Discord Conversation Re: Irisa

Aria01/04/2021
<sighs very loudly> Can I ask you guys a weird question re: potential problem player to see if it actually is a problem?
Tehom01/04/2021
sure, shoot
Aria01/04/2021
Sometime in.... I want to say last January, maybe the January before that, a previous player of Calypso was banned because of their OOC issues with another player in House Malvici. I don't know who that player was because she didn't tell me, but assuming you guys keep track of that stuff, is that person still playing their Malvici character?
(I don't want to know who they are; I just found out some upsetting shit about Irisa that means she was pretty much hiding who she was so I wouldn't lose my shit about being forced to interact with her, and I want to make sure she's not doing the same thing to whoever this girl is.)
Tehom01/04/2021
Hm, I can look it up, I didn't think that player was still playing. She was prone to meltdowns and totally flipped out more than once
Aria01/04/2021
She was also prone to meltdowns on Irisa and is the player I just posted about on MSB.
The same person, apparently, who gaslit me into dealing with DownWithOPP when we staffed together ElseMu*.
Tehom01/04/2021
as far as I can tell that one Calypso is no longer playing
Aria01/04/2021
Hmm. Okay, good. Because at the time, Irisa's player -- who should be the same Irisa -- told me she was Calypso. That Calypso that got banned.
Tehom01/04/2021
I mean she could be and using a different account, I guess. If she's crazy as hell then I would think there's a decent chance
Aria01/04/2021
I wanted to make sure that when Irisa transitioned to Malvici, she wasn't springing her unwanted presence on whoever it was she banned for bothering like she apparently did to me.
Tehom01/04/2021
Some of the situation is coming back to me a little. I think the person who that Calypso clashed with in Malvici is as intensely problematic in their own way to the extent that some staffers refuse to GM for them
if I remember the situation right
So while neither were great it was somewhat muddled
Aria01/04/2021
Yeah, I never had the full context of it, since I wasn't involved. I only found out because Irisa disappeared for several weeks, came back, and sheepishly explained to me why while going on a very lengthy explanation about how it was all just a misunderstanding between her and just one girl and she convinced Apostate to give her a second chance.
Which.... whatever. I just wanted to make sure she wasn't slipping back into the House when she quit Riven and joined Malvici as Irisa so she could continue interacting with whoever that person was without their knowledge or consent.
'Cause surprise, that's pretty much what she did to me for two years. And if that's the case, it's fucking creepy, because one of my biggest issues with them was gaslighting me into putting up with DownWithOPP when we were on a game together.
Tehom01/04/2021
Did she lie about like who he was or something?
Aria01/04/2021
Who DownWithOPP was? No. This was when we first identified him. She (actually he) kept insisting that he was just being friendly and I was misreading him when I started reporting his behavior.
Tehom01/04/2021
His creepy-ass pregnancy fetish and controlling behavior is just how he tells you he likes you
Aria01/04/2021
So tl;dr, someone who defended a creepy asshole who circumvents bans so he can get back onto games and inflict himself on women who want nothing to do with them without their knowledge or consent then turning around and potentially inflicting himself on women who want nothing to do with them without their knowledge or consent (albeit at least not in a pervy fetish sort of way) was setting off many alarm bells.
Tehom01/04/2021
Yeah in this case, the issue between previous Calypso and the other Malvici wasn't like that at all. They just didn't like each other
Aria01/04/2021
Cool, cool. Looking back at some of her behavior now, I can definitely say she was feeding me stories that didn't make any sense so I wouldn't find out.
Like, when I offered to invite her to the Discord chat some folks in Riven have, she just could've said no, she wasn't interested, she didn't have Discord, whatever. Instead she told me that she wasn't comfortable using her Discord account in relation to the game because she needed it for work purposes that required it to have her real name on there..... and then a few months later, was telling me about her career on the sales floor at Lowe's.
I'm pretty sure that Lowe's doesn't mandate employee Discord accounts, weirdo.
Tehom01/04/2021
Lowe's controlling the social media footprint of their employees with an iron fist
Aria01/04/2021
They also require you to have an outdated World of Warcraft account with your employee ID number as the handle.
Tehom01/04/2021
Oh man I hope XXSylvanasFan453XX isn't already taken
Aria01/04/2021
That's your employee ID number? You should likely be concerned about the lack of modernization at your employer, Tehom! They seem stuck in the late 90s.
Tehom01/04/2021
That's why Zoom has overtaken us, imo
Aria01/04/2021
We have MS Teams and I can definitely see how Microsoft's SSO has prevented our department head from leading town halls under her usual handle, blackangel69.
(What can I say? She's GenX.)
Tehom01/04/2021
The hardest-hitting note I recently saw about GenX is we grew up with movies that treated the greatest threat to happiness was having a stable, well-paying job that would make us less authentic and hip
Aria01/04/2021
YEP.
I'm a Millenial myself, but like.... just barely. Literally born on a cusp year depending which generational cutoff date you use.
Both older Gen Xers and young Millenials are relatable and yet confounding.
Tehom01/04/2021
yep yep. on the 'younger GenX boundary' here
Aria01/04/2021
I feel like that little five year span of being born between '79-'84 (the latter being me) is particularly fucky and weird. Not just because of the generational markers, but because that little band was all a bunch of people who were at a transitory time in their lives when 9/11 happened and changed everything, and also went out into the job market during one of two big recessions that impacted their finances heavily.
Like, that was my senior year in high school, so all my friends who joined the army to pay for college got sent to war instead. And then when we all graduated in 2006-2007, it was right into the crash.
Tehom01/04/2021
yep yep. 9/11 was such a seismic shift on a degree that feels almost impossible to explain to people who didn't experience it
Aria01/04/2021
Bingo. And it happened literally the year that everyone is telling high school seniors that they're about to go out into "the real world", so it became this really specific and traumatic marker of Childhood Is Over Now.
Tehom01/04/2021
yeah, it really felt like the entire world changed overnight
Aria01/04/2021
<rubs face> I'm sorry to be an asshole and drag the conversation back, but can I possibly put a no contact request in re: Irisa or something? The person who told me who they are last night talked to me again this morning and included a screenshot of them saying they knew perfectly well who I was, knew I didn't want to interact with them, and was hiding it because they were "enjoying the interactions" and knew it would end if I found out.
I'm not imagining this. They were deliberately deceiving me.
Tehom01/04/2021
yeah sounds fine to me to tell them to not contact you in any way
Aria01/04/2021
I am super squicked out now.
Irisa was inactive when I started playing Mia. He may have played Irisa before I joined the game, but he came back to an idle character and then lied to me for over two years.
Is there anything else you guys can do?
<IMAGE THAT PASTEBIN CAN'T HANDLE>
Tehom01/04/2021
The precedent we have is not banning people for ooc dishonesty but to discourage sharing ooc details on any level. It's kind of dickish but it wasn't to take advantage of you, just to avoid confrontation. I think it's best just to tell them never to contact you again
Aria01/04/2021
I would be significantly less bothered if Irisa just really liked the character and wasn't regularly pursuing RP with me, except she was. That is the part that does feel like they were trying to take advantage of me, albeit not sexually.
Tehom01/04/2021
idk. The player isn't exactly a prize so telling them to pound sand wouldn't be the worst outcome from my perspective, but they haven't really done anything to warrant it. But I don't really read any sort of negative intentions into it - if they were trying to set you up, or like taking down stuff you told them in confidence to use against you, or anything like that, sure. But it sounds like they just enjoyed RPing with you and didn't want you disliking them to ruin that
I should note that I am famously bad when it comes to shit like this though so it could well be everyone else would have an entirely different opinion
Apostate01/04/2021
It is the current irisa, she has no alts. I temp banned them once because they were hyper controlling and freaked out over stupid shit. They have continued to be hyper controlling over everything they are involved in to a point it really bugs me but hasn't been a problem
Reading that it looks like they just wanted to avoid old bad blood rather than like, manipulate you. The one case I banned someone for similar is when it was obvious it was done with extreme malice, where he joked about a player's insecurity and hoped he could make her kill herself irl
and this is not on that level
Aria01/04/2021
Nah, I get what you're saying. I do. But a big part of why I don't like this person was because the spent months telling me that DownWithOPP's behavior was "friendly" and that I was "misreading" it. So I see an additional creep factor in a dude who lies about who he is so he can interact with a woman because he thinks that's okay, especially when he's defended someone doing the exact same thing so that they can sexually harass probably a score of women over the years.
And no, this is definitely not on that level. I wasn't even asking for a ban. I don't know what I was asking for, really.
Options, I guess?
I had several people complain to me about Irisa's controlling behavior and meltdowns, too, so I am also admittedly very mad about the time I spent trying to manage and mitigate her bullshit because she kept being so nice and apologetic.... while also lying to my face.
Apostate01/04/2021
Like sometimes talking it out is great but I dunno what could even come of it. Like what are they going to say, "I'm sorry I was a shithead to you a while ago but not sorry enough to apologize and come clean originally because I didn't wanna risk losing your rp"
TBH, my take on them with how controlling they are? They are someone who puts harmony above everything, and that's why they are the kind of person that will be an enabler for every horrible person, because they don't wanna deal with anything not under their control
(That's someone you never, ever want as part of running a game)
Tehom01/04/2021
DownWithOPP is a complete piece of shit but the reason guys like that thrive is that other people are often so permissive of it by giving the benefit of the doubt or not seeing the harm caused. It's definitely a mistake I would have made before Hellfrog made me aware of how wrong I was. He was absolutely 100% wrong to minimize that, but given that it sounds like most people have been on the "oh he's not that bad, just socially awkward" I don't think he'd be unique in that mistake
Apostate01/04/2021
Almost every time I've banned a creep at least a few people have come forward to tell me I'm wrong and they aren't really like that
I mean it's like clockwork
Aria01/04/2021
Ohhh, I have no doubt.
Apostate01/04/2021
People don't wanna believe that shit about someone they like
Aria01/04/2021
And with OPP, he is very good at being active and running things, which staffers always love. So it gets him additional leeway he absolutely intends to abuse, so I get why Irisa was like that at first when dealing with him.
Tehom01/04/2021
he's so helpful and positive [when not hounding people for weird-ass pregnancy RP and making sure they can't RP with anyone else]
Aria01/04/2021
But as far as options go -- I may be misreading something here -- but I'm pretty sure that Clue 4066 'There's Nothing to Worry About' makes reference to Mia and the White Stewards/Aetheris and that it involves all these groups that are supposed to be working together.
If that's the case, is there someone who is Not Irisa that I can be shoved at when the time comes?
I don't want to end up inadvertently hamstringing an entire group because I'm like, "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this guy."
Apostate01/04/2021
Yeah, I mean there's a dozen things we can do- interaction with an NPC instead, interaction with other white steward characters instead, handwave participation. Like the whole Horned God is going to be the central arc of the game once skal'daja is over so it's pretty much going to be what all stories run into with its 40 million subplots, it's easy to work around that kinda stuff with so much involvement
Aria01/04/2021
Okay, that's what I was hoping for. This plot has had huge ups and downs for me over the years but right now, I'm pretty burned out on everything - work, school, gaming. Life. I really didn't want to have to add trying Cirque du Soleil around one person so I'm not accidentally cutting off an entire org or something into the mix. Because that's garbage for everyone.