A bit of trouble on Firefly

bear_necessities · Feb 28, 2020, 8:08 PM

Here is the record of my chat convo with him. When he messaged me, I was already aware who he was.

Z ZombieKerouac
Hello Bear.

B bear_necessities
Oh hey! I was hoping you'd reach out. When are you going to post about us on MSB? I have been waiting

Z ZombieKerouac
Oh I will be, After I have my fun and see about some old friends starting their own. All I wanted to do was talk Bear.

B bear_necessities
cool good luck! can't wait to read

Z ZombieKerouac
If you two had bothered actually having a dialogue last night before the bullshit ban. None of this would be happening.

So, Do you want to talk or do we keep up this little game?

B bear_necessities
you are very sinister, is scary i can't talk to you, you're too terrifying. pls post to msb, would be much better.

Z ZombieKerouac
Because while Faraday may be good, She is no Ashen.

I am not sinister or scary. If you bothered to be an adult and discuss things you might actually realize that. And if you think I am bad? You really may want to give up on game administration since there are far worse people out there. Who do things for fun rather than as reactionary amusement.

B bear_necessities
OK well I can't wait for your MSB post so get right on that please.

Z ZombieKerouac
You built a game that is intentionally exclusive and puts people into two separate cliques as soon as they hit the game. Townie vs Outsider which in and of itself is prone to cause problems in the long term

You can't seem to discuss things and have an open dialogue with your players which will also only cause issues in the long term.

Hiding behind bans and your co-staffer when you can't get those big girl panties on all the way and be an adult.

I actually had someone ask me when you denied my app the second time given the flimsy excuse for it being rejected if I somehow managed to piss one of you off.

And honestly with you all banning me for nothing last night? It does seem that way. And your general disregard for actually discussing issues.

The question is: Are you and Karma actually adult enough to discuss shit rather than hide behind bans and one another.

Z ZombieKerouac
And look I claimed all your rosters again. -gasp- and was online as a guest.

Nice try though keep at it and maybe one day you will learn how to properly handle thins.

krmbm · Feb 28, 2020, 8:10 PM

@GirlCalledBlu said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

OK. Thank you, @krmbm -- I think @Seraphim73 and I are going to be having a frank discussion and probably followed by precautious. Um, could you also PM me about what went wonk with your siteban on GH? Just so we don't have duplicated issues.

There's a bug in Ares that makes it so banned IPs can access the portal and the tour. @faraday kicked me the code to patch it; I can pass it along if you guys are comfortable installing your own code? It's like two files to edit.

Otherwise, I'm sure it'll be patched soon.

TiredEwok · Feb 28, 2020, 8:17 PM

@L-B-Heuschkel

Ugh. I always fall for that bullshit. Still too trusting. I need to figure out how to stop being like that.

GirlCalledBlu · Feb 28, 2020, 8:20 PM

@krmbm Fara says she's getting a patch out. We will see. Right now, I am having a conversation with this player.

Kestrel · Feb 28, 2020, 8:44 PM

@krmbm said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

The question becomes, Which is the easier path past this. letting faraday sort through bugs that aren't really bugs.. And then seeing that the issue remains.. Or trying to fix it through other means.

@krmbm said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

Honestly, Had you two done that last night rather than simply throwing away the blacklist and banning me. I wouldn't have near the issues I do with you and your game.

@bear_necessities said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

So, Do you want to talk or do we keep up this little game?

@bear_necessities said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

Oh I will be, After I have my fun and see about some old friends starting their own. All I wanted to do was talk Bear.

Yup, this tell right here. Randomly capitalises words mid-sentence.

I'm sure there are other people who do this for all sorts of reasons they can't control, and that alone isn't a tip-off. But for future reference, in connection with other snippets of evidence, if you notice similar behaviour patterns from trolls and this particular grammatical quirk, it should help you suss him out in future.

EDIT: Also, double ellipses .. instead of triple ... is another tell I've noticed.

If anyone's curious also about the scene that gave me the creeps with him, it was a gym scene, he showed up on a 6'7" guy and posed about how tough and srsface he was in front of a punching bag, rolled brawn to break the bag, made OOC jokes about wanting to fight the women and use the slightly shorter/leaner guy in his workout somehow, and ICly escalated very quickly to comments about wanting to take the female characters over his knee to spank them before making thinly veiled creepy/domineering threats at my character. At which point I lied about having RL things to take care of and noped out.

In isolation none of these things would have bothered me, but as a combination of factors it gave me bad vibes. It could've just been called cringey yet harmless, but I think regardless of the possibility that I was being oversensitive about it (which I'm now glad to know based on this thread that no, it wasn't in my head), at the point where I indicated it had made me uncomfortable enough to draw boundaries, the sane thing to do would've been to either apologise or just shrug and move on. Instead ... yeah.

Sunny · Feb 28, 2020, 8:25 PM

"If you were more mature then I would be more mature" is never a selling point if you're reading this, dude.

Sunny · Feb 28, 2020, 8:27 PM

My ex husband actually tried to pull this stalker sort of shit. Threatening me with various things and all of it would just go away if I would sit down and TALK to him. Why wouldn't I just be mature and have a ten minute conversation? He wouldn't try and break into my house in the middle of the night if I didn't MAKE him, after all.

Pyrephox · Feb 28, 2020, 8:28 PM

@Sunny Upvoted in sympathy, because Jesus Christ.

Sunny · Feb 28, 2020, 8:37 PM

@Pyrephox

I realized the other day I have been out longer than I was in, finally -- I've lingering trauma (who doesn't in their life?!) but I'm mostly OK. Things like this make me twitch a little though, because the MOs are similar. I imagine if I had to actually deal with it on a game, I'd probably end up triggered really bad. But I don't staff any more, and this type of thing is literally why I will only play on games where I know I will be safe, and why I bail so freaking quick on a game if I don't.

The 'I won't unless you talk to me' bit him in the end, tho. He told me he was not going to give me a divorce unless I sat down with him and talked, would not sign papers/etc., so he ultimately defaulted or whatever the term is, didn't show up, and apparently did not realize that the judge could (and did) rule anyway, since we gave him the required notice.

ETA: Once the judge saw the email where he said he wouldn't sign the papers without me sitting down with him (while I had an active restraining order), it was allllllllll over for him lol.

JinShei · Feb 28, 2020, 8:36 PM

Can confirm all that @L-B-Heuschkel said about our time with this tedious little oik on Discworld.

JinShei · Feb 28, 2020, 8:38 PM

@Roz said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

He has stalked the RL-facing social media of game runners on at least one occasion after he was banned from the game, IIRC. (Along with, of course, his targets of harassment.)

He rocked up on my personal blog to leave me messages. I deleted them but yeah,... Reminds me of my exhusband. Slimy oxygen thief.

GirlCalledBlu · Feb 28, 2020, 8:47 PM

Alright. The situation has been handled on TSS. Thanks for the information!

Kestrel · Feb 28, 2020, 8:55 PM

@Sunny said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

@Pyrephox

I realized the other day I have been out longer than I was in, finally -- I've lingering trauma (who doesn't in their life?!) but I'm mostly OK. Things like this make me twitch a little though, because the MOs are similar. I imagine if I had to actually deal with it on a game, I'd probably end up triggered really bad. But I don't staff any more, and this type of thing is literally why I will only play on games where I know I will be safe, and why I bail so freaking quick on a game if I don't.

Yeah, as I said to someone else about this situation in private, what bugged me most about it wasn't this guy specifically. This guy wasn't a blip on my radar.

What got under my skin was how grossly familiar it all felt. I was like, I know this guy. No, not this guy specifically. I mean This Guy. This Guy that exists everywhere in the world. This Guy.

Also why I didn't respond to his pages once he started spinning because good lord have I been down that icky road before. The only way to win those kinds of mind-games is not to play.

RE: a post in RL peeves also, thank you for sharing your experiences. I am slowly but surely learning to better trust my gut.

Sunny · Feb 28, 2020, 9:15 PM

@Kestrel

Trust the gut. Yes.

mietze · Feb 28, 2020, 9:25 PM

@WildBaboons how could a guy that had harassment orders against him be "mostly harmless?"

GreenFlashlight · Feb 28, 2020, 9:29 PM

@Kestrel said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

Here's the kind of manipulative BS he pulled with me:

Thanks for posting that log, Kestrel. When you mentioned it earlier, I assumed it was just another butthurt little boy having the kind of toxic but honest misunderstanding they seem so prone to... which I guess this nearly is, really, except for the honest part.

Sunny · Feb 28, 2020, 9:45 PM

@mietze said in A bit of trouble on Firefly:

@WildBaboons how could a guy that had harassment orders against him be "mostly harmless?"

It doesn’t count until he kills someone. My ex was charged with 11 violations of the protection order (charged, there were many more but those had solid proof no kidding) and I got shat on for causing drama in our friend group.

GreenFlashlight · Feb 28, 2020, 11:06 PM

On a more general note, I'm very heartened to see so many discussions of harassment in this hobby being had openly. I'm glad the community is in a place where these conversations no longer get victims labeled as psycho bitches making trouble for men.

That's not to distract from the fact that we still need to have these conversations at all (not to mention direct action to stop these conversations from being necessary), but still, seeing this makes me feel happy in a fragile kind of way.

Quinn · Feb 28, 2020, 11:09 PM

@Sunny Is unfortunately right. One of my aunts was married to a horribly abusive man. He used to beat the shit out of her then run and when the (useless) cops showed up they'd shrug and say unless they caught him in the act they couldn't do anything. He used to break into her house, the houses of her sisters, everything.

He eventually went to jail for attempted murder of ANOTHER aunt--who was home with his wife when he broke in. He broke a chair over her face and left her for dead. The only reason they survived was that a family friend showed up, wrestled him, and held him down until the police arrived.

He never served any time for anything he did to his wife. This was awhile ago, but the system hasn't really changed. The judge used to call my aunt and her sisters "hysterical women" and if she just stayed out of his way (he was breaking in??) none of this would be an issue.

gryphter · Feb 28, 2020, 11:09 PM

I don't think we need to lament these conversations at all. Creeps are a thing; they're out there. Here, we put them on blast, shine the light, and expose them.