i am dedicating this to the mods / abuse victims. (everyone else can just skip to the last section if they want to.)
alright, prepare for a very long post. because there are actually a lot of reasons why i’m leaving. (one of the more trivial ones being that i’m just not very enthusiastic/inspired about it lately.) i am usually very tolerant, but lately, the things i have heard/witnessed/been involved with have made me want to leave.
yes, freeze’s player also left. it all started with ooc disagreements, was fueled by some anon harasser, and then came to a sad highlight when the mod team wanted to “talk to her”.
the conversation was about that they were getting complaints from people that the relationship between freeze and solar is “abusive and controlling”, and that people were getting offended over/feeling uncomfortable about it.you can find the full log here.
as you can see, it was 6 people interrogating one person. she did barely have a chance to defend herself because (as you can see in the log) there was barely any time between accusations coming from the team.
i am not blaming the mods for taking complaints seriously and investigating them. this is one of their duties. but this wasn’t investigating. freeze’s player didn’t get any say in it, and i, as solar’s player wasn’t contacted either. all they did was tell her to stop doing whatever she was doing.
the mods also failed to mention any concrete examples why freezeman is as “abusive and controlling” (domestic violence was also mentioned) as they claim. they kept mentioning the leash thing though, which was, as we stressed several times, a joke. it was never brought up again until some anon decided that they felt the need to read it out of context and point it out.
also, let me tell you why a leash has nothing to do with domestic violence:
it just doesn’t. although the mods called it a “alternative lifestyle” many times in the conversation, they didn’t differenciate it from the accusations of an unhealthy relationship. (see also: the point “some people need to realize it’s just a game” later in this post) as far as i know, S/M is a consensual thing. consent kind of excludes abuse, doesn’t it?swn001Forte 8:25 am
Then why was Solar defending it
as kinkthat’s actually a strange question. am i not allowed to defend it? i’m sorry if this comes to shocking news to some of you now, but i’m a human being with an at least somewhat healthy sexuality, i have kinks and i’m open about it. sue me?
do i enjoy reading about bondage in fanfiction? yes.
do i enjoy seeing/drawing fetish fanart? yes.
do i joke about it? yes.
does that mean that everything i rp has to do with it? no.
am i shoving it into anyone’s face? no.
even if i did rp it in private, would it be any of your business? absolutely not.(in fact i don’t think i ever even rped something like that. it’s not an important part of my life, you know.)
it is okay if some people aren’t informed and have wrong/distorted views on this. i don’t mind, you don’t need to know everything and if you don’t want to have to do anything with it either, then i won’t blame you. i don’t need to know all the details about some kinks I think are disgusting.
which leads me to a bit of speculation:
to me it almost seems as if this whole issue was just some kind of pretense. you know, i’ve been through a similar situation irl (except that it was way worse. i know how nasty things like these can get, that’s why i’m cutting this off here before it develops into something ugly.) and i can tell if the goal of something is to get rid of certain persons. right now, it looks like exactly that’s case. but then again, i might be over-sensitive about this because you know, it offends me personally because i suffered from similar abuse etc etc.so, most of you probably don’t even know which anon i’m talking about. it was someone who just popped up randomly and sent this ask to freeze’s account:
followed by:
and:
at that point i had decided to step in. and i guess it is understandable. freeze’s player is my bro and i don’t like to see her harassed by some random person.
another anon also realized that something was off about the previous anon:because i had stepped in, i also got asks shortly after. on my personal. so this person either found me on the personal account masterlist somehow or knows me. i still have no idea who it is, by the way.
first, they apologized.
here i made clear (again!) that it was just a joke.
dwn060 8:22 am
well then obviously people were not able to tell it was a joke. I couldn’t either actuallywhich makes statements like this kind of invalid.
then they just kept going.
i explained to them that they could skip parts they perceived as fetish-y.they kept sending me asks, so i typed up a very long, detailed reply.
there, i explained everything yet again, even though i got the increasing feeling that they were just a troll.after this, i got another two messages:
here and here.they eventually stopped. i had explained myself and thought the issue was settled, but apparently it wasn’t?
(also iceman’s player told freeze’s player and me to stop while we were talking to the anon, because she was “getting complaints”. i will talk about her later in the post.)
i also thought this person was the only one to over-react like that. in a following discussion on my dash people kept telling me that they see this like i did and that there really was nothing offending about the way we rped the relationship.
but apparently i was wrong?then let’s look at this rationally. please tell me, what exactly leads people to think that freeze was “abusive”, “bossy” and “controlling”? as far as i know there are three main accusations:
- the leash issue.
i think i don’t have to explain this again. it was a joke. and it has nothing to do with the previously names adjectives.
can we please get over it already?- the violence.
Splash Woman 8:23 am
Specifically, whether you realize it or not, Freeze Man is very demanding of Solar Man. We’ve had abuse survivors mention their similar situations. The Freeze/Solar RPs where they are verbally agressive towards one another are triggering to a lot of players.
when where they ever verbally aggressive against each other? they never ever had a real argument or anything even close to that. also, as far as i’m concerned, it is normal in any kind of relationship that people disagree, which leads to discussion, which is actually very healthy for relationships. i am sorry that the dynamics in their relationship are realistic. realistic in a sense that they have disagreements and also talk about other things besides how much they love each other.
even if they argued, i wouldn’t see how this would be a problem, since there are arguments all over my rp dash almost every day.
are characters only allowed to argue if they are not romantically involved with each other?
- furthermore, this makes me wonder how i could ever get away with the things that happened in the charge/spring relationship. what about the time charge broke spring’s face? i wouldn’t call that a nice couple dinner. that was violent behaviour. but apparently it was okay?
- the “controlling” aspect.
dwn060 8:24 am
well the leash jokes, the tags that brought up tieing one another up sort of brought that back in mind. Also freezes “You cant do___ without asking me” behavior
comes off fetishy
Splash Woman 8:25 am
It looks like Solar cannot go anywhere, do anything, or talk to anyone without Freeze’s permission.
This is considered a form of domestic abuse.
reading all this makes me just wonder more. i”ve been toying with the power dynamics in this relationship, but i thought that it was still obvious that they are treating each other equally. freeze never outright forbid anything, and if anything, solar chooses to listen to his boyfriend’s wishes because he respects them. i can only assume that the people who complain don’t read the rps at all or simply don’t understand them.
freeze wasn’t comfortable with meeting chill, and still solar made them meet.
solar didn’t even ask when he appointed the meeting with blade.
when solar wanted to help strike, freeze told him that he couldn’t go. what would you tell someone whom you care about when they want to go out and bring themselves into a most likely dangerous, maybe deadly situation? would you tell them to go and have fun?
when dr light grounded blues, was this domestic violence too? because clearly, the situation was at least very similar.yes, i am defending the way we rped the relationship. why did the mods only talk to freeze’s player? why didn’t they talk to me too?
and while there are other situations with other players/characters in the rp (remember the time splash fought forte?), why were we picked specifically? why this pairing?right now i can’t think of any explanation.
and calling us out because of one pairing but not another just screams double-standards. especially, because only freeze’s player was contacted.
have i been treated different because i am/was(?) on good terms with the mods? because i’m not okay with it and i don’t want to be treated specially.or if this isn’t the reason, then what the hell are the reasons?
so apparently, there seems to be a problem with freeze’s player.
i don’t know what she could have done to infuriate people so much to drive her away from the rp. the only argument she ever had with one of the members happened very recently, and it involved iceman’s player.the story about iceman’s player:
so i never really had any problem with her, and i actually think she is a nice person. freeze’s player was friends with her too, but lately i know that they had a few discussions. iceman’s player might have her reasons, or private problems, or i don’t know, but to me it just looked like the cause for the discussions was that she got very pissed about freeze/ice not happening.it started out very trivial, with her blaming freeze for kicking ice out of freeze’s and solar’s home. there was a private rp prior to that where solar asked freeze to tell ice to go, freeze was hesitant, and so solar went and did it. ice was merely on a visit, although people made it look like he had no home and nowhere else to go.
the rp logs still exist if anyone is interested and wants to read it to make their own opinion.
the discussion about that had seemingly died down when ice’s player started making biased comments about freeze on her personal and the like. she claimed that freezeman is the weakest ice bot, and when she was confronted with the fact that this isn’t necessarily true, she got defensive and started contradicting herself. (i have the conversation saved.)
that discussion apparently enraged her so much that she unfollowed both me and freeze’s player on all her accounts, including our rp accounts.
before/during the discussion on the personals, freeze sent an ic ask to ice’s account, as a try to have them make up icly. it either never arrived or was ignored. another ask that freeze’s player sent to her oocly after the unfollowings went unanswered as well.if this wasn’t a case of ic bias affecting ooc actions i don’t know what is.
there are other cases of bias that especially irk me, and most of them are happening in the mod team, sadly, while regular members would get called out for it.
a few of the trends i observed are:
- if the rpers are friends, the characters are friends too.
this has happened many times. it is understandable that you’ll want to interact with your friends, but it would add a lot to the believability of the characters if they had to establish their ic friendships and relationships first.
- there is an elite, consisting of the mods and their (mostly irl) friends.
there really is no sense in denying that. the wishes of the elite are taken in account, while the decisions of said elite get shoved down everyone else’s throat.
- popular characters are not open for everyone.
i wil come back to this later.this is just a selection of the examples that happened. no one would say anything, if the elite would at least follow their own rules. or if they really can’t follow them or don’t want to, then maybe they should think about allowing regular players to do these things too.
but the way it is, it is obvious that some people are clearly favored over others. if an anon even so much as sneezes into the general direction of a “favorite”, the mods are all over them, while they keep silent when other members are outright harassed. (do they pretend not so see anything? don’t deem the harassment grave enough?)
please don’t tell me that i’m not a mod and therefore have no idea what i’m talking about. while i had little to none tumblr rp experience when i joined AMR, i have modded sites successfully before. the key is to listen to the members and consider their ciritique/suggestions. but apparently here on AMR we are all happy and no one complains about the way it is modded, right? i talked to a lot of people and there are complaints. things that many people think but no one ever expresses (at least not publicly). i have a few ideas why it is this way.
why no one ever complains
- people have nowhere else to go:
even though people are leaving, many are reluctant to do this because AMR is the only group they know of. i assume that everyone here loves rping, and rping in AMR needs a lot of involvement and time. so, if you just leave, it leaves behind a big void with no alternatives.
- they don’t want to abandon their rp partners:
many have made good friends here and have developed complex relationships between their characters, so they don’t want to sacrifice this.
- they are afraid of drama:
if you leave, people will want to know why. i am sure that a lot of people leave because they just don’t have enough time for the rp, but i’m just as sure that there are many people with different reasons (like me). not everyone wants to speak their mind because they are worried that they’ll be called out or judged for it.what my tips are for AMR to become a nicer place:
as i said, i have modded, and even though i am leaving, i would like to help preventing more cases like this one. i am not trying to tell you how to run your rp, but i do think that it wouldn’t hurt to at least consider these things if you want to improve.
- stop it with the restrictions:
while i understand many of the rules, some, especially the newer ones are just ridiculous. the meme ban on any other days than “the day that starts with ‘t’” (tuesday? thursday?) was something that i especially disagree with. it is true that it can flood the dashboard and that it’s hard to scroll past all the asks, BUT. did you ever consider that some characters aren’t that popular or don’t have that many other opportunities to keep active all the time. i guess i can be glad that it didn’t affect me, but some people join the group as total strangers and don’t have someone to interact all the time (see bias) so the interaction originating from the answers to these memes are often the only chance to rp for them.
you could also ban the use of reaction images or establish a min posting-length. but then again i thought AMR should be a place to have fun?- popular characters shouldn’t be reserved for the elite:
where i used to rp, if there was a popular/important character in need of a (new) player, there would be an announcement, and everyone would be allowed to write an application. the potential players who were the most active/most suitable for the role would be chosen. currently, on amr, this happens behind closed doors and if you are not a close friend of the mods, there is no chance of getting the character.
again, this is something that didn’t concern me personally, since my characters got plenty of attention fortunately and i never really felt the need to pick up any others. but also again, this scares away new players. all they get are some unpopular, mostly even unknown characters and a lack of opportunities to rp will eventually make them leave again, even though they were probably great rpers.- some people need to realize that it’s just a game.
they should realize that everything played out here is just fictional and that it should be, by no means, taken seriously. people who get offended over the topics someone else rps out should probably take a break from the internet. where i used to rp, the only restrictions for content were “no explicit pornographic or violence-glorifying scenes, no tasteless or right-wing extremist content”. everyone was able to follow these rules, everyone got along and no one was offended, or if they were, they kept it to themselves. how come this is not possible around here? (maybe because it’s tumblr. on tumblr, everything you say offends people, apparently.)
there is also no use in getting worked up oocly about ic things. it is okay to get upset or feel with the characters, since you spend a lot of time thinking yourself into their heads. if you know that you feel this way or that way because of ic events and are able to get over it, it’s fine. but if you aren’t able to differenciate, roleplaying is not for you.- don’t dictate headcanons.
this is another thing i observed. it is okay to define how you want a character to be played if you put them up for adoption or ask for applications, but this gives the potential players the opportunity to accept or decline these restrictions. i feel a bit sorry for the new stardroids, because after they joined, they were pretty much told what to do and how to play their characters. i might be exaggerating here, but it was just another thing that caught my attention.that is all i could think of for now. most likely other things i forgot to mention will occur to me later on, but i guess i said more than enough already anyway.
so, my rant ends here. i still think that you guys are pleasant people, but even pleasant people make mistakes and it’s a sign of maturity if you can take critique. because that’s what this post is - critique. not flaming, not bashing or anything like that. maybe defending myself a bit.but i never joined with the intent to argue and cause trouble, and i am glad for the friends i was able to make here as well for the many fun hours i spent with this rp, but everything has to end eventually. i’m sorry that it had to end like this and hope that i was an enjoyable company as well. if anyone still wants to rp with me or just talk/ask questions, you can contact me on aim as well as on my personal.
have a nice day, everyone!
reblogging because i think everyone needs to read this
(Source: previously-dwn038)
thanks for playing with me
should someone be interested in talking or rping with me for some reason you can contact me on aim (freezeman049) or on my personal!
i’ll be deleting this account in a few days so bye!
dwn-049 replied to your post: Have you ever lied to your partner?
…Have you never lied to anyone?
That’s beside the point. I just thought we had this whole honesty thing going, you know.
I know. I am trying, but sometimes it is hard to not fall back into old habits.
… Fair enough.
(Source: previously-lensflare80, via previously-lensflare80)
…Have you never lied to anyone?
That’s beside the point. I just thought we had this whole honesty thing going, you know.
(Source: previously-lensflare80)
Hm, that is for you to find out. But you are welcome. And by the by, I’ve recently received a small… bonus at work and thought about taking a weekend escape, if you’d like. Let’s get away, just for a few days, you know.I see…!
And really? That sounds great! But…We will not be too far away, right? Because, you know, I am still a bit worried for Strikeman and all…
We’ll see about that.
(Source: previously-lensflare80)
