Player Complaint -- ImmortalRedshirt

[Omicega]

BYOND Key:
Omicega

Game ID:
cgl-cxgX and the official Relay discord

Player Byond Key/Character name:
ImmortalRedshirt

Staff involved:
Alberyk -- I contacted him about the Relay issue
Yonnimer -- contacted me on Discord about one issue
PersephoneQ -- provided some logs for the complaint at my request

Reason for complaint: 

I'm going to lead off this complaint with clarification that I myself am not LGBTQ+ or anything of the sort, really. I'm spearheading the complaint not due to any personal offence of that nature, but out of outrage that Aurora lore which I had even a tangential impact on is being weaponised like this to introduce sensitive IRL issues into the roleplay environment.

ImmortalRedshirt's Plutonian character made offhanded comments about an IRL Ukrainian genocide, the Holodomor, which was brought up by another player/character in the Relay Discord. I took strong offense to the IC justification of such a recent historical event and brought it to Alberyk immediately, and to my knowledge he handled it with a strike.

This already had my blood up regarding this character and how their player handles them, but the most recent round had their exploitables crop up as something for the antagonists to base their gimmick around. The exploitables make reference to the historical Article 121, an anti-homosexuality law in the Soviet Union beginning in the Stalin era. To the best of my knowledge, the intent of the exploitables seems to be to perpetuate IC transphobia on behalf of the fictional Plutonian government, including deadnaming and misgendering (disclaimer: I really am not totally up to speed with the exact terminology here, but I think that's what it's called) the character in question and referring to their gender identity as 'bourgeoise decadence'. At least one player cryoed out of the round due to this narrative being the focus, from what I hear. I don't know why the burglars went with this as the focus for their round, but I am pointing the finger squarely at these exploitables for essentially opening the door for it.

To cut a long story short, I am thoroughly uncomfortable and downright offended that Aurora lore is being taken forwards as headcanon to push transphobic and hateful narratives through into the server gameplay and roleplay environment. I know exploitables in particular are not meant to be entirely canon, hence why they can be quite wacky, but I think this is a bridge too far and I want to appeal for further action to be taken. I'm trying not to turn this into a novel, but I think this is a reasonable summary of what happened, and I'd appeal for anyone else involved either in the Relay conversation or in the round I'm referencing to make their thoughts known as well.

I want to also make it clear that this isn't a character complaint, this is a player complaint. I am not offended specifically at the character Emiliya Novikova and how they're portrayed in game -- I am upset at the player themselves for pushing this to begin with, using the 'character' as a vehicle to insert these topics into the Aurora environment. I believe this is a case of strong OOC political views being injected wholesale into the IC environment, and done in such a way that it's making people violently uncomfortable.

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation?
I contacted staff about the Relay incident right when it first happened. The in-round incident was something I didn't even know was a problem until Yonnimer contacted me about it. I don't know specifically what action was taken against the player beyond seeing a Relay strike issued by Alberyk or MattAtlas. I imagine they might have also been told to change their exploitables by now, too, but as I said I'm not satisfied with that being the only resolution here.

Approximate Date/Time: 
17:00 GMT on 05 Feb 2022

Evidence/logs/etc:

Quote

Emiliya Novikova says, "Heh, wouldn't that be nice? Anyway, they have me down for engaging in 'bourgeoisie decadence.' Everyone else in the Spur calls it 'transitioning'"

Quote

MASKING UPLINK SIGNAL
PAYMENT RECEIVED...
INITIATING DATA TRANSFER...
....
....COMPLETE
DISPLAYING INFORMATION:
[hr]
Name: Novikova, Emiliya Ilyaovna
Age: 26
Sex: Male
Gender: Female(she/her)
Species:Human
Subtype/Race: Plutonian
Coloration: White
Place of Residence: Refinery Block, NTCC Odin, Tau Ceti
Employment: First Responder, Nanotrasen, NSS Aurora
[hr]
Close Kin and Associates:
[*]Kalyna, Anastasia | Friend | First Responder | Last Seen in Tau Ceti
[hr]
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
-Formerly known as Emil Ilyaovich Novikov. Usage of this name is unadvised
!!Potential Bounty Found!!
Recovered data from Plutonian NKVD:

Person of Interest: Emil Ilyaovich Novikov
In Violation of: Article 121, Amendment 5
Additional Information: On first attempted incident, caught and warned to never attempt this bourgeoisie decadence again. When attempting to board IAC vessel, recordkeeping software noticed discrepancy between visual footage and registered pseudonym "Emiliya Novikova". Vessel departed Plutonian space before it could be boarded for apprehension. Potential for spreading misleading information about the SPOK high. Justice must be enforced, he must be recovered. Details forwarded to various unaffiliated bounty boards, rewards of up to 75,000 Solarian Credits.

Recommendations: Due to shaky reputation of Plutonians abroad, bystanders likely to be easily turned by reveals of the truth. Choosing whether to use false name up to discretion of the hunter, for added psychological component.

[limette]

Hi. I was the Security Officer (Keukoke Okeeska) who was handling most of this round, and the one who ahelped it in the first place. Not going to get into a rant, but as a transgender person I was extremely uncomfortable with the premise of this round and did enter cryo because of it. After cryoing, I noticed logs that consisted of the antagonists deadnaming Emiliya using the information in the records supplied, and making fun of the -a suffix in their name. While not entirely within scope of this complaint, I will be posting them because I feel they're relevant. I did not ahelp this part because I was doing something else (half-occupied) and only really noticed as I went back to look at logs late in the round.

Quote

Victoria Parker asks, "Can I ask what Article 121, 5th Amendment even is?"
Victoria Parker says, "I am not well-versed in Plutonian law."
Emiliya Novikova says, "An outdated construct of the 20th century."

Quote

[F] Mikhail Khlebov asks, "Feeling any remorse, Emil?"
[F] Emiliya Novikova says, "Don't call me that ever again."
[F] Mikhail Khlebov says, "Right, Novikov-a."
[F] Mikhail Khlebov asks, "Was this worth it?"

This was long after the initial ahelp and after Yonnimer told me they were spoken to, but this course of RP continued regardless. I will upload the logs in their entirety so that the timeline can be laid out properly.

 

Quote

 I know exploitables in particular are not meant to be entirely canon, hence why they can be quite wacky,

In regards to this, I will note that they had an explicit reference to violating Article 121 and being a fugitive in their security records as well, which I noticed at the start of the round - though I hadn't put two and two together regarding the historical Article 121 in my head.

RedshirtRound.html

Edited February 5, 2022 by limette
formatting

[Faris]

@Peppermint and I will handle this.

 

As usual, a general reminder to only post if you have something to add in terms of actionable information in the form of logs, timestamps, images and such. If you are unsure if your posts would be allowed, seek permission from either Peppermint or I.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

...alright, this was probably deserved, without a doubt. To clear some potential assumptions out of the way, this character would never have been made if I was cisgendered. Perhaps as a result, this may have made things even worse, as my interpretation of how things go everywhere stems from the way we're treated around where I live. This, without a doubt, was a mistake.

- As for the exploitables, after some discussion while in-round, I've gotten it into my head that it was too extreme of a step, and it will not be coming up again, replaced with something completely unrelated(late-night clarification: I was approached by a staff member in-game about the matter, where purging that mess from all recorded mediums was agreed upon. Sadly, things were already too far in play by then to stop the full extent of the disaster)

- I've also been informed about how the comments on the relay can be interpreted in a way separate from my intentions. Once again, I apologize for this, genocide is never excusable in any circumstances.

Onto the character itself, when I had written them, I had wanted to explore something that felt personally significant, something that I had experience with. I tried to balance showing the bright side of things, as well as some of the struggles. In the case of the latter, if this round is anything to go off of, I've failed. The former, however, has yielded much better results, but I will not be elaborating on that unless it is needed. There was never any thought of making a caricature out of this, even if that is the image some have gotten from this round. In short, I mean no deliberate malice with the character's status as a trans woman, I don't think I could live with myself if that were the case. The character itself was twisted by what I deal with, and if I am able to continue playing here as them, I promise to turn it around, make something better out of them.

There are probably some points I'm missing. If so, please reach out, and I can address them.

Edited February 6, 2022 by ImmortalRedshirt
clarified a few more things

[Peppermint]

This should be resolved by tomorrow (or this evening, depending on one's timezone). If anyone has anything else to add, please do so between now and then. Either here or directly to myself/Faris, but otherwise I'm going to assume everyone has said their piece.

[Peppermint]

Hiya,

After looking through the entire round log line by line, the exploitable and what they've been changed to, as well as the resulting ticket and outcome, we do not feel like the player is defending the viewpoints their character presented. Had we come to that conclusion, it's very likely they would be permanently removed from the community but this does not seem the case.

That said, the way the round was dealt with was incredibly questionable due to the impact it may have had on other players. Namely encouraging the use of the character's deadname for a 'psychological impact' as well as linking real world laws in an attempt to give it IC basis is entirely unacceptable and disregards the thoughts and feelings of many of the playerbase, as well as the lore writers.

Whilst roleplay is a great medium for exploring identities and struggles and we're glad Aurora can provide such to players, doing so at the expense of others is not at all okay - to both the lore team who first wrote the piece, and those in round who had to deal with it.

Due to this, we want to make it clear that there will be zero tolerance for any further repeats of this kind of thing and, as such, whilst both the relay and in game issue were handled by staff at the time, further action will be applied due to us looking at the entire picture across both mediums as opposed to just isolated incidents. Unless there's anything else, we'll assume the matter is dealt with.

Thread will be locked and archived within a day or so.