Why is Pack closing?
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There seems to me to be a concrete difference between:
“This theme attracts predators who use it to mask their behavior, let’s be aware of this; how can we alleviate that”
and
“This theme attracts predators so if you get predated while playing this theme it’s the theme’s fault”.
One is an OK thing to say, even constructive! The other isn’t. Conflating one for the other is tiresome, though.
Blaming the theme is pointless and reductive but it also wasn’t what Cobalt (or the people on this thread who agreed with her about it) was doing.
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@Adora None of this is victim blaming and absolutely no one has been anything but supportive of Cobalt. Who is this even in defense of, at this point? The theme itself?
Discussing the theme doesn’t mean it was Cobalt’s fault. It doesn’t mean Character X was at fault. It doesn’t mean creepers aren’t anywhere else. But pretending that there isn’t a problem in a specific place does mean that the problem isn’t going to get addressed.
Saying that there seems to be a lot of car crashes at a specific intersection doesn’t imply that everyone who has been in an accident there before was asking for one by driving there - and no one would suggest it does. It does mean that maybe we should look at why it’s happening so we can fix it and stop more people being harmed.
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This is an area where many of us are likely to have some strong reactions. And while I didn’t personally interpret what was said as victim blaming (at least, as intended), we can leave room for those who did. An apology was issued.
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@Cobalt
Whatever worked or didn’t work about The Pack, I really hope the experience wasn’t too discouraging for you. Like I said lots of posts back, it DID seem like a game a lot of players responded to in positive ways, and I am really impressed with how you responded to an atmosphere that you didn’t feel good about being the gamerunner of anymore, because that was obviously really hard and Unfun to deal with this directly. I think it’s always constructive to reflect on why something didn’t work, or didn’t work for you personally, or get across what you wanted to get across, but I hope that doesn’t mean it was as wholly negative experience because you are a gamerunner lots of people like and respect and it’d be awesome to see another project from you in the MUSH space when you were excited to do it. -
@KarmaBum I appreciate that it’s not what you meant, but I need to expand on this just a little.
The logic in your reply about IHOP seems to be directly saying Cobalt is at fault because just like IHOP exists to serve food to hungry people, the Pack exists to serve up other players to creeps, which is clearly not the case.
I believe when you say that was not your intent, and I appreciate the apology, but at this point in time we all need to be doing better with the language and analogies we choose, especially when the largest, longest running threads on this forum are about online habitual sexual predators and the people that enable them.
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@Adora Will you please stop? Targeting one person over semantics is not doing you any favors. You’ve made your point several times now. In the words of yourself: Do better.
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“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant”
“I know but let me explain why that’s what you meant anyway–”This is not productive discourse. The horse is dead. Leave it alone.
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@Pax So everyone else gets to chime in and tell me how wrong I am for interpreting it in a certain manner, and defend their friend in a loud chorus, but I’m expected to fall silent when exploring the subtext of the initial comment and explaining why I found it offensive and triggering as a rape and domestic abuse survivor.
Gotcha. Consider it dropped.
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@Adora can I just ask how your comment here…
@Adora said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:I’m not trying to be a downer but these guys aren’t the ones who introduced sex crimes to Star Wars.
You know how in the third movie there was a Twi’lek girl dancing and when she tried not to get manhandled by Jabba, he murdered her? And how Leia was in a metal bikini and strangled Jabba with his own chain?
Sex crimes have always been an unfortunate part of Star Wars, and especially in the expanded universe. Twi’lek society is literally based around slavery, especially selling Twi’lek girls to men, because human men find them exotic.
So absolutely blame these jackasses for glorifying it, but George Lucas introduced sex crimes to Star Wars a loooong time ago… which is why it attracts so many creepers.Is any different from what we are explaining above? Emphasis mine. This theme attracts creepers, there are creepers in this neighborhood, it’s all the same thing.
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@Pax said in Why is Pack closing?:
“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant”
“I know but let me explain why that’s what you meant anyway–”I think this is an unfair characterization. Adora explicitly said in the post you’re replying to that she believes KarmaBum didn’t mean that analogy to be rape apologia. It’s the third sentence in.
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@bear_necessities You and others literally just demanded that I cease.
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@helvetica i have peach crown royal and it tastes like bacchus’ velvety earlobe if you want some
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lmao nevermind stay mad
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@hellfrog said in Why is Pack closing?:
@helvetica i have peach crown royal and it tastes like bacchus’ velvety earlobe if you want some
Do you have anything for teetotalers?
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@Pax
@Adora said in Why is Pack closing?:@bear_necessities You and others literally just demanded that I cease.
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I want to say first how encouraging it is to see everyone come together and collectively speak out against such disgusting behavior, show support for the person faced with the final staff decision and all around prove the mush community is filled with more good than bad.
Second, I hope you’re all able to self care, hydrate and step back from the keyboard as needed to focus on your own emotional well being.This topic is one that affects most, let’s be honest likely all, of us to some capacity. Whether experiencing it directly or knowing someone who has experienced it. Sexual harassment/assault is a terrifying experience whether on a game or in person and understandably has various lasting effects.
I’m sorry first of all to @Cobalt that you had to not only face the experience of addressing this situation but how it affected you directly. You handled everything more tactfully, professionally and swiftly than I’d have been able to. To all others on this board who are obviously invested in this topic and conversation, you have my support and my inbox if you need.
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@dvoraen
perish -
I’ve come across Macha in the wild previously a couple times, though at the time didn’t know much of the history.
I can say the behavior isn’t limited to a scene. Gaslighting, crap-talking, and trying to manipulate opinions is something I’d experienced from her just being on the fringe from her.
For as bad as things were that Cobalt experienced, I have to wonder what’s out there that hasn’t been reported.
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@Cobalt Also I have to add to the pile of thank you’s for sharing a difficult post. While I believe that we can all mature, get better, and there are those that learn from mistakes. Take things to heart. And we learn from making bad decisions. People have to want to change. In life I’ve learned that some can, but some just don’t have that ability.
Looking at people’s behaviors when it’s this glaring, and seeing it’s a pattern. Talking about things openly like this is the only way that anything is going to be done. It’s not often you find something that is so obvious and glaring in a log.
