4113912 I think your underestimate the power of a handwritten letter. It takes time to write one, it's a labor of love and it's something you can hold and reread multiple time. A smile is just a smile, words fly away but written words last forever. It's a tangible expression and proof that someone cares about you.

Plenty of Vault ponies are artists, artisans and inventors, I'm sure they'd like a chance to correspond with other ponies in their field.

4113753

Now, a simple solution to this might be to impose a, say, five-day Discussion period during which time a fic can be discussed and debated over, and at the end of this period is when the fic's canon or non-canon status is decided. Does that sound good?

Maybe, though even if all decisions aren't unanimous, I think we really should strive for at least 4/5 majority instead of a simple (with extra consideration to be given whenever G&C2 or myself is the odd man, as we're the ones most likely perceive the other as getting undue preferential treatment). More over though, even if we do summarize our opinions as a binary yay or nay, I think it's always of importance that we elaborate on why we reached such a decision, especially in the advent of a nay. After all, is it not supposed to be the function of the Quorum to not only sit in judgment over what is and isn't canon, but to help facilitate author's getting their story published.

Regardless, in all things I still always bow to your supreme executive authority. If after any arbitrary time limit you deem fit, you want to put an end to discussion that you've deemed circular or otherwise non-productive, then by all means do so. And if you want to make that final decisions in the form of a vote, than again I accept that as your decision to make. Of course, especially in regard to G&C2 and myself, I think that I need to be able to expect you to smooth over in fallout that could potentially result from a debate that is cut off prematurely.

Perhaps more so though I think we need to keep in mind that all decisions made by the Quorum, need to be subject to further discussion and potential revision at any time, especially in regards to stories that receive their initial approval based on only a single chapter. Admittedly, I guess maybe that's the way it's always been, again especially in so far as G&C2 and myself are concerned the issue of canonicity has always been a thorny subject, which make me all the more leery of openly discussing such. Plus, ostensibly as members of the Quorum, I think it's only all the more important that we give each other extra consideration. We should be able to approach each other as colleagues on a personal level, without the need to turn every single dispute into an official debate, or at the very least not regard each others actions as any kind of explicit attack. Then again, maybe it's even more important that all discussions between any of us be a matter of public record here on the forums.

In fairness, I plan to only use that to break tie votes if/when they come up, or tyrannically decide to let some non-Lunaverse stories be considered Lunaverse fanfiction.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. I will always appreciate that you appointed me to this Quorum, that you respect my opinions enough to trust me to speak on your behalf to the other members of this group. Yet I will still always consider you the sole boss and arbitrator of everything, For me, your word is law, even if it contradicted ALL four other members of this Quorum.

you are aware that, by becoming fixated on certain ideas or suggestions and then steadfastly clinging to those and arguing for them no matter what, you can come across as just as unwilling to compromise?

That's why ever since the first such major dispute of this sort, I've always submitted that I will drop any and all discourse if you make an official ruling on the matter. Maybe this time I wrongly tried circumventing that that. I don't ever want to become a burden to you, to feel like all I ever do is complain, but maybe next time I should instead use that to measure what is and isn't worth complaining about in the first place.

Still, as to the issue of fixating on a singular issue, part of that is my own method of compromise, as uncompromising as it might seem. Instead of wasting time on peripheral details, I'd rather just cut to the chase and identify the one element which I find most objectionable, and even at that it's always my preference to find methods of approaching that problem that are as unobtrusive as possible. That's sort o f what brought us here though...

My train of logics, is that the combination G&C2 and myself is a potentially irreconcilable problem that will only continue to cause further and worse disputes the longer it persist. The simplest solution is to eliminate one or the other of these individuals from the equation. G&C2, however, is by far the more prolific as seemingly popular author so his absence would be conceivably the most sorely missed by the Lunaverse as a whole. Therefore I must concede that the easer choice would be to eliminate myself instead... however, this is further compounded by the fact that you have explicitly told me that you not only want me to stay, but need me to stay. Now weather the original reasons for that are still the same, I am lead to believe that my presence is still desirable.

...Oh, and just to further elaborate (since I know you hate being put-upon a pedestal), while you are perhaps the largest contributing factor, I receive addition reinforcements of the like form most of the other authors in this group. I'm honestly not sure what I ever did to dissevered such wide spread respect and dare I say admiration around the Lunaverse, but I'm always grateful for it.

Unfortunately this is something of a cyclical logic loop that continually feeds back on itself until my frustration with being unable to reconcile the disparity boils over, each time a worse than the last. I'm not really sure what I can do to break the cycle other than to just give up and admit defeat (or in other words "quit" the Lunaverse). This is I think the third time I've reached that extreme... and maybe it's passed for now, though until G&C2returns I cant really say for sure -- I'm always more reasonable when I don't have to deal with him directly.

4113864
Speak of the devil...

I want IH to be able to communicate with Dinky, and by extension her other friends, at a higher level than just words. I want Dinky to be able to show her things--games, or pictures, or some cool new spell she learned--and vice versa. I want Dinky to be able to to smile at IH if IH says he's feeling sad, and for IH to be able to see it. I want IH to be able to potentially meet other foals if Dinky brings them over to sit in while she chats with IH, even if it's off-screen and unmentioned.

In other words you want all the advantages of removing him from the vault, without actually having done so.

You're as bad as Puissance, tying to create a prefect gilded cage where Iceheart has every advantage of not only living outside, but ostensibly becoming a member of our Ponyville cast of foals, yet all the while still preserving the exotic mystic of living in remote isolation under the doting privilege of an overly indulgent patron.

Emeral, you badger the other authors in the group and make it clear that you will not shut up until they acquiesce and do what you want.

See that's maybe what most infuriate me about you above and beyond the things you rights. it's not just that you shows me no semblance of respect, but the you also repeatedly belittle whatever respect others have given me by instead painting me as some kind of bully.

Not only is that disrespectful of me, it's disrespectful of pretty much everyone else as well. You treat our other authors as if the have no agency in their own decision as they are helpless pawns that need your supposedly benevolent protection lest all their creative endeavors be smashed. Yes authors need freedom, but I have never deemed to control ever aspect of any authors work. I try very hard to only ever make very specific requests. Yes sometimes those requests are of a purely personal nature, but it is still entirely up to whom ever I'm making such requests to choose whether or not to take my opinions into consideration.

Now, does my position on the Quorum factor into that, certainly, but it's also a contributing facto to why I am a member of this Quorum in the first place. My opinions matter, and they matter in part because I've always been the one who asks the hard questions about what should and shouldn't be canon in this setting. No one specifically gave me that particular function in the is group, but it's something I was doing long before there was a Quorum to lend my opinions any additional weight, and it's a very important function.

Total creative freedom might sound very appealing at first, and in the wide world of fanfiction there is room for every conceivable story that any would be author can imagine. It is no,t however, particularly conducive to building any kind of singular coherent canon. Even RDD himself admits that being overly permissive in the our first seasons led to all sorts of unexpected problems. That's in part why he established this Quorum.

4113884

Personally I think the advantage of using mail over the crystal ball is that it connects Ditzy in better since she's a mailmare. "Dinky, guess who sent you a letter?"

This too

4113912

ZAS was forced to change one of his fics, which he had already completed, because Emeral suddenly objected to the baabaashop quartet having sheep in it. Even though he clearly didn't want to. That's a problem.

It only seemed sudden because, well the Lunaverse can be a very busy place sometimes, and it's easy for any one story to get lost in the shuffle, The objection would have been raised sooner had I been aware of it. Much how likewise Fizzy noted that he'd have made objections in regards to parts of Ice Hearts had he actually been aware of them any sooner.

Regardless, even if by example ZAS didn't want to retcon his story, he never seemed to take any great offense at it either, and even turned the whole thing into a sort of Mythology Gag in his subsequent fic.

4113864

Emeral, you badger the other authors in the group and make it clear that you will not shut up until they acquiesce and do what you want. You have completely forgotten that our authors need to be willing to write the stories to expand our universe. Flipping out because TGV, for instance, wanted to do a cute Bloodpie story, or T&T wanted to have talking sheep--even though it would not have had catastrophic or significant implications for the verse as a whole and it fit tonally with the generally pleasant nature of the verse--did nothing other than drive them away from writing a story or plot points which could have been good and something they really wanted to write. And then when they finally give in, you crow about how you 'negotiated' a compromise, even though the compromise is usually you getting everything you want and them just not wanting to fight anymore.

You mean like the time you badgered RDD about AtGGG's ending for months until he had to go back and change it?

4114157 : As I have explained to Emeral ad nauseum, there is a distance between objecting to major details--like, say, a scene that would color every scene with Trixie from then on out--and flipping out over trivial details--like, say, a cute nickname for Bonbon (and I definitely recall Emeral badgering people to remove instances of 'Bonnie' from their stories).

If Emeral only objected to major things like the canonicity of SoS or time travel or Trixie learning mind bullets or (which I also objected to), that would be one thing. But Emeral is throwing fits over trivial, irrelevant details that have no bearing on the larger state or tone of the universe--they're just fun things that some author or other enjoyed, and proceeds to get shouted down about.

The Lunaverse is not Emeral's personal commission.

4113935 :

But at the same time, a letter is less personal than a face-to-face conversation. What would be more effective--IH writes that he's sad, and then a week later he gets a response with a drawn image of smiley face, by which point he may not even be sad anymore? Or IH tells Dinky that he's sad and Dinky immediately gives him a cheerful grin and asks if he wants to talk about it?

As for the artists... you're right about some of them. The ones that are primarily there to work on their art likely would enjoy talking with fans and colleagues. The ones who are there hiding from ponies who would bully them would probably still like their privacy. Again, I'm hopeful the Vault can become a real town (with Representative and without Puissance's restrictions on travel and having foals) after she dies--maybe she sets that up in her will.
4113945

You're as bad as Puissance, tying to create a prefect gilded cage where Iceheart has every advantage of not only living outside, but ostensibly becoming a member of our Ponyville cast of foals, yet all the while still preserving the exotic mystic of living in remote isolation under the doting privilege of an overly indulgent patron.

Ice Heart does not exist. He is a character in a story. My only goal re: Ice Heart is to tell the best story possible. Not to put him in a cage or on Jabberwock Island or whatever.

IH is not becoming a member of our Ponyville cast of foals, and I have no idea why you keep insisting that this will happen. Dinky does plenty of stuff that we don't see. There's no reason why anyone who doesn't want to would need to mention IH or the communications at all.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. I will always appreciate that you appointed me to this Quorum, that you respect my opinions enough to trust me to speak on your behalf to the other members of this group. Yet I will still always consider you the sole boss and arbitrator of everything, For me, your word is law, even if it contradicted ALL four other members of this Quorum.

Strange. I remember you disagreeing with RDD repeatedly--whenever he agreed with me, that is. You only ever invoke RDD's infallibility when he and I disagree about something. Odd, that.

See that's maybe what most infuriate me about you above and beyond the things you rights. it's not just that you shows me no semblance of respect

Exactly how much respect have you shown me? You act like you're entitled to have me write my stories not to please myself or to build up the Lunaverse, but to satisfy you personally. You act like that about everyone.

You have been harassing me for multiple years now, demanding I rewrite my stories. You have never been able to muster a cogent argument as to how it hurts the Lunaverse, for example, that Zecora escaped from the guards and not Apple Bloom in Foolish Misadventures, or that TIM exists, or any of the rest of it. I gave you plenty of respect--enough to put up with your nonsense for 2+ years. But it's run out.

Not only is that disrespectful of me, it's disrespectful of pretty much everyone else as well. You treat our other authors as if the have no agency in their own decision as they are helpless pawns that need your supposedly benevolent protection lest all their creative endeavors be smashed.

Emeral, I have been on the receiving end of your nonsense. I know what it's like. You have made it very clear that, if you don't like something you will raise Hell for as long as it takes until people acquiesce. You try to get people to do what you want by wearing them down. And then you try to excuse that by saying it's just how you are--in fact, you do it up there, saying that being totally intransigent is just how you argue. But admitting that something is true doesn't make up for doing it.

My opinions matter, and they matter in part because I've always been the one who asks the hard questions about what should and shouldn't be canon in this setting.

Your opinions matter precisely as much as any other contributor to the Lunaverse, except in the sole instance of voting in this forum. And even then, we're supposed to be considering what is good for the verse, as opposed to what we like personally. I think it would be a fairly obvious abuse of power if, for instance, I demanded we canonize a Dangan Ronpa/Lunaverse crossover on the basis that I like Dangan Ronpa. Sure, I like DR, but that's not relevant when it comes to our function--figuring out how to make the verse as good as it could be. Not 'as suited to the tastes of the loudest quorum member' as it could be.

The Bloodpie story is a great example of this. You were unable to bring up any argument as to how TGV's idea for a Pinkie/Bluey story would hurt the Lunaverse or add something problematic into canon, and nor were you able to argue for any other particular stories to be done with Bluey if we left him as a jerk. In fact, numerous people explained to you how BB cannot function in his original role now because Court shenanigans were shut down and Trixie can just go around him and directly to Luna anyway. His original character is totally moribund. But because you personally don't like the couple, you badgered TGV until he agreed not to write the story he wanted to write, but to write one that you wanted written. Like a judge ruling in favor of the skating routine that used a style you personally like, as opposed to the one that actually demonstrated the highest technical mastery. You abuse your power and demand the other writers obey your whims, and now you're mad because I'm confident enough in my own work that I feel comfortable rejecting your criticisms.

And we all ask questions about continuity and canonicity. I've objected to several story ideas in brainstorming. But you object to things that don't matter along those lines. What does it matter to anyone if Lyra has a pet name for Bonbon? If an author likes the idea, who does it hurt to leave it in? Nobody. But you flip out anyways.

You see, here's the thing. It's fine and wonderful to say that this is for fun and everyone should be able to do whatever...but this is also a shared universe with an overarching plot that needs to be adhered to. Every story that is ever written has an impact. Remember when Changelings were introduced far too early? Or how out-of-place it is to have Blueblood set up as the Big Bad for the first season when Greengrass came along and usurped that role? None of those were planned plot elements; they were writers having fun. And in turn, the entire plot had to be reshaped to make them fit.

A BloodPie story sounds like fun on paper, but afterwards, everyone has to adhere to that pairing because it's now in the canon. Not only can you not ship either pony with a different character, but you have to work in references to their relationship when both appear on screen together. Even if they aren't in the story itself, they're a part of the background, and their presence is felt throughout.

Or for something more personal, redeeming Greengrass. I hate Greengrass and wanted him out altogether. He has no purpose now that the Night Court is no longer an adversary to our heroes. But instead, he's now redeemed and an ally. I have to write around that every time I bring up the Night Court. I have to have that knowledge in the back of my head at all times. I can't do things I want to do because I can't break the canon. And it can be argued that I could still do something anyway and just label it non-canon, but if I was going to do that, then why not write something that isn't Lunaverse-related at all? It's going to be its own thing, anyway.

Not that it really matters. After spending most of last night with a butcher's knife in my hand, not getting any sleep, and mulling things over more, I have had fucking enough of both of you.

4114254

Remember when Changelings were introduced far too early?

Er... no? When did this happen? I just checked all our canonical episodes, and... no changelings showed up until JULP, at least that I saw.

A BloodPie story sounds like fun on paper, but afterwards, everyone has to adhere to that pairing because it's now in the canon.

But that's the thing--they don't, because neither character shows up very often. I'm at a loss to think of any stories, written or just proposed, this season in which a more committed Bloodpie relationship would have made one bit of difference. A Bloodpie story really wouldn't impact anything. It would just be fun for the writer, and would expand the Lunaverse a little more. And, if people liked it, they could build off of it. That's how shared universes grow.

Not only can you not ship either pony with a different character,

I can't really see Pinkie objecting to more ponies having fun with them, and even Blueblood isn't so hypocritical as to lambast Pinkie if she tries, given his own history.

Or for something more personal, redeeming Greengrass. I hate Greengrass and wanted him out altogether. He has no purpose now that the Night Court is no longer an adversary to our heroes. But instead, he's now redeemed and an ally. I have to write around that every time I bring up the Night Court.

Again... how? At this moment, as of Spring Season 2, GG is still hanging around the Court but he has minimal power or impact on anything. Night Court stories need not mention him at all.

I can't do things I want to do because I can't break the canon.

What can't you do? GG can't be used as a villain anymore anyways--NC corruption stuff was officially squelched. So what problems has GG's development caused?

Well, I'm disappointed, but not surprised, that nothing was accomplished and that now IAH wants to leave too.

*sigh*

See, this right fucking here is why I held off on making a Quorum for as long as I did. I am of a mind to delete this place and go back to being the sole caretaker of the Lunaverse's canon.

4114271

Er... no? When did this happen? I just checked all our canonical episodes, and... no changelings showed up until JULP, at least that I saw.

There was, at one point, a changeling story, or the beginnings of one. But the changeling acted completely unlike any changeling we saw in the show, more of an independent menace than a big threat the way Chrysalis is. So the story was removed from canon. It hadn't updated in, like, six months, and its author had been silent for about as long, too. I still felt like crap doing it, though.

But that's the thing--they don't, because neither character shows up very often.

Actually Pinkie shows up quite often. On the other hand, though, being the guy who sort-of made the ship, I personally support it. I just don't want it to move too fast too soon, hence why Pinkie & Bluie is canonized but Pinkie & Bluie Twoie isn't.

The Lunaverse is not Emeral's personal commission.

No. But he is one of the four people I've appointed to help preserve a sense of larger continuity in the Lunaverse, and trust me, from the outside looking in, both of you seem to get hung up on the most depressingly small of details. Your "painted how Trixie acts from that point forward" allusion wasn't missed, and I seem to recall a great number of people having no problem with that scene at all, but you did, and you badgered me and badgered me and told me that Trixie was evil for doing this and finally I deleted the scene so you would shut up about it, not because I had any great change of heart about what I felt the scene implied. Personally I still write as those the scene did take place, I just don't directly allude to it because I don't want you to flip out again.

The broader point. In a shared, cohesive universe, small things matter. Particularly when you're dealing with fanfiction writers. Seeing as we were using Trek as an example earlier, I'll give one now. Remember in Star Trek IV, the one with the whales, when Chekov has been captured and is being interrogated, but then he reaches for his phaser, grabs it, says he'll stun someone, goes to, it doesn't work, he laughs a little, throws it at a guy, and then runs off?

Ha! Good fun! I like that scene.

Except that that means that he at the very least left a phaser, and likely also his communicator, behind in late 20th-century Earth.

There was, I shit you not, an entire novel written around that fact, that Kirk and his crew forgot to reclaim Chekov's stuff (well...and a few other things, but the point is that it was written). Because things like advanced communicators and weapons being left behind in a world about to go through the Eugenics Wars would be a bad thing, even though from the movie makers' perspective it was just a little detail that they didn't care about and never touched on again. From the fan perspective, it was a big enough goof to do something about it.

Emeral gets fixated on things in basically the same way. It's annoying. But it's not without purpose.

...also, with regards to the sheep he was basing what he said on how I'd previously mentioned that I'm not comfortable having sentient sheep because it makes me ask some serious questions vis-a-vis the "you could have asked" scene in MLP. So I prefer the "parrot" excuse. As I recall I weighed in on the same side and I don't recall Z having a huge problem with it at all. I do recall you having a huge problem with it.

4114468

and trust me, from the outside looking in, both of you seem to get hung up on the most depressingly small of details. Your "painted how Trixie acts from that point forward" allusion wasn't missed,

I maintain that an important element of a main character's... well, character... is sufficiently important to take a stand about. Whether or not Lyra calls Bonbon 'Bonnie' is not.

But more to the point--this is from, what, over a year ago? I think it says something if I've done this all of one time, while Emeral has done it dozens. Especially since mine, again, related to a main character that turns up in a great many stories... while Emeral is complaining about details that may well never show up again.

Emeral gets fixated on things in basically the same way.

But he acts as if he has a right to demand or insist upon changes. Which is nonsense. Being a Quorum member does not mean we get to shout down the other authors, esp. when we aren't acting as a formal part of the quorum.

Being in the Quorum matters during one and only one circumstance--if the five of us vote and thus decide on some point or other, such as story canonization or any other point. The Official Quorum Ruling does overrule what an individual author might want, as per the rules of the group. But when we haven't made such a ruling, when it's just Emeral or me or IAH reading a story and reacting to it, our viewpoints are no more important than those of anyone else.

We're not special. We're not the Ultimate Readers or Analysts or whatever. We're in charge because, in a project like this, there are times when decisions have to get made, so somebody has to make them. But when it's not one of those times, when there's a point that's not sufficiently important or controversial to bring it before the Quorum and have a vote, then we're just regular people, and we have no right to force authors to change their stories based on the individual, personal preference of some Quorum-ite.

Emeral has been acting like his position on the Quorum means his opinion should count more, even when we haven't voted on something he's saying (or come to any sort of consensus, or even discussed it). He's been acting like that with me, demanding that I defer more to him because he's on the Quorum (even though I am too, so I'm not sure how that works, but whatever). It's an abuse of power, it's bullying other members of the group, and I am not going to sit idly by while he hounds people into rewriting their work to suit his preferences for no other reason than that they're his preferences.

4114509
...hold that thought.

4114509 Our opinions DO matter, because if we find something we don't want to see canonized in a fic, it'll eventually come up when that fic is put up for voting. We might as well be open about it from the start and leave suggestions.

Yes Emeral complained about the 'Bonnie' nickname, but I've never actually seen him raise a fuss about it! He's pointing out he doesn't like it, and why, but he never DEMANDS it changed. I've used it once, didn't go and change it, but I always consider what nickname I use now because his reasons made sense!

And Emeral is right about Iceheart. You want ALL the advantages of Icehart being in the Vault AND all the advantages of Iceheart being friend with Dinky. It just bugs me with how perfect it is. Iceheart's fear of the outside world should come with CONSEQUENCES! He should be affraid to go out of the Vault, even if he wants to see Dinky, and it should be TROUBLESOME for Puissance to get those two face to face from time to time. She should have to put in effort to take care of him, to show she really CARES. Throwing a magic bauble at the pair of them is a cheap and easy way out for BOTH you as an author and Puissance as a character. In terms of character function I would consider Iceheart to be equivalent to the Maneverse Babs Seed. She got an episode to herself, showed up again once (and once in the comics when they go to Manehattan), and doesn't bog down the narrative in other stories. Even when the M6 went to her hometown!

And you know, maybe you should stop dismissing Emeral's concerns as 'little detail of no importance' or whatever, because to HIM they DO matter, he thinks they DO have consequences! Instead of always being 'it doesn't matter' or 'but look HOW CUTE it would be', maybe you should try to understand WHY Emeral think those details matter. He's not doing it to be annoying, he's not doing it because he wants thing a specific way, he does it because he considers the setting as a whole! We can't just have EVERYTHING we want just because it's cute or funny or cool or whatever!

My original villain for Secret of Andalantis was going to be a Discordian (I even considered making her related to Lyra at one point!) but I changed it, because with Zizanie and Lemon Hearts I felt like my idea had become TOO widespread, and introducing an another one into the mix was just too much and would be basically mary-sueing the villain. I even made conscious efforts to reduce Zizanie's role in the story because she's NOT one of our heroes! Scenes that have happened, and some that will happened, were rethought to feature Trixie instead, because she's the main character.

I did those things not to please Emeral, not to please anyone in fact because I'm the only one who was aware of those details. I did it for the good of the setting, because I didn't want everyone to see the setting swarmed with Discordians or have Zizanie appear too sympathetic that some people would demand her return in the future. I'm fine with her in jail forever (unless someone has a REALLY good idea) and never showing up again.

4114686
In a similar vein to this, when it was becoming clear that Greengrass was rising in popularity, I bowed out of trying to make Blueblood the main antagonist for the Night Court and let Greengrass become it. I didn't steadfastly hold onto Blueblood as the main villain and, in fact, took steps to preserve the idea that instead he's something of a fop.

4117372 I ship it!

4120021
Wait... what?

4117372
Oh... oh!

I'm sorry, I read a few of those words out of order previously, and it conveyed an entirely different meaning.

4120077 Well it would neatly solve all our problems...

4120213
It would at that.

Unfortunately I think this whole situation is less comparable to any kind of Belligerent Romantic Tension, and more like some variation of a Love Triangle with RDD stuck in the middle. So any slap, slap setup, is likely only to lead to more slapping -- at best.

... unless of course any of you have a Love Poison on hand.

4114529
From the other related thread you said...

This universe used to thrive on how much we talked to one another. It was regularly lauded as our single strongest feature, even by those who didn't like it: just how much we would all discuss the Lunaverse and where to take it. I'd like to bring that back if possible.

I can't really comment on this universally for the entire forums. It seems to me, however, that part of the problem where G&C and myself are concerned could maybe be the lack of third parties. It seems to me, especially as of late, that our arguments all too quickly descend into cyclical bickering because he and me are so often the only ones talking about any given subject. I'm not sure if that's just because of our Quorum status leading others in the group to feeling like they shouldn't interfere, or just because everyone's gotten so sick of the whole affair that they'd rather just ignore us.

Regardless, even when someone else does dare to attempt intervening between us, it's not really so much to add any ideas of there own to the discussion, but rather to take sides supporting one or the other. Rather than resolve anything, this instead only adds further fuel to the fire bty way of confirmation bias. Whenever some one agrees with us we take it as vindication, proof of have being right all along. Where as when we are disagreed our attempts to in any way explain our selves to the third party comes across as a stubborn refusal to compromise -- worse still if we then sway that third party leading to accusations of badgering.

...

Not sure if that really helps or not though. The old paradigm might have just persisted too long, and so now both G&C and myself are perhaps to set in our opinions of each other to ever really see eye to eye on anything.