Best posts made by kalakh

@GF said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

@Wizz It’s not a gif but I first thought of this.

This reminded me I made one specific to Ghost at one point.

Life giveth, life taketh.

It’s taken me a while to post this, but I did share a billion pictures of her, so I figured. We lost my dog back at the beginning of August. She was thirteen, so she had a very good run (and run, and run, and run…), and she’d started getting a bit blind and probably a little deaf, but she was otherwise quite healthy. Then what we thought was a bad UTI turned out to be bladder cancer, and it was pretty clear she already had a partial blockage. Hardest fucking decision I’ve ever had to make, but she went quick and peaceful and on a good day.

There’ll be another dog, hopefully sooner rather than later, maybe even much sooner, but there’ll never be another Riley. She was with me and my family through our hardest times. She was, genuinely, my best friend.

I like to think she’s being a little shit to my brother right now.

I typed up a whole reply to that thread about how to repair the community, as measured as I could manage, looked it over, and then promptly trashed it, just to get it out of my system. It’s a bit cathartic, if time wasting. I was never going to post it, because in all honesty what would be the point?

The OP is the most sealion of sealions, and I have never witnessed him engage in a conversation in good faith. That post is no different. It is a topic worth discussing, but there’s no interest from the people asking the questions in hearing answers contrary to “just keep doing what you’re doing”, in that or any other thread. The solution offered by the OP to the perceived problem is to just do the exact same thing, but to the “right” people (or, excuse me, “cull them”, that’s a fucking yikes, my dude, it can go on the shelf alongside all the other yikes gathered by that equivalence between bullies and genuine predators).

In general, nothing I’ve seen since this whole thing shook out has given me any confidence that MSB can achieve what it claims it wants, in part because I do not believe that is actually what the administration there wants, as evidenced by…basically every response to substantial criticism or pushback, but also by their blatant lying.

Actually, y’all lurking here anyway, here’s the version where I’m too tired to care about moderating myself. You’re lying. You’re lying out your lying lie holes, and anyone who goes and reads the relevant posts/threads can see it. The bans had nothing to do with the Hog Pit. The issues that sparked the firestorm that led to the bannings had nothing to do with the Hog Pit. Most of the people banned were banned over what was effectively a cease and desist as regards posting at all, not because they were super toxic baby-eating ultra bullies subsisting on the tears of the undeserving. And I note that basically everyone spreading this lie is someone who enthusiastically engaged in the Hog Pit. Yes, that means you, and you, and you. All people have to do is look at your posting history. I guess you’re just banking on folks not doing that, but here’s the thing, here’s the big glaring fifty foot neon flashing sign of Painfully Obvious Projection:

If you meant what you keep saying, you would not be lying about what happened and why. There is literally no reason for it other than you’re looking for easy excuses and convenient scapegoats. You banned a bunch of people and declared it good, so why, exactly, do you feel the need to make up reasons to further justify it? The reasons are right there! Anyone can read it! You’re clattering on about bringing the receipts while posting on a forum chock-full of them.

The way you’re behaving toward anyone offering any substantial criticism is fucking absurd (do forgive me, I used the bad no-no word). You’re aggressive as all hell straight out the gate, and when posters get fed up with that behavior and start caring less about trying to engage with you in good faith (as you offer absolutely none), you take it as proof you were right to be paranoid assholes. MSB cannot and will not get past this until you’re willing to actually check yourselves, but as checking yourselves seems to be a nigh herculean task, I doubt you’re up to it.

But that’s okay. You’ve got your little corner of the internet, and you’re welcome to it, and whatever enjoyment you get from it. You don’t actually have to pretend that you want to do better. I imagine most people would prefer you not, in fact. But if you do? Then you need to put in serious effort to fix your shit. And you’re going to have to reckon with the fact that there are people you are supporting and allowing into your corner that have no interest in changing and thrive off of the kind of environment you’re providing, By that, I don’t mean the pretense toward civility or tightened standards on what’s acceptable to post, I mean the absolute sub-zero chilling effect your actual behavior has had on the likelihood of anyone not in your immediate in-group calling out or reporting them.

At the end of the day, it comes down to staff. Do you trust staff to handle this sort of thing fair and reasonably? Then trust that they’re seeing things you aren’t; additional testimony, logs, personal experience, interaction with the accused, etc etc. This is not me saying that staff trying their best don’t still make the wrong call at times, or that their rulings should be taken as the end all be all in all circumstances, but when you boil everything else away, that’s what it’s about.

If you can’t or don’t or won’t trust staff with this kind of thing, then I don’t think it’s likely to help if staff air all the dirty laundry out for everyone to pick over. Everyone is not staff. These are not things decided by popular vote (at least, in every game I’ve ever heard of, they’re not). And it also discourages people who would report abuse but are afraid or embarrassed to have it made public. It’s very hard for a lot of players to reveal it even in private to staff they do trust, it’s often a struggle to convince folks (or convince yourself) to go to staff with issues like this. Every. Single. Time. that we have banned people from Arx during my tenure as staff, someone, and usually more than one, will immediately pipe up to say it was happening to them too, or they were getting strange vibes that they didn’t quite think was worth reporting. It is extremely rare for these folks to target only one person. Even when we pre-emptively banned someone, a bunch of folks talked about how they were already seeing red flags from him.

In this case, from my understanding, the person being accused is staff, and the person who could do something about it refuses to do so. This post is, therefore, a warning to the community, because that’s about the only thing that can be done to try to keep other folks from being victimized.

Do people make posts like this out of malice? Absolutely, I’ve seen it happen. But that’s rare, and the truth tends to out, because the sorts of folks who make up that kind of shit are also usually not targeting just one person.

This idea that someone needs a full court jury of their peers to determine whether they are, in fact, a sexpest/manipulative asshole/general piece of shit is silly. That can’t and will never happen. We aren’t calling witnesses to the stand or doing internet fingerprinting or whatever, there aren’t cops waiting to haul the guilty away or a singular judge with the power and authority to send you to internet jail. All that does is serve to protect abusers with layers of obstacles that victims have to hop through and the insistence that private things be dragged into the public for hobby randos to pick over. This is why demanding receipts in this fashion just doesn’t work. What counts as receipts? What counts as receipts that can’t just be waved off as not good enough?

It sounds like staff can’t be trusted on this game, and at least one is actively causing harm. That’s the point I’d say you’re best off leaving the game, but that’s a lot easier said than done. We get attached to games, to stories, to people. But it’s worth knowing that one can expect no help in this regard, and worth the victims being able to find support and assurance that they are not simply blowing things out of proportion.

I’m going to make this as short as I can. At one point this player commonly went by “Jay”. I know he played on Lion King MUCK a long long while back. He spent years playing on GarouMUSH, bounced to City of Hope after ragequitting, then eventually came back to GarouMUSH, much to the detriment of all, claiming he’d turned over a new leaf. No. Once he was genuinely banned from GarouMUSH, he apparently went back to City of Hope for a while, until he was banned there. Eventually he made it to Arx, and once we knew it was him, we banned him there too. Here’s why:

He’s a fucking sexual predator. I’m not going to mince words here. He preyed knowingly on underaged players, abusing the trust of already vulnerable children, hounding them for TS, personal contact information, nudes, and worse. He stalked them across games when they tried to break off contact, repeatedly lying about his identity to try to get close again. At least once, he stalked someone in real life across the country (this person was thankfully(?) not underage). He did this to several friends of mine, and I can only guess in horror at how many fucking others. He should be in jail. As he’s not in jail, he should be chased from this hobby and from any hobby for the rest of time.

This is why he was banned from Arx, and this is why I’m making this thread.

Going any further feels inconsequential, because given the above it doesn’t matter what kind of a player he is, but since we’re here already, I might as well. He’s a toxic asshole, and he will always eventually out himself as one because while he’s capable of masking or muting his behavior for a little while, he’s entirely incapable of changing it. He cannot keep IC and OOC separate. He will metagame as much as he can get away with. He will (shock of shocks) abuse the trust of other players to get what he wants. He will abuse any power he’s given, IC or OOC. He will be verbally abusive to players where he thinks people won’t report him for it. He’ll lie. He’ll shittalk people behind their backs, then turn around and shittalk the people he was just shittalking to. He’ll attempt to manipulate people he’s abusing into not reporting him, both by trying to convince them it’s not a big deal, and that staff can’t be trusted and might punish them. He’s pushy as fuck about TS, and possessive as hell. He misgendered people on purpose. He throws tantrums when not given as much attention as he feels he deserves. And so on. Name a toxic behavior to be found in this hobby, and he probably engages in it.

He’s had tons of characters and been on tons of games, I can only provide these:

GarouMUSH: Jeremy, Brom, Briari, Alecia, others I know I’m forgetting

From his City of Hope banning post: Brigette, Danielle, Diana, Izayah, Logan, Sonya, Troy, Justin, Andrea, Fogwalker

Arx (obviously): ex-Breccan (sorry any future Breccans)

Fuck you, Jay. You’ve hurt far too many people, I can only hope this helps prevent you hurting more. If any game runner/staffer wants help with identifying him on their game, they can DM me.

derp, this thread’s anger summed up in two words:

we are not a community.

We were.

Shit, I can’t imagine why this person got banned after only three days on the game, it’s a mystery someone help me out.

So, I have this dog.

She has opinions.

And she is ridiculous.

She was very smol. Mother and laptop available for size comparison.

She had a truly enormous family. 13-14 puppies, something insane like that, and she was the clear runt. Her brothers liked to pull her around by the tail and it was very rude. Her owner lived a number of hours away, so at first all we had were videos to pick from. There was one for each pup, but this little monster kept photo-bombing, bouncing around for attention and generally making a nuisance of herself. She was the last of the litter to be chosen, possibly because she was a headstrong little shit far, far, far too smart for her own good.

She is now 12-ish and has life threatening seizures, so there’s no knowing how much longer she’ll be around, but no one has properly informed her that she’s an old lady now.

It’s also really hot, so she’s shedding madly.

To add: People coming to a conclusion or general agreement on a singular issue (or even multiple issues) is not an echo chamber, just like people who are good friends are not a clique. Context matters, and in that regard, there are forum regulars disagreeing in this very thread.

Oh yeah, bouncing onto a thread to go WOW YOU ALL SUCK LOL is also not an argument that deserves fair consideration. Like what goofy ass logic is that? You want to debate something, maybe try providing something to actually discuss. Something less boring than “but what if bitches be lyin’ tho.”

The thing about microaggressions like that example is that they are rarely, if ever, isolated. People who do that tend to either target more than one person, or escalate their behavior toward the person they’re already targeting (if they haven’t already). It’s good to know as staff because there are players that are extraordinarily good about not quite doing any one thing enough to get banned, but that, when you can have a look at their range of behaviors, it becomes clear they really should be.

@Herja said in Bannings:

And lest people think I am a hypocrite that is upset because I got banned yet as staff of a game, I am not shy about using my own banhammer:

I’m not here because I am horrified about Ganymede having gone on a banning rampage (except when she banned @farfalla because Macha was being manipulative, that was super fucked up). I am not upset over being banned and I completely deserved mine. You do not call people clowns living in clown town and not expect to very soon lose access.

I am here because I think Derp and his current team are bad for the hobby. Victim shaming and whatever authoritarian power grab happened over there are some of the WORST aspects of this hobby and watching this happen in real time after hearing about it happening on various games is wild. I’m not mad over the bans. I’m mad that the worst the hobby has to offer has been given a safe space to continue to spread toxicity and ‘hide’ from the well-deserved consequences of their fucked up actions. (Looking right at you, Hella)

I, on the other hand, am mad about the bans. Less that they happened, as that was shitty and enough reason that Gany should not be admin anymore, but I recognize it was heat of the moment panic and anger, and more because they were upheld. There was a lot of noise about mistakes being made, accepting responsibility, etc, etc, but barely even a token effort, if that, to do anything to rectify the situation.

Hot take, every single ban should have been reversed. Yes, every single damn one, even the ones that probably deserved it, even the ones that asked for it. Even Tempest, who should have caught a ban fucking years ago. That situation was sparked by two abysmally bad decisions, and spiraled out of control entirely because Gany refused to listen to anyone and then panicked. Did some people deserve to get banned from how they responded to that? Probably. Don’t care. If you say it’s on your head, then it’s on your head, and taking responsibility means accepting that you actually did do something wrong, which means you should make an effort to right said wrong, or at the very least mitigate the fallout from your actions.

It’s actually worse that a handful of bans were reversed instead of all of them, because they were so few, and so unevenly decided, that it’s blatantly obvious this was used, after the fact, to scoot a bunch of people off the site they (particularly derp) didn’t like. Going on and on and on about The Clique only proves this is the case, because none of the bans handed down were because of that. There wasn’t some weird sweep of the userbase that determined whether or not someone was too mean girl for a non-Hogpit MSB, that wasn’t why the bans happened. It was pure opportunism. It annoys me that they’re constantly misrepresenting it, but I guess it’s a bit awkward to claim you’re the voice of the community and against people being mean and exclusive when you’ve just conducted an after-the-fact purge of people you don’t like.

In any case, I figured I was probably leaving once I woke up and saw all of that (I said as much over there), but my final decision came when I realized just how fucking unpleasant and unwelcoming it was going to be - and was already becoming - for anyone remotely friendly with anyone who was gone, for (ironically) anyone not in their new in-group, and for anyone who was going to be critical of decisions made in the past or going forward. People were already violating the new rules in order to tell people they weren’t wanted, and to shut up and gtfo, so I did indeed shut up and gtfo. No regrets on that. It’s so fucking joyless over there now.

@Kestrel said in Bannings:

Belittling rape, misogyny etc., doesn’t make you look like less of a misogynist, Devrex. If it hurts you that people would say this about you, then stop fucking doing it.

I called Cullen a rapist because he is a rapist. Like, I would love to share his criminal record with you, I have it right here, but it’s against the rules.

And I feel compelled to drive this point not to be hyperbolic, but because that fact has been questioned incessantly, here:

And because the undertones of MSB’s discussion, prior to me posting there to make that point explicit, very much were of the fear-mongering suspicion that Hog Pit threads might contain false accusations, and that receipts are necessary, and oh no, what if all these poor innocent souls have been damned because you all didn’t do your due diligence. These points were made in particular by Ghost, and upvoted by you, and Derp, and the rest of your sealioning fanclub.

Which by the way, I think is despicable, and dangerous. And not despicable in the sense of, ‘Oh I don’t quite like the theme of this game, perhaps I should play on a different game instead; each to their own.’ But in the sense that makes me feel compelled to say something about it because people could get hurt, have been hurt, and are hurt, by the delegitimisation of their trauma and the benefit of the doubt you wish to confer to predators with multiple accusers. Such as Rysen too, for example, which is why I assume people other than me felt the need to rebutt the comments about him, too. These are not assumptions; this has been made explicit.

By the way, Ghost, still paying attention? This is why I do not accept your apology, why I doubt your intentions, and why I bring up the fact that you’ve always done this, dating back years ago and are still doing it right now.

So don’t act like you’ve always been an ally or that it’s disingenuous of me to bring him up.

My sincere apologies to simplications for getting them mixed up in the crossfire; on the other hand, Cullen is a crypto-fascist, as is ppurg, the other dude I’ve been known to harp on in the general MU* community about being a fascist, and your mockery of my willingness to call people out on that certainly makes you look like someone who’s either in their camp or tolerant of it. Which is further backed by this thread of yours from three years ago, which was directed at me. And it’s relevant to bring that history up because you’re still doing it. The only “apology” for it you’ve offered was coupled by an untrue accusation, simply another of your classic attempts at DARVO. The aim of that was not to apologise, but to justify.

P.S.: Thanks for successfully getting the person who posted the exact account you referenced in your reddit comment, the one about him threatening to send nudes to her boss and stalking her on social media, to delete her testimony. Your actions have material consequences, and it is not hyperbolic to say so, nor to react to them.

This actually inspired me to go grab something I remembered from the Arx Thread when Breccan was banned.

I mean, I get it, irrefutable evidence is a big claim, and this is the guy who argued you can’t hear things over the internet, but this is where he went first, in the middle of a dozen people who actually played on Arx remarking about the dude setting off creep meters. Other folks expressed interest in the details, because that’s natural, but derp’s the only one who immediately went to ‘but what if it’s fake’ about a banning on a game he doesn’t play and a situation he knew nothing about.

At best, it’s some weird and incredibly tone-deaf semantics argument in the middle of a bunch of people going “yeah, dude was sketch”. But it didn’t give me much confidence toward his ability to appropriately handle these situations. Dude doesn’t think about the effect of the shit that comes out of his mouth.

It’s worth noting in general that if someone isn’t laughing at your jokes, they’re at the very least situationally bad jokes, and maybe don’t insist on telling them over and over again to someone that doesn’t find them funny.

But in specific:

Me: Huh, activity on the Hogpit replacement after like half a year of silence. I bet this is some kind of hypocritical shitshow.

–scroll down a few posts–

Ghost: Here are some wild ass accusations I’m trying to disguise as Just Asking Questions, my receipts are “bitches be crazy” and “my ass”.

Forum Administrator Who Cares a Whole Lot About Proof Over Mudslinging : Sounds reasonable.

lol
lmao

Yo, so eastern Washington is on fire and it’s super cool and normal, smoke inhalation is good for the soul actually, and so is Canada, and I assume California, and other places, but also there’s a fuckin hurricane rolling in and stuff’s not great for a lot of people right now. If it’s alright, I thought it might be a good idea to have a thread to drop links to help out with various on-going disasters.

Nobody needs to be told that Maui’s situation is absolutely horrifying, so I’ll just drop the first link:

https://www.mauinuistrong.info/support#providesupport

Take care of yourselves, especially if you’re in a current or near-future disaster area.

Tangentially, it is irritating that the way the issue is being presented is all about how toxic the Hog Pit was, when:

1. The Hog Pit had absolutely nothing to do with what happened, other than serve as a space where the eventual full blow up occurred. From my understanding the kindling was Derp being made an admin and the spark was him being an insensitive dumbass in the politics forum. Making it all about the Hog Pit as though that was the source and the reason is so deeply, willfully ignorant that it gives me a minor internet headache.

2. The existence of the Hog Pit is not the fault of the banned, or the ‘clique’, or whatever the hell various ex-posters are being referred to as. It existed because the admin created it and let it stay, as evidenced by the fact that as soon as the admin wanted to they locked it and then changed it. That some of the loudest voices tut tutting over toxicity and people being mean were enthusiastic contributors and participants is just so blatantly insincere, but VK/Hella being one of them given her last post in the Hog Pit all of a few months ago is fucking wild.

Anyhow, enough serious words from me, never going to stop laughing over these being permabans

Scattered thoughts.

It’s okay to be tired. I am so, so, so, so, so tired. Thinking about this is just exhausting, and right now I can’t stop. I am so tired of these fucking people, I’m tired of dealing with them, tired of hearing them, tired of them sticking themselves into every aspect of my life, tired of them threatening my friends and my strangers, and I’m tired of being afraid of them.

It feels like nothing matters and nothing has mattered. I’m tired of that too.

I’m tired of 2024 in general, and looking ahead doesn’t offer any break from any of it.

So.

It’s okay to be tired. But what these folks want from us, more than anything, is for us to give up. That’s their victory, and for all that they win, they haven’t won until that happens.

If you’re feeling hopeless, which I am, then I’d like to offer that spite can also be a fine motivator. It’s okay to be tired, it’s okay to rest, and it’s okay to get back up with nothing more than a desire to keep these fuckers from getting that last thing from you.

That sounds like an empty platitude, but it comes from the heart. If you’re in a dark, dark place right now, I want you to know that I am too. There are other people in here with us. Millions. You’re not alone.

@Pavel said in Bannings:

For those of us with lives outside of the internet, could someone give a CliffsNotes version of what MSB is accusing us of this time?

I mean, I dunno about you, but I was accused of TSing poMonique and banning Rysen because I was jealous of his storytelling skills.

Okay, I just gotta. Gotta indulge myself. I know it’s wrong and it’s whiplash from the post I just wrote, but I must. The delight is too tempting and I must feed my inner terrorist.

I know you’re reading this, Ghost, you ultimate dipshit, because lol at the idea you’re actually waiting for anyone to clue you into a mention:

Last night I was alerted to that one of my fans took a reference I made to the literary use of Comedian’s smiley face button^ in Watchmen as support for a rapist. Yikes. That’s how hard some people try to stretch things.

I don’t really know what else to say anymore other than that there are people engaging in ACTIVE attempts to belittle, smear, and slander others, and a number of them apparently (mind-bogglingly) do so with the entitlement of being the moral authority. Maybe people should start to pay attention to those who are unwilling to stop this unethical shit.

^ Alan Moore is a fucking genius.

lmao, dude, this is why people think you’re a disingenuous concern-trolling piece of shit. That or you have the reading comprehension of a particularly dense gnat. Two ass-cheeks gently slapping together in hopes that their wet farts will be taken seriously.

I didn’t say you supported a (fictional) (attempted) rapist. I pointed out how lol-worthy it was that you used that as an example in the conversation you were having, in reference to your very clever and unique handle in which you laugh at the world, ha ha, forever reminding everyone that you definitely don’t MU* anymore and haven’t for years and I know none of you asked but just so you know so everyone is clear.

See, if I wanted to be an asshole, if I wanted to read predatory sympathies into things you’ve written where you didn’t necessarily mean to come off that way, then I’d go back to that bit in the OP of your crooked little thread:

This won’t be popular, but it’s a respectful opinion. YES there are bad/problematic/abusive/stalker roleplayers who have rapey/disturbing/“in some cases illegal” behavior that need to be watched for. HOWEVER, there are also players who (while not as extreme) display very abusive behaviors that need to be culled. A swath of players have gotten on for years by abusing/excluding players for failing to do what they want, toxicly display faux-elitist behaviors to act like being a part of their “clique” is in your best interests, get off on using public forums to belittle other players, their roleplay ability, and their personas, and use staff inclusion and “OOC power in game” to exclude other players who they don’t like.

How is this stuff not as bad? I think it’s easy to spend years arguing about how bad the super-bad people are (like Cullen or Spider), but while some of those mentioned behaviors are arguable, the end result is that it’s negative and breeds an environment of “who’s camp you’re in” and old school high school “clique” and “mean girls” behavior that doesn’t do anyone any good. Whether or not you’re popular enough to “sway the mob” should never excuse you from your own bullying, and should never sway the sense of what the true justice is.

See, I skipped over this before, I didn’t feel like unpacking this brainless, tone-deaf take, because it’s not malevolent, it’s just endlessly stupid and gross.

Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Stalking/rapey/“in some cases illegal” behavior is not the same as being mean and saying the bad things, you impossible paramecium. You absolute garbage man. You don’t believe this. None of you do. It’s minimizing the worst of the worst in our hobby so that you can whine some more about how the Bad People Were Very Mean and Didn’t Like Your Endless Drivel and/or Exactly This Outlined Behavior, and it’s needless. Bullies bad. Aggressively going after the undeserving bad. Abusive behavior bad. All of these can cause lasting trauma, but my dude. My brainless, mealy-mouthed, piss-licking pal. This is you in two paragraphs. The most ridiculous of takes, utterly bad faith, presented in the dullest warbles of thoughts that refuse to connect to one another in any reasonable sort of way, expectant of polite discourse despite how trash your interactions will always be.

See, if I wanted to be an asshole, I’d say you’re, to my knowledge, not a rapist or rape-sympathizer, not a stalker, and I presume you do not actually deserve to be in jail, but you’re definitely happy to minimize those things to make your own argument stronger, that while you certainly don’t believe they’re equivalent, you have no understanding whatsoever as to their impact, or, if you do, you seem to have buried them under a pile of thick soft blankets, and that you’re perfectly okay with hanging out on a board in which people who have done that are present, so long as those people pass you upvotes for your dumbass prognoses.

I’d say that. You know. If I wanted to be an asshole.

Instead, I wish you well, and respectfully request that if you’re going to misrepresent the things I say in order to further your victim complex, you pick something more interesting than “lol, what a bad comparison”. I mean really. I’m starting to think the real reason you “left” the hobby is that you have the creativity of a dry sponge that’s never once been used.

Ultimately, the true revenge of MSB’s split is that the people who took over have to deal with each others’ company.