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I had a very similar experience to everyone else, I think, but I’m putting it all down here with some other thoughts just in case it sparks anything. Also have a few things I didn’t see mentioned here!
I got to the venue around 1:20, and it was great finally meeting all of you in person! Good to know you are all real people
We entered the VFW, and it looked pretty much exactly how I expected it to be set up, it reminded me of community get-togethers in church basements in the small town I grew up in. Coffee and snacks in the back, folding tables and banquet chairs scattered around, dated posters hanging on the walls. But security cameras everywhere. One in the back, one on the stage, and one mounted near the ceiling on the side opposite the entrance.
I received my name tag (my name written in silver) and got a yellow rose from Addison. After going to the back corner and grabbing a coffee, and chatting with some brothers and sisters, I noticed everyone had a different number in the corner of their name tag, I had a 1 on mine. I don’t remember what everyone else had, though.
I noticed others getting pulled aside by our hosts, but I was generally ignored – I tried to speak to the leader of the event at one point, asked him what the program he was holding was, and he just walked right past and started talking to someone behind me.
I saw Addison standing alone by the accordion-curtain-wall, so I went over and made a joke about never meeting another Addison, and getting confused after receiving an email from her. She was mostly unresponsive.. but after a brief pause in our one-sided conversation, she looked me in the eyes, and gave me some advice that I’m not 100% sure I can share publicly due to worries of my own safety as well as hers, especially after everything that happened. She then put an X on my name tag.
I stood, thinking about that conversation for a bit, and decided I needed to talk to someone else within the organization, just to see a different perspective. I stepped in front of the older man with the shawl that had previously given me the cold shoulder, and thanked him for inviting me. He looked at my name tag, and asked, “Did someone already speak with you?” to which I told him that I was there to meet people, and learn more about the organization, and my previous conversation was a quick one. He told me that I “looked honest, and honesty is very appreciated” and that he had a task for me – to share a secret with three of my brothers and sisters, wait for them to react, and report their reactions back to him.
However, before I could think of a secret that would get a reaction worthy of reporting back to him with, the ceremony began.
The invocations were given by the older man with the shawl, who at one point in his speech, turned away from us and started talking to the wall at the back of the stage. @mike killed it with a moving speech. The bell rang. The cello player played. Then they had a traitor that needed to be dealt with. A hooded man was brought to the front of the room. After a moment of introduction, they removed his hood – Rizzo. After reciting his previously final thoughts on the OOA, we were given a chance to vote on his fate. Either accept him back into the fold or excommunicate him. We voted to take him back.
Then, it was announced that there was an initiate that needed to be dealt with, and they were to be brought up before us and disrobed for our inspection. Then our OOA hosts, now wearing orange and white robes, came in through a backdoor, dragging in Addison. She was brought front and center, made to kneel while facing away from us, but before anything could be done, there was a shout coming from the back door, a man screaming “Addy!” He eventually burst through the back doors, a flip phone recording video in hand, shouting for the OOA hosts to let her go home, for her to leave the organization, and that the entire internet would be watching. Addison was dragged, kicking and screaming, out the front door of the venue while her Father was protesting, very visibly distraught the whole time, and was eventually forcibly pushed into the wall where the OOA posters were hung. He was forced out the back doors while the leader of the ceremony shouted “this location has been compromised, please stay and converse amongst yourselves, we will be in contact with an alternate location to finish this,” or something to that effect.
We all got up and started checking out the environment, as others had talked about. At one point a note was found, the roster for the event. I forget who found it and where it came from, maybe @thebuz? Almost everyone had a silver or gold line next to their names, eventually realized they were split male/female – men had gold, women had silver.. except for me, male, and silver. Occam’s razor says it’s possibly because the Addison in their organization is female and they were confused, or possibly because I have long hair. Or there’s some deeper meaning that hasn’t been thought of yet.
Eventually @kasch went into the back doors, and then shortly thereafter burst out shouting “EVERYONE NEEDS TO LEAVE RIGHT NOW.”
We walked out and milled about for a bit, then @mike noticed someone had written on the paper hung on the door asking us to wait until 1:30. In small handwriting in the lower left hand corner, someone wrote “You have been observed.”
Later on, after hanging out at the bowling alley for a while, I got a call from a blocked number.
“Did you enjoy today’s activities?” (or something to that effect)
And me, after a couple beers, could only think to say “You know, it was pretty interesting and gave me a lot to think about, but the donuts looked delicious!” and they hung up.
So OOA – if you’re reading this, and I know you are. Thank you for the invite. Based on my experience on Sunday, it definitely lead to some questions and necessitated introspection, but I am as loyal to the OOA as ever.
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Honestly, I’m in the same boat. This morning really broke the great vibes I was feeling from the weekend.
I had a big response ready to go on the other thread, but killed it after double checking activity and seeing this thread. So I sat on it. And per advice I was given this weekend, I didn’t want to rock the boat, but now that the ice has been broken –
Here’s what I was thinking about, I have a few questions about the forums and their uses that need answers if Slack is to stay dead.
Keep in mind, this was a private Slack that began as a place to have a casual, off the record discussion about The Tension Experience, but had since turned into a pretty tight-knit group friends shooting the shit while and also using it as a way to focus thoughts before bringing them here to the forums.
Are we now encouraged to post about non-Tension related content on the forums? Non-Tension talk was the majority of the discussion than anything directly related to The Tension Experience. Is “Off Topic” the place to discuss other horror related experiences such as Blackout, Alone, Screenshot Productions, VES, Taco Bell, Heretic, and various escape rooms? Do we bring private discussions on cyberbullying, feeling unsafe online, and dealing with other online threats to personal safety to Off Topic?
Where is a safe space to have these discussions that can also be moderated as to not dig too deep in to the “meta” and make sure we’re not having thoughts and discussions about things we’re not supposed to think about? Do we need to have a moderator present for any in-person discussions to make sure we don’t talk about Tension outside of these forums?
If these are going to be directed to the Off-Topic section, then I think we all need to be ready for the activity feed to be moving a lot quicker than it has been, have a lot more non-Tension related subject matter to sift through to find Tension-related info, and a lot of people need to be ok with having otherwise private discussions made public, because we have been told many times that all of our PMs have been and are being read.
And above all else, Tension as an “experience” needs to accept this additional content on the forums. I’m cool talking about other experiences here, but I doubt Pepsi wants people talking about how much they love Rum and Cokes on their forums.
This weekend was great, it was cool meeting everyone, but it’s also very trying to commit to a “community” when it sometimes seems like the community that was formed around something is being disavowed by the very thing the community was formed around. I was having a private discussion on the now closed Slack, talking about how awesome this weekend was, how cool it was to be involved and interacting with this in real life, and then mid-message, I was signed out, lost contacts and notes and now have no way to get back to them.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by
Addison Born.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by
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somehow double posted. sorry.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Addison Born. Reason: cleaning up a double post
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This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by