Lucia ran down the littered pavement, eyes scanning the side streets and broken down cars. Her breath came in distorted gasps, contorting her lungs making them feel deflated and as stuck together as wadded up gum. The Museo del Arte, where she had been curator, had perished almost immediately after marshall law was declared. Since then she had been running and and scavenging until she could find her husband Liam. They'd only been married a short while, but life seemed as though it had been nothing beyond the misery and fear she constantly felt right now. Everything else was a psychedelic blur, a bad trip on tainted acid. They had always had a plan to meet back at their apartment if any catastrophe occurred. But she'd been there twice, once almost getting her foot bitten by one of those horrid things. It's gaping black hole of a mouth chomping at air, as she fell and pulled her foot away from it. Liam was not there either time. She had a sinking feeling he never would be. Perhaps he had perished in this nightmare. Maybe she would too. Some days she felt like plopping down in the mud and slime slicked streets, staring into space as one of those monsters slowly munched her into no longer being. But she had found the will to go on for him. But if she didn't find him soon, maybe that's exactly what she would do. Sit down on a bench. Have a cigarette and a swig of the wine she'd scavenged from a gutted out liquor store. Just smoke and sip, until the monsters descended upon her and began to eat away all her pain. Perhaps there would be blessed peace after that. Until then, she would continue to run, and hide, and search, and pine.....

Nicely said @DrMax. I honestly don't have a dog in this race, but I'm voting anyway, as an objective observer, due to the evolution of feedback suggesting a positive turn of events in behavior and modus operandi I saw in the group thread. Yes they did fuck up at first, but they really seem to have tried to correct the wrongs and do better. What boggles the mind, is that the community validates this perception several times over, across a decent period of time, yet they are still being held to a pretty high standard of conduct compared to other groups. Of course they are not perfect, no group is, and there is always room for improvement. But if we say because "they have baggage attached to the name...." they shouldn't be approved, is that really a valid reason for disapproval or removal from the community?! ? That would mean that some of the ones throwing stones live in perfectly crystal clear glass houses that have never had smudges or dirt of any kind mar their glass. And come on now, we all know that is not true for many. They fucked up, they learned from their mistakes, they grew and did better. We applauded their efforts. Why not in this case? I thought our whole "community" aspect was to observe, teach, generate change, and when it occurs feel a job was well done. Now it's like -hey you fuck up once (albeit on what some might consider a major scale-I get that), and there is no redemption for you, no room for improvement, change, or getting better. How are we rewarding those that put in work to actually provide what they lacked in the beginning? Isn't mentoring and learning from mistakes what we say we are founded on? I have felt this group was truly humiliated in some of the comments, as far as why they are still here and what not. How disheartening to learn you are not here because you actually give a damn and have worked to become better role players and community members. Rather you are here because of your affiliations only. That is a shame IMHO and even more shameful to say out loud. And we wonder why that "them vs. us" mentality continues to flourish. I have to admire you boys' tenacity and the ability to stay fairly civil in the face of this onslaught. It reminds me of when the lads tried to make the UN group. Although they weren't perfect, they truly tried to change their MO, but because of previous (some of them way back in the day actions) they could never grow past the role they had originally acquired and finally had to say 'Uncle' and give it up. I hope your group fares much better. This is just my fly by two cents worth, cause as I said, don't have a dog in this race, not really a hard core hostile player myself. But right is right, wrong is wrong, fair is fair. I don't see it in this case. I wish the group success, some compassion and open mindedness as those that have the ultimate power (I thought the Lore Masters had a significant voice in all of this, appears they do not- another shame) to make the decision decide how to proceed. Some of the statements and evidence provided don't bode well. As I said, just reinforces the paranoia and 'us vs. them' mentality. I thought we were trying to move away from that image.

I gotta get out of this thread. Mercy, mercy me! It's so hard to come on and see this type of stuff, and see some of the sheer hypocrisy. Yeah, I said it, hypocrisy. We HAVE had people say offensive things such as Eagle mentioned on P. 2 of this thread, and they are still here. We HAVE had people, even staff, maybe especially staff, so drunk off their asses they had to be temp banned from TS so they wouldn't act too much of a fool and be a bad example for other community members, and they are still here, and still stayed in staff at the time. We have seen people banned for things they did OUTSIDE of DayZRP. How long does this arm of "justice" reach? To my personal web pages? My private discord, skype, etc.? To where I live and work? Where do you draw the line? How are things deemed "offensive?" I know that we all SHOULD use common sense in what we say or do in public, even online. But we don't all do that. Hell some of us don't seem to have much common sense at all. BUT, things can be so subjective that it's hard not to feel someone is being biased or petty at times, if we see folks get in trouble because seemingly their sense of humor or what is acceptable deviates too much from the powers in charge at the time. I'm not advocating that folks should be able to do whatever, or say whatever, but come on now....some things ARE questionable. I don't know when folks will stop and realize this isn't the community we used to have. It's just not. It's a business and has been for quite some time. I don't even know what all the rules are anymore. I just know it doesn't feel or seem safe to play freely. I could be wrong, and this is my opinion of course. *sigh* Let me get my ass off here, before I get myself into hot water. It just pains me to see such stark changes in a place I loved so dearly. A place I was woven into like silk threads into a favorite blanket. This situation is kind of like a zombie it is. When you see your loved one shambling down the road in zombie form, that's not your loved one anymore, that's a zombie. It's just a shell of what it used to be. It might have the same structure, but the inside is quite different. It might help if we reminded ourselves of that from time to time.