ourselves crazy. It was a highly emotional time, the worst of which came in the very last week of the 20^th century. But more about that in a minute.

The worst fight that the Incarns ever got into was not with each other, although there were some legendary ones there, but with the Aiel. And it was all a misunderstanding. Pay attention. This is how one harmless assumption can turn into a tooth and nail fight with many casualties. It all started when Phoenix, the Dragon Reborn, wanted to go into Rhuidean to fulfill the prophecy of the Dragon, just like in the books. There was a lot of concern that this important event be kept as close to the books as possible, and as a part of that there was a desire on the part of the Incarns to have a woman enter Rhuidean as well, just like Moiraine did in the books. And so Yveva was chosen. The Aiel were grumpy because they felt as through they were being left out of the decision process to a certain extent, but at this point they were still willing to go along with it. Let me make the important note at this point that the Incarns were talking about this RP intensely every day for a while. We all got about 30 emails a day from each other discussing the situation. It didn’t all just happen on a whim.

And then all hell broke loose. Andrew, whose character name was something along the lines of Sam Sadar, decided that he wanted to enter Rhuidean too. I actually don’t know what the details of the whole thing were or are. Andrew had this way of not telling the rest of us what was going on. (When I took over his title of "Saidar" and the email account to go with it, I found there were over 80 emails of requests and the like that he had never forwarded to Yveva or myself and never told us about. The name Andrew is now synonymous with bullshit to me) When I first started to become aware of things it was because the Aiel were suddenly, in my perception, flaming mad for no reason at all. I couldn’t understand what in the heck had happened. Hadn’t they agreed to the whole Rhuidean RP? Weren’t they just as much a part of this whole thing as us Incarns? Well, the answer turned out to be no, they weren’t. I made a little visit to the Aiel board as "White Blossom" to see what people were all upset about. I read their posts of outrage and tried to think if there was something I could do about it. I read what was written on the staff RP board and tried to see if there was a common ground. My personal conclusions? The Incarns were giving the Aiel the brush-off and the Aiel were over-reacting.

This is where I became personally involved in the fiasco. I decided, being the Gray that I am at heart, to try to find the middle ground. I posted on the Aiel board as "White Blossom" trying to state our side of the story, our ignorance of what was going on, and trying to help the Aiel calm down and not to feel so much like they had been stepped on. And for a moment there it looked like it was going to work! I got a positive response from one of the Aiel where others had been getting attacked. But then I was attacked to, and how! I had a post directed to me that was very bitter and spiteful. Nothing at DM had really upset me until that point. Suddenly I was livid, but mostly because a post that I had put on the staff board had been copied and cut and pasted out of context and my words had been twisted to make it sound like I meant something entirely different. Let this be a note to you. Never ever do that to anyone! It’s a sure fire way to really piss someone off, and I was!

It is very important to note that all of that was sorted out eventually and I did receive and apology. It’s all water under the bridge, but it was a sharp lesson that we all had to learn about where the boundaries between orgs and the overall RP administration lay. This was also the beginning of the end for the Incarns as we knew them. We basically tied ourselves up in a knot that couldn’t be untied. The Aiel controversy brought up the very valuable question of how much influence should an anonymous group of unrelated people have in the workings of a single org. Federal versus state government. We were in the middle of trying to figure out how in the heck we could prevent something like the Aiel controversy from happening again when Drea, out fearless Incarn leader, quit. That was the first death toll. She came back for a while, but by then it was pretty much a given that something was going to fall. Phoenix apparently had ideas about how to better run the RP and the Incarns as a part of it.

There was one very intense day at the very end of December where it all came down to the line. I was online for hours that day, way past my bedtime. We were all about to be fired and we knew it. Never in my life have I seen a group of people react to the prospect of the axe being dropped. It was fascinating actually. A few of the Incarns were relieved. They didn’t really have the time to be Incarns anyhow and this would be a load off their backs. But at the other spectrum you had those of us who were slapped in the face by abject fear. This meant the end of all that we had been trying to do. I know that I panicked. I wrote a heartfelt plea for the Incarns to stay alive and emailed it all over the place. There were eleventh hour plans on how to rework the current structure. More emails hit the list that night than I have ever seen before. And then a complete miracle happened: Serafelle and I became friends! It was as if all the fog and dust of anger and opposition had been cleared away and for the first time we saw that our powers could be used together for an even greater effect. We became allies that night and have remained so ever since.

Of course, about an hour later an email came over the wire from Phoenix with the title "The Incarns are Hereby Disbanded". Well, that was it. We were history, and ancient history at that. The storm of anger and conflict and fear that had been swirling around all of us came to a sudden and shattering stop. I read the email a few times, took a deep breath, then let it out and all of the emotion I had been holding with it. It was all done. I was no longer "Saidar". Everything that I had been responsible for was now lifted off my shoulders and given away to someone else. The plot of the RP would be reset and the very face of RP as we knew it would be reworked. And much to my surprise, I didn’t really care anymore.

I did a lot of DM soul-searching that night. Everything had become so political and so much a matter of having my voice heard above the clamor of everyone else’s voice. I had lost sight of what made me want to join DM, and even to be an Incarn, in the first place. DM was supposed to be fun. DM was supposed to be a place where you could come apart from the rest of the world and have friends of a like mind. It wasn’t about the books. It wasn’t about the RP even. It wasn’t about having the most impressive title or having people do my ideas instead of someone else’s. For the first time I had to admit that what Phoenix had been saying all along was, in fact, the truth. DM was a community, not a game. It was the place where all of my friends were and where we could dress up and put on costumes and characters without people looking at us funny. DM was a dreamworld, and it was time to be a part of the dream again, not the mastermind behind it.

I was really happy to be Phrygiana again. So happy, in fact, that I put some serious thought to running an RP of my own. The Incarns were restructured, and , what do ya know, I was still one of them. Things had changed though. Our role was greatly reduced to that of a benevolent judge who sits back and makes sure all the kiddies are playing nice. I was much more excited about planning a diplomatic mission to Mayene. The mission was a test for the new system. Could RP work if it was contained within one org and control was handed over to the RP admin for the org and an RP director for the plot? Well, the Mayene mission worked pretty damned good, if I do say so myself. Of course, it mostly worked thanks to the craziness of two very silly Novices, Ryell and Reile, who caused more trouble than I ever had!

Now we are still at the beginning of this new era of DM. Time has passed, true, but the point of the whole enterprise is still being ironed out and solidified. I think this system works very well, thank you very much! I’d like to think that all the trials I went through as an Incarn were just the birth pangs of bringing this new system into being. Of course, as fun as the RP here is, the most important thing to remember is not what your OP score is (25) but who your friends are. I have visited Jenn, Mary, and Jimmy in Atlanta and had a great lunch with them at the Atlanta airport. Heidi, Mary (other Mary) and Jess have all come here to Bryn Athyn to visit me. This summer I am flying, which I fear like death, to Seattle to visit Bren. And did I mention that there will be 13 other DMers there too? My latest dream is to go to Australia to visit Steve and to the Netherlands to bug Caroline for a while. All of these things are far more important to me than whether or not Phryg will ever get to leave the Tower again to go on the elusive mission to Ebou Dar. I have friends here, that’s all that counts.