Character Complaint - Aleena Sovair

[maxspells]

BYOND Key: maxspells
Game ID: N/A
Player Byond Key/Character name: Aleena Sovair
Staff involved: N/A

Reason for complaint: I play a psychiatrist character and have been involved with a lot of uncomfortable RP with the person who plays Aleena going on for about two weeks. After talking to another psychiatrist player OOC, I realized this issue was going on with other psyche players as well, and wasn't just me. Aleena Sovair is often played in a very forward flirtatious way towards essentially any female character they interact with. This has gone so far as 'french kissing' another player without any lead up or consent. In addition to this, they have been using emotional manipulation tactics to force my character and others into interacting with them through methods like guilt tripping, blaming, playing the victim or threatening to 'leave the Horizon', and overall just being an exhaustive and selfish person to roleplay with. At one point I have had to have an IC conversation with them about consent and boundaries over kissing people without consent (something I am very uncomfortable doing), which were quickly disregarded as they continued to roleplay touching other players hair, looking at or touching their hands, and other uncomfortable and unwanted flirting nobody asked for. This will usually make people uncomfortable, and usually everyone just kind of pretends it didn't happen. This will usually just upset Aleena more and bring them right back into the psyche office. It is very common for them to immediately PDA my character on mine or their arrival, or approach and pull myself or other psychiatrist characters immediately into a session for an entire shift to talk about how lonely they are and how they feel unwanted and how they don't understand why people don't like them, or why their IC relationships don't work out. This on it's own would be fine if it was to push forward an IC arc or move roleplay forward, but it happens nearly every shift with little to no improvement or RP coming from it, and has been happening for at least two weeks despite I and at least two other psyches that I know of giving them advice and help on multiple occasions(such as not touching other characters, not flirting with other characters, focusing on socializing and just making regular non romantic friends etc). I can't help but feel like this is not IC and that I and other psyche players are being constantly used as an outlet for their OOC frustrations for when their uncomfortable advances are undoubtedly rebuffed, when RP scenarios with their IC 'friends' don't go the way they want, or for other OOC issues behind the scenes with the person playing the character.

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? (Yes or no, then an explanation for why not, if applicable.)
I did not, I am still fairly new to the server and am unsure if any rules were technically broken. I tried as best as I could to handle this IC, but hit my last straw the last two shifts and decided to leave the round and reach out to some other players involved to vent, which they told me they felt the same way and suggested I should take this to the moderation team.
Approximate Date/Time: Has been ongoing for about two weeks, likely longer with other psyches before me. Most recent would be the round approximately 5pm EST on 3/30/2024

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hi, I am going to be the handling admin. I will be handling it with @Noble Row and @Owen.

@maxspells do you have any round IDs for this?

@Solono we need your response to this, please. 
 

[Solono]

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I play a psychiatrist character and have been involved with a lot of uncomfortable RP with the person who plays Aleena going on for about two weeks. After talking to another psychiatrist player OOC, I realized this issue was going on with other psyche players as well, and wasn't just me. Aleena Sovair is often played in a very forward flirtatious way towards essentially any female character they interact with.

Aleena can be very flirtatious, but she far from does it with every female character. I've toned it down a lot and actually have avoided a situation recently where flirting would have been appropriate by the other party. I knew I was playing close to edge at times and have dialed it back.

 

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This has gone so far as 'french kissing' another player without any lead up or consent.

 This never happened and if you have proof of it, I'd love to see it.

 

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In addition to this, they have been using emotional manipulation tactics to force my character and others into interacting with them through methods like guilt tripping, blaming, playing the victim or threatening to 'leave the Horizon', and overall just being an exhaustive and selfish person to roleplay with.

I would like examples of these complaints so I know how to improve playing her. As for leaving the Horizon, that always comes with the caveat that she can't due to IC reasons.

 

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 At one point I have had to have an IC conversation with them about consent and boundaries over kissing people without consent (something I am very uncomfortable doing), which were quickly disregarded as they continued to roleplay touching other players hair, looking at or touching their hands,

Aleena hasn't kissed anyone at all since that, only touched hair in hugs that were consented to and I know what you're talking about with looking at the hands, she was remembering something, nothing more and she hasn't touched anyone's hands without consent since this happened.

 

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 It is very common for them to immediately PDA my character on mine or their arrival, or approach and pull myself or other psychiatrist characters immediately into a session for an entire shift to talk about how lonely they are and how they feel unwanted and how they don't understand why people don't like them, or why their IC relationships don't work out.

 This is because Aleena is very damaged from a near-relationship and a real relationship gone bad, her self-confidence and self-esteem is shot among other other things. By the time you made this complaint, she was actually improving.

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This on it's own would be fine if it was to push forward an IC arc or move roleplay forward, but it happens nearly every shift with little to no improvement or RP coming from it, and has been happening for at least two weeks despite I and at least two other psyches that I know of giving them advice and help on multiple occasions(such as not touching other characters, not flirting with other characters, focusing on socializing and just making regular non romantic friends etc).

Aleena is focusing on socializing and has made at least one friend since the socialization session. She doesn't touch people without asking anymore, the flirting has gone down a lot, and she is working on getting friends.

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 I can't help but feel like this is not IC and that I and other psyche players are being constantly used as an outlet for their OOC frustrations for when their uncomfortable advances are undoubtedly rebuffed, when RP scenarios with their IC 'friends' don't go the way they want, or for other OOC issues behind the scenes with the person playing the character.

I'm kind of taken aback you think this is an OOC issue, if I was as miserable as you are alluding to here, I wouldn't even play the game.

Aleena has an arc in this and its already begun to turn a corner. If I am still doing something wrong, then I can gladly change how she is played.

 

 

[maxspells]

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do you have any round IDs for this?

I don't, I'm sorry. As I said it was something I was slowly getting stressed OOC about and trying to handle IC until it got to the point where it felt like I should bring it up and be like "Hey this is happening"
 

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I would like examples of these complaints so I know how to improve playing her. As for leaving the Horizon, that always comes with the caveat that she can't due to IC reasons.

Would mainly be the PDA messages my character gets while interacting with others. Things like "I'll never be able to forgive you". Which was sent after I had a brief conversation with another character while Aleena was there, after my character had spent the shift speaking to Aleena and also taking her to talk to others to learn how to socialize. "I can't believe you and ____ would go out of your way to hurt me like that" Which was also the same time and situation; Aleena being upset that my character was socializing with another while I was helping Aleena socialize. I believe those PDA messages are more or less verbatum what was sent on PDA logs the following round after the one I alluded to above. I had had concerns that this might be a little OOC before this, so when I started getting these manipulative messages it was very uncomfortable for me to continue the roleplay and was why I decided to bring all this up.
 

7 hours ago, Solono said:

This never happened and if you have proof of it, I'd love to see it.

This is just what I heard from people involved, they made it clear to me in character and out of game that that was what happened so I think it's up to them if they want to come forward or not. It might just be an overexaggeration, I don't know.

 

7 hours ago, Solono said:

I'm kind of taken aback you think this is an OOC issue, if I was as miserable as you are alluding to here, I wouldn't even play the game.

Aleena has an arc in this and its already begun to turn a corner. If I am still doing something wrong, then I can gladly change how she is played.

I don't know what the issue is, but it did very much come off this way and has been stressful, and I wasn't sure the right way to bring it up . For example the "I think I'm going to leave the horizon" messages really come off as you OOC saying "I'm upset in real life and I'm going to leave the game if you don't talk to me." If it is all just RP then I'd be a lot less uncomfortable knowing I can handle things a bit more sternly IC without the fear of making anyone upset, if that makes sense.

Edited March 31 by maxspells

[Floggy]

I am posting here because I am involved in this. I am playing one of Aleena Sovair's friends. 

I don't want to antagonize any player or character, but lately, the problem has become difficult to ignore. I don't think any rules were broken, and I did not look for round IDs in which the above problems occurred.

My character was previously kissed on the lips by Aleena without consent, after which the character, most likely mistakenly, remembered it as a French Kiss when talking to other people. I understand that this is part of the character, and I have not had any problems with such IC roleplaying before. I can't say I'm one hundred percent okay with it, but I can confirm that when Sovair was asked not to do that anymore, she stopped kissing people that way.

I'm posting here because I couldn't find Aleena's player on Discord. Aleena has a character arc, she's traumatized by her past experiences, but her behavior has crossed the boundaries of my emotional state lately. Again, I want to repeat that I think that no rules were broken and I do not want anyone to be punished as a result of my complaints. But I would like to point out some things that I would ask you to tone down.

• Please give others time to play.
Aleena often tries to get attention when she feels ignored. Unfortunately, I write and read slower than other players, and can’t always react to everything. Aleena often withdraws from a public conversation, followed by a private message urging her to spend time alone with her. There's nothing wrong with it if it happens occasionally, but lately, it's exhausted me.
 
• Lower the emotional stakes.
Aleena texts my character at random times, even when my character is busy with round activities such as antagonists, or roleplaying with other characters. Her messages have become very emotional and fatalistic lately. When such messages are used infrequently, this can be a good roleplaying tool, but I find it wearing me out as a player when Aleena does this with such frequency.

Perhaps your character's roleplaying was so convincing that I thought it was an OOC problem. If this is not the case, I apologize, because I also find myself thinking that I don't know at what level the emotional manipulation occurs. I would love you to speed up her arc - it takes too long and makes people feel stressed. The feeling of stress is okay in an HRP environment, but making people play with a character with borderline NPD tendencies can be too much. 

Edited March 31 by Floggy

[Solono]

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Would mainly be the PDA messages my character gets while interacting with others. Things like "I'll never be able to forgive you". Which was sent after I had a brief conversation with another character while Aleena was there, after my character had spent the shift speaking to Aleena and also taking her to talk to others to learn how to socialize. "I can't believe you and ____ would go out of your way to hurt me like that" Which was also the same time and situation; Aleena being upset that my character was socializing with another while I was helping Aleena socialize. I believe those PDA messages are more or less verbatum what was sent on PDA logs the following round after the one I alluded to above. I had had concerns that this might be a little OOC before this, so when I started getting these manipulative messages it was very uncomfortable for me to continue the roleplay and was why I decided to bring all this up.

I remember those messages and apologize for it being over the top in that regard. It shouldn't have gone that far. That was my fault, it won't happen again.

 

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I don't know what the issue is, but it did very much come off this way and has been stressful, and I wasn't sure the right way to bring it up . For example the "I think I'm going to leave the horizon" messages really come off as you OOC saying "I'm upset in real life and I'm going to leave the game if you don't talk to me." If it is all just RP then I'd be a lot less uncomfortable knowing I can handle things a bit more sternly IC without the fear of making anyone upset, if that makes sense.

Please be more stern with Aleena if it's appropriate, I OOCly do not want to leave the game at all.

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Aleena often tries to get attention when she feels ignored. Unfortunately, I write and read slower than other players, and can’t always react to everything. Aleena often withdraws from a public conversation, followed by a private message urging her to spend time alone with her. There's nothing wrong with it if it happens occasionally, but lately, it's exhausted me.

I can tone that down, I apologize for exhausting you, as it isn't my intent.

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 I would love you to speed up her arc - it takes too long and makes people feel stressed. Again, feeling stressed is okay in an HRP environment, but making people play with a character with borderline NPD tendencies can be too much. 

I'll speed up her arc ASAP.

[Floggy]

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I can tone that down, I apologize for exhausting you, as it isn't my intent.

Thank you. You don't have to apologize since you weren't informed. You don't have to shut anything down completely for me, and to be honest, I should deal with it IC, but this was a conflict I wasn't sure I could psychologically bear to escalate. 

That's all from me. The main problem of this post was touching, and you can return to discussing that. And while I was writing my previous post I completely forgot about the death of the author principle, since I wrongly speculated that OOC had bled into IC because of some messages. This was a mistake.

 

[maxspells]

7 hours ago, Solono said:

I remember those messages and apologize for it being over the top in that regard. It shouldn't have gone that far. That was my fault, it won't happen again.

 

7 hours ago, Solono said:

Please be more stern with Aleena if it's appropriate, I OOCly do not want to leave the game at all.

It is a big relief to hear this is all roleplay, and that there is an arc planned for all of this. I'm sorry for making that assumption, it has been very stressful to interact with a character so demanding of my character's time and attention, while worrying that it wasn't going to be changing any time soon, or moving forward in a meaningful way. Knowing that it is all just roleplay makes me significantly less uncomfortable with all of the interactions. I think Floglor said it better than I could have, Aleena is played in a very convincing manner, and with Aurora being a non-whitelisted server and the game attracting a very diverse community, it can be hard to tell whether the emotional manipulation is roleplay or not.

I really agree with Floglor's take. I am fine with emotional and fatalistic neediness, but when it happens as frequently as it has been, it has been exhausting and tiring to deal with. My character has arcs and things to deal with too, and I will say that I've had to turn down seeing other patients because I was tied up in a session with Aleena on multiple occasions. With seeing little growth from Aleena from my point of view, you can see how this might have been frustrating for me. Knowing that this is all roleplay means I am a lot more comfortable putting timeframes up for followup sessions, and saying no to Aleena's attention seeking behaviors without feeling like I am going to make things worse for someone who might be struggling OOC.

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hi, so. We are glad to see that the players involved are feeling some relief. 

However, we will be applying a community ban against @Solono for all of these actions. No roleplay should ever involve sexual assault (non-consensual kissing), it should never be borderline harassment, your arcs should not, ever, be so emotionally fatalistic that it gets to the point that is has come to now. Aleena is a character, we have had several others come to us about this sort of thing involving your character, to the point that it has raised several alarms and flags for myself and the two moderators arbitrating this complaint.