I’m meant to be writing an RP post right now. It’s been what, thirty days? I’m cutting it very close. But you know, I just don’t have it in me at this very moment. What do I write about? I thought about the children of Kyoki Chudoku, the next generation growing up in state-produced youth facilities because half the population is unstable around six-year-olds. I thought about writing about the Supreme Overlady of All Reality and her progression from an outside force to a mad tyrant to an emotional wreck to a protector of the world to a reclusive shadow. But you know, that hit just a little too close to home.
Kyoki Chudoku as a nation is strange. It’s a nation that has participated in multiple communities. It’s done forum stuff, it’s done TNP forum stuff, it’s had variants and alternatives and all manner of possible interpretations, and of course it’s on the RMB. It’s been...a long time, since I became active in this community. And you know, pretentious as it sounds, I like to think of myself as an early influence on the way RMB RP is today. Back when the first text walls came to be, when RP became more than conversations or brief actions. The history of RMB RP is storied, probably ill-documented, and frustratingly filled with people who are no longer with us for one reason or another- sometimes because of inactivity, sometimes because of the unforgivable, sometimes without explanation at all.
I saw Nim’s campaign advertisement a little ago. Read through it. ...yeah, great segue there me. ...yes, I almost spelled that Segway. In any case, RP as a whole is a weird animal. Technically, the Ministry of Culture oversees it- but you don’t see anyone making any specific promises about RP, do you? It’s not a universal part of the community, but it’s certainly integral to it, and it’s largely governs itself. The reason for this is that, well, it’s a complicated system of collaborative writing, and anyone whose delegate has much bigger concerns than arbitrating disputes over nations that don’t exist.
That’s harsh. Just because something isn’t real doesn’t mean it’s not impactful. Fiction proves that time and time again. RP is a fascinating medium, but...ah, another tangent. I’ll get back on track. Kyoki Chudoku is weird. In many ways, Kyoki Chudoku represents a paradox. A nation with the most writing I’ve done for any project. With countless details and previous RPs that defined the modern landscape of SR. A nation that contributed to magic being possible, to the Warsaw Pact surviving its inception, to the character arcs of...too many fallen nations.
A nation that I can barely keep alive here because I have plainly no idea what the hell I’m doing with it.
I try to RP. But I can’t keep it up. I’m stressed easily. I can’t maintain a good pace, and my interests turn elsewhere. My priorities change. And for months and months there’s nothing but empty silence. Kyoki Chudoku is stuck because all that makes it what it is...it’s so hard to move to any specific place. It’s not that it’s boring, or even stale, or even repetitive. It has a wealth of possible conflict- I have several alternate reality ideas for how things could be different. But to actually commit requires a sacrifice too great to make.
These days, Kyoki Chudoku is an isolated psychotic dictatorship undergoing a slow recovery from a nightmarish war. It has been so for years now. Every month, it slips further into irrelevancy. Once a major world power commanding the fear and ire of all democracies, it has since become a shadow of itself, too weak to enforce anything and with a leadership with increasingly disparate views on how to rule, even if an absolute ruler maintains control.
I have plans on how a civil war could manifest.
I have plans on how it could not.
Of a tenshi rebellion, of a great restoration, of a desperate reclamation...
...and I’m never going to pursue any of it, am I?
Because once that choice is made, there’s no going back. Because I know the real reason Kyoki Chudoku isn’t a consideration on the world stage. It’s got nothing to do with its innate power. Nothing to do with its history. It’s simply because I’m not around enough for it to matter. Things are slower in general than they once were- in early early early SR RP I once missed an entire war because I hadn’t woken up in time for it- but even so. Of course nothing happens if I don’t make it happen. Of course nothing changes if I don’t allow change.
...but I don’t know if I have it in me to change.
I refuse to let the Supreme Ultimate Country die quietly all of a sudden by the will of the cartography team. Equally, I don’t have the time or the effort or the stomach for a dramatic finale. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Probably putter on in glacial stagnation, alive but hardly active, more a memory and a dream than an RP partner or a participant in the world. It’s not much of a life, but...what else am I supposed to do? Let it end? Try something else? I’ve had puppets and they’ve died left and right for the same reason.
...I think in the end, Kyoki Chudoku worked as well as it did back in the day because...it wasn’t intended to be a part of anything. It simply was as it was. It adapted, sure. Evolved. Changed. Chaos forced me to react. Madness became an ally. And now, as war rages for months in the northern islands above, as old allies collapse into obscurity and their lands are overtaken by newcomers, Kyoki Chudoku itself...exists. Untouched. Unchanged. Unwavering. Unimportant.
...I’ll think of something. I’ll work something out. And hopefully, put it into action before cartographical death descends upon me and undoes it all. As amusing as the idea is to try reclaim what was once the Chudokuren isles from but a fragment...it’d make everything thus far feel so...pointless. I’ll try something, when it’s not ten at night and when I’m not nearing sleep with every blink.
...anyway. Have a free cookie, for reading through all this, whatever lunatics made it this far in. You deserve it.
