Ephemer Mephistopheles

[BRAINOS]

BYOND Key: BRAINOS
Game ID: b3B-bJ2n
Player Byond Key/Character name: Unknown/Ephemer Mephistopheles
Staff involved: No ahelps on my part. 
Reason for complaint: Self-antaggy behavior, being a relentless troll IC.
Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? No. I tried to keep it mostly IC and drafted up an IR regarding it.
Approximate Date/Time: 20191007, around 0500.

https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/12915-incident-report-10072461/?tab=comments#comment-122699 <- Here's the IR I made regarding the issue. [/url]

It's tough to know exactly where to start with this, so I'll start from the beginning.
Mephistopheles called for challengers to come to the holodeck to spar; this is AOK in my book, whatever. Nat's character, Nat, had recently bulked up to an extremely significant degree, so honing her coordination IC and getting some experience with the click-until-horizontal mechanics OOC seemed like a fun thing to do when Supply was finished up with orders and things were starting to slow down. We got to the holodeck and agreed "whoever said uncle" is to be declared loser of the sparring match. Cool! Cool and good.

Now, it's been consistent in my experience that you use the pull-punches verb in sparring matches or you wear gloves. This came across as common sense, and Nat was sure to pull-punches before the match, too. Mephistopheles, however, a character whose entire gimmick seems to revolve around being a professional wrestler at some point in their past, was punching with full force. Nicholas Ramirez was watching with me toward the end of the fight when things started to get nasty - we didn't notice the punches weren't pulled until Nat's face became a mangled mess and she started actually going into paincrit - and Mephistopheles kept going. He broke her skull and ribs and she needed to be dragged off to medical right away or she would have likely died. On extended. During the fight, Nat tried twice to throw the guy off of her and say "hold on," but he was relentless and eventually used the throwing as an excuse for "self defense."

Nick and I had to bumrush him and physically pin him to the ground to get him to stop. After the CMO glued her skull back together, I asked the guy LOOC, "do you know about pull-punches?"

I don't know how many of you actually follow pro wrestling or whatever, but pro wrestlers pull-punches verb IRL. It's literally what their entire job is built on. It's a performance, not a real competitive sport. It's in poor character to not only throw full-force punches as a wrestler gimmick, and it's in extremely poor character to keep going when you crack your opponent's skull.

Obviously, we got Sec involved with this and demanded the guy gets arrested, but he lies throughout the entire investigation, throwing everything off track and letting him get off nearly scot-free. He repeatedly said two things: 1, that Nat was unharmed and she was never in any danger (despite having her chest and head broken) and 2, that whatever injuries Nat sustained, he sustained as well. He just about got off with nothing but a warning to stop doing sparring matches for the remainder of the shift. This pissed off the entire Supply department, and we wound up arguing with Sec in their lobby. Eventually, the guy was charged with Gross Negligence, which is about on par with Assault. Okay, I can deal with that. That's a'ight.

But. 

In this same round, on extended, after this guy was warned not to spar any longer - and set up an unsanctioned fighting ring in maintenance, lured a miner into there (Cooper, I believe), and stabbed him in the eyes with a screwdriver.


This is not the end of it.

After he did that, he vandalized his own chapel while we were venting to the HoP and drafting up an IR on the guy. He vandalized his own chapel and then called Security on us, trying to blame us for the chapel's broken windows and such. It was pretty clear around now he was doing everything he could to bait Cargo into attacking him. He repeatedly entered the Cargo lobby and attempted to order boxing gloves when Nat was at the front desk.

On crew transfer, he repeatedly bump-spammed Nat, followed her around, and called her a cunt when she tried to get some space from him.

Basically, in summary:
Mephistopheles nearly murdered someone and gave them life-threatening injuries by refusing to pull punches during a spar.
Mephistopheles completely fucked a fair investigation by lying repeatedly and exhausting Sec until they could barely deal with Nat's testimony against him.
Mephistopheles vandalized his own chapel and tried to blame it on us.
Mephistopheles continued to harass Nat for the remainder of the round.

On Extended, as a non-antag.

This would have been a neat gimmick for a traitor! It would have been neat to see the guy cheat through fights and give people life-threatening injuries the way he did. But this was again, as a non-antag. 

This guy is literally named after Satan and behaves like him, too.

After talking with some of the people involved, it was clear we were all pretty fired up by the guy, and Lance advised on my IR to make this into a Player Complaint. Normally I really hate taking IC issues into OOC, but this... was pretty rough for everyone else. I hate filing a formal complaint over general shitlordy behavior, but this was a few notches past "too far," and really made a 3 hour round into a shitshow of arguing with Sec, trying to resist the urge to end our character's careers by doing something stupid.

Edited October 8, 2019 by BRAINOS

[niennab]

I had a frustrating encounter playing as my Bartender Aubrey Piper with this character in a different round. (round ID: b3A-bnYn)

While serving drinks late in the shift, Ephemer and an Engineer (I cannot recall their name) came to the bar and proceeded to demand vodka. When Aubrey declined, (I believe I was closing the bar to go to Science for repairs) they proceeded to hop the counter and attempt to use the booze dispensers. While grabbing and throwing them out (I believe Aubrey was helped by either Reese, Riley, or both), Ephemer and the Engineer began to fight back, prompting Aubrey to aim the shotgun at Ephemer. After a bean bag shot was fired (since they moved and I wasn't aware at the time that I didn't allow movement) they eventually climbed back over the counter once I lowered the gun.

I was okay shrugging it off originally but given there is a player complaint, I wanted to add to it with my experience. Personally I don't think this behaviour is appropriate for a high rp environment.

 

EDIT: the mentioned Engineer was not an Engineer but Timothy Cooper who I personally believe should also be looked at for their continued low rp behaviour of hopping the bar counter and stealing alcohol.

Edited October 10, 2019 by niennab
Minor spelling, formatting and adding the round info.

[SatinsPristOTD]

Can we discuss how his name is literally Satan? Or rather, a Demon that takes the form of the Devil. Don't ask me to go into folk lore. I'll make paragraphs about it. It's my thing.

It's VERY hard to immerse myself when my chaplain is named "KINGDOM HEARTS X SATAN DEVIL MAN"

[Seeli]

All of cargo (except for Yahir who was afk) were in cargo, talking while Prestoff wrote his IR. As far as I am aware, no one in cargo broke the windows of the chapel. When Ephemer arrived and demanded boxing gloves, Khas closed the cargo window and Cazimi dropped the shutters in the same breath. Khas'miera's pAI, Nih-LA, went around to the door and informed the security officer and Ephemer that cargo was closed. Khas kept an eye on her pAI, listening to Ephemer talk to the officer about cargo breaking the chapel windows AND for also refusing service. The head of personnel and the quartermaster were both in cargo, they voiced no problem with closing Cargo (to Ephemer).

Khas'miera reminded the officer and Ephemer that the chaplain was already banned by security from sparring, they had seriously injured a member of cargo, and that cargo was now closed to him because of that. From there, I guess they went out to form their "underground" sparring ring, because I remember Timothy Cooper joined a little after that, disappeared for a bit and then was complaining about how being blind sucked. Agreed, it would have been a great antag gimmick, but it was extended, there wasn't supposed to be antags.

I was ghosted for the next round after this and they started setting up an "underground ring" (nothing came of that because security found the librarian's lamps in maintenance and brought them back) and sparring dangerously (Ephemer had his skull broken twice). It is not once off behavior. (Round ID for that one, b3B-chuK)

Edited October 10, 2019 by Seeli
clarified that cargo was closed to Ephemer specifically, not all crew & 2- simplified/removed assumptions of motives

[AccointNaim]

I don't really do any player complaint stuff, but I'll my one, and only experience with Ephemer.

It was a Wizard round, I came up with a nice gimmick that's a MAGIC COP trying to arrest three MAGIC CRIMINALS on the Aurora (Yahir Na'Zirah, Minius As'Rojam, and someone I forgot the name of.), Yahir was turning people to stone with their magic criminal power, all good and fun. I don't remember the specifics, but as the MAGIC COP I walked down to the Bar to try and find the MAGIC CRIMINALS. When I arrived in the hall, Yahir was beaten TO DEATH on the floor, by what they told me was Ephemer, which was supported by the fact that they were winded. I'm not exactly sure why they beat Yahir to a pulp, but Yahir was rejuvenated and walked away to do more MAGIC CRIME.

They were AHelped and warned (I hope) for the incident as they were winded, I'm sure @Bear can expand on the situation, but if they don't want to get involved that's fine. This paints a picture on how they play their character, and really should not be playing Aurora.

[Bear]

Yeah he went for a gank while I had a typing indicator up to put it plainly. This was handled in round by staff, however.

[CampinKiller]

This character came up to my HoS during a code red boarding, telling him that he would take a rifle because he was some sort of magical or protected person by their diety 

[Pratepresidenten]

Me and @Simon_the_miner will be taking this.

[Natiform]

can i also just pop in to say, including this interaction i had with the guy, i've never had a good experience with him? i mean, it was awhile ago, back when we were on the exodus for the 6th birthday, but he threatened me in LOOC when i was fear rping and hiding in a locker saying that if i didn't get out he'd shoot me. a few seconds later he ended up holding me hostage with a gun to my head even though we were both antags and without talking to me about it before doing so, i really thought he was gonna shoot me right then and there.

being the target of his ire really ruined the round for me in more ways than one. i'm not sure what i did to piss him off so bad as to stomp on my skull and chest repeatedly the first chance he got me on the ground, but like, i'm a real anxious person and i haven't wanted to join a round as natalie since then if i see him in the roster. his aggression and the fact that he kept coming back multiple times just to antagonize me, on an extended round, really messed with me and i'm really glad that this is finally being handled. if i hadn't had basically all of supply backing me when he kept coming back then i don't know if i would've stayed in the round, let alone the server, i was just that anxious and freaked out.

his playstyle is just overall extremely aggressive and i'm not a fan.


Wanted to edit because someone earlier in the thread edited to mention Timothy Cooper:

Whoever it is that plays Timothy has admitted that they are very new to RP. Their methods aren't great but they seem willing to learn and have definitely applied any advice given by us in LOOC.
I've been keeping and eye on them and they are improving, albeit slowly. I'm willing to give them a chance given that they're willing to learn. If a month or so down the line they still have bad behavior, then I think it would be worth looking a little bit more in-depth into.

I think it's another thing to point out that any time Timothy has been doing stuff he shouldn't be doing, it was with Ephemer. And it was Timothy that got his eyes screwdriver'd by Ephemer, so I don't think they're pals.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Natiform

[MartyMcFly]

Alrighty so I play Ephemer, addressing the complaints.

 

"Mephistopheles nearly murdered someone and gave them life-threatening injuries by refusing to pull punches during a spar."

Nat punched him repeatedly when he was on the ground so he did the same to her, and with regards to when people brought it up pulling punches, my character always said no to it. He's carried around tool to repair his limbs specifically for his spars if that says anything.

"Mephistopheles completely fucked a fair investigation by lying repeatedly and exhausting Sec until they could barely deal with Nat's testimony against him."

Nat was hanging out with Preston a bunch whilst the investigation occurred, whilst he was being interrogated, after such, Preston assaulted Ephemer randomly within the holodeck, something sec did nothing about and something of which I didn't do an OOC complaint for, due to how it was just RP and OOC feelings being hurt from RP is not the way things work.

"Mephistopheles vandalized his own chapel and tried to blame it on us."

Preston attacked him randomly in the holodeck and security was doing nothing about it so he tried to make it more of an issue.

"Mephistopheles continued to harass Nat for the remainder of the round."

My character went to order something from supply, Nat was there, not really harassment. he never said anything rude to her except as a reply to her being rude to him.

 

With regards to the Timothy Cooper situation, him and Ephemer were best buds and the screwdriver situation was on accident, spoke with admins about it, never did it again.

 

With regards to the Wizard scenario, sec had requested Ephemer's help formerly in terms of dealing with the supernatural, this made me presume that a chaplan dealing with the supernatural was overall fine. Ephemer didn't mean to super hurt (and kill? unsure) Yahir, he just aimed to make him weakened to where sec could arrest him, although I'm fairly new to the game and didn't know the null staff was so powerful. Yahir was turning people including Ephemer to stone, so I thought it was fine for him to defend himself, admins spoke to me about it, cleared my misconception about chaplans fighting supernatural antags.

"All of cargo (except for Yahir who was afk) were in cargo, talking while Prestoff wrote his IR. As far as I am aware, no one in cargo broke the windows of the chapel. When Ephemer arrived and demanded boxing gloves, Khas closed the cargo window and Cazimi dropped the shutters in the same breath. Khas'miera's pAI, Nih-LA, went around to the door and informed the security officer and Ephemer that cargo was closed. Khas kept an eye on her pAI, listening to Ephemer talk to the officer about cargo breaking the chapel windows AND for also refusing service. The head of personnel and the quartermaster were both in cargo, they voiced no problem with closing Cargo (to Ephemer).

Khas'miera reminded the officer and Ephemer that the chaplain was already banned by security from sparring, they had seriously injured a member of cargo, and that cargo was now closed to him because of that. From there, I guess they went out to form their "underground" sparring ring, because I remember Timothy Cooper joined a little after that, disappeared for a bit and then was complaining about how being blind sucked. Agreed, it would have been a great antag gimmick, but it was extended, there wasn't supposed to be antags.

I was ghosted for the next round after this and they started setting up an "underground ring" (nothing came of that because security found the librarian's lamps in maintenance and brought them back) and sparring dangerously (Ephemer had his skull broken twice). It is not once off behavior."

Everything about this was true, although one thing was that Ephemer got immense damage to his body within the holodeck, not from his escapades in the underground sparring ring, the German character and Tim one time, where the ones who did it, but again I don't think its an issue OOC wise.

 

"can i also just pop in to say, including this interaction i had with the guy, i've never had a good experience with him? i mean, it was awhile ago, back when we were on the exodus for the 6th birthday, but he threatened me in LOOC when i was fear rping and hiding in a locker saying that if i didn't get out he'd shoot me. a few seconds later he ended up holding me hostage with a gun to my head even though we were both antags and without talking to me about it before doing so, i really thought he was gonna shoot me right then and there."

My comment LOOC was a joke, it had "lol" after it if that makes it even more obvious. Meanwhile the "hostage" situation was just words, he never aimed the gun at your character, he was afraid of the security officer coming in and beating him like they did to all of the other rev antags outside the bar.

 

"This character came up to my HoS during a code red boarding, telling him that he would take a rifle because he was some sort of magical or protected person by their diety :

Another situation where I assumed the chaplan could help out, this is before admins spoke to me about it.

 

"While serving drinks late in the shift, Ephemer and an Engineer (I cannot recall their name) came to the bar and proceeded to demand vodka. When Aubrey declined, (I believe I was closing the bar to go to Science for repairs) they proceeded to hop the counter and attempt to use the booze dispensers. While grabbing and throwing them out (I believe Aubrey was helped by either Reese, Riley, or both), Ephemer and the Engineer began to fight back, prompting Aubrey to aim the shotgun at Ephemer. After a bean bag shot was fired (since they moved and I wasn't aware at the time that I didn't allow movement) they eventually climbed back over the counter once I lowered the gun.

I was okay shrugging it off originally but given there is a player complaint, I wanted to add to it with my experience. Personally I don't think this behaviour is appropriate for a high rp environment."

You told my character to get out of the bar, he proceeded to do such, you accidentally shot him, we all make mistakes.

 

"Can we discuss how his name is literally Satan? Or rather, a Demon that takes the form of the Devil. Don't ask me to go into folk lore. I'll make paragraphs about it. It's my thing.

It's VERY hard to immerse myself when my chaplain is named "KINGDOM HEARTS X SATAN DEVIL MAN""
Ephemer Theofratus Mephistopheles is his full name, it's supposed to imply that he's sacrificed his own humanity by getting all of his limbs replaced into mechanical ones, it's not implying he's Satan, as for the Kingdom Heart part...am I supposed to file a complaint if I see a name I know? How am I supposed to be immersed if I see a Clark, LiKe ThAt'S sUpErMaN aM i RiGhT? Hope you get what I mean.

 

I'm unable to play Ephemer for a week currently, I already know how I'll adjust him, and I didn't have him pull punches because I assumed that the holodeck cured injuries through sleep, a note on Exodus said that and that was the time I started playing Ephemer.

[niennab]

38 minutes ago, MartyMcFly said:

You told my character to get out of the bar, he proceeded to do such, you accidentally shot him, we all make mistakes.

That is a over simplification of what happened. You were told to get out from behind the counter which resulted in a struggle as Aubrey (helped by Reese, Riley or both) grabbed the two of them and attempted to physically remove them. Ephemer and Timothy fought back, effectively refusing the demand. There was a definitive struggle before Aubrey Piper went for the gun.

[Natiform]

52 minutes ago, MartyMcFly said:

Nat punched him repeatedly when he was on the ground so he did the same to her, and with regards to when people brought it up pulling punches, my character always said no to it. He's carried around tool to repair his limbs specifically for his spars if that says anything.

okay, a couple things here:
1. you never, ever specified before the match about the fact that you don't pull punches. if nat had known this she would have never gotten in the ring with you.
2. because i was pulling my punches, any hit to you on the ground was just a "tap on the head" which you would have seen if you had been paying attention to the logs.

3. i only ever tapped you after you went down after you kept getting up and charging me and i was trying to get you to stop and stay down.
4. you weren't punching. you were stomping my face and chest in until i became unrecognizable.




 

 

52 minutes ago, MartyMcFly said:

Nat was hanging out with Preston a bunch whilst the investigation occurred, whilst he was being interrogated

i wasn't hanging out with anyone, i was in surgery. if i hadn't been rushed to surgery immediately after you stomping my face and chest in, i would have died.

 

52 minutes ago, MartyMcFly said:

My character went to order something from supply, Nat was there, not really harassment

you walked in and attempted to order boxing gloves. after you had been banned from sparring. don't act like you don't know exactly what you were doing.
 

 

52 minutes ago, MartyMcFly said:

he never said anything rude to her except as a reply to her being rude to him.

you kept bump spamming me and following me. i said to stay the hell away from me. you followed me to the bar and sat right next to me. i begged klaus to keep you away from me and you called me a cunt.

Edited October 12, 2019 by Natiform

[MartyMcFly]

9 minutes ago, niennab said:

That is a over simplification of what happened. You were told to get out from behind the counter which resulted in a struggle as Aubrey (helped by Reese, Riley or both) grabbed the two of them and attempted to physically remove them. Ephemer and Timothy fought back, effectively refusing the demand. There was a definitive struggle before Aubrey Piper went for the gun.

They never punched anyone or anything, and when they were told to get out when Aubrey had a gun, Ephemer went to climb out of the bar although Aubrey shot him because of it. Ephemer was helping Timothy do such because Timothy had been denied the drinks, others were allowed inside the bar, and thus Ephemer was not doing anything strictly bad in that occasion.

 

7 minutes ago, Natiform said:

okay, a couple things here:
1. you never, ever specified before the match about the fact that you don't pull punches. if nat had known this she would have never gotten in the ring with you.
2. because i was pulling my punches, any hit to you on the ground was just a "tap on the head" which you would have seen if you had been paying attention to the logs.

3. i only ever tapped you after you went down after you kept getting up and charging me and i was trying to get you to stop and stay down.
4. you weren't punching. you were stomping my face and chest in until i became unrecognizable.




 

 

i wasn't hanging out with anyone, i was in surgery. if i hadn't been rushed to surgery immediately after you stomping my face and chest in, i would have died.

 

you walked in and attempted to order boxing gloves. after you had been banned from sparring. don't act like you don't know exactly what you were doing.
 

 

you kept bump spamming me and following me. i said to stay the hell away from me. you followed me to the bar. i begged klaus to keep you away from me and you called me a cunt.

Why the constant "I" and "You"? We are not the characters we play, at the end of the round I was not angry at neither you or Preston's player, in fact I thought it was great round because it effected the relationships between our characters. You are acting like I myself reached my hand through the screen and attacked you, I don't understand why you are so angry. Now as for your character hitting mine when he was on the ground, my character was on the ground, the screen showed your character lunging at him when he was on the ground, and thus I assumed you were hitting him when he was on the ground. Meanwhile during the fight, Preston is yelling to continue it when your character was winning, and then when your character was losing, he was screaming at Ephemer and saying call sec. I don't know what up between you two, I don't know if you erp, kind of seems like you both do with each other in all honesty, but you are drastically making the situation worse than what it was. Both Timothy and the German Sec character had formerly fought Ephemer and won, breaking bones in his head and his torso, in each fight I played it out as standard RP, I didn't make it a big issue because it wasn't.

[Natiform]

1 minute ago, MartyMcFly said:

Why the constant "I" and "You"? We are not the characters we play

jesus dude, obviously, but we still control our characters. it's still actions we're making. you cherry picking because you don't have any defenses left or something?

 

 

3 minutes ago, MartyMcFly said:

Preston is yelling to continue it when your character was winning, and then when your character was losing, he was screaming at Ephemer and saying call sec.

we had both assumed the fight was over the first time you went down. when you got back up and kept attacking, he kept cheering me on. then i got knocked down and you started stomping my face in, so sec was called. very drastic difference there.

 

4 minutes ago, MartyMcFly said:

I don't know what up between you two, I don't know if you erp, kind of seems like you both do with each other in all honesty,

and now you're just being gross and inflammatory. preston and natalie are best friends and grew up together. of course they're gonna want to defend each other.

[MartyMcFly]

"we had both assumed the fight was over the first time you went down. when you got back up and kept attacking, he kept cheering me on. then i got knocked down and you started stomping my face in, so sec was called. very drastic difference there."

Admins can go and look in the logs to see what happened and make their own judgements on who was doing what.

 

"and now you're just being gross and inflammatory. preston and natalie are best friends and grew up together. of course they're gonna want to defend each other."

I'm meaning you both OOC...because Ephemer has been beat up, beaten people up, ect, and there's never been an issue like this. I'm not being inflammatory, I am stating it seems like you both as players are taking an IC occurrence and being angry about it OOC as if you both were an OOC couple.

[Natiform]

i can see that this back and forth with you is getting absolutely nowhere, so i'm gonna refrain from posting from here on out and let admins handle it.

[BRAINOS]

"nat hit ephemer while he was down, so he was merely doing the same to her"

wrong, remember how ephemer broke someone's chest and skull? that's not "merely the same."

"ephemer never pulls punches"

very edgy, nice. should probably disclose that kind of thing prior to fights and call it as soon as you hear people cracking open

also, again, that's fucky. as a supposed retired pro wrestler, not a boxer or brawler, as a pro wrestler, ephemer should know restraint better than anyone else considering his job literally depended on not cracking his opponent's skull open

"something something erp"

we're mad about it because your character nearly caused canonical brain damage or death as a non-antag for literally no reason other than "he doesn't pull punches."

 

 

[zyymurgy]

Since I was involved in this round and strongly recommended Nat and Brainos back it down to an IR rather than commit canonical revenge-murder, I think I maybe should post?

I came in about an hour into the round, as Cazimi. Since I see that MartyMcFly only has three forum posts, and I do not recall seeing Ephemer around before this, I feel like it might not be rude to explain a couple things.

Extended rounds are canonical, and are expected to play out as a normal, everyday shift aboard the Aurora. Any wacky, weird thing you do, is happening for real, and is being considered more harshly than actions during Antag or Event rounds. Your behavior during Extended rounds is supposed to be who your character really genuinely is, with no ulterior motivation.

As such, characters who do weird things on Extended rounds are viewed under the lens of, "why would this weird guy be employed by NanoTrasen?"

Aurora's setting is intended to be grounded, and believable, if not always "realistic". You should be able to suspend your disbelief about what's happening in the story, and to immerse yourself in the roleplay that's going on. This is what makes it High Roleplay in my opinion, as opposed to Low Roleplay, where you do not have very much of a connection to your character as they are just a video game avatar, and the station and players around you are just something to destroy and click on.

So this brings me back around to the Extended round in question. I believe the fundamental problem here with Ephemer is: "Why is this weird, violent old dude working for NanoTrasen? Especially after he cracked somebody's skull for real?"

The role of Priest on the station can be very broadly defined, but generally you're going to be a leader or a mentor type of figure who can give some emotional support during times of crisis. It's a very heavy roleplay focused role. One would not typically expect a holy person who is representative of their faith, on a research station, to behave violently.

These are my very general criticisms of Ephemer as a character. He's out of place in a High Roleplay setting, as a violent "priest" of an unspecified religion. I have trouble believing this man would be hired by NanoTrasen, especially after the round we all shared that is the subject of this player complaint.

Now, I'd like to move to address a couple things more specific to this incident rather than my criticism of the character played.

It was my intervention with Nat and Preston that led to the writing of the IR canonically, because otherwise Preston was going to kill Ephemer. I was about 90% sure that when he left and went quiet, he was getting ready to have to shelf or delete his character slot in order to do something. Because Extended rounds are canon, if Ephemer had killed Nat, it would have been permanent unless someone could clone her (which is bad in canon), unless the admins said it was alright to void. So I'm pretty sure Preston was going to try and do something, as security had not. It was at this point I reached out to Borya's HOP to beg him to come do something and help us with an Incident Report, and I radio'd for Preston to come join us in filing it out. Luckily this calmed the situation down and we were able to sit together and try to salvage the rest of the round.

As we were sitting together, we were all upset by the way the round had gone -- yes, OOCly. We were OOCly unhappy with MartyMcFly's behavior, because it put characters in canonical danger during a round that was supposed to be, and that we had hoped would be, relaxing. And this I think is something that MartyMcFly does not understand. People do not have to be ERPing with each other to form deep connections through roleplay. My character cares about Preston and Natalie because they have been kind to my character, and when I am in the mindset of my character, they are my friends and I care about them. (And also we're total buds OOC, because of the way we met IC.)

We were sitting in our lobby and heard that Ephemer had been banned from sparring when he came in and tried to order boxing gloves so he could continue "sparring" without pulling punches, effectively coming into our department to gloat that he had gotten away with some pretty serious violence, and to indicate that he was planning on doing more. And then he went away to go do more violence, stabbing his "buddy" in the eye with a screwdriver. On a canonical round that serious players take as something that's being added to the history and development of the character.

I went to cryo because of IC reasons but as a ghost I watched him follow Natalie and call her a cunt when she just wanted him to leave her alone.

I feel this is some pretty bad OOC behavior becoming an IC issue. Since MartyMcFly does not participate with the roleplay on station in a deeper level, he seems to see no issue in bringing his OOC frustration into IC, in order to harass somebody who just wants to be left alone. In stating that he never pulls punches, he has acknowledged that he ignores a pretty important game mechanic in order to continue to do serious harm to other players' characters across multiple rounds, despite his "gimmick" being some kind of fighting priest. In doing this "gimmick" on a canon round, and then not seeing the seriousness of the situation - almost player-killing somebody for real during RP - it shows to me that this player is perhaps from a more Moderate Roleplay type of setting, and has not been able to fully immerse yet. "It's just a game, bro. I didn't hurt you, I just hurt your character!" Permanently, on a canonical round, leading to both IC medical history for Nat and OOC frustration for everyone involved.

I can explain any of these points more deeply if asked, but I feel this pretty clearly explains my issue with Ephemer. I held off posting because I didn't want to dogpile on the thread before MartyMcFly had a chance to post, but now that he has, I do not believe that he understands the issues we have, and the reason we made the complaint. I hope this post makes some sense and explains some things.

Edited October 12, 2019 by zyymurgy

[MartyMcFly]

I understand the issues held up against Ephemer and I plan on making adjustments to him in order to prevent such, although I want to make somethings very clear.

1. Ephemer's main issue was with Preston due to how he randomly attacked him in the holodeck, that's the only reason why he went down to the cargo area. I don't understand this idea that I have a personal grudge or issue with Nat, Ephemer called her a cunt twice because he didn't believe she was being honest about the holopad fight.

2. More importantly, the main reason why Ephemer was so against the idea that he harmed Nat was because he (and thus I) read a note on the Exodus station saying that injuries received within the holopad are healed through resting.

 

I understand the issue of the harm of the character Nat, I was unaware that such damage could occur within the holopad. Although any concept of me having a grudge against Nat is wrong, you can't make me understand that issue because it's nonexistent, if it did, I would be open about such. I'm sorry it put the character of Nat in canonical danger, I was unaware that I was doing so because I had the preconceived notion that all wounds in the holopad except mechanical ones, healed.

 

Ephemer was banned for a week, if I had a huge issue with the ban I wouldn't be playing on the server anymore, I know how to adjust him to where he's more realistic.
(Note, for the record, he's a Shaolin Monk and thus a Buddhist Chaplan who tries to help others through sparring with them, the injury received was completely unintentional.)

[Pratepresidenten]

Verdict time!

To start off: A majority of the issues were already addressed inround, although some did not see too much improvement, but I will address them briefly.

To clear up something regarding their character: They are not a pro wrestler. This was assumed by other people. They themselves stated that they were a boxer.

Now..
The issue of not pulling punches was not limited to their fight with Nat, and they had previously fought a fair amount of people prior to this without issue. Either noone saw Nati's character get messed up and intervened, noone cared, or Nat simply didnt bleed much during this rather lengthy sparring match.
The remainder of the round was either dealt with by staff or was an IC issue.

The bar incident seemed fairly tame as far as logs can tell. The engineer was drunk and stupid, Ephemer attempted to defuse and play it chill. There wasnt a whole lot physical issue here barring the engineer throwing a glass.

The name Ephemer Mephistopheles is something that needs to be changed, due to both mashups of names from different games and the devil himself.  It is simply too much.

Asking for weaponry and fighting antags as a chaplain was addressed by staff inround.

The general issues between Ephemer and Nat is that of an IC nature and punishment will not be given here.

With this said, here is what is going to happen:
For the repeat issues and amassed staff entries the past two months, a three day ban will be issued.
The character Ephemer Mephistopheles will be reworked, both in name and persona. The ultimate 116 year old shaolin monk, full prosthetic no-gloves boxer is unreasonable within the Corporate HRP atmosphere that we reside in.

If the issues persist, or there are recurring rule violations, a permaban will be applied.

Addendum: The ban was originally meant to be longer, but with the self-insight of the recent post, general attitude and desire to improve yourself, we have decided to lower it to a 3-day ban.

 

Will lock and archive in about a day or so.

[MartyMcFly]

Ending my time roleplaying Ephemer, and instead I will be making a new character whenever the ban is over which will take the Shaolin Monk motif and go into more depth with it. mainly the peaceful elements of it as well as embrace the teacher role that being a chaplan can represent.

[BRAINOS]

16 minutes ago, MartyMcFly said:

Ending my time roleplaying Ephemer, and instead I will be making a new character whenever the ban is over which will take the Shaolin Monk motif and go into more depth with it. mainly the peaceful elements of it as well as embrace the teacher role that being a chaplan can represent.

honestly, i'm excited to see the direction you take this; as ephemer's character didn't seem very monk-like at all given the limited interactions i've experienced from them. shaolin monks have always fascinated me with their pursuit of discipline and wisdom, and i'm glad to hear you're going to continue contributing to the story here once the ban is over.