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Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo
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I may not know Kopecup from a bar of soap, but I’ve lurked long enough to see familiar names I trust saying “Yeah, this checks out in my own experience.” I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me that’s kinda all I need to know.
If someone says “I saw this bird at the lake and it walked and talked and looked like a duck. And I just wanted to make sure you all knew it was a duck”, and people I trust are saying “Yeah I’ve been to that lake, I know that bird you mean and it definitely seemed like a duck to me” then I’m going to happily assume it’s a duck.
And if by some unlikely twist of fate it turns out to be a pigeon and not a duck and aaaaall those people just happened to be making shit up for no good reason? Well, this isn’t a court of law and the pigeon isn’t going to end up in duck prison so I’d prefer to assume the far more likely scenario that the victims are in fact victims rather than create an environment where they are too scared to speak up because they feel like nobody’s going to believe them unless they publicize a bunch of embarrassing and uncomfortable receipts.
ETA: Missed the opportunity to try add a ‘fowl’ pun in there somewhere… :C
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@kopecup I use to play here and when that player did not get their way they would lose it! I have stories, but I belive this totally! I’m sorry to hear it happened to anyone!
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Based on how they also reacted towards ex-lovers in Arx, also not a surprise.
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@GF GF you are right I second the FUCK RECEIPTS! Victims should not have to be victimized more to defend how something made them feel! I get it, we want to see the best but at this point in this hobby, let’s be real it’s the same fucking monsters over and over again!
(edit to be more clear)
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@BloodAngel In the LARP community, we do something called “flagging” before a LARP in which we circulate the info about the players ahead of time and generally ask for people to weigh in with one of three flags:
Yellow Flag - I don’t believe this person is generally unsafe, but I don’t want to interact with this person (Staff can make sure that there are no ties between the two and do their best to avoid even secondary connections)
Orange Flag - I don’t believe this person is generally unsafe, but I will not play the game if that person is there. (In cases like this, as the players are pulled in to fill the slots from the applicant pool whichever gets in first gets in)
Red Flag - This person is unsafe to play with. (Investigation to determine whether the person should not be allowed to play.)
No receipts are ever asked for the first two, and no receipts are required for the last one, although a brief explanation helps so they can determine how to move forward. There are cases from time to time where someone will false red flag someone, but those are very few and far between and word of that gets around. If someone takes the step to Red Flag someone, they are usually on point and often for reasons they don’t want to relive.
The sorts of people who need to get Red Flagged are also generally the sort of people who are VERY good at manipulating, and so they will have counter receipts anyway and sometimes those are more damaging than the initial offense. So receipts are a very tricky subject.
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The sorts of people who need to get Red Flagged are also generally the sort of people who are VERY good at manipulating, and so they will have counter receipts anyway and sometimes those are more damaging than the initial offense. So receipts are a very tricky subject.
I never really considered this, or the harmful effects it would have on the person.
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Lurrr
Joined about 3 hours agoAnd how are you related to the situation?
Clearly you made the account to comment on this, and not to just muse on ways we (as a community) should handle things.Oh, I was shown this and sort of just stopped signing into AoA for a variety of reasons. Some was the weird sex-pest thing I was dealing with (it was a specific, snuffy type and just threw me off. Idk how they kept sniffing me out.) But I’ll put anyone on blast who deserves it. I just never really considered how shitty it is from the other side to bring up the screenshots/receipts/etc.
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@mangosplitz Totally. If you can get away with it, you have personality traits.
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@BloodAngel The problem is that some of the skills that make someone a good storyteller or role player (knowing how to evoke an emotional response in someone) are the same ones that can be used to manipulate someone OOCly as well.
So at least in the communities I run in, you can end up with a Magnificent Bastard who is adored by many because they are REALLY EFFING GOOD at what they do, and are also really good at hiding who they really are from the people they are not being kind to.
Which is in some respects what it sounds like here - someone good at running scenes is “popular”, which makes criticism of them harder or not as impactful.
It’s always intimidating to try to bring up an accusation against someone who is perceived to have a lot of friends. Especially if the victim is going to be expected to bring receipts and justifications, because you will often get a cascade of “Well he was always perfectly nice to me” to counter balance what the victim is going through. Just because someone is nice to you doesn’t mean they aren’t a rat bastard to someone else.
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@mangosplitz said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
@BloodAngel The problem is that some of the skills that make someone a good storyteller or role player (knowing how to evoke an emotional response in someone) are the same ones that can be used to manipulate someone OOCly as well.
Correlation does not equal causation; there are many invaluable skillsets, both related to MU* and otherwise, which could technically be used to manipulate others.
However there is a definite causation between players who leverage their useful attributes - and being willing to run PrPs is a fairly common one in this context - to influence staff and help mitigate risks related to harassing others.
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@mangosplitz said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
a Magnificent Bastard
As a person who loves this trope more than certain family members, I’d like to distance it from any kind of predation please thank you. >_>
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@mangosplitz said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
The sorts of people who need to get Red Flagged are also generally the sort of people who are VERY good at manipulating, and so they will have counter receipts anyway and sometimes those are more damaging than the initial offense. So receipts are a very tricky subject.
As Jethro Gibbs would say, “trust but verify”. It doesn’t have to be public to all, but if games don’t substantiate claims, it will allow accusations to be weaponized for any type of grievance. It only takes one false accusation to be acted on to break down the trust of an entire community in all directions and destroy the environment.
Trust but verify.
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@Warma-Sheen said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
It only takes one false accusation to be acted on to break down the trust of an entire community in all directions and destroy the environment
So how many instances would you say it takes to ruin community trust when the event is someone being harassed and made to feel unsafe and unwelcome?
Being banned from a game is not being sent to jail.
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“It’s more important to protect an abuser’s reputation than it is to protect a victim from abuse. She must PROVE she is a victim beyond reasonable doubt to ensure we don’t hurt his feelings by excluding him.”
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The thread here did make it to AOA of course.
(:Public:) Hadrix Kora (Had) sayz, “I apparently roll around, hasslin’ ladies sexually and Cujo lets me get away with it.”
Yes, that is exactly what a large number of people in the community are saying.
(:Public:) Hadrix Kora (Had) says, “I do know on a couple of occasions, when I worded something wrongly and was told I was toeing a line I made sure to apologize, explain it wasn’t the intention and actively took steps to correct for future interactions. Because if I ever go over the line I’d prefer to be told I did, so I can examine what I did, correct it and try to make amends.”
First: Why are you toeing a line about sexual content to begin with? That is already wrong.
Second: I ran that statement by Player 1 in the original post. She said:
It’s an absolute and blatant lie, and he’s trying to play this fucking victim card.
NEVER did he apologize to me. In fact, he told me to ‘lighten up’ at one point.
And I -did- directly tell him he crossed a fucking line.
More than once -before- I started reporting him.The general mood on AOA about this is that we (me, forum commenters, harassment reporters) are all lying. Everyone associated to Hadrix is on narcissist prayer mode:
That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault.
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.I guess it’s hard to believe it can happen, if it didn’t happen to you.
This post here will be my last because I think the two points I wanted to make are clear now:
- There is a problem on this game around sex pressure and bullying
- Staff and bad actors are unwilling or unable to make meaningful change to address it. They’ve seen the first post and response, and they are not making any changes.
I would like to thank the Brand Mu Day community for overwhelmingly being supportive and believing victims without making them rehash their unpleasant experiences.
For Hadrix and Cujo, since I know you guys are reading this now, I’ll say it again: Do better. You are in positions of accountability. Do fucking better.
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How many occasions do you have to be told you are toeing a line, is my question?
People really be like-- ‘no it’s fine to do this multiple times because i apologized to that person and just tried again differently’ as their defense and it blows my mind.
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“I don’t want to cross the line, I just want to get as close as I can get away with, as often as possible.”
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Generally, for me, the corroboration I need on these kinds of things is how people react when it comes out in the open.
If you get a lot of unrelated people not under the power of the accused saying, “That doesn’t match my experience at all with this person, and I just don’t see it,” then I’m skeptical.
If, on the other hand, a lot of unrelated people not under the power of the accused come out and say, “Oh thank god, someone finally said something. This is absolutely what I’ve seen/experienced,” then I’ve rarely ever seen that be wrong.
Abusers rarely target just one person, and over years, they build up quite a trail of destruction. You don’t really need receipts; generally you just need people to feel comfortable saying, “Me too.”
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@kopecup said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:
(:Public:) Hadrix Kora (Had) says, “I do know on a couple of occasions, when I worded something wrongly and was told I was toeing a line
It’s really not hard to avoid that line.
You’re choosing to toe it.
Clarity: replying to this person on the game and not actually at @kopecup who brought us this news
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@tsar I can’t be the only one who read that line and had flashbacks to Bill Cosby talking about how he likes to play in the gray area between permission and rejection.
