OurLordSpungus Player Complaint

[SatinsPristOTD]

BYOND Key: Ben Aflek is an OK Actor
Game ID: MULTIPLE ROUNDS. 
Player Byond Key/Character name: Our Lord Spungus
Staff involved: Evandorf said to make a player complaint
Reason for complaint: 
I wasn't going to make a complaint until last round. (This is wrost at 8pm on the 20th of December)

Spungus has a general..  obsession with my character Cordia. This started with Turing and the fiasco that happened with Inese and Turing ICly. I get the Turing drama. I felt it was way too much, and even Turings behavior cost Spungus their whitelist for IPC. So that does put some light on how stressful it was to deal with. It was so bad, I didn't want to play Cordia while Turing was on, as the harassment was becoming too much for me to handle.

Spungus made a warden, Chiora, and that warden was Dominian. Antag gimmicks when Cordia was on round with Chiora always involved Cordia, or something surrounding her. 
They made a warden called Strelitz, and the same exact thing happens. All their antag gimmicks involve Cordia, or the same exact gimmick of having psionic powers. It never deviates from this pattern, at all. Once again, I stopped playing Cordia, as I got tired of literally always being their antag target. I know she has exploitable information, but I'm not the only one on Aurora. Other players should be involved too. 

They have been behind several gimmicks that directly target Dominians. It's fine, but when it's all they do... you start to realize this is some sort of meta. 

I recently did a Dominian Gift Exchange event (the day this is wrote) and some random Fishu character started going *insane* towards Cordia, after Cordia told them to behave better and stop being an "asshole" to the machinist over entertainment radio. They played chaotic, insane, crazy... they claimed Cordia was going to have them killed. Cordia was sending them back to the Empire to have him murdered. Cordia was going to send FOOTAGE of this back to the characters family as a warning. It was RP that was honestly very hard to put any sort of "belief" in to. This was an extended round. I felt like I was dealing with a full on antag gimmick... all targeted to me and Marielle. (The other Caladius on shift). Cordia found out this character had PTSD and was off their medication. I have a few issues with this, OOCly. Firstly, as someone with PTSD..the roleplay was almost offensive in how it was done. Secondly, the fact that the Horizon would hire someone with this severe of PTSD (and) they'd randomly go off their medication like this is very unbelievable. They would be a major liability, especially since the character is supposedly security. I found out at round end that this character that harassed me the entire round was... played by Spungus. Spungus then spent their /time/ in OOC talking about Cordia, and demanding we do a "closure" RP so "Cordia understands". I ignored them. They continued. I asked them to please leave me alone. 

They also took major offense to their actions having consequences. A Fishu would absolutely not get away with doing what they did to a dedicated, loyal Imperial noble. I feel great stress about this level of meta behavior/targetting/harassment. I really just want to be left alone. If I'm part of an antag gimmick, that's fine, but constantly harassing me is driving me nuts. 

OOCly, this feels like some sort of meta action. I can't explain it any other way. Cordia and that Fishu had NO prior interactions at all. None. I've never seen the character before! 


Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? I ahelped asking, but as this is a lot of rounds combined, it had to be a complaint on the forums. 
Approximate Date/Time: 20/12/2023 8pm

[Spungus]

In defense of Chiora's existence, a most of the gimmicks I played out were supposed to involve literally any Dominians, but usually (through no fault of my own more often than not - I roll antag a lot but most of the shit involving Cordia recently with antags has been unrelated to me or I've just sort of hopped on the bandwagon) it came back to Cordia. So I stopped playing Chiora because it was getting insane.
I try to keep Eloise out of people's business, and kept doing psionics stuff in an effort to refine a gimmick that never quite went how I wanted it to go. That's my fault.
The recent Fisanduhian thing was, once again, not intended to cycle back to Cordia. The character took personal offense to some Solarian machinist claiming they were trying to steal a gift (when they just wanted to participate). Started off as generic "Hey, fuck off, man, you didn't see it and you weren't listening" and ended with Marielle coming into the bar's private room and basically telling said fisanduhian that he was going to get deported and probably tortured. Said fisanduhian had the stream of his sister being tortured, unsolicited, by Tribunalists, sent directly to him, and, basically, lost his fucking mind over it. He was treated for it, but due to how recent it was (within months of him going abroad) the wound is still fresh. The pharmacist also refused to make more of his medication due to being at the party, which exacerbated the paranoia.
Yeah, maybe PTSD is a little light for a diagnosis, probably it should be something more like schizophrenia (I'm not a psychologist and I don't really want to become an armchair one so I can write a character).
Regardless, the bit wasn't necessarily meant to go to Cordia, but considering she was the only other Caladius there and one of the only people to actually interact with the Fisanduhian in question, it wound up turning that way anyway.

I recognize that it seems really fucking weird, and, yeah, it kind of is really fucking weird, but I don't mean any harassment by it, and really only wanted to solve the previous round's conflict by doing literally anything but the "OOOOOH I'M GONNA TELL BASSETT" garbage that I've seen be the 'resolution' to any canon Dominia stuff I've seen recently, because, at least from my perspective, it's metacomm-y and does not actually lead to any roleplay other than "haha get blackbagged".

[Spungus]

To add to the previous post, it wasn't that they went off their medication, it was that their prescription is not a long-term "this will solve it" sort of thing, and more of a patch-the-hole-until-something-better-can-happen solution. They didn't go off of their medication, they ran out and the pharmacist refused to make more.


And yeah, my gimmicks need work. I've branched out, though, sort of.

More prevalently, though: I do apologize if I've made you uncomfortable, I'm woefully dogshit at gauging people's level of comfort and often get excited about things that other people want no part in.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Spungus

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hi! @eddymakaveli and I will be handling this complaint.

I will be log diving. I know you @SatinsPristOTD said it’s been over the course of several rounds, but do you have /any/ round IDs? 

[Spungus]

I can attest to the fact that it's been several rounds, over, like, the course of a couple months or so. Honestly, it's my fault and I need to get my shit together and either stop playing antag or get better gimmicks and/or play completely different characters that have zero reason to interact with Cordia or Dominia as a whole.

[SatinsPristOTD]

5 hours ago, ReadThisNamePlz said:

Hi! @eddymakaveli and I will be handling this complaint.

I will be log diving. I know you @SatinsPristOTD said it’s been over the course of several rounds, but do you have /any/ round IDs? 

I'm afraid I don't, I'm so sorry, and the Discord bot is REALLY not working right to tell me  

[SatinsPristOTD]

8 hours ago, Spungus said:

I recognize that it seems really fucking weird, and, yeah, it kind of is really fucking weird, but I don't mean any harassment by it, and really only wanted to solve the previous round's conflict by doing literally anything but the "OOOOOH I'M GONNA TELL BASSETT" garbage that I've seen be the 'resolution' to any canon Dominia stuff I've seen recently, because, at least from my perspective, it's metacomm-y and does not actually lead to any roleplay other than "haha get blackbagged".

I'm going to say this, and I'm trying to be polite but.. I don't owe your character anything, especially after what they said/did to my character ICly. OOCly, I also don't have any obligations to full-fill RP that didn't get "done" in a previous round. I do have the right to report things ICly and OOCly, and Cordia isn't the character that would just go "Oh yeah, let's sit down for tea and you tell me why you caused this sort of stress on my behalf, Fishuri." 

It's a lot of pressure on me to do what you want me to do, instead of just letting me do what I want/need to do. 

Cordia is not a "Main character" nor is she a "community character" to use however you want to progress your own character arcs. In the end, she's my sole intellect property. As long as I stick within rules and lore, I get to say what she does and doesn't do. I really do not appreciate trying to be persuaded into doing something, and you going as far to claim my friends are meta communicating for doing something I'd absolutely have done too.

Actions have consequences ICly. ICly, Cordia was going to file an IR, but I chose to do this player complaint instead because of the sheer amount of *dedication* you have. 

[Spungus]

Again, I'm not intentionally trying to include Cordia in arcs (most of the time, this specific incident included - I don't think I've actually encouraged any "let's gang up on Cordia" gimmicks in AOOC, and I'm not a loud antag player, so every loud gimmick involving Cordia has most likely been someone else's choice. The logs may prove me wrong here but I'm pretty sure if they do it was one or two situations).
As for meta communications, I'm standing by that, because I find it to be extremely silly that everyone's go-to when an established Dominian character doesn't like what a newer Dominian character is doing is to immediately get in the discord and tell on them. I already said the solution to that is to just stop playing characters who have any involvement in Dominia, which I'm doing. I still don't like it and I don't think it provides any sort of RP beyond "kill off a character because they're inconvenient", but we've already been through this.
I get the message. When I do stupid shit like this I only really need to be told sternly once, and usually I'll stop. This is a fault with me, I'm aware, I'm bad at gauging when people are gleaning enjoyment and when people are getting stressed or frustrated - what you perceived as demanding resolution was what I perceived as a request- your perception is objectively more correct than mine, so I have no problems accepting it. My wording sucked and the pattern exists, but, genuinely, it's a failing on my end that happens to be the product of repeated attempts to do literally anything with Dominia as a setting.
I don't want to shift the blame to you, but, Cordia is one of the few consistently-active Dominian characters with actionable exploitables. She's also a member of Command. It's inevitable that she's going to get swept up in antaggery. The vast majority of the time if I'm involving you, it's either because you've involved yourself inadvertently (e.g. with a majority of Eloise's gimmicks, specifically those involving Sandford or those where there's already been brigging involved) or I have entirely run dry of creative ideas and have jumped on the bandwagon. I have no right to make this suggestion, but, consider playing a less high-profile character if you don't want to be a high-profile target.
Yes, I have an over-reliance on psionics, it's a unique mechanic that has multiple uses, and I use them mainly in an attempt to perfect a single gimmick I have in mind rather than trying to branch out and do different things. I've been, slowly, attempting to change this, either by completely changing the type of character I'm using, playing offship roles, or otherwise doing an entirely different sort of gimmick.

Call it dedication if you want, in reality it's more of a crippling lack of being able to take hints and a need for clear-cut instructions to stop doing things. Despite having tried to pick up on these cues, I cannot figure out when somebody is playing a character as being distressed or is actually distressed. I suck at reading people over the internet. I will make this fuck-up constantly (as you've seen) if it isn't nipped in the bud.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Spungus

[MattAtlas]

2 hours ago, Spungus said:

As for meta communications, I'm standing by that, because I find it to be extremely silly that everyone's go-to when an established Dominian character doesn't like what a newer Dominian character is doing is to immediately get in the discord and tell on them.

I played the CMO during this round and this is a fear I don't really understand. At round end I was defending you - Cordia said in command comms that she wanted to IR you, and despite my character being the biggest Fisanduhian hater in the known universe I told her that she shouldn't do that since it seemed that whatever happened was caused by a PTSD episode. My intention was to figure out what happened IC fully (because I didn't really have a handle on everything, the party and the pharmacist thing made everything very confusing and nobody was really talking to me about any of it) and then go from there, because I don't really like when IRs are made over things like this.

With that said, reading over what the OP said, it makes sense to me to IR your character or seek an extreme remedy like going to a consular. The thing is that when you keep doing things that annoy people like this, their response will always get worse because you're fundamentally irritating them. I'm 100% sure that if there wasn't such a vast precedent with your characters, Bassett likely wouldn't even have come up, nor would an IR have been considered.

[SatinsPristOTD]

11 hours ago, Spungus said:

when an established Dominian character doesn't like what a newer Dominian character is doing is to immediately get in the discord and tell on them.

Yes, Dominians have some pretty intense lore, so when someone makes a character that actively goes against the lore and how it is... we're going to take action regarding it. 

Specifically speaking, a Fissie did this scenario to a Loyal Noble, one that's pretty well established with consulars and is known to turn in Dominians that act out of line. 

We don't directly target new Dominian players. If that were the case, all of my new Dominian characters (Which I'm not naming for the sheer sake of staying anonymous) would be under fire. 

Maybe this isn't a "All Dominian players metacommunication against my characters bad behavior" situation, but rather a "I play Dominian characters that go against the lore and expected Dominian culture"

[SatinsPristOTD]

12 hours ago, Spungus said:

Again, I'm not intentionally trying to include Cordia in arcs (most of the time, this specific incident included - I don't think I've actually encouraged any "let's gang up on Cordia" gimmicks in AOOC, and I'm not a loud antag player, so every loud gimmick involving Cordia has most likely been someone else's choice. The logs may prove me wrong here but I'm pretty sure if they do it was one or two situations).
As for meta communications, I'm standing by that, because I find it to be extremely silly that everyone's go-to when an established Dominian character doesn't like what a newer Dominian character is doing is to immediately get in the discord and tell on them. I already said the solution to that is to just stop playing characters who have any involvement in Dominia, which I'm doing. I still don't like it and I don't think it provides any sort of RP beyond "kill off a character because they're inconvenient", but we've already been through this.
I get the message. When I do stupid shit like this I only really need to be told sternly once, and usually I'll stop. This is a fault with me, I'm aware, I'm bad at gauging when people are gleaning enjoyment and when people are getting stressed or frustrated - what you perceived as demanding resolution was what I perceived as a request- your perception is objectively more correct than mine, so I have no problems accepting it. My wording sucked and the pattern exists, but, genuinely, it's a failing on my end that happens to be the product of repeated attempts to do literally anything with Dominia as a setting.
I don't want to shift the blame to you, but, Cordia is one of the few consistently-active Dominian characters with actionable exploitables. She's also a member of Command. It's inevitable that she's going to get swept up in antaggery. The vast majority of the time if I'm involving you, it's either because you've involved yourself inadvertently (e.g. with a majority of Eloise's gimmicks, specifically those involving Sandford or those where there's already been brigging involved) or I have entirely run dry of creative ideas and have jumped on the bandwagon. I have no right to make this suggestion, but, consider playing a less high-profile character if you don't want to be a high-profile target.
Yes, I have an over-reliance on psionics, it's a unique mechanic that has multiple uses, and I use them mainly in an attempt to perfect a single gimmick I have in mind rather than trying to branch out and do different things. I've been, slowly, attempting to change this, either by completely changing the type of character I'm using, playing offship roles, or otherwise doing an entirely different sort of gimmick.

Call it dedication if you want, in reality it's more of a crippling lack of being able to take hints and a need for clear-cut instructions to stop doing things. Despite having tried to pick up on these cues, I cannot figure out when somebody is playing a character as being distressed or is actually distressed. I suck at reading people over the internet. I will make this fuck-up constantly (as you've seen) if it isn't nipped in the bud.

You do not get to, in the same excuse, admit you have an issue with stalking me and write it off as "An inability to read a room" and then turn around and blame me for you stalking me because I play a Command role. 

This is unacceptable behavior. I, not anyone else in this community, are mandated to make sure you aren't taking things out of line. You should treat us with some respect and understand we're people too, not just-- things for you to use to RP with. That's my main issue. If you're not doing this to me, someone else will be next. 

And your excuse will, again, be the same thing. And again.. and again... No one is obligated to make sure you're keeping yourself in check. And for you to  turn around and blame me for simply existing as a character is absolutely wild. No other antag player has this issue. I can't think of a single one that continuously some how antags me. Eloise's entire gimmick last time was to drive Cordia crazy by making her think she was losing her faith. Literally, the ENTIRE gimmick was that. 

*Edit:* I often play Cordia as Off-Duty, and still have had antag gimmicks done against me. So this whole "Don't play a command role" excuse is invalid.

Edited December 21, 2023 by SatinsPristOTD

[Spungus]

Quote

You do not get to, in the same excuse, admit you have an issue with stalking me and write it off as "An inability to read a room" and then turn around and blame me for you stalking me because I play a Command role. 

This is unacceptable behavior. I, not anyone else in this community, are mandated to make sure you aren't taking things out of line. You should treat us with some respect and understand we're people too, not just-- things for you to use to RP with. That's my main issue. If you're not doing this to me, someone else will be next. 

You're veering off from actual issues that exist and can be addressed and steering into making absurd speculations about someone you don't know. I was willing to accept that I was in the wrong before, I was trying to be calm and civil and admit that maybe it was weird, but now I'm going to be blunt.

Neither you nor anybody else on this server is important enough for me to consider actively stalking them, nor is anybody else on the planet for that matter.

At most, it was a subconscious inclination - I'm 90% sure it's a series of coincidences.
As I have already made clear: Yes, I have involved Cordia in gimmicks too much. No, I am not the driving factor behind a majority of the gimmicks involving Cordia.

If you want to call it stalking, call it stalking. You're reading far too deeply into it.

I'm willing to accept that I was being a moron, but accusing me of stalking is a bridge too far.

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hi, Eddy and I have decided that we will be placing a ban against you - you can appeal it, but your conduct here and the blatant metagrduging is not something we want from our players. You openly admitted to the metagrudging/targeting of Cordia, and we have a screenshot of your OOC conduct about your feelings regarding the Dominian players. You may appeal this at any time, and if you disagree with this, you can make a staff complaint. 

[Spungus]

I don't see how you got metagrudging or targeting from that, but, if you insist. I opted to apologize multiple times and try to explain my side of things, as well as outlining the way I was going to remedy the problem, but, yes, I clearly hate this random internet person and I hate all Dominian players.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Spungus

[ReadThisNamePlz]

We'll be locking and archiving this now.