User talk:Trouble among sovereigns (JHU 22.1)

Hey. Switch here. My session at JHU in 22.1 was a GREAT time for me to be around and a year I felt went much better than expected in terms of the spread and re-introduction of JHU tradition after covid. However, not everything went to plan and this was mainly due to opposition due to disputes over the state of student hierarchy (especially concerning nevermore and monarchy). There is a supporting document to this article that can be found [here]

Before I begin, I wish to make it CLEAR that I do not want ANY hate sent to anyone involved in this story. And that includes myself. All of us were extremely zealous and diligent in our own rights. We all did what we though to be right to spread and preserve tradition. Although I may have my disagreements with the methods and mentalities of some of those in this story, we all had the same ultimate goal of doing what's best for our culture. And that is one I respect deeply and must condemn. If you disagree with me (which I know some people will) I hope you can at least acknowledge my intentions as being for the good of the site. Either way, make of this article what you will and remember this will contain a level of personal biases as it is… well… personal. Also, I do acknowledge the supporting document. I acknowledge that quoting and/or showing discord messages sent between us may be considered a breach of privacy… but they are my messages too. And I want to explain my actions and intentions as well as I can, and these messages are a very good record of my thought process at the time.

OK, let's start from the beginning. As you probably know, Covid-19 caused two years of CTY on-site program cancellations. During this time, the future of JHU tradition was uncertain. The '20 monarchy weren't on any community platforms and most of them had aged out anyway, making their lineages more than uncertain… but Amelia Orwant, the 19.2 Empress, was still around and managed to come into contact with me. Long story short, I was crowned in a Zoom call and set off to become Empress of 22.1.

If anyone was around on server 42 or in my inbox (which I hope you weren't) during the 1st week of 22.1, You'd have seen me frantically messaging every position holder I knew to ask for advice on networking… and one thing I thought of which everyone I asked approved of was going around the cafeteria to find returning Johns-Hopkinses, flying squirrels or anyone who knew of/was interested in tradition. So this is what I did on 1st Wednesday. I met quite a few people who knew of tradition whilst doing this, and one was Adrian. When we met he introduced himself as from JHU 18.1 and Los Angeles… Immediately asking if we could implement a trinity and make him part of it. I had to decline. This would not be the last I saw of him, because he would later find me around campus asking if he could be emperor. He said it would be nice, as he was a nevermore. I once again had to decline. I hardly knew him or any reason he was interested in tradition, except to become monarchy. I did say that if he was particularly interested in tradition, I could make him a monarch of the blood, but that would have to wait.

Now Adrian wasn't the only person I'd meet who was interested in tradition over my cafeteria adventure. On 1st thursday, a group of people find me during unstructured time to talk about traditions. This group included Yeonsu, Lalo, Aidan and Adrian. Out of them I only knew of Adrian and Lalo. Lalo was a Skidmorean who I'd actually met on my pick-up from BWI and during my cafeteria-scout had asked me about BLAMMO…RIP. Yeonsu and Aidan were other Skidmorean flying-squirrels. We all spoke about plans and interest in spreading tradition. At the end of our talk, they would ask what position I would be (after I explained the monarchy of JHU) asking if I could be monarch of blood. I was quite taken a back by this. I'm not entirely sure how things are done at Skidmore, but at least at most sites (including JHU), someone crowned Empress will be empress unless that person is physically unable to return to site or otherwise unable to do their job. Especially if they have already had the appropriate artifacts handed to them. This I made clear to them, stating I would do my job Empress, as I was set off to do. They then raised the question of how I could do this as a non-nevermore. I then explained to them that at JHU, the title of nevermore carries no significance in the coronation of a monarch and that only knowledge, passion and commitment are taken into consideration. They acknowledged this, but also asked I consider a more Skidmorean four empress/emperor system… as unstructured time came to an end.

I would later agree to this four emperor/empress system due to two reasons (Fig 1). A) because the ability to appoint up to four emperors/empresses would make the return of a JHU empress/emperor more likely. And we've already lost quite a few artifacts (including one copy of the book of love) due to position holders being unable to return. B) These people were clearly passionate about traditions and more than ready to support it. Even going around campus, I would occasionally hear murmurs of Yeonsu or Lalo trying to spread tradition and a joke about the Passionfruit being mistaken for a Drake song. Yeonsu, Lalo and Aidan, I trusted. But I was skeptical of Adrian. We had had a very long discord argument (Fig 2), where it seemed clear to me that he knew little in the way of traditions. however, Aidan assured me (over discord) that Adrian was just very unfocused at times, but would be very blunt and straight-forward when he wanted to be and this may be throwing me off. I could see this to be true, so agreed with him.

Eventually, Adrian would get his wish of becoming Emperor. Aidan would be the monarch of the blood and Yeonsu and Lalo would also be empress and emperor respectively. Yeaonsu, Lalo, Aidan and I would do much to continue tradition. We would hold announcements about spirit days at the quad or in the lunch hall and Lalo, Aidan and I would practice raving together (with me ending up lending Lalo my poi set). And as my (great) RA, Tatianna, and I were very close, she was very supportive of my tradition efforts, often allowing me to request event announcements. She would even ask me to type out messages explaining spirit days in the RA group chat. She was incredibly supportive of me and although she wasn't here in my first week, I appreciate EVERYTHING she's done. However, Adrian was never active in the spread of tradition or on our discord group chat. The only activity I saw him at that was related to tradition was the first dance. However, I certainly knew he was spreading his message. I wouldhear murmurs campers talking of tradition with reference to him. Aidan was right, he was idle but could certainly be passionate when he wanted to. And it was a passion to behold… But he was missing out on much of monarchy discussions. He even missed our announcement and reinstatement of Isabella Paladino as Rave monarch. Izzy had been crowned 20.2 rave monarch by Amelia Orwant. Yeonsu, Lalo, Aidan and I had therefore decided to appoint her as rave monarch due to her experience and fact she was only one of two of us on site with a legitimate coronation and hence claim to a position… even if from session 2.

At this point it is worth noting that my co-monarchs and I weren't exactly close. Aidan I love to bits and he actually helped me through a pretty tough time. Izzy was a honor to work with and certainly fulfilled her duty as rave monarch. She even raved on the second dance when we were told raving may be cancelled. Adrian was Adrian. The last time we spoke was on the first dance, as we were heading into the third week. Lalo and Yeonsu, I respect greatly, although they had always doubted me due to my lack of a nevermore title and I can only presume they felt I was bringing the team down. After all, it had been their wish for Aidan to be an emperor alongside them and me to be at most a monarch of the blood. They also tried to introduce or alter JHU traditions to better match that of Skidmore. We always came to compromises over these matters, as I made it clear that as much as Skidmore traditions may be more intricate and interesting to some, JHU ones must be honored and respected. I raised the point that JHU tradition should be kept fairly simple due to JHU traditions being hard to pass on or get wrong and that any previous JHU traditions should be fought hard for, as they had evidently been very popular over a number of years to last to the present.

Much of our spirit day implementation was a success, although we did have to delay some spirit days, such as love tape day. Lalo and Yeonsu also brought over some Skidmorean spirit days. I was quite open to these, as tradition had been going quite well, and even if their skidmorean culture didn't last, they were fun to experiment with and were ones a number of campers enjoyed.

As the third week panned out, the matter of succession arose. Typically the Librarian (so me) would announce the entire JHU monarchy for the next year at passionfruit. However, Yeonsu and Adrian found successors who they very much wanted to crown. I let this go ahead. It didn't matter to me who crowned the next monarchy of JHU, as long as I found someone to pass the book of love on to and that these successors were worthy of the title. I planned to have my successor as emperor/empress and the librarian and also to appoint a monarch of the blood. Aidan had no plans to have a successor, and Monarchs of the blood have always been appointed by emperors/empresses anyway, so this was not a problem (Fig 3) However, my lack of a nevermore title became reason to dispute again, and I came close to deposition. This was also due to the mentioning of the fact that only nevermore would attend passionfruit (which was untrue). The entire argument is an absolute mess, but available to view if you feel like it (FIG 4).

Although it may seem mad, I genuinely feared I wouldn't be able to pass on the book and that tradition would end here. And it was mad! When I was in that argument it felt like the world was falling apart and still does reading back over it. If you've heard my passionfruit or looked over my realcty user page, you probably know I'm quite strongly attached to CTY and it's culture… so the thought that I could end what remained of the community values SO MANY CTYers had toiled for and grown to love haunted me. In this argument, I had my job and legitimacy completely undermined (Izzy faced this too to a lesser extent) and found aspects of tradition I had made clear (multiple times) disparaged. I even faced wrong accusations of misconduct. I was called immature for running off from site. This had not occurred! Once my hallmates thought I was lost during a storm because they were unable to call my international number and another I had gone to Gillman hall during unstructured time, and thought to be going out of bounds. I value my freedom and anyone who's been with me on site knows how much I like to run. At this point, I was so panicked that I asked Lauren Schwartz, a former son of the Lancastrian trinity, for help in my situation. You can see her response in (FIG 5). She said "This is the part of tradition that should have died with covid"

Luckily, Passionfruit came and went with me delivering my speech and passing down to my wonderful successor, and appointing a great monarch of the blood as well. Although Passionfruit was unfortunately run so that only nevermore could speak, anyone could attend. And many did. The book of love now rests in what I strongly believe and trust to be safe hands, as do the Tarot cards and future titles of the JHU monarchy. Ironically, it was Adrian who would miss Passionfruit. He would have therefore failed every duty a JHU Emperor is given. This is absolutely unforgivable and something hope that no future position holders will bring upon themselves. This should act as an example of what not to do as a position holder… and for those with the power to appoint monarchy to be recognize their own power and trust their better judgement.