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Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo
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@eddie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
But on the other side of the coin, it’s not the game that’s the problem.
It is the head of the game that fosters the environment creating the issue being addressed in this thread. If the leader of that game would actually take steps to protect players this wouldn’t be an issue. This is an issue because instead of addressing the problem, Cujo has promoted Hadrix to staff and empowered that abuse. That is a game problem.
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@Meg That’s totally fair. I acknowledge people are incorporating their own experiences in this. My experience just differs, and I appreciate that there might be a side of it I haven’t witnessed. My own testimony is that it’s not something I’ve seen in the game regarding those named.
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@GoodInnit Thank you for this comment.
My question is this. Was it really a promotion? People who serve on staff are subjected to a lot of abuse by players who don’t get their way. Passive aggressiveness, hatefulness, bitterness, etc. I’m not shielding the action of those named, but my perspective of staff being a promotion is slightly different. I think there’s more liberty in being able to just show up, rp, and have a good time.
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If you are being genuine, I encourage you heavily to go read about flying monkeys from a psychological standpoint; how they are groomed by abusers, and how they are used. It will prove really enlightening.
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@eddie And you’re welcome to give it!
I do have a suggestion, if you want to have an impact on the ‘Court’ of Public Opinion on BMD, that you might actually have more of an impact if you name who you play and how close you are or aren’t to Hadrix.
You don’t have to. I have a feeling you won’t. But most people reading this are going to assume that you are benefiting from association in some way with Hadrix, fyi, when you say it’s not your experience with him. That is what I am assuming, tbh, but I am willing to be proven wrong.
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@IoleRae Is that a book or an article? I’d love to read it, regardless.
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@eddie, you have provided enough specific information about specific experiences that at this point people who know you, know who you are. I’m not going to name you because you’re exhausting to argue with, your points never make any sense, and perhaps on some level, as a kindness to you.
If nothing else, the way you came in here swinging like a condescending lunatic and backed it off to “I’m an innocent bystander, I’m also a victim, don’t blame the game, I just haven’t seen the behavior that’s all <3” when the community wasn’t having it… identifies you as you.
I considered naming you in the original whistle-blow because you have bullied people and there have been complaints about you, because you exploit Cujo’s desire to avoid conflict to get away with that bullying, and because you are inextricably linked to Hadrix. He would never call out your misdeeds nor you his.
I didn’t name you because you’re a jerk player, and the scope of the post was limited to jerk admin.
Since you’re here, though: Do better.
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It’s a term, with many many articles published that talk about it. Here’s one:
In a nutshell, abusers cultivate hyper-positive relationships with individuals; they are very kind, behave gracefully, and are generally quite careful how they behave in the presence of them. They do this specifically so that when talk of their abuse comes out, they have ready-made defenders who will take it upon themselves to argue on their behalf that they have never seen this, it’s not true, etc. It’s just another way to discredit their victims.
When the monkey in question benefits directly from the behavior of the abuser, they are particularly vehement in their “I have never seen it!” defense. It’s studied enough and blatant enough that it’s…really, really obvious once you realize what’s going on.
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@eddie Did you notice the title?
It’s about the two people mentioned and identifying the game they’re on.
Why would you expect the person to also name all the fun times they’ve had that don’t involve them? It sounds like there haven’t been any with those two.
Again, you’re falling into the trap of “well if I didn’t experience it personally than it didn’t happen.” No one says for you to not still happily spend time with people who you like and who treat you well, but you’re a fool if you think that abusive or predatory people aren’t perfectly capable of separating and directing different behaviors towards different people. Some cannot, and those are the easy ones.
But honestly, when the Headwiz makes a decision to enable/leave in place someone, that is a game problem. It may not be enough of a problem for YOU or any given person (I’ve stayed on games where the headwiz was intensely disliked or problematic, and just tried to not really have a lot of expectations and just do my thing. Sometimes it was fine, sometimes i decided it wasn’t worth it, sometimes it was fine until it wasn’t. So knowing that a headwiz doesn’t seem to be responsive to complaints is still…part of the game (and important to many).
I had typed up a vent about how I’m tired of this stuff and every time i find it hard to react because of my experiences RL and a significant one on a mush message board, but you know, the people here don’t need to hear that shit again and I don’t know how to use the spoiler tag, and it’s not going to change anything so just going to let that go.
I will say though, please reconsider EVER asking someone who is relaying an experience of unwanted and boundary crossing behavior by a person to name all the nice things about them or the authority figure who dismissed them. Maybe you don’t know, but that’s a tactic to discourage “ruining the reputation of a probably nice guy/gal” and to get rid of the sensation of discomfort by silencing the person who was the target either wittingly or unwittingly that was commonly used even by law enforcement people on domestic violence or stalking cases even 20 years ago or so and is still in common use in many communities. Including, unfortunately, some microcommunities. It’s unnecessary.
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@Meg I appreciate you including me in this discussion and probing me for meaningful response.
I’m not willing to provide who I am on the game as it stands to reason I will gain no benefit from my comments. I’m not vigorously defending the alleged actions of those mentioned, only saying that I have not seen it from my perspective, which is strongly opposed here, but heard at least, and I appreciate the opportunity to say so.
I will comment that I interact often with those accused, but only in that they provide content or direction of many of stories players can participate in. My own personal situation has left me incapable of participating lately, though. I recently experienced the loss of someone very dear to me, and grief has certainly weighed upon my conscience as of late.
I suppose my own motivation in posting here, after I saw it, was to convey that the story/game is not bad. I can count many wonderful experiences I’ve had there, and genuine good people I’ve met. I just want more positivity in the world, and in place of lamenting a problem, finding more meaningful solutions. I saw where people were saying that they were going to leave, and I just felt responsible for the game because I play there, and in essence, it’s a reflection of me as a person, too. Or so it may be perceived. My nature is to be a fixer, but in this particular scenario, I have no power to fix things and make it function better.
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@eddie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
My question is this. Was it really a promotion? People who serve on staff are subjected to a lot of abuse by players who don’t get their way. Passive aggressiveness, hatefulness, bitterness, etc. I’m not shielding the action of those named, but my perspective of staff being a promotion is slightly different. I think there’s more liberty in being able to just show up, rp, and have a good time.
Yes.
Staff has a position of power over the average player, and promoting someone with numerous complaints of harassment against them makes it that much harder for victims to do anything. The person that judges the abuse should never be the abuser, and now he is. The next victim is even less likely to come forward because what good will come of it?
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@IoleRae Thank you for providing this. I’ll give it a read, and I appreciate the summary you provided as well.
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@eddie you don’t encourage “more positivity” by doing what you did on your entrance.
It’s okay to admit you were upset and lashed out accordingly and defensively. Lots of people do.
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@eddie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
My own personal situation has left me incapable of participating lately, though. I recently experienced the loss of someone very dear to me, and grief has certainly weighed upon my conscience as of late.
I am sorry. I stopped RPing after a period where I suffered loss after loss IRL myself, so I understand. Suffering from loss can hurt our creativity pretty intently.
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@eddie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
@Meg Why would I out myself to a group of people who would like to target and victimize me?
Nobody is asking for your birth certificate, SSN, or even personal e-mail. Just ‘you are defending the situation, what is your relationship to the accused’… to get back to that court example you brought up, you are in a position to be a character witness!
Truth of the matter is I am the victim of a number of different instances of manipulation and sexual misconduct. Not just on that game, but a number of other venues. Was it by the alleged you named? No. There are other players though who do.
Sure would be easy to name those other characters. Not that you have to. But this goes to show that an environment of sex pest-ery is present. And, if you had reported them and Cujo did nothing about it… this is evidence that would further support the claim that Cujo stands by and does nothing about this sort of thing. (Lack of reporting is addressed later)
I was mislead into believing that my rp would equate to something of a strong story between one character and my own, for instance, and devoted a lot of time and effort into the development of that narrative. That included in-game currency, assets you have to travel around, find and buy, and modifications to make those assets function more efficiently when they are used.
I invested those things into the person I was playing opposite of only to have them pit me against another player to compete for their attention. Not just the intimate rp, but story we had spent hours developing and writing out. It all got thrown away in an instant, and the assets I invested with walked away with no ROI because I refused to compete, on an OOC level, with another player for something I felt I had earned and put the time into to warrant.
I was manipulated and used, then thrown away like trash from an OOC perspective.
I had another instance where I played with another player that I made clear I do not impart aspects about myself into the intimate rp that they engage in. It is a matter of comfort for me to not allow predators to cling to things like that. Despite my best attempts at keeping this separate, this married man continued to tell me things in OOC about how these scenes and actions were intended for me OOC, and how he hoped I ‘got something from it.’
Unwanted, and unwarranted, and I felt targeted as a victim. I assume in those regards, how would I feel comfortable levying complaints to staff that I had been duped, and manipulated?
Regarding AoA, I think there’s a nuanced community within the community itself that are not all that bad. That’s not dismissing the issues that came up in this topic, but it’s more to the fact that everywhere has issues. Concerning those alleged in this topic, they were not contributors to my own experience. I certainly think there could be a quicker process to out predators much like I experienced, but the question comes in how to negotiate that, or present in a manner much like those presented in this topic. ‘Things can be doctored’, ‘images can be altered’.
So I never outed them because there was no sure way to say, this happened to me. My own experiences aren’t just based out of the aforementioned venue though, I could certainly share more. I think open commentary like this does help in a therapeutic way, airing and such.
These things do, in fact, suck. I’m sorry you had to go through with them, anywhere. WEIRD that you open with the ECHO CHAMBER comment when your own testimony acknowledges this sort of thing does happen on places. But weird things happen. I said before, staff on all games have a responsibility to investigate these things, in part because of the various game +policies in place (we’ll come back to that in a minute). But each of these can be addressed on their own in a different thread, if the players and/or these games are still active and a potential threat.
Also mentioned earlier - Penn provides simple tools to investigate with. And in fact, AoA’s policies agree with me! See, I told you we’d come back to +policies in a minute.
(Typos in the policy are from me copy/pasting from the game, blame them, not me!)
ADMIN RIGHTS AND RULES Rule #2: The administration will make all attempts to listen to and act upon the suggestions of the playerbase, especially where grievances are concerned. Rule #3: The administration must investigate all matters of impropriety, and this may demand DARK observation of players in private areas. Staff members will sparingly employ such observation when needed.And
GENERAL PLAYER/ADMIN RIGHTS AND RULES RUle #1: All players and administrators of this mush have the right to safety from harrassment. Harrassment of any nature is strictly prohibited on SW:AoA, and is grounds for disciplinary action. Should your comments draw a request to cease and decist from any member of this game, that is your one warning. Please comply. .... Rule #4: Players have the right to privacy while they are in NON-PUBLIC (player owned, in fact or name) areas. This means a staff member must announce his presence if he intends to observe RP while DARK, and must reasonably consider requests for further privacy. PLAYERS UNDER SUSPICION OF HAVING VIOLATED THE CODE OF CONDUCT DO NOT SHARE THIS RIGHT TO PRIVACY.So.
Staff agrees that players have the right to be safe from harrassment (sp), and that they MUST investigate any accusation of impropriety, and take action against any who violate policy. If staff does not, they are violating their own rules, which… what trust is left at that point?
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@eddie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
I came into the conversation here because no one spoke about what was good about AoA, as it all seemed oriented toward the bad.
I just wanted to go back to this because…lol what.
Why would people suffering from harassment from a very prominent player and feeling like reporting to the person who runs the game was accomplishing nothing take the time to…what, “balance out” their views by saying something nice about an environment that had been incredibly toxic to them?
And several people showing up to report that they had personally had similar experiences made this “an echo chamber?” Lol, is that how you would view multiple SA survivors coming together in an actual RL trial too? An echo chamber?
Can you not understand how greasy any of that makes you sound?
I appreciate the effort some of us are making to reason with you and it does at least appear like you are taking it in, so I don’t feel an enormous desire to try and participate further but like…that was seriously gross. Just saying.
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@eddie said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
Regarding the two named in this discussion however, from my own experience, I’ve not seen this behavior. I think admin have a tendency to come across aloof sometimes, but I also don’t know what bigger picture they’re seeing, either. Or agenda, etc.
I always find this an odd argument. It can’t be true not because you’ve seen the opposite behaviour, or because it seems an anathema to their being, but because you haven’t seen it personally. Logs are as easy to fake as testimony. So ultimately there is just trust. And yeah, where peoples reports don’t mesh with peoples experiences of someone, they should speak out. They should say how it doesn’t mesh with how that person acts. But just because someone hasn’t done something to you doesn’t mean they can’t - there needs to be something more, some positive reason in their character or being that says /why/ the report can’t be true, or why would I weight that?
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@Narson said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
I always find this an odd argument. It can’t be true not because you’ve seen the opposite behaviour, or because it seems an anathema to their being, but because you haven’t seen it personally.
Nothing exists that I have not seen, for I am omniscient.
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@Wizz said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
Can you not understand how greasy any of that makes you sound?
I appreciate the effort some of us are making to reason with you and it does at least appear like you are taking it in, so I don’t feel an enormous desire to try and participate further but like…that was seriously gross. Just saying.Those from Age of Alliances have probably figured out who this player is. The response is entirely expected from her. She has a vested interest in protecting Hadrix’s image due to how close they are, the groups they share in common, and the fact that if he falls it may shine a light on her own transgressions.
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@GoodInnit also dime a dozen behavior. Lots of people do lash out/do everything they can to purposefully ignore bad behavior (including taking part in it when directed) when it comes to manipulative people or people who have the goods (storytelling, standing, activity, influence, ect) until the behavior is directed towards them. Sometimes people really do learn from it when it happens. Sometimes they don’t. I know there are many community members who have regretted things they said/did on game or on discussion boards in defense of their “friends” once they were the recipients of that behavior and couldn’t not see it any longer.
