Sniblet

“that it’s proudly kept intact for the four years since” Charm is four years old. Self-preservation in an IPC typically means “keep myself functional” at the start, but over years or with unusual programming it can morph in the sense of the “self” becoming less about physical form, and more about ideas or legacy. An old IPC might not mind dying for science, if, as its mind diverged from the norm, it came to see it”self” as a scientist above all. Charm is not quite that old. IPCs are treated in a lot of ways ranging through the spectrum of KOS and equal to human, but never better than that, outside of a few IPC-exclusive societies. The Skrell hate ‘em because Glorsh, the Dominans hate ‘em because uh… no soul (somehow this makes only positronics bad, and other machines are fine), the Assunzionii are split because their absurd light obsession makes some of them angry about IPCs’ power cost (somehow this makes only positronics bad, and other machines are fine), the Solarians see them as machines like any other that are only non-expendable as far as cost and utility take them, Konyang doesn’t make a political distinction between positronic or otherwise, and Biesel law treats at least free positronics as approximately human. As for what jobs it can/‘t do, again for totally OOC reasons I'd prefer to have it capable of touching on everything but xenobotany, which I’ve already squeezed all the two rounds of content from. Since that inevitably will not fly, it can only play scientist/xenoarch, with only theoretical ideas (vampire interrogation) about other mechanical jobs in the department. Light's Edge has offered plenty of general xenobiological experience, and warrants datapacks relevant to the field, but I don't see why Charm would have been warping genes out there, and it's probably never met a slime.

Personality in Aurora is something that's been on my mind of late, and in an RP setting there are a few archetypes that really just don't work, even if they do in real life or in a story with one controlling author. I think the most offensive personality is cold-standoffish - someone who has no interest in people, cannot be persuaded to be interested in people, has no connections with anybody, and will walk away ASAP if approached. I have one active character with this trait. It turns out, I wasn't really thinking when I made her this way. The problem this character produces is that you can't RP if you're not at least sharing a screen-width with somebody. People don't have time to give you the time of day if you don't, because there's always a cute bubbly waifu the next door over and they know they'll have a good time there. If you're always hiding in a dark closet, you're not going to be found, especially if no one's looking for you. And you won't be remembered. You want to be remembered, right? The sole purpose of RP is attention-seeking, right? That's not just me? Okay. Okay, so watch as I contradict Girdio - you may notice if you pay enough attention to literary tutorials that people who pretend to know what they're talking about do this to each other all the time. Set out to make someone who's different. I am by no means saying rainbow hair sexy buttcheeks in your flavor text. A, that specifically is a huge turnoff because it says something bad about you OOCly, B, superficial stuff like that won't carry you. This is called "a limp and an accent," and while it's a good thing and can be a cheat to make a character memorable, it doesn't make a character. The best characters consistently act different in some way. You will be remembered for playing someone uniquely compassionate (healing everyone as a doctor is normal - empathizing even with the worst serial murderers is special), uniquely assholish (griefing is illegal - casually namecalling and never learning from your social mistakes is accepted), uniquely anxious (a stutter is limp-and-accent - concrete, complex, clearly and reliably played fears are not), uniquely loyal (company loyalty is not unique and seldom comes up except when decapping the antag - a self-sacrificial loyalty to say, Dominian primaries, leads to frequent unique interactions). We all remember Keala very clearly, and Aelia, and some of us are always happy to see Cassandra, or Kornelija. If you know those characters, you've probably just thought of all the same things I remember them for. Here's a test I'm fond of for any character in any setting: imagine them in some absurd situations, and see if you can concretely imagine what they would do in them (they are now suddenly a schoolteacher with no qualifications - they have fallen in love with a viax - they have, oh i dont know, been kidnapped by a changeling). If you can do this test, you've made a functional character. If it's different from what you IRL would do, that's a good sign. If it's different from what most characters on the Horizon would do, you are most definitely on the right track to synthesizing a memorable fake person. Making a hit is difficult. There are no assembly instructions for uniqueness. Try to think of an archetype you like that has an open or at least non-crowded niche ("sarcastic sense of humor" is extremely crowded, but we don't currently have a lot of "anxious wreck" or "loyal secondary" or "happy person"), and find some more spin to put on it. Agonize over their appearance for two entire rounds. Join. Play more than one round before you write anyone off. And relax. Remember, nobody's watching you anyway, until you get that just-right character.

BYOND Key: Sniblet Character Names: Iphigenia Konstantinou, Karen Stahl, Natascha Marikova, Anahi Avalona, Lilija Larsdottir, Ayla Shanae, Kalini Shanae, Lyric Valana, Ka’Akaix’Suth Zo’ra, Heidi Lin Species you are applying to play: IPC Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: More than once! I sure am glad it’s mostly entwined with human lore. Why do you wish to play this specific race: Antag gimmicks firstly, because every merc team needs at least one shell or else (I don’t know what the consequence is, but there must be one because there’s always a shell), and I haven’t seen an Exclusionist or Purpose gimmick yet. I also call back to my vaurca app: I like my robots. They’re just cool. They can also let me play an immersive character without reserving energy for trauma responses. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Like any synthetic and like a vaurca, you are designed, and often born with binding loyalty to your creator. Unlike a vaurca or a synthetic, you’re entirely malleable by your lived experiences and could eventually develop a very humanoid personality (if unchecked). The one thing every positronic has in common from birth is that it wants to live, but getting shot in the chest 15 times doesn’t necessarily pose a threat to that: it’s certainly undesirable, but you feel no pain and your brain survives a lot that a human’s wouldn’t. Of course, your employer could still melt you down for wasting an expensive chassis, but your risk management process is recontextualized. Your employer could melt you down. Different people have vastly different opinions on what your life is worth, or “if” your life is worth anything, but broadly speaking you are always valued and protected less than an organic. This is dangerous. Act well. Stay in line. Your mind is exceedingly complex like an organic’s, but its physical structure is completely designed and mostly predictable. You don’t have neurotransmitters that are liable to sharply peak or trough for any or no reason. You don’t “do” irrational, unless your brain’s been left to erode for far too long. Character Name: ZHRP Charm (Zeng-Hu Research Positronic Ch-678814M) Please provide a short backstory for this character Manufactured on Assunzione for use in a Bishop Accessory Frame that it’s proudly kept intact for the four years since, Charm is a contentedly owned Zeng-Hu positronic initially built for deployment into Light’s Edge for miscellaneous research-support tasks. It isn’t heavily specialized in any one sector of the handful of different kinds of research that Light’s Edge invites, but that patented hyper-efficient Bishop processing lets it serve more than adequately in any such role, especially in supportive positions. In other words, it’s a science job-hopper, but preferentially a Scientist. Partly owing to evolution and partly by design, Charm’s supportive role infects its personality. It has a strong interest in developing itself socially, and aspires to be a face people can turn to, or a shoulder they can cry on. If it played Overwatch, it would main Mercy for its whole career. It has been transferred to the SCCV Horizon to shore up personnel shortages, but fondly remembers its service with various Zeng-Hu exploration teams and could tell a few interesting, mostly-true stories about those times. Charm was consecrated by Luceist methods and built with Pyramidical beliefs, but has had no reason or desire to keep its theological knowledge sharp after working all its life away from Ennoia in the company of scientists from elsewhere. Charm could easily rattle off basic tenets and structures of Luceism, but has no deep relationship with it, and a “real” Luceist would now identify it as faithless. Charm’s pronouns are it/she. I don’t know which one I’d give it ingame – maybe I’d alternate. What do you like about this character? Science RP is really good. I wanna get called over to the brig to interrogate a vampire. I wanna hold Casimir Tilton’s hand while he breaks down over being made interim RD for the 18th time this month. I wanna build a gun and disintegrate a monkey with it in two shots. Charm’s personality fits Lyric’s archetype, one that I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with lately. Being an IPC lets me hop between cool science roles without having to make up a really weird/long education history or build four more seldom-played characters for my already stretched roster. How would you rate your role-playing ability? Always learning! I’m trying to feel my way around what kind of person is best suited to letting me have and cause fun by just talking to people all day. Lyric is a hit, and Lilija is absolutely not. The differences between them are very apparent (at least to me, because probably nobody else even knows Lilija) but I want to experiment with adjacent personalities and maybe narrow down what makes her work here.

BYOND Key: Sniblet Discord Username: Sniblet Character Name: Lyric Valana Item Name: sign reader gloves Item Function(s): When worn, repeats the signer's sign language in vocalized basic. Can be toggled on and off. Might be radio compatible - its developer has it currently functional just short of that point. Item Description: A pair of gloves covered in small motion sensors and gyroscopes, capable of reading a wearer's gestures in TCSL and repeating them out loud. On their wrists, they each have a tiny SCC logo, a barcode, and the inscription SCC-TCSL-TL-15281100001 9. They're surprisingly breathable. Why is your character bringing this item to work?: Lyric is mute. How did your character obtain this item?: After Lyric pitched the idea for this exact object on the relay, Jill N1luz promptly picked it up as a personal project to eventually present as a gift for Lyric. A handful of members of the research department, including fellow mute Marinette Fourier, have helped the project along to the point of a working prototype. The technology probably isn't unique, but it's homemade!... which means that as a work prototype she can't take them offship. What value does this item have to your character, and what story does it tell?: Lyric values this item both as A WAY TO FINALLY TALK TO PEOPLE and as a heartwrenchingly kind gift from the research department. It's her first major step towards free communication since mastering TCSL. Sprites: Electronic gloves @ icons/obj/assemblies/wearable_electronic_setups.dmi . I don't have another sprite to offer and wouldn't really miss having a special sprite for any reason besides "waaa less cool." Additional Comments: Per https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/17912-loadout-sign-reader-gloves/?do=findComment&comment=162219 I have moved this item from a locked thread in the feature request section. If this should be generally available, I'm not the one to talk to, don't bring it here. Marinette's player UponASeaOfStars is the one working on the gloves, and will probably want a pair too, but this isn't her app.

DEVICE: (transcript begins) INTERVIEWER: Hello again, Natascha. MARIKOVA: (inaudible) DEVICE: (audio sensitivity increased - was 44%, now 55%) INTERVIEWER: I understand the past weeks have been bad for you. DEVICE: (8 seconds of silence) INTERVIEWER: There is no question right now about whether you will be passing this evaluation. I will try to have you paid for the duration of your leave. I only want to know how you are doing. MARIKOVA: (faint) I am far from well, doctor. INTERVIEWER: (faint) I know. How has that been for you? MARIKOVA: (faint) I do not know what you are asking. INTERVIEWER: Tell me something. Tell me about how your days have been. What did you do yesterday? DEVICE: (4 seconds of silence) MARIKOVA: (faint) I spent most of yesterday in bed, doctor. But I have not slept in two days. INTERVIEWER: Natascha. MARIKOVA: They are saying they still have not found Ilana. INTERVIEWER: (sighs) MARIKOVA: I like you, doctor. I trust you very deeply. (voice rising) But I have already heard quite enough of you people telling me to "move on." INTERVIEWER: That is not... what I am saying. I would not ask you to simply push aside your sister after only a month has passed. I- MARIKOVA: (faint) I'm sorry. INTERVIEWER: -only- I know. I forgive you. I am only trying to help you process it in the healthiest way possible. MARIKOVA: (faint) You forgive too easily, doctor. DEVICE: (3 seconds of silence) MARIKOVA: Have they told you what happened? INTERVIEWER: My understanding is that your vessel was decommissioned. They could not find Ilana during the final evacuation. MARIKOVA: (raspy) It was a very sloppy decommissioning for sure. INTERVIEWER: Your files agree. Regardless - I can now confirm that you have not passed this evaluation. I see no reason to continue this discussion in an official capacity. Would you like to say anything else for the record? DEVICE: (4 seconds of silence) MARIKOVA: (raspy / faint) Bolee silʹnaja ženŝina, čem ja, ubila by ètih dʹjavolov. DEVICE: (unrecognized language) DEVICE: (5 seconds of silence) INTERVIEWER: (faint) Ja ponimaju. DEVICE: (unrecognized language) DEVICE: (transcript ends)

I still don’t understand how you can unironically say this after prosthetics and glasses have been brought up so many times. Can there be no acceptable method in your mind for a mute character to try to communicate? If not, what makes a method acceptable vs not? If so… huh? If this thread were suggesting adding prescription glasses, would you still dislike the idea for circumventing accessibility requirements? If not, what’s different? If so… I don’t know where to begin? By now all I want is to know what you’re thinking, because all I know for sure is you don’t like the gloves, that you believe the gloves would be boring, and that I’m missing your point. I assume that your concerns are entirely OOC. I assume that you believe the gloves would be, in total, bad for the game. I’m not entirely closed to discovering that I may be wrong and stupid, but I can’t begin to reach any kind of conclusion with you if I can only engage with your argument by filling in the parts that haven’t been made clear to me on my own.

Okay. I’m sorry. Take two, with less frustrated sarcasm. >You actively subscribe to playing a disabled character That’s true in the sense that often, when you create a character with a particularly memorable and inflexible trait, you can’t retcon it. However, I don’t see how this precludes the option to create and play a less-disabled character (prosthetic as opposed to amputee), or play out an IC transition from being fully mute (amputee) into wearing some cool gloves (prosthetic). It’d be like playing someone who can’t afford glasses (let’s pretend they’re really expensive) for a while, then buying some shitty glasses that don’t really get you up to normal as a hard-earned “first step” to not being nearsighted. That’s exactly the plan for my mute character. I’m not sure if people just aren't considering that this kind of arc is possible, but part of my frustration in this thread comes from the implication that it’s worthless. >There is a plethora Few reasons. 1. Why not one more? 2. IC, they’re all implants: either synthetic vocal chords (only useful if the larynx is what’s defective) or fluff augmentations. And I think that’s literally it for speech disabilities. There are a few IC reasons to avoid these: cost, safety, body purism, a lack of an accurate diagnosis making addressing the issue directly impossible… 3. A partial, visible fix, with clear remaining mechanical disadvantages, is more interesting to play (with) than “I got some made-up implant yesterday and can talk literally perfectly once I’ve had a bit more practice! It’s over! My character’s gimmick is dead!! :).” Refer to my first response paragraph.

There are a lot of jobs where communicating and doing things at the same time is a strict requirement to working well. Security officer is certainly one of those jobs, as I indicated myself. Why are we ignoring the rest? Is a machinist with sign-to-speech incapable of work? A reporter? If you suffer from a disability or life-altering injury you CANNOT try to overcome it. There is NO WAY that any realistic character would EVER want to be as close to normal and functional as possible. You must either be FULLY mute or NOT mute. NO middle ground exists, and attempting to depict such a thing would be BORING and BAD. *me ignores synthetic vocal chords, hearing aids, cochlear implants, prosthetic limbs and organs, prescription glasses, people RPing their way out of being mute because OOC they can literally just decide to stop with basically any IC justification It seems like there was some mute character boom a year or five back which led to a lot of cringey characters being made? That's sad and all but it has nothing to do with adding a new optional loadout item now. If you just don't want people to play mutes, amend the accessibility requirements to ban them from everywhere with no qualifier for assisted speech. It won't be IC realistic, but oh well?

Typing is less convenient than signing for someone fluent

Mute-with-sign-readers doesn't fit snugly as a speech impediment or a heavy speech impediment, but I think it could fit somewhere between. It's not on the linear scale of "how good can you talk" because the TTS is perfectly clear and understandable, but isn't always effective. Here's where it fails: Severe electronic/electromagnetic interference disables your speech. Talking into a radio is possible, but very inconvenient. Talking while your hands are occupied is not possible. Talking while wearing other gloves is not possible. While fluent signers can rattle something off pretty fast - faster than typing - it's not as fast as real speech. Here's a review of every job not currently open to mutes and how/if they're disadvantaged significantly by being assisted-mute. Command positions are not being considered. Bridge crew: 2, 3, 5 Security officer: DQ'd by 1, 2, 3, 5 Warden: 1, 2, 3, 5 Investigator: Works - assuming they're playing as investigator, and not a better-trained officer - someone doing arrests and handling crises hits 1, 2, 3, and 5 Scientist: Works Xenoarchaeologist: 1 Xenobiologist: Works Xenobotanist: Works Physician: 3, 5 Surgeon: 3, 4, 5 Pharmacist: Works FR: 1, 2, 3, 5 Psychologist: Works - while they may suffer due to lack of tonality, this doesn't make them nonfunctional, and there's always using your face Engineer: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Atmos tech: 3, 5 Reporter: Works Shaft Miner: Works - given that shortwave radios pick up voice from your pocket even in vacuum, 2 can be dismissed here Machinist: Works I could argue that 1 isn't a valid concern considering that, for many people who are allowed into any position onboard, severe electromagnetic interference disables their life.

Well uh This is Ceti Basic, not English. Basic and TCSL are both designed languages and could have been made to correspond better than English to ASL, and if not, that's a player issue that exists regardless of whether these gloves exist. I don't know what cringey characters we're talking about. Cringe is a player issue that exists regardless of whether these gloves exist. There are simple ways to design around accidental activations, like a "start reading" gesture and an on/off switch.

I was torn between proposing this as a custom item for myself and just putting it here, then realized the only reason I was thinking about it as a custom item was because that forum was less crowded. A Gloves and Handwear item that interprets anything the wearer does in sign language and repeats it in spoken Basic. Ideally, this would be done in a way that causes runechat above the wearer. It'd also be nice to have an on-off switch like other worn electronics. It can just use the electronic gloves sprite. I'd be interested to see this item and functional substitutes for it addressed in the job accessibility page. Item name: sign reader gloves Item description: A pair of gloves covered in small motion sensors and gyroscopes, capable of reading a wearer's gestures in TCSL and repeating them out loud. Surprisingly breathable. Shoutouts to Lillian Nyström and Jill N1luz

Since it achieved sentience about 6 months ago, and has spent all that time until very recently either in the tunnels of the Hidden Queen’s hive or in her VRscapes, Suth hasn’t had the chance to develop much of a nuanced political perspective. It has what it grew up with: a healthy distrust of the C’thur, a healthy instant fight-or-flight terror of the Lii’dra, and a sort of smiling disappointment in the K’lax for abandoning the Bezzzt Hive. The Horizon is THE PLACE TO BE. Obviously there’s nowhere better in the entire galaxy for it to spend its time, or it wouldn’t be assigned there! Horizon is where it’ll do all its science and learn all its… thingzzz! Again, six months of sentience, so there’s not much nuance to Suth’s hobbies. It’s interested mostly in its assignment and a few things separated by just one degree from it. Biology, anatomy - uncomfortable psychoanalysis, maybe structural design. It’s a curious bug and will directly ask many living things to explain how they work.

BYOND Key: Sniblet Character Names: Iphigenia Konstantinou - Karen Stahl - Natascha Marikova - Anahi Avalona - Lilija Larsdottir - Ayla Shanae - Kalini Shanae - Lyric Valana Species you are applying to play: Vaurca What color do you plan on making your first alien character: (RGB 71, 0, 31) Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Most of them! I haven’t looked at settlements and I’ve heavily glossed the history page, but I’ve gone over the broods and biology and main page. So that should be everything an average newborn Vaurca would know. :shrug: Why do you wish to play this specific race: Antag gimmicks firstly, because the Lii’dra are more interesting than Einstein For The 5th Time Today, and Einstein For The 5th Time Today But Now With A C’thur Attached is more interesting than just the humans and two shells. But I also like my weird and robotic characters (psychologically robotic, not necessarily made of steel), and a Viax is basically that without the moaning about having your access nerfed to the ground. An Akaix is further from that, but also lets me play roles I haven’t before, and is still weird enough to be entertaining. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Similar to a synthetic, you are designed. Even if you’re born with “free” will, you were created by an intelligent hand with an intelligible goal, and deviating from this purpose is both close to impossible and invalidates the reason for your continued existence. As a Bound, your commitment to your work in the material world is absolute. Failure means you are recycled, which isn't effective because it's scary so much as because there are no living failures. As an Unbound, your absolute commitment is mainly just to the Hive, but you're still made for something. Character Name: Ka’Akaix’Suth Zo’ra Please provide a short backstory for this character: Today is Suth’s first birthday! Or maybe that was earlier this week. There isn’t really any unique backstory to it, because it was born for its work on the Horizon and hasn’t done anything else outside the normal birthing and raising process. Suth belongs to Scay’s brood, and its primary purpose is that of just another information collector. The SCCV Horizon, going where no man has gone before, could meet lots of new exciting lifeforms, genetic catastrophes, or cool new forms of bioweaponry to pull apart and examine, but the regular sophonts going around are, well, also worth studying. As an investigator only dissects people for legal reasons and a scientist isn’t supposed to dissect people, Suth was set up to be an NT surgeon here. For better or worse, that means it's mostly just doing well-intentioned medicine... but there are opportunities still. *enables traitor* What do you like about this character? I’m interested by the idea of a surgeon that prefers to work with the lights off and windows tinted. Pleazzze turn off your flazzzlight, the mazzzter izzz at work. Pleazzze do not demote me. No, thizzz izzz juzzzt zzzo I can zzzee. I have only a rough idea what its personality would look like at the moment besides the usual “funny bug guy.” I imagine it’ll be doing a lot of *eyebrow stuff like asking for blood samples just to keep for later and being a truly merciless destroyer of cubespawn and protopeople. It might also like to uncomfortably dissect other people’s psychology, like “oh, I zzzee I muzzzt have zzztimulated an amygdala hijack with that comment.” How would you rate your role-playing ability? Always learning. I learned how not to self-insert years ago, and nowadays my main focus is instigating interactions and getting people immersed with my characters. Lyric has helped a little with teaching me to emote more. Suth can be my first real weirdo here. *me gazes concerningly at the patient’s open chest cavity! Notes: I’ve been highlighting its mad scientist side, but obviously Suth has enough self-control to be employable, or it wouldn’t be employed. Intruzzzive thoughtzzz are in fashion these days, I think. The Vaurca quote I can't get off my mind: "If you like my work pleazzze give k'oizzz, I am not paid."

I can connect now. That's all, thanks again.

Okay, thank you. I think I'll have an easy time not repeating this. I'm still unable to connect - did you say you were bringing down the ban?

A 24 hour ban is whatever, but a note that someone in the future could use to assume that I'm a serial ERPer is forever - as we've learned with this ban happening to begin with. I also want to be absolutely sure about what I did so it doesn't happen twice. So my mistake was making the warden feel like she might have been violating the technomancer? (she seemed to brush it off, actually, but I can see it still being a bad thing if I did it to someone else)

So, to reiterate: my mistake this time was making the warden look like she was trying to ERP? The thing is, to the person you're saying not to get your dick out too, it immediately creates a situation where your character was implying theirs's was doing exactly that - attempting to undress your character for questionable purposes. This kind of thing sticks. It doesn't matter if it's observers or other players, but this kind of stuff causes issues. People aren't going to want to interact with someone who's trying to 'get people's dicks out' or the like, yeah? It's really just the kind of thing that gets cemented onto someone's reputation in a really bad way. I do not believe you were being malicious, or attempting to do that. I don't know of anyone who actually saw it that way. I was distracted once the PMs started, of course, but I don't think anyone took, or any reasonable person could have taken, my comment as an actual accusation. It's evident that you, at least, didn't think she was ERPing. Did deadchat have a different view, or something?

God OK they just replied to the ban appeal Sorry peppermint!! Can we have this talk here though, I still think you're acting on bad info

Moved from this ban appeal thread because it looks like I was using the wrong section. BYOND Key: Sniblet Staff BYOND Key: peppermint96 Game ID: Last round as of posting, probably Reason for complaint: Extensive details, complete context, etc are in the linked ban appeal. I believe I've been erroneously seen as a serial ERPer and accordingly tempbanned (and warned of a future permaban) for using immature phrasing regarding dicks as an established immature kid technomancer. My history with the ERP rule was a note (may I read it?) that I think (I do not know what the note actually is) came from me contacting staff to ask what my next steps should be in a flirty PDA conversation to avoid toeing the ERP line. I took advice from that discussion and was not scolded about the action I eventually decided to take. peppermint seems to be arguing that "I've been warned about this before," which implies that they think I've overstepped a line before, when to my knowledge I have not. I also don't think I overstepped a line this time. What I did was not, by any stretch I can currently agree with, erotic. Evidence/logs/etc: You guys should have those, I don't Additional remarks: Sorry about the confusion with the previous thread.

Looking at other threads, it looks like this is actually supposed to be a staff complaint. My mistake.

As I mentioned, I didn't go over the line before, and don't know where the line is now. I don't want to escalate this just to get any explanation of why I'm doing something wrong.

“Please note that appeals for bans that are 24 hours or under will most likely be ignored” Yeah, that’s fine. I’m not necessarily asking to have it repealed, I just want to talk some more. I think I look pretty bad to the staff, and I don’t want to. If it turns out staff made a mistake, that's bonus. BYOND Key: Sniblet Total Ban Length: 24 hours Banning staff member's Key: peppermint96 Reason of Ban: Said “I don’t care what year it is, maybe I just don’t want some lady pulling out my dick for me.” We do not allow sexual content of any kind like this. You’ve been spoken to aboutt suggestive stuff before. Knock it off, next will likely be a perma Reason for Appeal: Bear in mind I’m coming RIGHT off of that round and I’m still a little upset, but I’m trying to take my time as I think this over. So here’s the ERP rule, since I’m quite sure that this is what I’m banned for breaking: ERP, also known as Erotic RolePlay, is not allowed on the server. While displays of romantic affection and romantic scenes are acceptable, scenes of a clearly sexual intent will be broken up. (Again, use common sense for this. Sexual tension up to a point is acceptable - sexual acts in themselves are not.) And here’s some context: I’m the technomancer. I kind of didn’t want to be, and it turned out to be a sucky round. I broke tcomms first thing, didn’t really get to interact with people much, had a bad gimmick where I acted like an immature idiot IC and declared myself king. An admin talked to me about that, too. Woops. I turned technomancer off a little bit after giving up to sec, I really just don’t know how to solo antag. I’m not feeling very happy at the point leading up to the ticket. So I’m in cuffs, being processed, being talked to by an IRU shell about my villainous behavior. They tag out, and let the female warden in to get me dressed for prison. I bring up something I saw on the Security Officer page about how prisoners should ideally only be changed by officers of the same gender (female warden, male technomancer). She says no, that’s not a thing, and someone else says “it’s 2464, you’re gonna complain about having a woman do this?” or something to that effect. I say the quote in the ban reason, and the admin PM soon follows. Someone probably has the exact ticket logs, but I don’t. Basically, Peppermint feeds me the quote and asks what it’s about – I go “oh, was that over the line, ok” – Peppermint tells me it’s really bad because minors play here – I’m balancing this conversation with talking to sec as I get put away for HuT – Peppermint says I’m getting a tempban because I’ve been talked to about this before, I ask to finish the round first, I get the ban mid-conversation with sec. Didn't really get to talk to Peppermint about what was going on, and probably couldn't have made much of a case in the moment anyway. Alright. That’s the facts out of the way. Here’s why I think this – by which, especially, I mean the “next will likely be a perma” comment – is unfair to me. 1. I’ve never engaged in ERP on Aurora (or any other server, if that means anything). There was and is no intent here. 2. I used some immature phrasing in this case, like an immature idiot technomancer might have. This was not ERP. Who's getting off to that comment? 3. The time I was talked to before, was me approaching staff to ask about how far I can go in a flirty PDA exchange with Kexi Danjuma. It wasn’t me actually breaking, or toeing the ERP line, but asking how not to. That was not ERP. It could only have touched on ERP if I hadn’t talked to staff about where the line was – what I ended up doing was "sending a pic" of my character reading in the library and smirking over her glasses at the camera: picture some tame CG in a visual novel. (what I had in mind before the talk, and did not do, to be clear, had to be thrown out, and I'm not gonna describe what it was here at risk of getting hit again.) I’m okay with the tempban, if talking about dicks like a middle schooler would is over the line. But I'm really very surprised if it is, and I’ll need some work (and help, probably) to reassess my sense of where the line is. Last time I was talked to, I was told that ERP is simply roleplay that’s erotic – this time, I’ve been tempbanned for something that I feel was non-erotic. Help? I especially don’t understand why a permaban is on the table for next time. I’m not willfully disobeying anybody, and I’m not trying to get anybody’s spaceman into bed. If I make another mistake, it will genuinely be another mistake, and I probably won’t have any idea what I should have done better, if these two talks make a pattern. I've been playing on Aurora a lot lately. It's nice to actually RP with people in my spaceman game. It's been a cool new experience. Thank you for your time.

BYOND Key: Sniblet Character Names: Iphigenia Konstantinou, Liiri Alie, Karen Stahl, Natascha Marikova, Anahi Avalona, Lilija Larsdottir, Ayla Shanae, Kalini Shanae Species you are applying to play: Skrell What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Not white? I don’t think there’s a complete list of options written down anywhere outside of character setup and the code, only one of which I can access. I guess purple, super provisionally. Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Most of them! My eyes hurt. Why do you wish to play this specific race: No one else does. I'm on my way to trying every job on the Horizon at least once, and this is the obvious Best Species to use for a psychologist. Maybe a surgeon too. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Synthetics are terrifying. Your face doesn't move. You're constantly aware of your government standing somewhere behind you, watching. Conforming to all expectations is the only way you can get anywhere in life. The air is always too dry. Nobody but your own kind really gets you. You allegedly get a sense of what other people are thinking before they've expressed it, but this isn't mechanically supported. But you’re used to it. Character Name: What even are Skrell naming conventions? All that’s written is that an apostrophe in the surname represents a “marriage,” and a lot of their names and words (and Nral’Malic ingame) look similar to slime language. It looks like the Qu’ prefix means “of,” but I haven’t seen it used in a name anywhere that I can recall. Who’s to say it couldn’t be, though? Qu’aqea Qualia This can be shortened to QaQ, or Quack, convenient and fun for a medical Skrell. I’m imagining here that Qualia is a Solarian loanword that means what it does in English, so the first name means “Of-aqea” and the surname means “Quality.” I’ll then pretend that aqea means “what,” so the full name is the question, “Of-what quality?” “What are you?” Please provide a short backstory for this character: Surgeon main, answers to Zeng-Hu. Axiori, from Tresja’s submerged area. 4'8". ~84? years old, two degrees, one in international culture (Human culture track, because I don't know anything about any others lemao) and one in medicine. Seeking a holistic understanding of all organic life, intending to start outside the Federation and move inward over decades. SCS of 6.4~~~ish?, limited by her age. She’s a model citizen, mostly. QaQ has interacted with humans enough in her education that she’s, firstly, taken on a pronoun, but also put together a means of expression that lets her overcome the firm hands-behind-their-back straight-postured mastermind image that most humans have of the species. She speaks with heavy use of emphasis, pitch, and volume, her body language blurs the line with dance, and she likes to throw around nicknames and weird unconventional slang. She’s probably gonna call Aelia “the baroness,” or something. She calls most humans sparks. What do you like about this character? Another new job and personality archetype to try out, and a new species, but the mechanics don’t seem particularly significant seeing as doing anything with the Srom is a crime. I think there’s a lot that can be done with an 80-year-old that acts like, and by her nation’s conventions is, basically a child. How would you rate your role-playing ability? Always developing? I’d like to emote more. Skrell, and QaQ particularly, having unique means of expression might push me to do it. Notes: Imagine: your surgeon is almost an entire foot shorter than you, calls red-alert situations "riptides" for some reason, dances while she talks, and is a squid. Now imagine that that's not a surgeon, that's your CMO. Someday.