CLIQUES & INCLUSIVITY DISCUSSION

okay so apologies if this repeats anything bc i'm going to sleep soon and haven't read through all this lol. but tbh ascendants felt v cliquey to me the moment i joined with cece. i know part of it was bc it was v fast and had a lot of members so it was v overwhelming esp. when cece was more casual even when i first introduced her. however, even tho i feel like i was p active in the chat, i still often felt left out or like no one particularly cared if she was there or not outside of her family? i know there were multiple times where i was just passed over/completely ignored. this is understandable bc ascendants is a huge group so it's likely to happen every once in awhile. however, there was about a week where it was happening every day, multiple times a day, which is a lil wild.

i also had issues with multiple people just... not reading cece's posts lol. like there would be key details that other posts directly contradicted or just didn't acknowledge when it was clearly stated in said post.  i get that happening every once in awhile but there was one thread where only 1-2 people caught the main purpose which was v disappointing. idk just... overall i felt like no one really cared outside of a select group of people. obviously the last few weeks i haven't been active with her at all and that was in part due to the cliquey-ness ngl. i love cece and have tons of muse for her but ascendants is honestly p uncomfortable for me sometimes.

also, to add to the buddy system, i think it's a good step but i'm not sure how practical that idea is. i hate to be cynical but buddy systems, generally speaking, die after about a week or two. it's a good idea but it's not super practical, based on what i've seen elsewhere. in the end, if someone really doesn't want to plot with someone else or doesn't really care what's going on with them, a buddy system won't really change that from what I've seen? I think it'd be better to incorporate something similar to it into weekly tasks and prompts (such as having people do tasks together or things involving other people) or finding some other way to fit it into rp more naturally so people can get a better idea of who they might interact with but aren't necessarily forced to i guess? or maybe even some kinda plot that pushes them together or smth but idk... i just feel like buddy systems, generally speaking, aren't able to last a very long time. i do think it seems interesting but i'm not sure if, realistically, it would stay in continued use.