I’m going meta so I guess this is the right place.
First of all, I’d like to thank not only FBG but also every Storynexus writers for all the beautiful worlds that they created. Aside from FL, I really appreciated Samsara and The Sliver Tree which gave me a romantic perspective on cultures that I might otherwise not read about IRL.
Storynexus gave us not just stories but also building blocks to make our own little lives within a beautiful and romantic world. The characters and plotlines are vague enough so that you can place your character’s self within the plot and take those characters as part of your narrative (ex. there are a lot of Once-Dashing Smugglers out there but I have my own). Sometimes those worlds intersect in K&C, Holiday events and even (dare I say it?) marriage. It’s a great way of momentarily getting way from the hustle and bustle of IRL while enjoying the worlds created by both the authors and the players alike.
As such, it pains me when I see posts which deconstruct the players’ worlds and gameplay choices and leaving them hanging. Like French philosopher Jacques Derrida stated, deconstruction is supposed to create new forms from the old pieces of the broken world should not stop at a cynical and nihilistic state.
Examples:
Player A: I’m a hedonistic Journalist out for a good time in Veilgarden!
Player B: London’s supposed to be conservative. Dear God put those shoes back on young lady!
Player A: I’m a Licentiate, a stealthy assassin of the night. If I saw your name on my list then consider yourself dead!
Player B: You need a better weapon. Like a sniper rifle.
Player A: But I have A List of Aliases, Writ in Gant…
Player B: That’s a piece of paper, how can you kill with a piece of paper!
My proposal is that rather than deconstruct other people’s worlds and gameplay choices then leaving them in that state, let’s offer our fellow players bits and pieces of world building blocks.
Look, I can’t hold a Mourning Candle in the presence of SN writers and I won’t pretend that I can. However, one of my favorite posts that I created is about a simple thing. I just told another player that IRL caves have their own weather systems so our little home under the Surface should have the same. I just felt that before learning about that info, the other player can only experience a perpetually moon-misers "sky" that is just punctuated with an occasional lacre shower. Now I think they can imagine all sorts of weather phenomena such as storms, blizzards and other dramatic weather.