This is just a quick announcement to let everyone know that I have re-organized the Want Ad Board - if you have questions, please let me know!

AND

More importantly, the Winter Festival is now open. All threads from the Fall Festival have been moved into the Past Events Board and you can still reply to them. New threads have been made for each of the holiday events and as always, you are welcome to create your owns.

The Yule Ball is also open in the ball room board. Posting for the Yuletide King and Queen (or otherwise) is open starting today until Dec 15. 

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Andrew Douglas Timmea Lacroix Deri Ellis Anashka Markovic Boyd Nightingale Beauregard Nott Daven Cursive Levi Hilfiger Dean Stewart Paris Aurinko Artemis H. Hwang Bellamy Saffron Sutton Bane Remington Grebe Rosie Huntington Elizabeth Kingston Sally Byrne Hina Avaiki Tae-il Chae  Annaliese Montego Arianna Stewart  Sebastian Balfour Stella Macaroy  Mercy Patil-Boot Ethan Prince Ainsley Hopkins Everly Prince Alyson Rychester Haydin Voeller Marcia Jaeger Leonard Chant Jacqueline Devlin Benjamin V. Castillo Sarah Hannah Brooks Dominique Weasley Cordelia Lupin Noah Beaton Maxwell McCree Park Soo-Kyung Youngbin Chae

Step up to a table at The Three Broomsticks and start decorating your holiday cookies. There are gingerbread, snowmen, stars, santa's, etc. You can also build gingerbread houses if you wish. There's refreshments and holiday music playing in the background.

Please put a number in your post. There will be 3 tables operating. Try to fill up a table before taking up space at an empty table to encourage RP with new friends.

Table 1: open

Table 2: open

Table 3: open

Welcome to the Christmas Tree Farm. Go head, pick out your tree. Explore choosing your tree with friends. Have a good time, maybe even get lost in the tree or spot some gnomes dressed as Santa's Elves running around!

You've picked out a tree and now it's time to decorate it. Get your ornaments, your arts and crafts and your tinsel and have a great time working together to decorate some of the trees around Hogsmeade.

Please put a number in your post. There will be 3 trees being decorated to start and 4 people to a tree. Please try and fill up trees before joining an empty one to encourage RP with new friends.

Tree 1: open

Tree 2: open

Tree 3: open

Get out your skis, your toboggans, your crazy carpets and sleds and head to the snow hill for some holiday fun and winter sports! There is a magical ski lift to bring you back up to the top but there's only room for 2 people per lift seat. Have fun!

For those hungry turkey lovers, inside a giant Igloo there's a holiday feast happening. Turkey, with all the trimmings and some famous figgy pudding is available for your enjoyment. Come on in, make up a plate at the buffet and sit and enjoy with friends and music.

For this thread, please put a number in your post. There's 4 spots at each table available and I will set up 3 tables to start with. Try to fill a table before sitting down at your own to encourage RPing with new friends.

Table 1: open

Table 2: open

Table 3: open

Up at Hogwarts there is a large bonfire for people to keep warm, roasting of chestnuts (a holiday tradition!) as well as marshmallows and hot dogs over the fire is available. There's also hot cocoa and warm apple cider available to keep the hands warm.

Sleigh rides are available from Hogsmeade, out into the country side. One even takes you up to Hogwarts where there's a bonfire, an igloo and a holiday feast.

When posting in this thread, please place a number in your post to indicate which sleigh you are in and I can update the list. There's room for 4 people per sleigh. I'll start with 3 sleighs operating. Try to fill a sleigh before taking an open one to encourage RPing with new friends.

Sleigh 1: open

Sleigh 2: open

Sleigh 3: open

A large area on the black lake has been cleared off and the lake is completely frozen (by magic!). Skates are available to rent. There's a hot cocoa booth to keep skaters warm and there's holiday music playing over loud speakers to keep with the festive theme. Enjoy a skate (or a fall!) on the ice with friends, family and loved ones.

The main street of Hogsmeade is decked out with fun holiday booths selling their wares as well as specialty Christmas booths selling things like ornaments, decorations, fudge and trinkets. Have fun and who knows who you might bump into!

As of late, there has been a steady increase in negativity going around INH and the discord; a shift in language, a hardening of attitudes and an overall lack of good-faith effort being made, so please, hear us out.

What we do here is meant to be fun. We’re a community of people with a shared hobby and interest but we’re also a group of people with differing ideas and opinions and even skill levels. Some of us are striving for the best we can deliver, others are just kicking back and tossing out words for enjoyment, and some of us are wanting to improve to increase their enjoyment. And that is all dandy! There’s a place for every person and every style here! And what makes it great is that we all RESPECT each other.

We’re a community, and a community thrives on concessions and compromises and sometimes things have to change and evolve to meet the growing population – nothing can stay the same forever. People are going to come and people are going to go and there’s going to be periods of chaos and periods of calmness and sometimes people are going to come in a rush and make a mess of things. It’s our job to welcome everyone and roll with the punches and find a new groove among the foundation.

Everyone brings their own unique voice, their own diversity and vibrancy to the site and that’s worth celebrating. We’re all unique and we’re all special and we all deserve to be here.

While we all go through periods where we feel like “What is the point? No one will miss me if I go. They’ll move on.” It’s simply not true.

What is the point? - the point is to have fun whether it’s with a vast assortment of members on site, or a small handful of people – no one will force you to interact with every single person on site BUT it is expected that there is a level of respect that has to be shown to each individual because we are all humans with feelings and no one deserves to have their feelings squished, hurt or invalidated.

No one will miss me if I go? - Ha! I laugh at this thought – and I know we all have this thought – but it’s incredibly untrue. Those of us who have been here since the beginning still find ourselves suddenly thinking about lost members. Just the other day I was thinking about Erik – he was an original member of INH who left, returned and left again and he is missed. His characters are missed. There is ALWAYS going to be someone who sits down and says to the next person “I wonder what Bella is doing these days?” And then reminiscing happens.

They’ll move on. Yes. They will because that IS RP. Stories have to move on as characters come and go otherwise the writers end up stuck. If the character can’t move on then maybe it’s time to end their story-line and begin anew. None of this can be done without a lot of kindness, good-faith effort, honesty, understanding, and communication. We cannot be the growing and thriving presence that we are without these things, and that means we need to recognize some things while addressing others.

We need to remember that:

Not everyone is going to be the main character in every story no matter how much we might what that. Each of our characters have their own unique stories to tell and they are not always going to fit into the narrative of other people’s stories. This is okay. It’s like having that co-worker whom you get along with fine at work but your lives outside of work do not mesh. That doesn’t mean you stop being courteous and friendly and supportive of each other. Continuous and clear communication needs to occur during plotting, and emotions need to be left at the doorstep. We have to be able to recognize and accept that things change and you cannot control every single aspect of your RP life anymore than you can control every single aspect of your real life.

Everyone has an opinion about who would fit into what plots and whether it is romance, friendship or a specific claim on a registry list, just like everyone has their own opinion on what a canon will be like, this is normal. The important thing is to be clear, concise in what you are looking for and to be gracious of the opinions of others – they might not agree and that’s okay. Things might change and that is okay as well. Sometimes, things fall apart – in real life and in RP – we have to be able to accept the changes without the emotional turmoil because at the very end of the day – this is a hobby. This is for fun. If you are so emotionally invested that you can’t see the lines where RP ends and real emotions begin then it’s time to take a step back from RP and re-evaluate why you are doing this in the first place.

No one should feel like they have to keep a plot or a character going that they don’t have muse for or no longer enjoy writing because they are afraid of hurting the feelings of someone they are writing or shipping with. No one should feel hesitant to go to their RP partner and say “hey, this isn’t working for me anymore, is there something else we can do?”

It’s important to be honest with your RP partners, and with yourself. Can you handle more? Do you need to cut back? Do you enjoy that thread you are writing? Should you apply for that position? Are you really the right person for the role?

Honesty is so important because if you take on a role that is plot relevant/sought after/limited, like Prefects, Headmaster, Department Head, etc, people are going to look to you to fulfill that spot with activity otherwise it’s going to feel undeserving and people are going to begin to have feelings about that.

I won’t ever deny that we all have people we like playing with more than others – it’s just like work or school – we all have co-workers we prefer or classmates we would rather sit with but we have to recognize that certain language such as “Favourites” or “Cliques” or “New Members” creates an Us VS Them sort of mentality. And right now it feels like there is an Admins VS Older Members VS New Members mentality and in the past there has been an Admins VS Members mentality and that is not the vibe we want because we are all members. A lot of the time, what is perceived as a clique is simply the volume of certain people over others. Right now, there’s a group of members who are enthusiastic and loud and highly active so those members who are quieter and have busier lifestyles or are struggling with their muses are feeling a bit put out but there are always going to be highs and lows. There are no popular kids here. There are no losers or nerds or jocks. We’re all just people who love to write and want to write together.

Circling back to a previous point, it’s absurd to think you can and have to interact with every single person within this community. If you do, then you’ll end up like Lou with twenty-six characters and still unable to reach everyone while constantly having an overwhelming to do list of replies. Remember what you can handle and don’t get yourself or others down for not interacting with everyone – the important thing is that IF someone new approaches you – and I don’t mean new to the site, just new because you have not interacted yet – be welcoming and open to their ideas and give each other an equal chance at the experience because that person you have never interacted with before could become your new best friend.

Please be patient. Please be kind. Remember that this is a hobby where we write about fictional characters and the feelings our characters might have towards your characters are not a reflection of how we feel towards you. Real life is messy enough for everyone, we’ve all got stresses and burdens, and we all make mistakes. There’s no need to bring those stresses and burdens into our hobbies and make mountains out of molehills or perceive problems where there are no problems. And if there are issues, please try to work them our respectfully. If you need a mediator, don’t hesitate to ask.

Thank you for reading this. I hope it’s helpful. I hope that we can all smooth the feathers together and continue to be the great community we strive to be. If there is anything you wish to further discuss, please reach out to an admin, we’re here to help.

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Andrew Douglas Timmea Lacroix Deri Ellis Anashka Markovic Boyd Nightingale Beauregard Nott Daven Cursive Levi Hilfiger Dean Stewart Paris Aurinko Artemis H. Hwang Bellamy Saffron Sutton Bane Remington Grebe Rosie Huntington Elizabeth Kingston Sally Byrne Hina Avaiki Tae-il Chae  Annaliese Montego Arianna Stewart  Sebastian Balfour Stella Macaroy  Mercy Patil-Boot Ethan Prince Ainsley Hopkins Everly Prince Alyson Rychester Haydin Voeller Marcia Jaeger Leonard Chant Jacqueline Devlin Benjamin V. Castillo Sarah Hannah Brooks Dominique Weasley Cordelia Lupin Noah Beaton Maxwell McCree Park Soo-Kyung Youngbin Chae