Naelynn

BYOND Key: Naelynn Character Names: Species you are applying to play: Vaurca What color do you plan on making your first alien character: (RGB 91, 31, 0) Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: Vaurca are as alien as aliens get. Very little about them appeals to modern sensibilities, which… would be interesting to try playing. I want to eventually get every white list, and out of the remaining ones Vaurca seemed like the most interesting overall. And after reading their wiki pages, I’m still not sure if I dislike or like them. That in itself is fascinating and warrants further looking into. I also want to be able to look fashionable while out in space [a.k.a: not be hidden under a suit] Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: There’s so many things. For one, Vaurca act similarly to a hive mind - more so if they are bound. Unbound are closer to humans considered they have the ability to actually have a form of personality and free will. There also is the universal biological loyalty to their queen and hive, the fact that standard air is toxic to them, lack of natural healing so cuts are superbly dangerous, everything to do with K’oizzz, odd form of religion with confirmed afterlife, lack of pain receptors, sensitivity to light, race-wide sanctioned slave system enforced by implants and bio engineering … There is so much. Character: - Name: Za’Akaix’Chitx Zo’ra [ Nickname: “Chitters” ] - Brood: Ta'Akaix'Xakt'yagz'isk Zo'ra, Queen of Corpses - Primary Job: Shaft Miner, NSS Aurora - Secondary Job: TCFL Volunteer - Personality: Sarcastic, leans towards black humor. Emotionally distant. Very verbose. - Likes: Explosions, cartography, exploring unknown places. - Dislikes: Overthinking, Filtered K’ois, Gluttony Please provide a short backstory for this character Vaurca are created for a purpose and Za’Akaix’Chitx Zo’ra is no different from the norm. Her imagotis design specialized for the purpose of acquiring resources to bring to the hive from unknown and potentially hostile environment. Originating from Xakt’s brood, and being instructed in VR by none other than Xakat'kl'atan Za'Akaix'Cimm Zo'ra, Chitx ended up with a somewhat of a grim personality. Between a distant broodmother, teacher with particularly well known poor disposition, and very small unbound community it would be a small miracle if it weren’t so. Yet, the training wasn’t for naught. She did sometimes get into trouble with Cimm due to preferring to use explosives where possible, but the effect of VR training was undeniable. Chitx understands physics and air dynamics particularly well thanks to all the knowledge hammered into her in VR after her gestation period, and has served her hive with pride for over 11 years. Sometimes as a protector, but most of the time as a brave scavenger hunting outside for whatever resource happens to be necessary for the hive to survive. But, the world moves on and the times have changed with the Titan Prime’s arrival to Tau Ceti. Chitx followed her Ta to planet Luthien, playing a small yet not insignificant role in mapping out the area in detail and protecting it’s kin from the wildlife. But what is an explorer to do when the map is drawn? When their skills seem to become obsolete? Her ability to function autonomously was a boon for the hive for a long time, and it would be so once again. As her skills were no longer required planetside, Chitx was sent to join with the TCFL as part of a political move to strengthen relations with the Republic of Biesel. And as an unpaid volunteer for the force, she was forced to find a job that would cover her expenses, and allow what excess she had to send back to her true home. Her natural ability to understand air dynamics and physics, alongside her desire to chart the unknown has allowed her to land a spot as a shaft miner with NanoTrasen corporation, despite the occasional hiccup in communication caused by her outdated voice modulator. Chitx herself sees her current position as the best way to serve her queen, and takes great pain to make sure she brings no shame to her Ta. No matter how trite or grim her duty of the day might be. What do you like about this character? Chitters should be stereotypical older Za, bound by their duty even if it wasn’t given by the Queen herself. Lacking the curiosity of a scientist, or the loving care of a healer, she is a cautious survivor used to exploring dangerous areas with very little in terms of support. She knows very well that you cannot win every fight, and that is fine as long as you and your family get to see another day. The strange and unknown provoke an instinct inside her, conditioning her to be cautious and observant - to not take unnecessary risks. And it is exactly this mindset that is Chitter’s greatest boon. However, Chitters also experienced many failures, and that has taken a toll on her. Her sense of humor is quite dark and she seems emotionally distant at times - a trait gained by attempting to mimic her queen. Chitters often finds it difficult to fit in with her new family. This tends to make her unhappy - all her life she was mostly surrounded by either bounds or very, VERY few individual unbounds. This new world where so many have personalities and opinions on everything can sometimes be a little too much for her. She also sometimes misinterprets phrases and jokes as threats, but that is mostly a language barrier and can quickly be sorted with an explanation. How would you rate your role-playing ability? It's... not the best, a lot of the time, but I firmly believe that if I put my mind to it I can do very well. Notes: I already have a TCFL approved character in Sabael Kyledes, and have studied their lore pages multiple times. Thank you for reading the application!

Rigsuits don't exist. Emergency softsuits don't exist. I made sure to not touch even a single one of either of those two categories. There was a roboticist in that round. There also was a miner. I passed by his discarded rig module in mining which he left lying on the ground in front of the mining vendor. Decided that removing all possibility of EVA survival was bad. Did I steal all the voidsuits I could find ? Yes. Does that mean there were no means of traversing EVA? No. Fair point. It was a peace gimmick, and I didn't realize. I'm so used to being in conflict with security 24/7 that I'm paranoid about my life since minute 1 of the game if I'm an antagonist. This paranoia lead me to overprepare for a conflict on a character that had no desire to stir conflict in the first place. The only reason the situation even escalated in the first place was because I did my paranoid preparation, but it didn't serve the story in any way. I concede I fucked up, and you are correct.

I'm not going to lie: Most of the time I improvise things. A.k.a: Wing it. This applies - Standard ninja round, I'm off the ship in 5 minutes with emergency power gen in suit. Two quick teleports, scan captain id card and snatch teleporter. Path to medical to get stethoscope by minute 8. Clear out safe in vault by minute 10-20 depending on how unlucky I get with safe cracking. This is reminiscent of how I have an approach formula, or round-start-checklist as off station antagonist essentially. Currently it's most visible on my Ninja gameplay, but in the past the most obvious example was the now non-existent character Mercer. In those 'quick starts' as ninja I use my time as follows: first 5 minutes, quickly set up on ship, choose name and race. Get captain access. During rest of the process [which is fairly mindless] I let my mind wander and try to think what to do during the round. I watch radio chat a lot in an attempt to grasp onto anything even remotely interesting to explore. This is how at one point I had a ninja round where I was essentially following Muhawir Nawfal around in stealth while he was traitor and doing his bidding. Because Muhawir was talking smack on radio and it was interesting. I find myself in this position a lot. I was working on fixing that before taking a break from ss 13, where I went out of my way to construct custom ai-lawsets to support few pre-built gimmicks I have as well as polishing up some others. Custom ai lawsets Pre-built gimmicks As you can see, there's an issue with those gimmicks - in the fact that only wizard ones have somewhat clear idea of what to do in the first place - not mentioning the utter lack of gimmicks for most other antag types. Why? Simple. I cannot plan a gimmick for more than 1 person out in my head well enough to know what to expect from it. Improvisation -has- to happen at some level. That doesn't mean I shouldn't have -any- plans whatssoever - I didn't realize this and will look to work that out in the future. Still a problem if your character is unable to even stand up because of shrapnel. Less a problem than before? Yes. Still a danger to the person however. Especially since if shrapnels are happening in the first place, the round has escalated into combat. De-escalation is very rare. To be fair here: That was the only round recently where I cleared out armory but left lasers intact. This had two reasons: 1) Carbines were already taken - I could have removed laser rifles, but decided against it. 2) Few rounds before that I got into a quasi-permanent stunlock with a character due to several shrapnels causing paincrit on every step. This was primarily because of my own incompetence when using frag grenades during escalation, but it was a lesson learned. Ban itself was for powergamey behavior that went over the line. Specifically: Walling ert in their own shuttle before they arrived. 1 week long antag-ban during which I kept playing as normal. Don't remember the exact dates.

That seems to be the case - This is third player/char. complaint about essentially that. Yes. Because when someone tells me that certain behavior is unacceptable, I tend to stop it. False. Removed the ion and shotguns - wounds from those are really annoying to deal with for the race I was playing at the time [Aut'akh - Ions should be obvious why, bullets from shotguns cause shrapnel.] - I left laser weapons alone. If you remove all items in the armory, security will look to buy weapons from science/cargo or use improvised, which are often more dangerous that the laser weapons you can expect. My 'default' character has merchant enabled, traitor + offstation antags enabled. As such, the only round-start traitor I can roll is merchant. (Not counting other external antagonists). Then if I do not get one of my chosen roles, I generally jump to ghost to decide if I wanna join with a different character - lately this hasn't been the case because I was enraptured in reading books during the downtime. Stock up on powerful gear - This is actually a very complicated topic. I have to weight how long I can spend in prep vs how long I can do things on station. Healthy prep stage should take 30 minutes [including travel time] at absolute most, so as merchant I'm looking to get anything that would give me advantage within first 30 minutes of merchant spawns. Arriving on station any later than that is often problematic for any gimmick you might wish to run. Threat topic - ... Yes and no. You're not wrong, I do look to be able to handle any situation I might end up with, usually looking to have an easy escape route [hand-tele] or something to take my opposition out before I fall [very dangerous weapons - esword, nades, etc.] while having good enough protective gear to survive encounters. So, why am I saying that it's yes and no? Because most of the time I leave those tools completely unused [except hand-tele, the utility is too good] Hell, I distinctly remember at least two different merchant rounds where I found a breacher, bought it, and then left it behind at merchant base because it would be too ... same? repetitive? to do so. I think I agree with this, but it has some implications I want to address: None of my gimmicks or plans involve anything beyond the general 'set up' or 'idea' if you wish. I don't have 'desired outcome' of any story I want to peddle. As you say, I look to gain power to be able to *force* the station to go along with my gimmick. If the station has the ability to simply shoot the problem away, how can I force some complicated gimmick I've prepared? Example: If I want to be a ninja that hacks the ai and uses voice modulator to convince station crew that there's going to be a pirate raid incoming, yet, I don't go for captain access and additional tc from vault to do announcements or explosions, don't ever do anything to support this gimmick short of maybe one-or-two welder tank explosions in maint, the station will not /really/ be sold on the gimmick. How they handle it? Up to them, and I'll adapt in round and react to what they do. Yes. Side note: It's dumb that captain's voidsuit is tankier than ERT suits. Nerf it. Tl;dr of my response: Geeves is correct. The entire post is elaboration on my reasoning why I do things or how they come to be. I'd like to have an elaboration why exactly doing this is wrong however. I see the what, not the why.

If sol can have Master Chief as their rigsuit, I am all for NT having Doomguy. Rip and tear!

Yup. That's why I'm saying that changing this is basically impossible. That said, I like playing Antags, and I like to try to make things better for others, but well... Hard to do that when you get so bitter due to your story being cut short all the time.

There are some posts that I feel should be addressed right away. > Category for people like me < ??? :D? ?? ? ? :D? ?? ?? ?? ??? ?? ? ???? ? Thank you. Thank you for the correction, I wasn't with the main part of the raider team when they were found. We split to achieve more objectives quickly - I was running solo op. trying to secure captain access and stethoscope. Thank you for your feedback - I wasn't there for the catching part so I was woefully misinformed - which is why I am more than happy to be criticized. How would the round feel to you if we had just fucked off with the captain to our base and cut our losses? Probably pretty unsatisfying, as you had gotten basically nothing out of it - the 'second part' of the round was entirely due to me convincing my team it's worth the risk and leading the negotiations personally. Which is why I was well.. salty at the end of it - it was all my effort, and despite me doing my best to show that we can be trusted it was I who was betrayed. Fucking hell, YOU HAD GOTTEN THE CAPTAIN ALREADY and only charged in after. This wasn't a thing where we tried to keep the cap and walk away or betray you. The issue here is: Was it realistic? Yes. Was it fair to me as a player? Not if you ask me. A while ago I had a talk on an unrelated topic in an ahelp with one of the admins - don't know who or when, but it has to be at least 4-5 months ago as it was when I was still obsessively playing Aimee. I was told to NOT do certain things my character would do despite them being 'in character' - Why? Because they make the round worse for everyone else. We are Role-Playing and that requires both sides to make certain allowances for others, regardless of how 'realistic' it is. I would ask you to consider the following statement, and consider it carefully: Would you rather intentionally fumble a few things and intentionally make some 'bad' decisions in order to help me ALSO have a good time, or would you rather I slink back to the dreaded Powergaming and literally not even give you a choice to do anything to harm me? __________________________________________________________________________ I don't know how long you've been playing the game for, as you only have 7 forum posts, so I'll give you an example of this powergaming behavior that got me antag-banned for a week because it was too over the top. I had solo murdered an entire group of responding ERT [Or more precisely: TCFL] before they even got their feet on the station. They were never allowed to make a single move before a ninja with an armor-ignoring sword literally murdered four of them and then went back to toying with the station. I had also murdered every single officer in that round who even tried going into the armory, ordering weapons, or shooting at me with even as little as a taser or even spoke back. Does that feel like an antag you want to play against? If the answer is no, then you need to give me a chance to do things that do not require going so stupidly far in order to play out whatever gimmick or conflict I want to present that round. __________________________________________________________________________ Small edit for clarification: I was antag banned for trying to wall off the ert because I knew where their shuttle would land. Not for killing them, or anyone else. That's why this is a valid example. I COULD just go ahead and do that every round. That's the part where Type 3 really rears it's ugly head.

Hello. The topic of this post is something I think EVERYONE would wish was solved: _________________________________________________________________________________________ Murderboning Antags _________________________________________________________________________________________ Antagonists that decide to just go ahead and mega-death-murder everyone and everything that even glances at them funny. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Types of Murderboning Antags_________________________________________________________________________________________ These types of antagonists naturally occur in three ways: 1) People who are just dicks and want to bm and watch everyone else be weaker than them. These will usually get banned preeetty damn fast. 2) People who are new to the game and don't know better. These will get bwoinked, learn and either [eventually] become type 3, or only sometimes antag. 3) .. category for people like me. People who would LIKE to RP as antags and have some good story that doesn't involve huge amounts of power gaming and/or potential violence, but have become extremely bitter about how things LITERALLY ALWAYS go down between them and anyone who gets their hands on a weapon.. and a lot of those without weapons too. As types 1 get filtered out fast and 2 are just making a mistake and will learn soon, we should focus on the only category that ends up being worth discussing - Category 3. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Example of Round that creates Type 3's _________________________________________________________________________________________ I will now explain on an example - a raider round [Game ID: b39-deJ4] I have just finished playing. During this round, we had a crew of 3 vox and 1 human. We decided pretty early that we will follow Vox Inviolate pretty closely, and as such our total kills at the end of round were precisely 0. During the round, we had taken two hostages - HoS and Captain. HoS either jumped on his own, or moving hostages in the void is finnicky and he ended up stranded and dead in the void - the raider crew even attempted to catch him and stop him from flying off, but to no avail. The raiders have went through strenuous negotiation process with ERT and agreed to trade the captain for contents of the vault. One of the Vox raiders played by me even went alone to meet up with like 10 armored and armed people from sec/ert to crack the safe for them. The vox had absolutely no way of coming out of that alive if they wanted to deal with it - but I had decided to play an honorable Vox that round, so I believed they wouldn't backstab me. Even after cracking the safe for them, the vox didn't take anything and left, trusting them to move the contents as they havn't exchanged hands yet. then the trade itself happened, and captain was passed into hands of ERT. And immidiately the two raiders who were present were valid-hunted down before they even got a third-of-the-way to their ship. Now, if you don't see the issue here, I will do my best to highlight it for you, and explain why it causes Type 3) Murderboning antagonists to become a thing. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Psychology of a Type 3 _________________________________________________________________________________________ Type 3 murderboning antags come around as a result of the culture of the server, which is prominently displayed in the example above. This culture has several complicated parts contributing to it, so we'll break it down. 1) Ideal: Antagonists exist to drive a story. Reality: Antagonists exist to be defeated. This issue is prominently displayed in the example above. The ERT I was negotiating with during the round was lied to by the crew of the station and was forced to make do with false information. Why? Because 'The antag ain't dead yet mate.' The ERT member was told that we had executed the HoS, and caused harm and damage. How can I blame the ERT member for going off lies? Yet more, how can I blame those who spread misinformation? They didn't see how the HoS died. However, no one was even willing to believe our side, as we existed merely as two-dimensional cardboard cutout to be defeated, not as players to be interacted with. Our guilt was a matter of course, the only question was which excuse can be used to kill us today. Now, some of you might point out a hypocrisy in my words here - I am implying that antags should win things and shouldn't be killed, and it may appear that this post is salt for me dying in the round. This is not the case. [The round just wrapped up - I am a bit salty, I cannot deny that, but I think I'm being very analytical and reasonable here. If I am wrong, point it out.] The issue I take is that I was *Backstabbed* after we agreed on something. It's fine to deny the negotiations, it's fine to say that you don't want to give the things over, or that you will find us and kill us. That all is fine, because 1) It allows the story to continue. 2) You are letting me know where I should take the story. The issue isn't the violence itself, it's that Role-Play takes two sides [or more] to participate in order to create a story. Taking the example round from earlier - Security team and ERT probably feel great because they got to 'win' and 'defeated the big bad'. Yay, someone feels good and had a good time - that's a good thing. However, due to how that 'win' came about, it ended up not being role play, but rather a power fantasy at the expense of someone else. Why is that? Because I am human, as is everyone else who plays this game. I am not a mindless NPC that doesn't care if it's story got fucked over by a player. I also have feelings, and having the story I'm pushing get destroyed just so someone else can have a power fantasy makes me less inclined to create a story where that can happen in the future. Thus, step one to becoming Type 3 murderboning antagonist: Bitterness at not being allowed to 'get away' with 'just' role play. 2) Ideal: Station staff reacts to the antagonist. Reality: Station staff forces the antagonist. In an ideal world, everyone on station would be playing as if the round was voted-extended until an antag is confirmed. We all know this is not the case, and that's fine - we're all just people. We have to accept that people in our little game will be acting a -little bit- more doomsday preppy and paranoid than normal people, and that is a-ok. The issue that causes reality to divide from the ideal is however rooted in this notion itself, because this notion is miss handled. Necessarily so might I add. This divide is a crime, but it is a crime that has no perpetrator. There is no one to blame for this, as it is a necessity of the game. Once again, let's take an example of the round I was in just now: We [raiders] got spotted very early on in the maintenance. I am not sure by whom or how, but we did and it was reported on security comms. What was said on security comms? I don't have the logs, but someone might be able to fish them out, so I will do my best to paraphrase from memory: 'Vox in maintenance' 'Raiders?!' Yes, the raiders were vox, vox are known to raid places, and they had weapons. However, this wasn't a reaction to vox raiders being spotted. This was a reaction to an /Antagonist/ being spotted. Allow me to explain the difference: You are a normal mall cop who's supposed to more or less just keep the station crew in line, maybe kill some carps or spiders and such - which is why your department has a small armory. You're also supposed to handle riots. Then, one day, you are checking maintenance and you see three heavily armored and armed figures in a shadowy maintenance, crawling quietly. What's your first reaction? Hide because you only have a pea-shooter with rubber guns? Sneak away to talk into radio so they can't hear you? Scream and run away in panic? WRONG! This is a game, and you are a hero, so you pull out your powered Ungastick, switch it on, shout that there are hostiles in maintenance and get ready to charge as soon as your glorious Golden Emperor Commander declares it.. and usually well before that. It is behavior like this that causes the difference. Security didn't react to antagonists. They forced antagonists to be the reacting side. And antagonists like these have only one means of reacting to a situation like this: Escalation of Violence. No wonder then that my team stormed HoS office and captured him alive, getting themselves a hostage. Allow me to explain this from a different point of view, as I think people might misunderstand what I am trying to say here. The issue here is that there was no allowance for RP from the side of antagonists in this approach from security. Antagonists were stripped of their ability to role play, and became a target to be 'defeated'. What have they done up to this point? We literally just got on the ship. We were late due to shenanigans with raider spawns without agent id cards. The *ONLY* way the antagonists at that point could have had input on the situation without causing station-wide escalation was to execute the officer who spotted them as soon as they appeared on screen. Thus step 2 to becoming a type 3 murderboning antagonist: Being powerless to achieve anything in the round without terminating anything and anyone who might pose even the slightest threat to you. 3) Ideal: Aurora is a research station defended by brave but ultimately mortal personnel. Reality: Antagonist must be powerful enough to defeat the station without any counterplay. And here we have arrived at the most hated aspect of a type 3) murderboning antagonist. A brand that has been seared into my reputation over the time I've been playing on aurora. "Powergaming" Unlike type 1, who will be seen at most few times and usually are actually killed by security because they are not using their powers intelligently, only running at people and doing damage. Unlike type 2 who are too unskilled at the game to truely cause havoc. Type 3 antagonists are the most problematic of the murderboning antags because they are uniquely suited to employ the dreaded "Powergaming" This is because Type 3 murderboning antagonists realize that both issue 1 and 2 can be solved if they are so much more powerful than the station that it forces the station to bend a knee, whether they like it or not. Because if they will not bend, then the antagonist will break them in order to make them. There is no example of this behavior in the round used as an example, because none of the antagonists in that round were looking to do this. As such, I will use a character that no longer exists, but has very well documented antag-related methodology found here: https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/12458-character-complaint-casey-mercer-naelynn Tl;dr for those who don't wanna read the thread: Casey Mercer is a 'Character' perfectly suited to be an example. The character's original gimmick was that of 'antag main'. This character always started as assistant with only webbings, and had a very well calculated formula to ridiculously quickly get huge amounts of power and cause the round to go their way, whatever the gimmick may be. This character - Mercer - was epitome of this sort of Type 3 thinking that encouraged to player to achieve as much power in as little time as possible in order to NOT have to suffer through the psychological effects 1 and 2 outlined above. However, it is this part of a psychological profile of a Type 3 murderboning antagonist player that causes so much discomfort, and qualifies them to be in the category of Murderboning Antagonists in the first place. The instinctual habit of a Type 3 antagonist is to seek power above all else, because only if they have much, MUCH more power than their opponents they will be able to drive a story and show mercy. ? If a Type 3 does not feel powerful enough, they will go out of their way to annihilate everything and everyone that poses a threat, or, they will seek to gain more power. The interesting question here is... Why. 4) Ideal: Everyone wants to rp and have fun. Reality: People don't have fun while losing. And here we have arrived at the fundamental issue that causes Type 3 thinking. Type 3's are caused by the 'I want to WIN THIS ROUND' mentality - this mentality is present in both antagonists and station personnel, as it is a part of human nature, and there is nothing to be done about it. This point alone causes this entire issue to be a crime without perpetrator - there is no one to blame, unless one wishes to blame the very nature of humanity. As there is no remedy to people not having fun while 'losing', the only way to remedy this situation would be to accept death as part of story on the heavy ROLE-PLAY server of NSS Aurora. I do not have issue with dying, assuming my death was earned. If I was allowed to have a shootout and died after insulting security, I am not experiencing bitterness of betrayal, nor am I feeling powerless. I am thrilled that I got to play out a story, and it ended however it ended - there was a natural conclusion that allowed me to move on. Yet, the round outlined in the above example was a round where I was not allowed to wrap up the story and move on. I was shot in my back just as the story was about to end. And why? Because I tried to role play. I told my raiders that we have captain hostage. We could have just left as ERT was called, and no one would blame us. But the story beat the round would end on would be boring. Raiders come to aurora, have a small scuffle, capture captain and leave, probably selling the captain off to Necropolis or whomever to have their brain picked for NT secrets they can use to compete with them down the line. I wished the story to have cooler ending, to give the called ERT a chance to interact, to give the crew something better. So I gave captain his headset, negotiated with ERT to trade the captain for contents of the vault, went alone into an enemy's camp and exchanged insults with an assistant passing me by in a hallway. Caused fear in people in cargo and medical as the black-suited raptor stalked by the hallway, gave them a chance to at least see the antagonist in a round. I tried to give the round something more, something better, a story that everyone would agree was better, more involved. ... only to suffer the mental dissonance of psychological effects 1 and 2, making me come to the conclusion of point 3 yet again. And why? Because people do not view antagonists as fellow players that seek to rp and have fun, but rather as things to be defeated. Because people cannot accept that antagonists should be allowed some leeway and be given initiative. Because people believe that a research station with 5 mall cops with rubber bullets and few anti-carp guns should be able to handle a Vox raiding party, or a siege by a professional merc outfit and etc. _________________________________________________________________________________________ So what can we do? _________________________________________________________________________________________ I believe there is only one real solution that addresses the core of the issue: Players, both personnel and antagonists, need to realize that this is meant to be a role-play server, and that there are two sides needed to create a good story within the limits of the game's systems. No other solution will ever truely and permanently fix the issue. Yet, my issue in itself is flawed, as it is impossible to achieve. So.. please, dear reader.. Tell me, what can we do to change this?

Dropping this, taking a break from ss13.

Call me dramatic or whatever. I need a break from ss13 However this will end, it will end. I'm not going to reply here anymore, muting any emails from forums and uninstalled the game and all relevant discord servers. I may be back in 6 months, but between some stuff irl that's giving me a lot of stress, and the fact that I'm appearently the target of hatred in dead chat almost every single round I do something even remotely non-perfect... Yeah no, I'm just tired. Edit to explain when I'm not in full blown panic attack: I feel targetted, disliked and unwanted. Outside of few friends, I don't see evidence to the contrary. I just got second out of three ban warnings for trying to drive a story in improper way. I'm leaving because of these reasons.

Right. Will keep things concise... or at least try to! The first part of my post existed merely to show evidence that I look to improve my play style with any and all feedback I receive. This matters because if something is wrong with how I interact with players in a round, throwing me a pm/bwoink is sufficient to fix this [Within human reason, of course]. For second point.. Yes, antagonists serve to create a narrative of some form. I think I got too stuck in the details to get at what I wished to convey, so please excuse my failure to communicate there. That being: I have been working on this since the days of Mercer. I have planned out gimmicks for the antags I've been playing for a while prepared and planned out, and look to rp them out. Most notably for Ninja/Wizard. I still have very little planned for other antags. The 'someone else does this, so why not them?' argument... It's not strong, but it's still relevant. Rules should be applied to everyone equally. Finally last point: Because tricordrazine can heal all major damage types, should we remove it? How about Ions? Ipc's? Unathi? Ninjas? [They're stronger than other antags]. Just because something is strong, should we never ever use it? If things were this clear, I believe the thing would have already been removed.

@Goret Wonderful! So our definitions are pretty much identical! Now that I know what I can work with, let's get to it I've literally never got feedback from you. I try to do my best to improve things, but the easiest way to make someone do something differently is to.. ask them to do so. As an example, I would like to summon @Marlon Phoenix - I recently fucked up a thing where I missunderstood the Unathi, and specifically Aut'Akh lore to mean that Aut'Akh more or less do not feel pain, and as such acted upon that assumption. Marlon, being the wonderful person he is, Pm'd me on discord and pointed out my mistake. The mistake was not repeated. Another example of this would be @kyres1 - Literally last round as of writing this there was a missunderstanding over how IPC's are created and owned, should they be made on the station itself. Kyres contacted me on discord and explained to me that I was wrong. Yet another example that I can think of right now is @Jupiter Storm - I have been trying to do a lot more work with the Ai, since it is such a wonderfully useful way of involving crew in your storyline - With feedback from Jupiter [And the IPC discord server] I've created a bunch pretty well written Ai laws that I can use in the future to make good stories. Next example I can think of is @Aboshedab - When I was planning out my skrell application, I pm'd him and asked him to review my character concepts and then spent a bunch more time making sure their planning is more up to standards. Another example I can think of is @DRagO whom recently handled one of the ahelps against me where I went out of line and killed a person who didn't attack me. The situation was quite complicated and is irrelevant, but we reached an understanding and I'm going to strive to only attack in retaliation. Yet ANOTHER example is this entire thread handled by @Garnascus: Tl;dr: I no longer create or play 'antagonist' characters - a.k.a: characters that exist exclusively to be antagonists. Nor do I cryo out of rounds if I'm unhappy with things. Furthermore, there was an implication that I only play antagonists in that thread, as evidence against that I would like to offer the fact that during the week of antagonist ban I stayed active and played on the station. ANOTHER example would be the round that got me antag banned, handled by @Pratepresidenten: The reason for the antag ban was going too far with ooc knowledge, specifically walling in ERT/TCFL shuttle. I based this on the fact that one of the round-start tips literally mentions that one of the vulnereabilities of ERT is that people know where you land. This behaviour wasn't repeated since. Hell, in discord PM's I asked him to bwoink me more, because pointing out my mistakes is the best way for me to learn. Tl;dr: Please present evidence where I am unwilling to learn, if given the opportunity to. I would like to address this point using three different points: 1) Within server rules [ https://aurorastation.org/rules.html ], and as mentioned by @Garnascus in: Antagonists do not require gimmicks. Cookie cutter 'I am a raider, and I steal things' or 'I am a merc, and I was hired to assassinate X on this station' are just as acceptable as a proper well thought out gimmick. Are well thought out gimmicks preferable? Yes. But they are NOT mandatory. I have contacted @Skull132 and @Pratepresidenten during writing of this to ask their feedback on if this statement is correct, here are their respective inputs: [ Skull: http://prntscr.com/p9e2co ] [ Prate: http://prntscr.com/p9e32i ] With that said, you are saying that that gameplay style does not drive a story.... Is security on a manhunt for someone throught the entirety of station, having to monitor the cameras, involving Ai AND multiple non-security personnel who report seeing the antagonist to security... Is that NOT a narrative? Is that not something to talk about in the bar? 2) I have been working on this particular aspect since the original feedback thread with Casey Mercer which basically embodied this style of pushing story/gameplay. Since then, I have had a ninja gimmick where I caused a more-or-less revolution to occur by relawing the ai to claim that there is a raider ship coming [played by @Jupiter Storm ], and repeatedly used voice changer to stir up the crew into wishing to protect themselves. Furthermore using announcements from the bridge and/or uplink to drive the story even further, and yet more finally dressing up in captain armor and running around at the end of round as an evil pirate at the end of round. Next example would be the ai laws that we've worked out with Jupiter, one of which was already used in a round where the ai was lawed to believe it is a parent to everyone on station. The ninja was mostly unknown in the round, only adding in a little bit of spice there and then, until an ai-slaying team formed, consisting of @Cnaym @Jupiter Storm and two more players I'm not familiar with. Since the shuttle wasn't called yet, I needed to defend the ai and lawed it to be extremely unhappy with the security officer in the group. The ai interpreted that to 'Vent the hallway the character is in', which in this case involved primary hallway. Thinking quick, I teleported him to telecomms using ninja-stealth + hand teleporter, but because I didn't think it through well enough it revealed me and caused the round to derail from 'Slay the insane ai' to 'Slay the invisible man by the name of Death'. When shuttle was called, I attempted to give the story a crescendo by offering one person from the group to take them to the Ai core and letting them finish the job, which didn't work out as planned because of the aforementioned mechanical fuck up. The lawset in itself was almost instantly craked by @Rosetango who figured out that the Ai is literally lawed to be nice and treat you kindly if you simply are nice to it and the people on board and do your job. Rose spent the entire round on common comms trying to explain this to the crew. None of this would have happened if I didn't strive to up my story game. 3) If I am in the wrong for seeking to power up my antagonist characters and manage to gain the upper hand in situations where often I am playing as 1-4 people vs 6-9 people in security, then please explain why many other antagonist players are not in the wrong. And if they are in the wrong, why do I not see player complaints against them. This has a very simple explanation. The character in question is Sabael Kyledes [Human Miner]. For whatever reason, this character spawned as a merchant on exodus. I genuinely do not really know why - here are the job settings for the character: http://prntscr.com/p9e7ew The character /DOES NOT HAVE MERCHANT ENABLED/ - And literally cannot even have merchant enabled because only Independent faction characters can be merchants. As such, to not completely destroy the character's lore, I was forced to go Vox, regardless if I wanted to or not - as I did not wish to cryo on round start. Because Merchant code is inherently balanced around LRP, I have been personally slowly reworking it over in this thread right here: Before you say that my goal is to make antagonist merchants more op, I would like to ask you to consider the fact that Unathi Breacher from the merchant costs precisely 6 tc via operation funding. Operation Funding in the traitor uplink is fantastic for driving rp on station, but completely wrecks merchant traitor power economy, and this is an issue I am well aware of - as adressed in my 'To Be Done' section of the post. I wish to make these very powerful items UNABLE TO BE PURCHASED USING MONEY by transferring them to unique traders exclusively. Reality of the situation is that Merchant is balanced for 40 minutes rounds, and no one else but me is currently working to change that, as far as I know. If you have any feedback for the merchant changes, please write them in the thread. Sadly, until the rework's finished OR merchant being automatically excluded from being 'on station' antagonist [probably by being turned int "Antagonist" role like ERT are], this will continue being the case. Furthermore @Marlon Phoenix had a discussion with me on a round where an Unathi Breacher was used by a merchant and we agreed that items on it's level should be used extremely sparingly. - This has been implemented when later I had an unathi breacher purchased, but decided to leave it on merchant's base in favour of making a more interesting interactions. Thank you for reading this - I am not adressing the specific example round because while it is relevant to the post itself, this novella is already long enough. If it will be required, I am willing to provide further clarifications on my actions in the round.

@Goret @Snoopy11 Before we proceed with this, please do me a favour: Please define what an Antagonist is, how are they supposed to do things, and what's their purpose for existing according to you. I will start with my own definition: Antagonist is someone with ulterior motives on the station, regardless if those are friendly or unfriendly. They should use any means available to them to achieve their goal, regardless of what it is, as long as it does not constitute griefing. Their purpose is to drive roleplay and/or atmosphere of the round in one way or another.

Hey! I'd like to clear something up about the round you are mentioning! ... I got vamped 50 minutes in. I had very little idea how vamp abilities work, because it is very hard to try them on a test server. And finally.. I interacted with a bunch of people. Did those interactions end up in vampire bite? ... yeah? ... but I was a vampire after all.

Right, I was asked to post my opinion to this threat, and after reading about 2/3rds of it I can sort of see why. I'd like to highlight two things: 1) I have never read any vaurca lore page. All I know about them is the 'everyman' knowledge. 2) I have encountered vaurca consulars a few times. Because of this, I would like to ask to not be judged in this post based of how the lore is written and understand that this is merely from a perspective of a crewmember who has very little idea of how Vaurca actually got where they are. _____________________________________________________________________________ When I first met a breeder, I was like holy shit - because it felt so random for a 'breeder' of the species to be on station, unprotected. As far as I know, they are rare and always kept protected - kind of like how the breeding bee in a bee hive is kept safe, so I was awed that the devs were doing a little event like this, despite there being no guards for the breeder. The second time I realized they are just a vaurca consular - and that is cool AF, but it felt a little off too - Why would a member of the hive important enough to it's survival be sent off to some hellhole? After reading some of the points in this threat, it seems to be because 'they're more sociable than the other castes' - This makes no sense to me. I thought Vaurca are raised in VR for a direct purpose, and while some act stupid, they as a species are not stupid.... So why wouldn't some 'normal' be better at communicating than a important breeder-mom bug? ... so the only real answer seems to be 'This is an important member of our hive, we trust you with her safety' - And I think that gesture is cool. Few rounds later, I was on my paramedic and was responding to a bar situation when I come upon a Breeder standing in middle of a combat zone between an angry ipc bartender with a shotgun and a cadet who's absolutely getting rekt and shouting for help [which wasn't coming]. And the... important mama bug was fighting? This annoyed me personally - surely the bug is important to her hive, surely she cannot risk getting destroyed in a fight - that would destroy her value to the hive and it's queen I always thought that breeders are more of a last-resort fighters that the hive will only ever use if it's in really bad situation. _______________________________________________________________________________ And this is where I have to talk about not my experience, but their mechanical functions. Breeders are 1) Impossible to grab (4x as hard as a human to grab, 3.5x as hard as a skrell to rgab) 2) Can break cuffs 3) Have a massive (larger than human) stamina pool, have low-cost sprinting, and have fast stamina recovery. What? 4) Cannot slip. 5) Have natural weapons _______________________________________________________________________________ Overall: I think they are cool, but me as a 'normal' player - I don't really understand why them specifically. I'd like them to stay, I genuinely do think they are a cool idea, but I need an explanation that Mr. Joe Average the Janitor will be able to make some heads or tails out of. Furthermore, if they are to stay, they need across the board nerf - they are supposed to be mama bugs, not frontline soldiers, so why do their stats remind me of a hunter-killer?

@Resilynn Hey! No stress, I'm glad you took the time to read it and reply! I didn't want to advertise the app because I wanted it to be judged on the strength of writing, but since you want some community input I'll go ahead and show it around As for the questions - I'm not going to be giving you proper answers right away because I'm really tired and only got about 5-6 hours before I have to move to university for 5.th semester - so I'll probably get to proper writing in about a day or two, but quick answers: Why another space station/vessel: She idolized Qulluv, not because the culture made him famous or anything - as far as the wide public is concerned he was nobody, but because she recognized the effort, care and pride he took in his craft. He's what she's striving to be, and he was working on space-bound vessels. I'm still working on if I want to give her some form of void-phobia to play around with, but I think that might clash too much with working on a space station. Also, people can die planetside too, just the causes are different. Why work in human/synth place: I have been struggling with this question, and decided to post the app before having a good answer myself, not gonna lie. She doesn't outright hate synthethics as many other skrells would because she wasn't there to see even just the aftermath of Glorsh-Omega - being too young for that. It is similar to how today's generations are detached from world war 1 - they know it was a horrible thing but ... they usually don't put too much thought into it. - This distant misstrust in synthethics that was given to her by her history teachers and education system led her to chosing an area she believes even more dangerous than the traverse - An area where synths roam free. That clearly is a volatile region of space, much more than the traverse - and that's not accounting for things like The Frost Incident where the tiny [mostly] defenseless republic was left out to the wolves. Help those in need is what Qulluv taught her, and that's what she's going to do. How did she announce her leaving for human space: I havn't even considered this, kind of completley forgot that people have families... heh. - Her family had accepted her going for the Traverse > She is supported in her decisions, but they worry about her because she clearly is somewhat reckless. Thus - Going to human space came as a shock, but not one they didn't think of before. Her mother in particular spend over an hour arguing back and forth but finally gave up and accepted it when the stubborn child refused to move from her position. Who knew that going to the Traverse would make her so strong as to argue her point for an hour without backing off?

BYOND Key: naelynn Character Names: Species you are applying to play: Skrell What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Reddish Pink Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: Skrell have a unique relationship with synthethics - unlike that of all other races, primarily due to Glorsh-Omega and the resulting incidents up to Tri-Qyu. As I am heavily invested in mechanical augmentations and ai`s/synths in general, this has lead me to checking up on Skrell and finding I like how they`re written.. And want to give them a try myself. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Skrell are exceptionally curious species with unmatched intellect and esoteric abilities equivalent to telepathy, yet retain a strictly individualistic approach in their society. Their culture is completely based around merit - and as such anyone may rise to glory, should they discover or achieve something worthy of recognition. Furthermore, most Skrell are going to naturally be suspicious of any synthethics, even more so if they overstep their bounds. Skrell are also going to be rather competetive in their approach to their work, but will never see it as foul play if they are outdone - rather they will be impressed. Character Name: Aquuore Wluqluv’Qulluv - CMO Please provide a short backstory for this character It can be difficult for a young skrell in today’s society. There are so many geniuses out there it can easily cause one to feel inadequate. And that was precisely what has happened to Aquuore Wluqluv. She was just finishing her university degree in neuroscience which she believed would nicely accompany her previous general medicine doctorate. She still wasn’t entirely decided on what to do with her life, but she was starting to feel the need to pick a specific path for her career. It was around that time when her university demanded an internship to show that she can apply all that she has learned in practice. She felt nervous and pressured to perform - after all, her grades were always stellar - even compared to others of her age, and this decision to choose her internship was gnawing on her mind. With the deadline for signups nearing, Aquuore made a move she didn’t think she ever would - she signed up to assist an exploratory vessel in the traverse as a medical doctor. And her request was granted. Yet, she didn’t feel the pressure on her shoulder lessen.. It seemed to have only built up further. Not even a month later, she was aboard a relief vessel darting around the traverse, offering medical aid and supplies to the colonists. She and Dr. Qulluv have succesfully saved multitudes of lives and she was starting to take a liking to the older man, learning to respect his wisdom and advice. However, things don’t always go according to the plan and the relief vessel was hit during a meteor storm before the shields could have protected it’s crew. Both Dr. Qulluv and Aquuore were in the room when the rock breached the outer hull and crashed into the medical facilities. That was the first time she realized her own mortality and she froze in heat of the moment. But Dr. Qulluv did not. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the terrified young woman, and threw her into the only remaining undamaged piece of equipment left - a single cryopod, meant to preserve critically wounded patients during long transfers. When next she was woken up by the ship’s engineering staff, she got to meet the man she learned to idolize and respect once more - lying on the ground, in a black tagged bag, motionless and cold.. So cold, like the deep void of space. She screamed, and cried, she struggled… and eventually accepted the reality laid bare in front of her. Due to her panic, her idol had perished. This must not, and would not happen again if she had anything to say about it. To remind herself of this, she would choose to honor the man in her name, and continue his work in places where most would shirk to go, yet the need is highest. What do you like about this character? Aquuore is a young Skrell, very young in fact - who more or less only knows the Radiant Era first hand. As such, she is generally very optimistic. Yet, there is something beneath that, deep under the surface there are layers of insecurity and dread of losing someone else she cares for once again. She is characterized by her avoidance of loss. She is very aware of her mortality, and that her very existence is the last thing left of her mentor. How would you rate your role-playing ability? 7/10 - While I do try to look for rp chances, sadly I often reply only reactively and don't drive a narrative to my satisfaction. I currently see this as my biggest weakness and it bothers me. However, I try to work on this. So why did I rate my ability as above average but not excellent? Because while I do believe I have a huge weakness in that, I also believe that I have a big strength in rp - and that is willingness to improv and change my entire plan at drop of a hat if something is more fun for everyone involved. Notes: I currently have an admin action going against my account - that is being Antag-banned for 1 week. The game ID's that have caused this are b25-acBS and b25-c3gA [ in case you want to check them out because it changes something. Idk, figured I should be honest. ] Thank you for taking the time to read my application - if anything is not up to your standards, please do let me know - I will do my best to rectify it in appropriate manner.

Hello, this thread is meant to be used to discuss and documents things that should be adjusted in merchant code. Feedback is more than welcome in comments, I'm following the thread and will read all posts. If a suggestion will have good reason behind it, I'll put it on the list and code it when I have time. Please check if your suggested changes are in any of the lists. Thank you very much! To be done: Completed: Denied: Once again, please use this thread to post feedback and/or suggestions to merchant code [ The computer software that lets you trade with traders. Not the base itself ]. Thank you very much

@Garnascus Can the thread be closed and archived? It's been more than a month since last post and it's been resolved.

I like the app. I don't have a bone to pick with the person or characters. I don't see a reason to say no: It's a +1 from Naelynn

BYOND Key: naelynn Character Names: Species you are applying to play: Unathi What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Metallic Silver (Aut’Akh) Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: One day when I was playing Aimee I ended up having an Aut’Akh co-worker in robotics, and it was probably the most pleasant experience I had. This left quite the impression on me. The unathi acted like no other unathi I’ve seen, so friendly and bordering on Zen-like. I was curious so I started reading up on their lore and mechanics and well… here I am. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Aut’akh are peculiar, especially amongst the unathi. They are a relatively new sect, focusing on quite frankly stupendous level of augmentation, to the point where discussion on whether they are cyborgs or not could be appropriate. Yet, despite this outcast status in their society, they are encouraged to be the friendliest creatures on the planet due to the hole the lack of Oss’s connection leaves inside them. I always liked the idea that maybe we can become better and something more through machines, and there frankly is no race that can represent that better than the Aut’akh. And oh god Oss quirks are downright fascinating. Character Name: Optikam Azski, Paramedic Please provide a short backstory for this character: “Life’s what you make out of what you’re given” was the first thing the discolored female sinta learned in her childhood. She was expected to grow up into a young lady of the house, to stay in the background as those discolored like she was were expected to. Her local shaman claimed her sickly white color to be a stain on her clan - a curse of the ancestors who were displeased with how they’ve conducted themselves lately. And yet… ...not one of those things mattered when the contact wars came. Still merely a 5 summers old child Azski’s world was thrown into chaos when her village, family and neighbours all either perished or disappeared. The little one survived, albeit barely. Living on what she could find, and running away from danger she couldn’t handle she bumbled her way through the wars, always moving, never staying in one place. For everyone would remember the discolored thief should she find a place for herself. Eventually she was accepted into the Kuhwinla orphanage. She, like many others was scarred from the war in more ways than one. And yet, still, she was unable to find common ground with the others. Bullied and ostracized for her colour she was bottom of the ladder in her newfound home. And yet… … despite all of that, she survived. Her will hardened and steeled itself through all the hardships and she learned to fight back. And that was around the time a certain individual approached her. Offered her a new start, with no history to weigh her down, with no body to be judged by, and a place where one may be revered solely by their actions. And that’s a day that Azski will remember forever, for that is the day she joined the Aut’Akh. Being part of the commune was difficult at first, but Azski was more than willing to leave her cursed, discolored visage behind. Yet, she opted for a silvery metal chassis, a clear statement of defiance to the world who had treated her so unkindly. A message sent with not words, but action. And this attitude is what lead her to joining with the Optikam, for she saw the value in their willingness to act when everyone else is still talking. For life is what you make out of what you’re given. Amongst the Aut’Akh she may be recognized as a Paradigm who added optional rescue and quick first-aid subroutines to BattleTrance.OSS, allowing for BattleTrance fielding of medical personnel in sync with their combat units. What do you like about this character? Azski is a character who was growing up throughout the Contact War, and it has shaped who she is. She is not particularly talkative, preferably using laconic phrases. This is completely different to a lot of my other characters - Aimee for example is very talkative and often has very long sentences due to filling in unnecessary words. She, as all Optikam, would seek to achieve her given objective by any acceptable means necessary, and her short and cut-to-the-point attitude should make for quite an interesting development when she will feel the need to bond with everyone around her. How would you rate your role-playing ability? 7/10 - While I do try to look for rp chances, sadly I often reply only reactively and don't drive a narrative to my satisfaction. I currently see this as my biggest weakness and it bothers me. However, I try to work on this. So why did I rate my ability as above average but not excellent? Because while I do believe I have a huge weakness in that, I also believe that I have a big strength in rp - and that is willingness to improv and change my entire plan at drop of a hat if something is more fun for everyone involved. Notes: Thank you for taking the time to read the app

For players who cryo'd and observed?

Hello, I believe this is a topic I can have a relevant input on - as a frequent antag player. Tl;dr: DO NOT REMOVE OR WHITELIST THE AI. PLEASE. Sincerely: Antagonist player Now for more details: Ai's are vital for functioning of many departments and have a whole suite of aux functions that many people seem to ignore because a good Ai does them so well you won't even think about it. Ex: Pumps in atmos, mining airlock, configuring cryo cells in medical, assisting in locating blobs, rescue operations etc. etc. Seriously, play an ai and try to keep up with the ridiculous amount of things an entire crew worth of people will want from you - it's probably the closest you can get to an admin handling tickets alone on high pop. Furthermore: Ai is an excellent role to LEARN COMMAND. It is the only non-command role to have access to their channel, and can observe how things are to be handled. This is suuuuper important for people who are looking to whitelist for command. You can say that Warden is the 'Learn Command' role, but... not really, even though they have access to fax machines. As for shutting down antags: Can Ai's do it? Absolutely. Is the end of the world for an antag team? No. MISTRESS in my yesterday's round as Vox Nightingale [raider] was in this 'maintenance' mode and it felt /Worse/ to play for me. Normally when Mistress is in a round and I'm antagging, I do have to really worry about her, because she has absolutely no qualms with wrecking my plans and telling security where to run, which usually after an hour-or-so of the round leads me decide that ai has to die [And then usually getting rekt myself due to trying to breach a fortified position alone]. But rather than seeing ai whitelisted [as that would screw over all the benefits an ai brings to station] I'd like to see more TEMPORARY BLACKLISTS - to have them act a little more like wiki says. Ex: "Room Y breach detected. Security response recommended" instead of "Four hostiles armed with X in room Y, red voidsuits, one rig". (See wiki, it genuinely recommends the ai acts like this) I'll edit this post to be more coherent over the day - writing this in spare 15 mins before going to work.

I mean, if ya'll are saying that this is a easy way to 'get away' with shrapnel, consider all the following: You're going to get infection from that 99% of the time you're probably going to cause IB in the process The thing itself will take fucking long to do you're going to lose a lot of blood doing this And finally: How the fck are you going to close the wound. If you're ghettoing this, you probably don't have normal cautery so.. lighter. So... MORE BURN DAMAGE.

Ahh! That makes so much more sense! Thank you! ❤️