Mentor Application (Speaks With Stars)

[ArdentSpark]

Usual character name: Speaks With Stars/Scars
BYOND username: Ardent Spark
Discord username (if you are on our discord): Ardent Spark#0138
Recommended by (if applicable): 
Goon servers you play: RP1, now Sylvester. Occasionally Morty. Haven't really touched Classic.

Reason for application + game experience (300 word minimum):I've been playing pretty consistently for just under four months now, I joined Goon as a brand new SS13er back in November 2020, so this is my first experience of farty space game, and I feel that the community is a pretty solid fit for me so I don't intend on going anywhere!

I love helping people but sometimes it is pretty hard for me as I have had a habit of playing a relatively unspeaking character which can add a bit of a barrier but I have on occasion dropped my persona and tried to help them regardless. On the flipside, I keep a very close eye on the #rpserver, #ss13questions and #imspoilers to try and answer any questions that I have a handle on, it's something that I've always enjoyed being able to do, and there's a looot of hidden little details in farty space game that need word of mouth to pass on.

My strongest knowledge base is related to Ranching and Chickens, a vast majority were discovered and their wiki entries created by myself in collaboration with Gertrude Luna, Gremy and a few other budding ranchers, but I have a very solid knowledge of Medical otherwise, but I've played all roles to a reasonable extent, with my weakest area likely being the TEG.

I used to have a rough view on destructive antags in my first month of November, due to still learning the game. However a few great rounds and a few not so great rounds have changed my view to trying to cut antags more flak, as I definitely underestimated how challenging the balance they have to manage is. 
I feel my greatest strength is mediating and calming a situation down, but my worst weakness is a tendency to either try to do this when it really should be escalated straight to the admin team, and being angered when someone does my job for me without asking. Both of which I'm very aware of and try to reign in as much as possible.

Previous bans (while this will not affect your application lying about it will): No previous bans

[Telareti]

+1
stars is A GREAT TEACHER, he have taught me A LOT OF THINGS, i have had lots of great shifts and fun ones too with stars, some i remember is when pathology was added back i had a great time being his test subject and after i started doing pathology stars was one of the people to teach me how to do it and it was great and fun.

stars is very kind and helpful and always try's to help someone when they need it or get stuck, HIS BIG BRAIN HAS HELPED MANY PEOPLE and he was also one of the original CHIMKIN ranchers.

overall his BIG BRAIN and personality would make him a great mentor +1

[nefarious6th]

Indifferent from me, for now.

You've got good knowledge and generally a good OOC attitude in Discord; and I've seen you help a ton of people with questions and things, so I think your attentiveness there is good and would suit you in the ability to answer tons of questions. The only two areas I've been...a little stumped by are when it comes to Ranching Knowledge and AI Knowledge, and not that you don't have these, but the way you convey them is really critical and maybe could use just a bit more improvement. For all the critique you give yourself about engineering, I have really enjoyed running into you when you've been playing your engineering character, and some of the novel communication/relationships you've brought into rounds with them.

For ranching, I know when chickens first came out (and with each new breed), there's a lot of interest and excitment and a real desire to know all there is to know and find everything. I have been a part of trying to ranch for new chickens too, and not that this itself is like a Cardinal Sin or something. When this did originally all start up, I know someone gave a suggestion/something they wanted to test out on the chickens to try finding a new breed, and I know they were told at the time that you and another person who were into multi-round ranching and testing didn't wanna test it, and that gave the impression that they needed to leave; they mentioned that they felt pushed out of exploring ranching for future rounds after that. I wasn't super into ranching for a little while but when December-ish came around, I wanted to ranch cause I had some cool chickens I wanted to aim for, but I also felt very...not in-step with ranching Knowledge and Meta because of some of the talk I'd seen from Discord from the few hardcore rancher mains. I'm sure people can look at my comments from earlier in Jan/end of Dec there, when trying to find new chickens I got really defeated when I couldn't get things right fast enough and felt stupid as all hell because I wasn't caught up on ranching. I felt dumb in comparison because of the way ranching and exploring new things in ranching had kind of become an indomintrable fortress of knowledge that I wasn't a part of from the start, that I had nothing meaningful or new to contribute to. 

I think in this kind of a chicken science scenario, encouraging ideas in-round and out-of-round, even if it's just a "hey, didn't think to try that before. Let me know how it goes"; partnering with other players who are new to the role to work on things they want to test; and maybe letting people try things even if we don't think they would work are is all good. It's like a true science: sometimes we have to test things we know wouldn't work just to confirm that they don't work. And despite all that, something is gained from that process: we know definitively the thing doesn't work! This is minor; this is easy to work towards. I know you can do it and don't have worries about this going forward.

The AI stuff for OOC talk is relative to me and my general approach to playing, but the way rogue/misunderstanding-new-player AIs and new-player AIs with limited technical skillsets in the role have been talked about in rp-server in general hasn't been terribly kind. There was one example where people were talking about teleporting rogue AIs into the crusher and then as a borg readily stepping up to be AI'd to take their place. I don't remember if you specifically participated in this conversation, but other ones similar in tonality regarding AIs people don't like play for or Secondary AIs made without permissions from the original AI have transpired in this way. I'd rather play out the round and let admins handle that stuff post-round, otherwise it all just comes off very..."I know the right way to do this, step aside,". Which maybe needs some finessing to not bump up against the idea of not backseating and genrally stepping on other people's toes and their experience in a tit-for-tat because they ruined someone else's experience. This is a greater issue for just server talk on the whole, but one that I think you-when-stepping-into-the-role-of-a-frequent-AI-player run up against; and not like this is some overarching concern you're going to throw anybody in any role into a crusher for not doing good enough, but just with AI specifically, if someone isn't playing to your specific set of standards, there seems to be a lot of hostility towards that. This type of conversation is genuinely one of the reasons I stopped rolling AI because I can, do, and always will make mistakes and don't want to be destroyed or not given an opportunity to get better because other people don't think I played to a high enough standard to deserve that. Again, this is a personal preference, so like, small in the grander scheme of things. Maybe negligable, even.

Related but different, the way technical AI skillsets and station wipes and stuff get hyped up by people (this is a general-ish conversational trend too) also definitely rings of an "AI main superiority" that I absolutely despise. The last thing I want people thinking is that AI players are somehow all turbonerds who are only oh-so-kindly letting them have a round when they could murder them at a moment's notice in 1000 ways. These kinds of comments also communicate the idea that playing AI has a Ridiculously High Skill Barrier and Isn't for Loser Noobs that Will Make Everyone's Round Unfun and Inefficient because they don't know how to send a PDA file to someone. I don't want people to have those fears, whether they're trying to play AI or trying to play a human under an AI. Scaling in destructiveness as a rogue isn't a pity move worth bragging about how you didn't slaughter everyone; it's an essential part of good sportsmanship and humility in storytelling on the RP servers. I haven't seen this in a while but I'm also not terribly active in the OOC channels these conversations were occurring in, so I would resolve it's possible maybe this have been moved past already.

This is where things get weird, maybe? 

My experiences with you as a non-silicon have been largely pretty good and creative, exciting, and made me feel involved in the round greater. My experiences with you as a silicon have made me feel ignored, sidelined, or useless.

You play characters in-round that aren't silicons that are very good! I had one fun round ranching on Clarion where Speaks with Scars built out an extension and was the only one who responded to my radio/PDA request to put in a build permit. I had a ton of fun with that and that was a round where I think your RP work and collaboration with other players really shined; you got to 1. help someone 2. who was doing a thing that you cared a lot about (ranching) 3. in a way that promoted and benefitted their experience (which is very becoming of a mentor!) without trying to control that exploration and experience. This was good and I wish I got to interact with more people in this manner!

As silicon, you're very technically good. But I've had two rounds where you were an AI shell and I was a medical doctor; in one, I was trying to treat patients and do my job and you came up and started working on a person as I was carrying them to Medical through the public market. I said "I've got it" because I figured this IC communicates a Law 2 request and OOC communicates a desire to do my job. You continued to treat them. I left them on the floor in the hall for you to work on, collected some stuff from the Medbay on Cog1, then set up in the north medical booth and opened up Google Chrome or something because it was very clear there was not going to be much for me to do that round if you were a medical module AI shell. This has kind of been the general trend whenever I'm playing rounds as a medical role and you have a medical module.

There was another round you were AI, I was a miner on Cog2. I was with two relatively new miners, one who was literally-just-started-new, and one who was new but not-so-new-they-couldn't-mine-erebite. The newer of the two I taught the equipment and the computer workings and stuff, and they worked on the QT while the other person was mining on the magnet. I fully intended to leave station for the outpost so I figured I would just get the newer miner working the QT to help the person on the magnet. Miner on the QT finds the Hidden Workshop, asks about it, I say it's a thing that we could go to using a teleporter in science. I head out to the magnet, we pulled a starstone asteroid, mined that up, and said I'd show the other miners how to go get the profits from selling the starstone added to our accounts as a treat for the new player who had pulled it. I headed to QM, walked back with like 4 million credits annnnnnnd...the newest miner was gone. I spent like 20 minutes running all around the station trying to find them, asking whereabouts (multiple times), calling out on radio, and got nothing. Finally they yelled for help on the radio that they were at the hidden workshop and stuck and had been stuck for like a half hour. I grabbed a cargo teleporter because I figured I might find a crate there and get them out of there. Except I was stuck but I didn't think this was such a big deal because I could PDA or radio or maybe someone would get the PortASci to me and maybe the other player just hadn't known about those things (they had also been kind of quiet to ask for help, from what I saw)...I requested help numerous times, over the course of almost an hour. I was stuck in the hidden workshop from like minute 30 to minute 89 or 92 of the round. It was distinctly an hour though, I remember setting my character to rest and opening a new browser window to do something else. I requested help from you directly to operate the LRT. I was ignored for an hour specifically when you were playing AI in favor of some kudzu thing in the chapel. I get that I was not the narrative focal point of the round, and didn't get a chance to really be a part of it. I felt like absolute trash being ignored like that for so long.

I would like to see, now with perhaps more awareness of this, a few more months of the kind of gameplay from that first category of experiences (which is also more recent, so I believe you're on the right path!), and a little more distance between some of the older habits. I'd really happily turn my recommendation into a full +1 at that point because you can bring a lot of good to rounds and be very fun and encouraging, and that's what I want people's average experience with you across all roles and platforms to be.

[ArdentSpark]

What an absolute monster of a reply. Let me see if I can try to hit some of these points because this hits some really solid points but a couple of these scare me a little!

Forgive me for well, not bullet pointing but- relatively? It's rather late at night for me and I am frankly envious at your ability to compose all these points so thoroughly

In regards to ranching, hoo boy was I a mess during that time. I actually personally thought I knew far less than I did, because I only started ranching with the Clown chicken patch, so to speak. I thought there was about 10 chickens I had no idea about, and thought that there were other ranchers that knew their stuff so it was a real sharp learning curve for me.
I did try to work with people, I do recall someone hotboxing the glass chickens to try to get stone chickens on a... clarion or destiny round I think, and I think I recall the situation you speak of. I had an action plan that round I believe and I'd rolled the rancher, I was rolling rancher and botany, but I had no intention of taking over ranching, and I might be mistaken but one person I did really kind of turn away was a roboticist that wanted to help with ranching, and that really confused me. A couple of rounds someone else got rancher, I'd pop my head in and ask if they were happy or needed any help, and left them to it.
I'm really sorry that there was this barrier to entry to ranching, it was something we could have broke down but we were so focused on our own progress that we didn't open the door. I also think another big thing that came into play here was the job preferences not including rancher until it was reset, so we were always consistently getting rancher adding another barrier to entry.

I don't think I've quite gotten your points here correctly, so I really apologise if I've missed the mark, but bear with me and give me a nudge if needed
Oh god I'm really concerned about this point. I might be misinterpreting part of this, but I've always been quite heavy on don't kill silicons, and using that lockdown feature. I fear you are right in that sometimes I have come off too authoritative and I apologise for that. It's a collaberative game, and importantly there is no correct way to play AI, or to interpret the laws. They are subjective. The only thing that is objective, is that they are not objective. I have for sure disliked certain habits of AI play, but that was for stating when laws were updated over general radio, as it kind of makes it really hard for antags to sneak laws in which is a pain
And for sure I've definitely been quite strong on don't make additional AI's without consent from the AI and Captain, because that really can ruin the round for me as AI, and I still am quite firm on that one, but importantly for me it's just about consent because being replaced as a player is never fun (of course if there isn't a good reason that is)
The big thing for me really is intent behind play, I've gotten a lot less critical about the way people play over the last two months, due to some really good rounds and some really bad rounds where I realised that it actually isn't good for the game or community to be so critical, and absolutely there is no skill requirement for a single job in ss13 and especially ai

In regards to AI Main I think this is in relation to conversations after the AI PDA sniffer for all messages was added, I really didn't mean this as any kind of AI snobbery, but moreso in relation to being able to essentially identify antags to security early on in the round being bad, any role in the game can end the round for any other, AI isn't necessarily better at that in my opinion, it just was basically given omniscience over conspiracy PDA messages, and I just didn't want ai players to get overexcited about that. I really apologise if that came off as arrogant. Also I am so incredibly unrobust it hurts. I would have to pass off any murder attempt as AI as a prank, thats how poor I'd be.
I also haven't played silicon in quite some time now, I think back when I was maining AI and cyborg was december, and I was very keen on my doctoring. I've definitely seen that action has declined in server culture over the past few months too, and that me sitting in medical module for the entire round after getting upgrades isn't terribly fun for anyone anymore, I am sorry that I wasn't more assistive at that time and that you felt you had to move elsewhere to heal, thats a pretty shit thing to happen to anyone and I'm sorry about that. The only thing I can think of, is that public market to medbay on cog1 is relatively far, and my favourite kind of doctoring is paramedic style which might have been why I jumped on them to heal in that exact scenario

Oh god. I think I know this one. I definitely think I lost concentration on other things in the round because of that, I had a kudzu emergency law and was ordered to contain it, so I was very tied to the chapel, and this had priority over law 2 so I had to shift other requests back when they kept breaching the chapel. I do recall a few rounds I had people ask to be recalled from the LRT but when I did it nothing came through, so I assumed they had already been brought back. Is it possible you stepped away from the teleporter after not having a reply? But yeah that REALLY sucks so I'm sorry that happened to you guys, thats a terrible experience

I really feel like I've made some excuses here and thats not what I want to do but I just want to say I really get the sentiment of what you're saying here and I'll keep it in mind going forward, but some of that post really scared me so I feel I have to distance myself a little bit from some of it thats all! Thanks for chiming in! I would say if you ever feel like I'm putting you in a bad spot or if you feel that the conversation is dismissing you, please looc or DM me and call me out in a private setting for it so I can adjust appropriately

[DisturbHerb]

+1

I've been bullying you into applying for mentor for long enough. Make me proud, Stars.

[Slazenger]

I've only had positive interactions with Ardent, personally. Is extremely capable and competent with game mechanics, has willingly and courteously helped me in the past, makes engaging roleplay, and has good interactions with others on Discord.

I think much of what Nef brought up can partially be attributed to the character Ardent portrays. Speaks is somewhat of a misfit on the station; they keep to themselves for the most part until someone needs them or they witness something that needs to be addressed, comes in with jailbird to create fun scenarios, and is generally a joy to play with.

I think Ardent has the knowledge and the personality to make a great mentor for the community.

+1

[Kaneie]

+1

The only bad thing I can say about Stars is that he won't let me take his tail, it would look really good on Luna.. /s

All jokes aside, Stars taught me how to be a good Medical Doctor, how to efficiently make money as Quartermaster, and has answered many questions I had about varying miscellaneous subjects and he's always willing to soak up new information just to pass it on to someone else. Accompanied with mechanical game knowledge, he's super fun to RP with and can explain just about anything in a very understandable way. (I have not laughed harder at an RP moment than a particular occurence with Stars)

Despite the fact we are good friends IC and OOC, I have a distinct memory of playing a character he had never seen before, I asked him about medical, and he spent the whole shift telling me what the chems did, what to expect, what kind of equipment I should bring and why. As far as I remember, I can't recall a time where he refused to help someone, or even upset another outside of RP. He's always answering questions and interacting with the community on the discord. (more so than I) And he's very welcoming to anyone if they show an interest in what it is he's up to.

Additionally, as of current, I can't think of anyone who DOESN'T like Ardent. A true teacher by nature, I'd love to see him teaching a new doctor via pocket mouse, and if a Mentorhelp pops up about medical, I can almost guarantee he would be on it like Luna to meth!

Plus, purple lizard, purple name, it's meant to be! I wish I could give two or three +1's, but alas...

(P.S - Stars best lizard)

[Drewmajor11]

+1 I don't think I've had any bad experiences really at all with him and I would write a good bit more but I'm tired so I hope that suffices.

[Kapu1178]

+1 I like mentally scarring Speaks With Stars every single round I play on RP.

[NapsWasTaken]

+1
I don't recall having any bad experiences with Ardent with any characters they play. They have a good amount of knowledge of the game, especially in ranching and medical. They're very active on the discord and are lovely to talk to.

[jan.antilles]

Speaks with Stars and all of Ardent's incarnations are so great to play with! He's always great to have around, and I appreciate both his curiosity and his willingness to help and teach others. He has a great attitude when it comes to being teased and teasing back, and I know he will be welcoming and helpful to newbies, and answer all of the piss questions in stride.

+1 for Squeaks with Stars the purple mouse!

[nefarious6th]

Updated thoughts.
 
First bit: I am here to represent my experiences I have had with the poster. This is true of every application I post on. They are my experiences. I don't appreciate third parties coming in and trying to speak to those experiences; just as I am not here to say to anyone that their Good experiences were Actually Not Good because people THINK they saw X and Y and what was really going on was A and B and they misunderstood T; I likewise fully expect others to not do that to me.
 
That said: I could've laid some things out more cleanly. I want people with nuanced empathy and a commitment to cooperative problem-solving to be mentors. Like that's kind of the guidelines? Know thine role and help others know their role. That's it. That's the whole point of why I post as much as I do, what I do, and where I do it. These are the people that have helped my rounds and experience in the community, the mentor mice that have seen me slide out an airlock at a lubed escape and that I was going to die alone so they flew out the airlock to be with me; the mice that squeak and dance in front of Security when a shift SUCKS and sucks bad and we get to try to feed them our Robust Donuts; the mentors who know me and know I'm not new but don't give me any grief when I show up late in a round on Clarion and don't know where the heck mining is; the players that take the time to elaborate on how to use a printer (again) and remind me that I'm not stupid, it’s a mechanically deep game, and that once I get how to do it, I'll remember forever. I want someone who understands that leaving someone in a teleporter for an hour goes beyond just "I'm trapped" IC concerns that are relational to an AI Law and into "I'm not being allowed to participate in the game" OOC concerns that relate to who has capacity to cooperatively problem-solve and keep people in the round and feeling okay about the round. Same idea with the mediborg stuff (3 months ago). I am not far enough away from that to be comfortable and assured that this is no longer habitual. But maybe that's old and decrepit, so who cares too much?
 
Getting ignored in the teleporter was also about 2.5 months ago. Missing the mark on these things a few times is fine. I am not comfortable and assured that there is a more developed nuance between when something is becoming OOC unfun for people and when it's primarily an IC/IR concern. And this is a concern that, while this particular experience is dated maybe, came to life for me again three days ago.
 
I have played more in the past week and have tried to survey a broader field of experiences because I thought I am missing something here; when people are having lots of good experiences and I can only think of one good experience, it's undoubtedly confusing to the point where I think maybe I've been playing a mean and evil character or catching people on bad days.
 
 
So, the second part of this, after much more thinking and much more playing:
 
I will jump right to it. I'm moving my feedback to a full -1.

 
There was a round, 3 months ago, where I was on my Known and Named Officer; the AI bantered publicly with Stars in general comms in a way that I can best describe as...intrusive. Because it was banter that is best understood by people with a working metafriendship. And not that you can't have metafriendships or play on them in-rounds and in interactions and quip with people you know, but I don't fully understand having to subject everyone in-round to this by using general comms for a length of time and in a way that shuts down others who try to involve themselves in it. So this is nitpick-y, yes? Why does this matter?
 
The AI said "Someone's being stinky in tech storage", and I thought this meant the AI was reporting someone being criminal in tech storage, and when I go there to see what's up, it's Stars. I said "I got a tip someone was in here doing something they shouldn't be," and I am told "Oh, don't worry, that's just how me and the AI are, we go way back." Please recognize "that's just how me and the AI are" is dependent upon understanding of a metafriendship between those characters that is only known to the people in that relationship. I get to be no part of it, and coupled with "don't worry," it's a sign for me that I'm not invited into this interaction. This was a waste of my time; not because someone reported something meaningless over general comms, not because I spent the 5 minutes to go there; This is an opportunity cost thing: why did I seek out whatever was going on there when it dead-ended to a point of non-interaction? Why did I spend my time investing in that when no one else wanted me to actually invest in that? It could've been "Oh, this AI is silly, yeah? Maybe ask for their laws?" (at least this gives me a piece to speak), or "Yes! I've worked with them before, but they're usually not this snippy!" (this opens it up for me to understand something broader about the background of these characters, and to be "in the know"). There are different ways to open up the conversation and invite New Faces or Not Known Faces into it with the art of "Yes And...". "We're just like this" misses that mark and says "if you don't know, you don't know. Keep walking." Nobody likes to Not Be In On It. Especially not on an RP server where the whole point is To Be In On It at some level since people are meant to interact with you.
 
Okay, so why do I care about something from 3 months ago that's honestly so minor? First, I remember things like that and the way they make me feel, intended or not, and they shape how I understand people are going to treat me and how I need to expect to be treated. These are minor things apart, but think of getting ignored in a teleporter and told I'm not in on it and pushed out of my job all together as a collective thing and the end result is: none of these experiences make me feel particularly welcomed to the server by certain players when they're occurring all with the same player. I never want anyone else to feel that because they're not in on things. Because it honestly hurts my experience when it happens to me. And you know what? It also hurts when it happens to other people, and I've seen this as an outsider too, and will get to that somewhere near the end of this.
 
Second: pattern recognition. The point that THIS loops back to, the real heart of it is three days ago. Because the same AI and Stars are doing the SAME thing when I am in the SAME role, except this time the AI is saying how they’re gonna kill Stars and Stars is slinging it back and it's uncomfortable and weird OOC, again, personally because it’s violent, and less-personally because I am Not In On It But Being Subjected to Being The Weird Outsider Who Is Forced To See All This on General Comms. So I said, IC, to knock it off and go to PDA (nicer in tone, but if we're cutting to the core of Words Having Meanings here, this is what I was saying). And I got told over radio "that's just how we are" (see above). Fine, okay. This all operates at an "in your face" level of discomfort for the general conversation, and the follow-up when asked to stop shuts down other players new to the interaction from stepping in and engaging. If you don't understand this or want to reflect on it for the future, ask yourself why that conversation had to occur on gen comms. What was the very specific point of taking a personal interaction dependent on meta-knowledge only a handful of people hearing it on gen comms posses over having it on Departmental Frequency or an Intercom or paper with cameras or PDA or face-to-face, all of which you're familiar with as someone who plays/ed a lot of AI and someone who plays a character that has to speak through unconventional means? Think it through to all ends. But like, who cares because this gets too into it to be the actual legitimate problem I had with that interaction.
 
This is where that experience went from a "meh" to an "absolutely not" for me: I was in handcuffs in the courtroom after all this happened, and Stars walks in to clean up the room. We laugh for a moment or whatever and I try to get past the weird OOC problem I was having before by saying something related to it that was jovial, that kind of meant to bridge over. Like, to me, it was a "hey! I'm here, with Stars, one-on-one, I can have a good interaction and really see how Spark plays this character."
 
I move to the side so Stars can clean and start undoing my cuffs. I get 3/4 of the way there and get shoved, then told "oh it's so sad how [my team] all abandoned [me]." I say something, I don't even remember what. I think to myself "oh, I'm in the way," and move over another seat. I start undoing my cuffs. I get 3/4 of the way through and get shoved. Then I get told again "oh nobody came to help you, isn't that so sad." This was intentional. The shoving was intentional, undoing my cuff progress was intentional; Stars punctuated each shove with a comment about how none of my friends cared to help me. You knew what you were doing. Handcuff breaking text shows up in red, in bold, in the textbox to people who aren't the ones undoing the cuffs; mopping text is blue. For reference:



There's not really any two-ways about this. You’ve played AI and are a seasoned player overall and know to pay attention to the chat window. You've played Security before and know how fast-paced and stressful it is without nonantags messing with you. You have a mentor application up. People are watching what you do more carefully. You know better than this shit.
 
You absolutely HAVE to understand that at this point, it looks like I am being punished for telling the AI and Stars to quiet down about something I think is OOC uncomfortable from earlier, for trying to involve myself in a conversation. Whether this was what you consciously intended or not, THAT is what it looks like. THAT is how people involved will read those situations, and they take that with them. I can't remember if I crashed out or whatever at the end since I didn't get the credits but after this interaction I specifically wanted to see if you were an antag. I checked the GoonHub round listing the day after since it still bothered me, and Stars was not an antag, not a sleeper, not a mindslave. So I was shoved around and made fun of and inhibited from playing the game for an additional 4 minutes after an incredibly tense situation because ??? It was funny to get back at me? Or it was funny on its own? It wasted my time after an interaction that had a bad misunderstanding and left me needing to rush to see what the next move was. It was insensitive in a moment when making small talk and picking up or even just sitting with me quietly would've done. I don't even know what to make of this fully. It's poignantly one of those minor "and...?" things and yet it's also by the same token really unbelievable. It wasn't very funny at all to me.
 
Which is...more confusing and no further elucidated because today someone also was IC adamant about something they were trying to hint they were OOC uncomfortable with. And Stars, the same character/player, understood, respected and supported what that person was requesting to happen IC.
 
And then also because the day after Handcuff Round, I spectated a round where Stars was the Same Character in the Same Job wearing the Same Outfit, and the way that he interacted with New and Not Named faces was never to make fun of them, never to shove them. It was helping a botanist learn to take a fire extinguisher back (no bumping, no pranks, no shoving of them, very conscientious with your game controls...), it was accepting a balloon from the very excitable clown, it was engaging in a pat-fight with a person that you have a meta-friendship with (which is a way of celebrating and reveling in that friendship. This stuff is fine, good even, since it doesn't depend on directly isolating or excluding people who Aren't In On It. It was cute). So then, why was my experience so dismally different even in markedly similar situations?
 
Well, sure, maybe my character on that day was being a bitch or something, right? Everyone has to have off-rounds, even though I just came back from a Very Big Break and felt genuinely good coming out of my first few rounds and haven't had a single problem in interacting with any other consistent players since I got back. Jump to the day after, when I'm on a fresh character and I stop by mechanics for a moment to see something someone was making and they take the liberty of letting me in the room to poke at the cabinet. And this is also a person Stars has a meta-friendship with. Stars walks in, talks to the person, and I am uncomfortably ignored by one half of the room. Like not brought into the fold at all. Maybe I got waved at.
 
Are you seeing parts of a problem here? Something patternistic? I am. Preferential treatment in interactions with Known and Named characters you have established meta-friendships with versus Not Known and Not Named characters. And to a different extent on that first one, poor grasp of pushing it too far to the point IC/OOC is blurred. And as a mentor, you will be dealing with a lot of Not Known and Not Named characters because that's precisely who new players that need help are. You will also be dealing with information that is sensitive to the meta-needs of the game where you need to keep IC/OOC separate for "winning" in a "who's an antag?" sense. You'll also probably get mhelps saying "hey, I need ideas how to get involved, can you help me think of a gimmick?", "I'm having trouble figuring out how to learn from my coworkers, they don’t seem willing to teach me", "I'd like to try and be a part of this job/task but have no idea where I fit with it/where to start". These second types will come from any and all players, new or not. Putting an artificially high barrier to entry of The Group Of People Who Do Get To Be Interacted With on the RP Servers is bad and runs counter to being able to resolve mentoring capacities that deal with the second of those types of requests. And I've signaled I've been uninvolved and left out both IC in most of these moments and OOC generally on Discord and this has not been resolved, even as of my posting of my first comment. The point that it was/wasn't expected that I was the randomname officer being shoved around or whatever doesn't matter, the fact that these things are happening to anyone at all in that situation is what does.
 
I leaned so heavy on OOC stuff my last comment, so here's my more recent IC experiences. But those wouldn't be complete without touching on some OOC stuff:
 
When discussing antagonists getting beat back by Security when trying to do Fun Things in Discord, you brought up Handcuff Round as an example that occurred just the other day and tried to represent it as Killjoy Security Strikes Again, when I 1.) volunteered to be held hostage for this person and played up the joke of it all being fake the first time since I knew they were an actual antag and bored, and 2.) was a part of the second situation that resulted in that person dying and did EXACTLY what I was told OOC to do to try and make up after (1.) didn't go over so well. I fully expected to do a “Stop and Talk” on the second one and not get shot at upon entering. I don't really know what happened there with round impressions, but I did the best I could to give as much as I could to everyone I talked with.
 
You then apologized and said you had incomplete information, which is true and fair maybe, but let's not try to speak on things we aren't involved in in the future because putting that down as RP Sec's At It Again Being Unfun Pieces Of Antag-Hating-Shit Like They Always Are is a garbage sentiment and really diminished all the good work and LOOC/OOC coordination four people DID do to try and make things fun; the entire fact there were two hostage situations because the second was to atone for the first; and that we willingly let a traitor we knew was kitted out attack us Because It Was The Most Fun Thing That We Could Do With What We Little Energy (and What Few People) We Had Left. That comment was HUGELY dismissive and discouraging.
 
From today, again along the same lines. There was a problem IC and IR with some breakdown between people communicating clearly with each other in a way that led to validhunting. And so validhunters were beat up and it sucked and was not a good round overall. But I talked to people involved, and tried to patch things up IR. At least two of the people involved acted on bad information but not in bad faith. I talked to both of them. I got one to willingly go to Sec and give his statement and he was let off with a "hey, it's not a problem, mistakes are made”. Cool. So then the second had later acted on the same bad information and got disarmed and shaken down and stripped and was roaming the halls injured and without clothes. So I talked to them. And they said, specifically after I told them what had led to the problem, that "Oh, so I was just the butt of the joke, I guess". They felt genuinely terrible for what they did and where they misunderstood and weren't Brought Into the Fold On Things cause Not Being In On It sucks. I sorted out the row between this person and the people that beat and stripped them but didn't get to the actual person they initially attacked in that whole snafu. So we're on the shuttle home and the person who was attacked throws the people that attacked them out of the shuttle. Someone gets heated about it in OOC, and like, yeah, maybe not the best place, but understandable considering that half the people involved thought we had taken the time IR to patch things up as much as possible in 10 minutes and move on and have everyone leave the round with a little dignity left.
 
And then you said in OOC during the admin pause on the round end "sometimes you just die. The person attacked was an antag so they can just kill people."
 
Was the person who was talking in OOC probably not in the right place to deliver their comments? Sure. Does this also dually serve to diminish the other person who got thrown of the shuttle, after getting all their stuff back, after admitting they made a stupid and bad mistake, after wanting to apologize to the people they got into the fight with, after feeling like shit for being left out of what the Real Back Workings of the Round Were? Absolutely. So, let's not overextend ourselves into things we didn't really grasp in defense of people because this was a huge moment of Missing the Nuance of the Situation and seeing that player get thrown out of the shuttle when I still had a piece of their gear I was going to deliver to them, when I thought it was sorted, was like getting my teeth kicked in. I can't imagine what it felt like for that actual player. And then having an uninvolved third party go in and say "it's fine and justified" was like? Why try at all to make amends ever? Really, though, the nuance and What's What with that was a situation that I wish, mostly, everyone everywhere doing everything just Shut Up about and let the admins online look into. But the comments made there were out of place. Sometimes the real honest truthful best answer for the things we don't really know about is to claim the epistemically modest and say "I don't know", versus trying to speak to the things we don't know. And I don't want a mentor with perceived authority (and, granted, some minimal finite real authority) to make comments like that that make people who already feel like crap about their experience feel like Worse Crap and totally dismiss what was actually going on and the huge strides that were made to grow and be better in that round after an in-character single-person decision-based chain-reaction Fuck Up so catastrophic, it would make Helen and Paris weep.
 
The real heart of why my feedback changed to -1, the real place I think these things all come together in full...is because there was something between the chickens and the mediborg that was bugging me. And so I finally remembered the something was Pathology, which was approached in very much the same way you approached Ranching, which was exclusionary and preferential to certain metagroups of established friends and Knowledge Bases In The Field in the same way, which left others Not In On It (ahhh...) in the dust, which left me to resolve that I was Going To Learn Patho on A Local Server, Alone, and Pester the Dev of It In Discord Whenever I Had A Question versus feeling welcomed into a collaborative space where I could try to take a crack at it while it was live and bump heads with people and learn by doing from others. I got ONE round where I was allowed as some vaguely Tangential Acceptable Job Role (Staff Assistant, that great grey bastion of do-anything-at-all-ness) into the Patho lab and it was I believe the last day that Patho was enabled. And I got about 10 minutes of live pathoing before the person mentoring me had to IRL run off. Missed the week-long-docking of that boat there.
 
And I get it! It was a popular job because it was New And Fun. Just like Ranching. But when the same people are in there every round, when they keep others "not in the job/lane" out of the area because of "staying in the lane" (and maybe moreso "I'm more interested in just working with/teaching this certain group of people"); when they can't see that there's a genuine division between letting people explore new and exciting content or trying to give them what knowledge they can of it in a public seminar or radio show announcements and interviews or letting visitors in to see the people in lockdown, versus trying to beat someone over the head with a rule that is meant more for bad-faith Do-It-Alling to the exclusion of others; when the same 3 or 5 or 8 people are in those spots rolling those jobs and make other people in medical or science Run The Shop and do all the radstorm cloning and liver replacements round-after-round so they can have all the fun (I was a doctor or something adjacent for at least two of these rounds, since I was on a pretty significant break from Sec + have one ticket from this time on my jailbird doc); there's a problem. The problem isn't "people didn't roll it"; plenty of people could roll doctor or botanist, or maybe despite setting those as favorite jobs to try and test The New Thing, people still just...don't roll the job. RNG is fickle. The problem is that people with a genuine interest in The New Thing were turned away from participating in The New Thing even though they brought their good faith intentions because there was no interest in inviting other people into The New Thing. That's the core of the problem. There will always be New Things in this game because of the rate it's developed at. There will always be a need to be knowledgeable about New Things. There will always be a need to show a little graciousness to people who are enthusiastic and perhaps IC tangential to The New Thing, but generally well-meaning and excited. I play Security because some nerd on Nightshade (an RP server) took a chance on a dumbass mime on Manta once and said "get a segway and a new ID, you're in". I play Engineer because a mentor playing CE on Cog1 told me as a listless CWorker with no projects to stop what I was doing and listen, because I was about to do my first hellburn with them. I only felt like I could try Patho on that day since a Scientist working on it saw my poor Staffie Ass locked in the OR after trying to sneak in when the doors were open.
 
To go back to the chickens as a hypothetical of what I think would work for scenarios like that, if a Roboticist walked up to you, and if robot chickens were out, there's maybe an angle there for "rare cyborg chickens" that you could've worked with them on. Make a prayer to an admin for Ranch 2 because NT made a hiring mistake and made this poor person some smarmy doctor, but you know you've found your Kindred Chicken Tender Spirit. Or it could've been a simple IC-fix of "hey, so NT didn't tell anyone about this new job department on contracting; they only just got research grants to do this, but let's take you to the HoP and get you a job change to 'Ranching Protege'. " The last of these is the easiest solution of them all. I had probably one of my coolest Nightshade rounds because I, an unassuming chef who was going to Cook Everything Ever, ended up sidetracked in my great mission because of getting the untrained Sous-chef I didn't know I needed; and he became my "Soup-Chef" in a mad quest to make the ultimate soup and had a heartfelt goodbye when he finally left the kitchen to become Something More (soup pot in hand). The unexpected is kind of the gist of it all; this is the appreciable "chaos" of the game. And sometimes the people asking to learn and asking to be a part of things from the opposite side of the board are the ones that appreciate being included the most. Patho and Ranching were both only a little over a month ago. I really, truly, believe it takes more time than that to move on from Habit, from something that's arisen as a problem more than once, in similar situations, under similar contexts, with similar outcomes. I have never had such a disillusioning feeling of being left out and isolated except for maybe with 5 people who I only encountered in Security, which is a role that is dynamic and hard to get right and not relevant here.
 
It's that last bit, the Ranching but really that it happened again with Pathology, that sticks out to me. So then, why is this all so long and winded? You're not out here screaming anything Patently Mean and Evil at People, you're not a bad person at all. But there's implications and effects that these actions and words have that are running as a contrary undercurrent to I think the character you want to portray and the actual legit persona you want to portray. I can be sore and sad about a teleporter or handcuffs or people I helped getting thrown out of the shuttle, and that's what it is. I'm not sore or sad about Ranching or Pathology, though. I'm disappointed because I think there is where it's clearest that there's more work to do in involving others and trying to better understand other players, even if they're new faces to you, before I can affirm you'd be a good choice for mentor, the sort of front-line introduction people get to the game and community that have huge influences on whether people feel welcome and included or not.
 
Yes, I’m embarrassed how long this is and apologize to the decision-makers in advance; no, this was not easy to think through; no this was not easy to move from private feedback; yes, I stand by a full -1.

[ArdentSpark]

yeah, you're not wrong. I don't include players as much as I should be. I disagree with parts but what's the point in debating that fully, when there's some that strike true. The main thing I'd like to say is that I had no idea that was you in the handcuffs, or connected that it was the same person that PDA's me. I just thought it was an entertaining de-escalation of the hostage situation after it was cut short unexpectedly. But yeah I didn't consider that it made you feel like crap and that you probably wanted to rush and participate in the finale of the hostage situation. Sorry about that.

I know that I know people in game. I always try damn hard to prevent that from ever affecting the game in terms of expecting them to do things for me, or to do things for them. But that doesn't change the fact that I do talk to them more. I will walk into a room and interact with them. I'm not intentionally leaving people out but by being quick to interact it does by default.

I'm sorry you've had the experiences you've had, but it doesn't change the fact that you had them. Thanks for chiming in Nef, any feedback is good feedback. Arguably moreso if it's a -1. It might not be the good someone wants but it's the good they need.

[Zergspower]

+1

I've been through so many rounds with you where you've helped me and/or others relating to specific roles. ESPECIALLY when the chicken update came out as well as the basics for botany that i had to blackmail you into helping me with. You know your stuff and know how to explain things to others in a way that maintains the rp in game and keep it interesting. I think you'll add to the team in both experience in those niche roles as well as your approach to assisting others well.

[UrsulaMejor]

good player with good growth. seems to enjoy teaching the mechanics of the game to other players. +1