Character Complaint: Willow Harper

[BurgerBB]

BYOND Key: BurgerBB

Game ID: bUn-aGLs

Player Byond Key: Rosetango

Staff involved: Zelmana

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? Yes, I was told to reference ticket 15 and 16 in my complaint.

Approximate Date/Time: May 14th, 2018 9:30PM

Reason for complaint:

This is going to be a woosey and I pray to god that this doesn't turn into a drama thread. It seems that every time there's a round with Willow Harper, she's the very center of attention. Every time there's a dispute on the common channel, Willow Harper is involved. Every time something happens on the station, Willow Harper is the first to complain about how command is a nazi or something. I'm somewhat fine with some of that, those are IC issues, but what gets me crippling depressed is the fact that she applies her "involved in everything" goal with antags. If there is an antag who wishes for a sacrifice for the greater good, she's the first to offer herself. If there's antagonist action going on, she's the first on the scene despite having 0 business being there. I've seen it happen way too many times, and it made me start to think that her character behavior is incredibly unrealistic for a female human janitor.

I think this round was an example of her worst. A bunch of raiders raided cargo. People were told to stay away from cargo, but Willow Harper decided to run towards cargo with her janicart and wait in the lobby. Of course Willow Harper was eventually held by gunpoint by one of the raiders, but then her moving and ended up getting shot at due to how aiming works. Her Cargo Technician friend, who obtained a .45 automatic from a very lucky vendor spawn, started shooting at them in retaliation, and ended up killing one of the antags. Willow Harper then spent the next 5 minutes complaining to the Head of Security about it, and carried special equipment, such as retractable riot shields, an automatic .45 pistol, a tactical mask, and a tactical knife.For some reason, the raiders decided to go peaceantag and hang around with the crew. Willow harper then spent the next hour casually chatting up the raiders in the bar, despite the fact that she was an accessory to a raider's death earlier in the round.

[MattAtlas]

@DatBerry and I will be taking this complaint.

[Rosetango]

Hi, Willow Harper's player here. First off, I'd like to apologize in advance for any incoherencies or inconsistencies. My memory is far from the best and I'm not going to claim I remember everything I do. I'm also on mobile at the time that I've begun writing this, about twenty minutes before 10 AM.

I'm going to start off by saying that every round I've played Harper in, she is far from the center of attention. She's vocal, yes, but not the center of attention. There has been one round (yesterday or Sunday) where the raiders were hurting one of her best friends, Zion Carr, and this is how she processed the situation. She believed that Security wasn't going to be able to act fast enough, so she exchanged her life for his forcing her way into mining, because she believes that her life, when compared to thriving ones like Zion's, are worth less. Did she want to throw away her life? No. But you also don't know Willow's backstory, as far as I'm aware, and I hope you understand that I don't want to reveal to the entire community her backstory when it's so much more fun to find out ICly. Outside of that, Harper has never, ever offered her life in exchange for someone else, unless you're talking about the ninja, in which Willow sacrificed herself for the crew's safety, rather than one person. Willow is not exactly the most mentally well of people, but she's stable enough to work.

Willow also does not believe Command are Nazis or whatever. Willow is vocal, yes, but she's also naive, and curious. Willow likes to learn and make choices for herself. If she has issues with what a head of staff is doing, she will question it, and in some cases (such as when Blackscale shot at Willow in the library) she will disobey orders because she thinks it might get her killed. And when she's wrong, she acknowledges it. (Maybe to an extreme extent of blaming herself, but that's her character. She did apologize to Shen that round, and even blamed herself for why Erin and Jake got shot and openly wished that she was the one who got shot with the ballistic weapons instead. I can't think of any other time Willow immediately arrived on the scene of antag action or something besides maybe when Medical was running low and she explicitly asked Fernando over comms if she could transport wounded to the lobby, but that's only one time I can remotely think of that she could have been trying to "involve herself". If there are more examples that you can explicitly recall, please please please tell me and I'll gladly inform you of what I remember happening.

I'm not sure if you did this intentionally or not, but I would like to note that at the very start of the round, I think there was a chemist and a virologist. Literally the only staff in medical. At the beginning of the shift, before I knew that it was raiders, Willow ordered (and paid for with her own funds) a first aid kit, so that she could assist medical. When it was announced there were armed intruders outside mining, I think I'd just got back from crashing and I was told to come into Cargo by the CT, who Willow had never met prior to this round. In a roundabout way, Willow ends up being given a weapon. Willow admittedly didn't openly object to being given any weaponry or defense items, but Willow honestly didn't think she would need them. The cargo shuttle had arrived, so we head to the surface to get the first aid kit. As we were heading back down, Nemo (ForgottenTraveller) was on the construction level, and stopped the lift. At this point, my game is lagging for reasons unknown to me, maybe just bad internet. He pointed a gun at us but because I was lagging I clicked (or moved, I don't recall clearly but I firmly believe I clicked.) This made him fire at me. At this point, the CT pulls out his gun and aims it at Nemo, followed by all hell breaking loose. We escape to main level with no issue. At no point in this encounter did Willow pull out a gun. Willow, although she had a tactical mask, was not wearing one at the time and was actually wearing a cyborg mask.

Willow was upset (thinking Nemo was still alive at the time, unsure of his injuries) because she thought that Vira was actively ignoring her. Willow, thinking Nemo was still alive, just wanted Vira to be aware of what happened and if they came on board, that he should be charged accordingly. As soon as she found out he died, she actually apologized to the raiders, and literally said that she "hoped you aren't mad at her."

The reason why Willow was so relaxed around the raiders is because they were disarmed, not actively being hostile towards her, etc. In fact, once she knew that the raiders weren't there for her in particular, and that Nemo was acting alone, Willow relaxed completely and began interacting with Jack Corteau, mainly on the basis of curiosity which led to her discussing her backstory, and how she relates to Jack's backstory. I reiterate, Willow began to "chat up" the raiders because she had been convinced that they weren't capable of harming her, weren't there for her, and she related to Jack. Keep in mind, as clever as Willow is, she's also naive, and this naivety can lead to stupidity.

I hope this explains her actions suitably to you. Please, if you (or anyone else) has issues with how I play Harper, I'd like them to come forward and state a specific example and what they think I could have done better. I know I'm not perfect, and Harper sure as hell isn't.

[Scheveningen]

Hi. I was the head of security this round.

At no point in time was I ever informed that crewmembers were armed with concealed weapons/combat gear that they shouldn't have even had. Yes, I did exploit the tactical vendor a bit for myself because I was very wary as to the intentions of the heisters, but myself and my security team were eventually able to negotiate, facilitate relations and avoid further bloodshed that I felt was otherwise unnecessary unless as a last resort measure to anything the heisters could've done to us or the rest of the crew. Gearing not only myself but the rest of my team for a possible shootout was the only sensible call I could make, and it is disappointing to hear that non-combatants chose to hoard some weapons for themselves. Even then, much as upholding regulations is important, my character felt it more important at the time to avoid escalating the situation to a bloodbath while still remaining prepared in the event it would happen, even if there was a concern about cargo technicians hoarding small guns in their bags.

Assuming you came into the information that Willow/the rest of cargo were carrying weapons during the course of the situation via IC means, I would greatly appreciate if you chose to directly inform my character of such events the next time a similar issue such as this pops up. I myself can do nothing other than be suspicious of other characters and I cannot motivate my character to do much until they're given information in-character to utilize to do what needs to be done. My head of security takes characters armed with deadly weapons very seriously, especially if said characters are not combat roles or combat-trained. This could've just as easily been dealt with as an IC issue and the individual responsible potentially brigged.

Assuming you were merely observing, then there's really nothing you or I could've done better in that situation. My character cannot act on information they do not know of with 70% certainty to begin with. Sorry, really.

[Rosetango]

Ah, apologies then. Willow did have an intent to turn the weapons in and did so at the end of the round before heading to departures. As far as I'm aware, Burger was observing. If he's here, [mention]ParadoxSpace[/mention] should weigh in on this. I think he was playing the cargo technician at the time.

(Edit: 9:19 AM CST)

I just wanted to clarify that it was never my intent to fight the antags myself, and that it was my intention to turn the items in as soon as possible. I wasn't able to until the raiders decided it was time to leave (when Willow's conversation with the raider ended) and that the crew transfer was called. She turned them directly in, to the warden.

[ForgottenTraveller]

Right. As for what was happening in the elevator. I was going for the Odysseus in there to help evac my crew in what I thought was a protracted fire fight below. I saw Willow and the CT go up thinking that they were smartly pulling out of a combat zone and not Operating as normal to the adjacent combat zone going up and down for crates So when the elevator came down when I called it and they were in their I aimed at Willow and started typing to make a deal. They made me fire then the taj CT pulls out their auto .45 then a shield. and just opens up. So I retreat while returning fire. Aiming for the legs as the captain had ordered me. I subsequently bleed out once I am back at the shuttle.

What I cannot understand is why the fuck cargo was just going about their business in the middle of a fucking fire fight, and the dumb fuck bravado of pulling the spawn loot in a stand off before I could type 'hold it'

So I pop one off and miss on a twitchy lass and the paramilitary cargo tech acting less sanely than the unibomber both of who should not have been going back down into a combat zone instead of the surface hall. pulls a quarter of the armoury out of their backpack and treats a hold up like a shooting gallery in the course of 2 seconds.

So my main issues are.

1. The gear up was kinda shitty. But I could buy it.

2. Why the fuck were you even there given the events right next to this. 'I had an order.' Makes no sense.

3. Why go back into that bullshit with a crate when there are better options.

4. Why go muh valids on what was going to be a nice little go lie down on the floor there hold up which everyone would have got out unharmed because you can get a shot in. So go go go.

[Snakebittenn]

1. The gear up was kinda shitty. But I could buy it.

2. Why the fuck were you even there given the events right next to this. 'I had an order.' Makes no sense.

3. Why go back into that bullshit with a crate when there are better options.

4. Why go muh valids on what was going to be a nice little go lie down on the floor there hold up which everyone would have got out unharmed because you can get a shot in. So go go go.

Hi, CT here.

1) Yeahhh, I later just gave the gear and vendor to Security.

2) Apparently the order would help with the situation, so it was worth getting. The perimeter had already been set in the cargo break room, I assumed it was safe.

3) Again, assumed it was reasonably safe and that ya'll were contained.

4) If I closed the doors, we would be fish in a 4x4 barrel. If we laid down, God knows what'd happen. I ICly assumed you were trying to gun Willow down, and being that we had one more gun than you had at the time, spraying in your direction was a fine idea at the time. Though I do apologise about this, I'll try to be more compliant in the next life.

[MattAtlas]

Right.

Our current thoughts on the situation are that there was no reason a janitor would go to an area with reported hostiles to acquire a medkit. It's frankly nonsensical. Furthermore, I completely disagree with the idea of a random crewmember ordering a medkit at roundstart to 'help out the medbay' or anything along those lines. It should be restricted to emergency situations. This applies to stocking up medical supplies as well-- it shouldn't be done in normal conditions. With the excuse given, it makes little sense to me that someone who fears blood would get themselves mixed in with blood by bandaging people's wounds.

Berry agrees with my thoughts on the situation. Reply to my comment if you have anything else to say.

[Azande]

Furthermore, I completely disagree with the idea of a random crewmember ordering a medkit at roundstart to 'help out the medbay' or anything along those lines. It should be restricted to emergency situations.

Is this going to become official staff policy? We can order things with our own credit accounts for a reason, and if you're going to be enforcing this on people, I'd like it written somewhere.

[DatBerry]

Furthermore, I completely disagree with the idea of a random crewmember ordering a medkit at roundstart to 'help out the medbay' or anything along those lines. It should be restricted to emergency situations.

Is this going to become official staff policy? We can order things with our own credit accounts for a reason, and if you're going to be enforcing this on people, I'd like it written somewhere.

 

This is already covered under powergaming and the cross department knowledge restrictions, a janitor who gets the equipment every time to double as a full blown EMT but doesn't actually work as an EMT because they fear blood yet find them glued to dangerous situations just won't fly. This is just an excuse to be EMT with janitor access and/or only helps when they feel like it.

Had they only ordered it this shift due to the ongoing situation it would've been fine, but this is something that we've noticed after the complaint, the fact that they prepare themselves as a janitor to respond to medical situations when nothing has happened because "my character is EMT qualified", even though the reason why they're not an EMT would be a deterrent to them responding to situations.

[Rosetango]

I think there's been a misconception. Willow does not fear blood, she has germaphobia. Hence why she's covered almost head to toe in protective gear. Willow does not work as an EMT or paramedic because she believes that she could not handle it if someone died in her arms, however, she is not one to just let people die because it's "not her job". As far as I know, never once have I been told that what I'm doing is powergaming, even when another member of staff (I can't remember who) had checked my character out when I was AHelped for scanning someone.

[Rosetango]

Had they only ordered it this shift due to the ongoing situation it would've been fine, but this is something that we've noticed after the complaint, the fact that they prepare themselves as a janitor to respond to medical situations when nothing has happened because "my character is EMT qualified", even though the reason why they're not an EMT would be a deterrent to them responding to situations.

 

Sorry, I forgot to address this in my last post. This was the first shift ever that I had ordered a medkit (a white, basic medkit, not a red one). This has not been a repeated behavior. I also refer to my last post about the deterrent: Willow always wears a purple lab coat, a fully covering suit, black gloves and a sterile mask. I honestly didn't think this would be a problem, considering that it hadn't been one before, and an admin had given me the go-ahead before.

[MattAtlas]

Alright, I've let this thread sit for too long. Apologies.

The only remaining issue I find here is that Willow willingly went to an area with confirmed hostile presence by the AI to retrieve the medkit. Berry agrees me with in this. The ruling I'm about to give is that all Rosetango should do is avoid active situations such as raider presence unless they have a very good RP reason to be there-- and retrieving your medkit isn't a good reason. A verbal warning will suffice, I believe.

Locking and arching, deemed resolved.