[RP] Mayfox - Another complaint about Vellen

[peesh]

BYOND name of complaint against: Mayfox (i'm pretty sure. i dont really take notice of ckeys half the time, just going off info ive gotten)

Your BYOND name: peesh

Date of issue and round ID: Kinda ongoing. Not one set period of time, though I do have my own screenshots, forgot when they were.

Reason for complaint: This is (as far as I know) the third complaint on Mayfox over a character. If you've seen previous, it was probably Akram. After said complaint, mayfox mysteriously stopped playing Akram, and that was good for a while. Then they played their first character again. Mary Louise Vellen does not make any reasonable sense. As a character, they are confusing to interact and deal with, infuriating to decipher, and generally just a bit of a dick (but thats IC, so whatever). This is less of my own complaint and more of another outlet for people to complain instead. Some people don't like making complaints. Hell, I don't. But sometimes it needs to be done.

Who and what is Mary Louise Vellen?
Mary Louise Vellen, if you're unfamiliar, is a vulp(?) engineer/atmos tech. That's not where my problem lies (though I've since heard there's problems on that front too) On the surface, they're a vulp wearing a cowboy hat speaking in a poor imitation of a southern drawl. Now, accents are fine. Just not to this degree. If it gets to the point where your character's vocal patterns are a running gag, you know somethings up.

Running gag?

"Cotton"

That one word is the cause for so much confusion. Why does she randomly say cotton? What's the point? Does it mean anything?

It's pretty infuriating to read too. Don't ask me, I'm not a psychologist. It's just so annoying. And that's not the only confusing, and irritating, vocal pattern Miss Vellen possesses.


A screenshot I've taken, personally, while the power was running low. Vellen had volunteered to fix the engine, and I was the colony director.
Cotton.
Yupp Yupp.

I've had another experience, one I forgot to screenshot. Mostly because it took me a minute to figure out what she was saying.
Something about the air noodle place, if I remember? (You're absolutely free to call bullshit, I'd think I'm lying too, I don't blame you.)

Now, what is the air noodle place?

Atmos.
An atmos tech, a (supposedly) qualified atmos tech, has referred to pipes as air noodles.

Why?

This isn't believable.
Why would nanotrasen hire a semi-decipherable engineer who tends to be disliked by god-knows-how-many of the crew?
Why would you keep playing a character if they become the butt of a joke?

Keep the character, just fix the goddamn speech. That's what I'll say. This is more an open platform for others to come forward and talk about it, less than my own personal soapbox. If I catch any one of you motherfuckers who keeps whining about Vellen acting like an idiot in this thread, I will be mad. Like, peesh mad.

Cheers. (I'm also so fucking sorry if that read like a 3rd grader's attempt at debating. I am terrible with length.)

[Izzy]

While it's very tempting to drop rule 3.4 on Vellen's head right off the bat, has their gimmick been handled in character in any rounds yet? Something along the lines of them being demoted for lack of proper communication?

I'd argue that an attempt to fix it in character should come first with something like this, since it's not extremely obviously against the rules, and admin action will come from it. If every chief engineer has no issue with the communication whatsoever, then it passes as a character gimmick. If their character is repeatedly demoted for showing up as a job that they aren't able to perform then we step in to solve the issue.

I'll call it now that their gimmick looks like an entirely valid reason to outright ignore anything they say, and even demote them from jobs requiring any form of communication given they run their gimmick thin in a round (which, it doesn't look like it'll take much to reach that point). If you perform a demotion, fax central, or even ahelp it to keep track if you don't want to spend the effort for a fax.

When it becomes an issue to that point, we'll make the call on 3.4.

[Kazkin]

Oh boy a complaint about accents. I can practically feel the molten irony encasing me as I read this because my character also has an incredibly thick accent and I get admins, literal admins, using the "hide your identity" whisper in my head function to tell me how much they hate my characters accent at least once a week. So I know I don't have fans in that area, but as a hobbyist linguist lemme break down why Vellen's accent is not an accent. As an aside, if Vellen has in her medical file a reason for speaking thus, such as tourettes, than bravo for commitment.

Let's look at the screenshot sentence.
Vellen: "I'll need cotton two boxes of those purple collectors yupp yupp or even three."

Now, the bolded spot is where the sentence structure breaks down, while the underlined section is where the accent functions. The sentence flow does not work because it doesn't flow structurally in English. "I'll need 'cotton' two boxes" makes little logical sense because cotton is not only in the wrong place, but it isn't an expletive.

Example:
"I'll need, uhhh fuck, two boxes."
"I'll need, shit two boxes."
"I'll need, argh, two boxes."
"I'll need two cotton boxes."

Notice the difference in flow when you say it aloud, cotton isn't an expletive and the lack of comma notates no pause in words, equally its in the wrong place entirely in the sentence. This is jarring slightly to read because its effectively having a speech tick that can't properly flow. This is not an accent. Lemme repeat, this is not an accent. This is at best just badly worded and at worst a poorly executed gimmick. But, the example sentence is not entirely bad, look at the tail end.

"Those purple collectors yupp yupp or even three."

This part of the sentence actually flows and is an accent, this is a good example of an accent related speech tick. The words "yupp yupp" flow logically within the words and do not break the sentence structure in any jarring way. The words also imply accent origin, the immediate response by anyone who has heard a southerner speak is reminded of that specific accent. The problem I largely have with Vellen's accent is this is the exception rather than the rule. Her words very rarely follow any sort of coherent sentence structure and I'm absolutely positive the player behind Vellen has not only never met a southerner but doesn't even have English as a first language.

The secondary reason I don't like her accent is the lack of phonetic pronunciation and cultural colloquialism. This is something anyone who has met Ahzrukhal notices immediately and is the key to anyone attempting a thick accent. What is phonetic pronunciation and cultural colloquialism? Essentially, its the difference in how the same words in English are spoken by someone who is from a specific area and the cultural phrases brought along with it.

Original: "I am here to fight."
"Hell's teeth, Ai'm 'ere tae kick yer arse!"
"Well I didn't come here to fuck spiders ye cunt!"
"We're havin' ourselves a hootenanny!"
"Cyka blyet!"
"Stiff upper lip lad, let's have a go!"
Let's play a game, match the sentence to the speakers origin. The options are: Russian, British, Irish, Southern American, Australian.

The above example is the phonetic shifts driven by the cultural colloquialism, the intonation in the mind is change by the phonetic and colloquial quality. "Stiff upper lip lad" is, to someone even vaguely aware of British accents, immediately translated in the mind to a British accent. While the phonetic "Ai'm 'ere tae foight!" is a more obvious and literally implication of an accent. The phrase "not here to fuck spiders" is a uniquely Australian colloquium, which in turn shows the characters origin as specific to that country as only a native born speaker would say that. That one in particular is a fantastic example of a cultural phrase because any outsider would be confused despite its obvious meaning to an aussie.

Which brings me to my point, as I've said this in previous complaints, Vellen's accent is just patently awful and before anyone says "Don't insult blah blah" I get admins giving me a private impersonal message telling me they hate my accent. Yell at whoever does that before language policing me (do note I find these messages funny, my point is I'm doing what admins do so clearly I'm not doing anything wrong ). In any case, since Vellen has come back I have noticed something.

She has yet to cause a problem.

I play every single day for at least 1 to 2 full shifts, the only exception being Sunday nights for my Dungeons and Dragons game. I also work security as the warden, every arrest/complaint/issue is heard by me and often times handled by me or reported by an officer who handles it. Not once, since Vellen has come back, have I had a single report of her doing anything to warrant so much as a glance from security or IAA. This is a far cry change from how she acted previously (the infamous use of OOC to waste 40 minutes of security's time comes to mind). While I'm not there for every shift and obviously as a player many things go unnoticed by security and myself, I haven't heard a single issue with Vellen since she came back. I don't like her accent, that's fair and a personal issue for me, many people hate my characters accent, that is also fair. But I don't see any reason for any action currently, they have, as far as my knowledge goes, shaped up.

[InfinitelyThinRectanges]

Despite having been perfectly happy to turn the ozone blue last time around, I haven't actually seen a great deal of Mayfox this time and I'm not entirely sure why, I've seen them on as Vellen a grand total of once, when I was ghosting.

...Aaaaaaand they almost immediately blew up atmos and tried to blame someone else.

Starting to believe some of my friends claims about them being...Well. The Akram complaint thread spelt out exactly what they're like. That again, really.

[Karamitsuko]

Now, I have nothing like that shpeel about accents and making them flow well like that guy above (bravo, that was a great explanation.)

However, I will say that this character generally causes problems any time I see them around. Their accent annoys the crew to no end, they frequently start drama over comms for any reason they can muster up, and to top it all off they have a grudge against security for seemingly no reason. I've never heard an IC explanation about why they hate security, but they use it as an excuse to shit on security any time they can.

Generally, this character is not fun at all to interact with, and serves only as a hinderance to people trying to enjoy the game. They aren't fun to talk to because their 'accent' is so far from decent to listen to it actually hurts to try to decipher. It's not southern at all, which is coming from someone who lives in a southern state. There are people who talk like this, yeah, but most southerners don't have this exaggerated hick accent that the character is trying to depict. It's far from even a hick accent. They aren't fun to play with because they seem to just have the goal of pissing as many people off as they can (or at the very least, they seem to have a blatant disregard for doing so) and it's just--bad. It's really bad.

I don't think this necessarily means we need to make a player complaint and start asking for them to get pushed with a rule, but maybe it's getting to that point.

[VARKA & Selyn]

"I'll need 'cotton' two boxes" makes little logical sense because cotton is not only in the wrong place, but it isn't an expletive.

Not normally, but I'd wager it's being used as one. I say that, because it strikes me as a heavily-accented "goddamn". That said, as you say, little else flows with the 'accent'.

I really hope it's meant to be an accented 'goddamn' though, because the alternative context is kind of laden with racist undertones. Racist undertones that don't make sense for a 26th-century canid-mutt to be slinging around, that's for certain.

---

As for the actual complaint, I've had no personal interactions with the character, but I'll say this;

On top of ITR's claim with regards to almost blowing up atmos, I've been playing in two rounds where Vellen was in Engineering. Both of these rounds, we lost Telecomms within the first half-hour, and they remained offline at least until around the hour mark, due to misconfiguration of Engineering equipment. In at least one of these cases, she attempted to shift the blame onto one of her coworkers.

Whilst I can't speak to the accuracy of this coworker-blaming (since there were actual coworkers to blame, at least), that doesn't change the fact that entire departments were completely unable to communicate or that parts of decks powered down entirely and crew had to start using crowbars in order to use the elevator because the elevator doors on a given level wouldn't function.

I'm not sure they've done enough of anything to really warrant a big time capital-C complaint, but at the same time people should be proactive with those IC routes. At the very least further brownouts killing telecomms for long durations seems like pretty solid grounds to write them up for Negligence and potentially Manslaughter if the lack of comms is pivotal in a crew death. If nothing changes of this long-term, then the obvious solution is OOC escalation.

[InfinitelyThinRectanges]

Just to clarify, they didn't "almost" blow up atmos, they DID blow up Atmos, the "almost" was in reference to having done it "almost" immediately. Not trying to snipe, just trying to be clear when it's something weighty like this mate.

[Snowfield]

I'll add only what I've directly experienced with Vellen and will try it be as specific as I can be. I don't feel that it's helpful to the resolution of a complaint thread, or fair to either the submitters or the subject of the complaint, to bring up things that were only experienced secondhand ("other people have told me that that she did this"), or describing incidents that are too vague to be proven or disproven.

I was playing a Security Officer when a scientist said over the common radio channel that she had killed a grub in Atmospherics. Vellen then radioed that people should (cotton) respect other people's departments and not trespass. Wanting to head off trouble, I set off to find out what happened.

Firstly, I asked permission to enter RnD. The scientist in question met me at the lobby door. I introduced myself with a smile and thanked her for ridding the station of a grub, then gently asked where the grub was found. She indicated that she killed it in the public-access lobby of Atmospherics. I expressed great relief that no trespass had happened and she assured me that she would always ask Engineering if it was all right to enter their area to kill a grub. I encouraged her conscientious attitude, thanked her, and wished her a safe shift! Mission Part 1 accomplished!

Then I went and found Vellen. I smiled and asked if I could have a moment of her time. She was cautious and not very trusting of Security, putting her thumbs in her belt loops and asking what I wanted. I'm fine with characters who mistrust Security and consider it my job to earn their trust and respect, not just demand it from them by the authority of my office. I explained to Vellen that I'd talked with the scientist and confirmed that no one had trespassed in Engineering, so she could rest easy about the matter now. And I related that the scientist promised that they always ask for permission to enter another's department.

As I explained these things, Vellen became visibly more tense. She frowned and worked her muzzle as if she was chewing on a straw of grass. Her demeanor became increasingly angry, but it was clear by her language that she was having a harder and harder time justifying it with someone who was completely non-confrontational to her. Eventually, when I smiled and told her that I'd only sought her out to reassure her, she just seemed to deflate where she stood, her splayed ears relaxing, and she lowered her eyes and softly said, "Alright". Then she quietly left and went about her shift.

I consider this to have been a really successful interaction and an example of the kinds of RP experiences that I come to Cit-RP for. I'm fine with interacting with other characters who have a complicated personality, like those with a pugnacious, mistrustful shell that serves as emotional armor for other vulnerabilities inside. I respect that other players may not be fine with such characters, but I would gently ask them to consider that having a station with a few personality clashes makes it a more interesting place to RP in.

[mouseofthecake]

There's 'personality clashing'. Then, there's 'disrupting the round for everyone and making things as unpleasant as possible for all parties involved'.

Guess which one fits Vellen.

[Cameron Lancaster]

I have nothing of substance to add to this complaint, so I'll instead share an image that I found extremely funny.



I'd be more interested in this complaint if their accent caused a tangible issue that could have been avoided if they were more clear, rather than people just not liking it.