Category Archives: Real Life

On the Other Side

Posted by Apple Cider in Personal, Real Life and tagged with ,

anger

I apologize in advance if this post is slightly disjointed, but some of these feelings are tiny butterflies that I’m trying to catch in a net in order to classify them properly.

I think most of you remember a post that I wrote last year about my experiences with being stalked in and out of World of Warcraft. It was easily one of my most popular posts, largely due to the fact that it was a story that pretty much resonated with a great deal of my audience. I think a lot of people have felt at least a brush of that kind of problem, as scary and alienating as it is. Seeing someone talk about it brings us all together because we suddenly don’t feel alone.

May 26th (as far as I can reckon via my Twitter history) is when I had to call the cops the last time. I was so tired and anxious of this process of dealing with the endless harassment and had a panic attack and called the cops. What good I thought it would do me, I didn’t know. I just wanted to feel in control again. I went through the same dance – telling the cop my story, having him not really grasp Internet harassment. But he gave me hope when he said he could get me in touch with a department that dealt with cybercrime in my city. And that’s what I needed to hear (I ended up never getting ahold of them, mysteriously.) What I wanted was just a shot at potentially fixing this situation.

Then something strange happened.

Maybe it was me actually following through on a threat publicly of calling the cops (to the point where I had adrenaline fatigue later), but the harassment stopped. Flat out stopped; not a trickle and then tailing off, but like nothing at all. It’s like he never existed after that. Of course, he’d taken breaks before so the first week I was relieved for the “break” but was waiting for the shoe to drop again. Then another week. And another. Several more. Suddenly it had been a month and nothing. “Maybe he died.” I thought to myself. Maybe he did. I still don’t know. Maybe he got helped or was finally jailed or who knows.

After 3 or so months went by, I started to feel like I could let out the breath I had been hanging onto since four years prior. It felt like sunlight was suddenly creeping into the dark corners of my life. The looming shadow that had always been lurking in the back of my mind was dissipating. I almost didn’t know what to do with myself. I had spent so many years at this point backed into a tiny ball of hiding my feelings and feeling scared from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed that I almost had no idea how to function as a human being. It felt like I was a rusty robot that had subsisted on anger and terror.

The problem on top of all this was that being stalked was that it had just already compounded a life spent being dominated by anxiety. Working through this, finally getting to the end of it meant that I had to dig a lot deeper under the daily survival mechanism and open up the Pandora’s Box that was the rest of my life. I had spent so long bailing out my little boat of all the water rushing in, that now I had to learn how to steer it. I will say the last year or so of therapy has been some of the weirdest, hardest work I’ve done. I had to unravel a lot of truths about myself in relationship to my anxiety, my sexual assault as a teen, as well as my complicated relationship with my family. The upside of this was that I felt like I was starting to build something on top of a foundation, rather than repairing everything continually being torn down.

One day I woke up and realized I wasn’t scared anymore. Well, sure, I still had to deal with anxiety, but the war was over. I could go home.

Today I woke up and felt awesome. But I have been feeling like that for a while. Even the days I don’t feel so great (and there are a lot of those), I still feel ten times better than I did then. My bad days now are better than of my best days back then. While I’ve been sluggish on writing a lot, the fact that I’m doing art, keeping my house clean and taking care of my new pet cat means that I’m less of a robot these days and more of a typical human being. I don’t get panic attacks when my Twitter mentions columns fills up with replies. I don’t feel scared about talking about where I live or what I like to do with new people. I cleared out most of my blog’s banlist and blocked terms. I only have a fleeting twinge of weirdness when I see certain words or think about certain things. It feels like the high tide of my own enjoyment is at acceptable levels for me to go out sailing again.

I think today is a good day to toggle “victim” over to “survivor” because I beat this, I survived this. Not just being stalked, but the second darkest period of my life, all things considered. I was in a bad place a couple of years ago and it only now it feels like I can go forward.

Thank you all for reading, and enjoy the rest of your day.

- Nico

aka Apple Cider Mage

 

Blizzcon Badges for Sale

Posted by Apple Cider in Blizzcon, Commissions, Real Life and tagged with , , , , ,
Sample badge for Blizzcon.

You can click on this to see it full sized.

Blizzcon 2013 – the social event of the real life Warcraft community is finally happening again. For those of us lucky enough to get tickets, it represents nervousness, excitement and anticipation! I myself did manage to get tickets for this year’s con again and it will be my fifth year attending. However, due to real life circumstances, I find myself needing a little bit more funding than previous years. Therefore I am offering to do badge art for other attendees who want something unique and commemorative for their voyage.

Note: I cannot afford to do printing/laminating of these myself. All sales will include a .JPG and .PSD that is at print-quality resolution. These will fit in the badge laminate that Blizzcon uses for their badges.

Price List:

  • Basic: This is just your character’s portrait with no armor. Includes character name (or other), server information and faction background - $10.00
  • Frill: Includes a head frill such as small decoration (eyepatches, orbs, etc.)  - $15.00
  • Shoulders: Includes shoulder armor. – $20.00*
  • Advanced: Includes anything else you could possibly fit on there. – Negotiable

*Some shoulder armor might require more time.

If you are interested in purchasing one of these badges, email veryapplecider@gmail.com with the following information:

  • Name
  • Type of Badge you are interested in
  • Link to appropriate character’s armory or a clear screenshot (this is probably better if the Armory makes your character hard to see)
  • Character details you want included

I will e-mail you back to discuss particulars and send you my Paypal information. I require people to pay upfront; if I cannot do your art, I will return your money. Turnaround time for badges should be 4-5 days but I will e-mail you if something comes up. If I get a lot of requests, I will work in a queue in order of who paid first.

If you don’t want a badge and just want to donate to getting my butt to Blizzcon, I also have a Paypal donation button on the sidebar of my blog!

Hope to hear from you soon!

(Font provided for the badges is League Gothic, open source font from League of Moveable Type.)

Thankful

Posted by Apple Cider in Personal, Real Life

Cider looks up at the ox celestial god, NiuzaoIt occurs to me that I should probably not start off this blog post by admitting that maybe I’m enjoying an alcoholic root beer float at the moment. But given that this is a slightly more personal entry rather than a critical one, I don’t think it is entirely out of the spirit of things. Besides, the holidays are all about enjoying oneself with whimsy and mirth. My mirth just sometimes needs a nudge. Unbeknownst to me until maybe a couple of minutes ago when I decided to start writing this entry, my blog is a year old. Well, a year and a month old, if you want to be accurate about it. It’s been a wild year, hasn’t it? While I don’t write here nearly as much as I should, or want to, I feel like my “return” to blogging has been fairly ponderous and more successful than I could have ever imagined. I learned a lot of things not just about the game we all enjoy, but a little about you guys. And a lot about myself. This blog marks a huge change in me — it was an attempt to regain some control in my life as well as an expression of things in at least one part of my life. The fact that I’ve made it a year without grinding to a halt, made new friends and even enacted some measure of force on the game I enjoy is something I find myself profoundly grateful for. I’m thankful for this blog as the catalyst for all the things I’m about to list and quite a few more than that.

Solace

Without going into too much detail, the thing I’m most thankful for at the end of this year in particular is solace.  One of my major on-going stresses (being the target of persistent, pervasive harassment) has finally resolved itself. It’s been seven months and I feel so grateful that that chapter of my life is hopefully over. I’ve got that hazy sort of warmth that you feel when you wake up one day and realize you’re not in pain anymore. Instead of having my wounds ripped open every single day, I’m starting to mend and heal. A great burden has been lifted from my shoulders and I feel like I have the freedom to be more of myself.

A Klaxxi mantid

Art

Long before I was a blogger, I was an artist. But I gave it up and got tired of it for a long, long time. Mostly because I was depressed and didn’t feel motivated. This year I wrestled my way out of my funk and started again, realizing that I’m not that terrible and I can do this. I’ve even made a little bit of money off commissions, which has only bolstered my confidence. I love being able to express myself in a way that is visual and not just words. Seeing my progress slowly creep forward has also been a big deal for me. I feel like I’m starting to be a “good” artist.

Art was my first language and it is the one I am most thankful for being able to speak with again.

Therapy

I’m beyond lucky that I managed to find not only a therapy program that was affordable while not working but features an incredibly thoughtful and young therapist. Most of the reasons I’m a lot more mentally healthy and secure this year is because of therapy and the work I’ve been able to do while in it. It’s given me the strength to weather the bad stuff, work on the hard things, and appreciate the measure of stability I feel now.

My Friends and Guild

We’ve been through some ups and downs but overall I have the most amazing support network of amazing people in my life. They are all incredibly generous, caring, understanding, supportive, loving, hilarious, intelligent, trustworthy and special. I don’t think I would trade them in for anything and they mean so much to me. If I had nothing else in the world, I’d be thankful for having them beside me.

I hope that this year has been good to you readers as well, and I’m appreciative that you’ve been on this crazy blog ride with me as well. Here’s to another one, hopefully, and I hope that you have many things to be thankful about.

 

 

Poised and Ready

Posted by Apple Cider in Expansions, Feminism, Language, Mists of Pandaria, Real Life and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

I will have screenshots up when beta servers are not dying due to turtles blasting them off their racks, but apparently Ji Firepaw’s dialogue got changed. He now refers to women Pandaren by how poised and ready they are, making his character arc a little more subtle. As Llandrywyn on the MMOC forums espoused:

Where I find myself agreeing with the people who find it inappropriate came about by considering a simple question; “If Ji Firepaw is a flirtatious, bordering on sexist, lecherous old panda, what benefit does it have to his story?” Honestly, I can’t find any real benefit; without this line of dialogue he’s still define as being somewhat flirtatious, impulsive and reckless. His character is still developed in the same way and my overall impression of the character remains unchanged, except I find him somewhat more endearing in that he retains a little more dignity. I freely admit my personal feeling shouldn’t be a factor in the decision making of a creative enterprise, but the question I pose to this thread is this:

“If a character can be conveyed in the same terms, for the same overall feeling and with the same overall character traits, is it not just good and respectful practice for the designers to minimise content that might offend?”

I’m so fucking overjoyed with emotion right now that Blizzard changed this. There’s some speculation that this was part of a larger sweep of changes. Maybe we didn’t cause them to change it directly, maybe we did. I’m counting it as a victory anyways. I’m so proud and emotional about this – Blizzard, you did good this time. You nipped something lazy and uncreative in the bud and worked towards making an NPC that I don’t feel slimy talking to. I’m really happy with myself and everyone who took the time to talk about this issue. We really did something today.

Screenshot from courtesy of Xelestri:

Dear Apple Cider

Posted by Apple Cider in Feminism, Real Life, Sexism and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

One of the few things a geek feminist fears more than say, wiping on Deathwing 15 minutes into the fight, is probably fan mail. Feminism is one of those incredibly polaring topics to some people, and a lot of people (okay, well, men) get fairly defensive and odd about having stuff like privilege called out. A lot of things I have to say make a lot of people feel uncomfortable, even if most of the time I’m discussing pandas and armor. It’s not nice to have someone point out that you possibly have a benefit they don’t, especially if you weren’t even aware you had this benefit. So when I get a long e-mail or comment from someone, I tend to flinch a tiny bit. A lot of feminists I know tend to have to go through the same process over and over with regards to a lot of geeky men in their lives (if not any men in their lives who are aware of their latent social justice views) trying to unpack a lot of the concepts us feminists are so entrenched in every day. It does get tiring. So, in that vein,  is pretty amazing when not only do I get an e-mail that feels like it is just going to go down the same road of demanding education and then getting wildly defensive when it actually occurs and doesn’t. It is even more amazing when you feel like you’ve really helped open someone’s eyes, and they thank you for the pleasure of it.

I asked this person if I could repost what exactly was said (more or less) just so you guys can get a sense of what goes through my mind when I have men asking me to educate them. My comments as they went through my head are in bold.

Continue reading →

Forgive Me For Being So Brash

Posted by Apple Cider in Personal, Real Life

You’re what keeps me believing that the world’s not gone dead
Strength in my bones, put my words in my head when
they pour out to paper, it’s all for you
‘Coz that’s what you do.

It’s been a pretty wild couple of days. I don’t say that lightly. It’s been an empowering, terrifying and also very tiring couple of days. The problem as well as the point of dragging things out into the light is that you have a lot of ferocity from your supporters, but a lot of people start crawling back out of the woodwork to shut you down again. That is the unfortunate truth of the matter, but I don’t regret what I said or what I did. It’s definitely made me aware that there’s a large world of support out there, even against some of the most vile …well, I hesitate to use the word “people” in this instance. So let’s just go with “flesh bags.” And trust me, there are quite a few. I’ve looked at my referral traffic and Reddit comments and seen some things there that would kill most people.

I want to thank everyone who’s commented, tweeted, blogged and e-mailed me. I’ve gotten a couple offers for podcasts (one of which I’m taking up tonight), permission to be used in academic papers, and had numerous people reblog my words. It feels like I’ve ran this marathon I hadn’t really intended on starting and don’t quite know where it is going. Mental exhaustion has set in somewhat, but I think if I take a couple days off from blogging again, I’ll be right as rain and ready to talk about some other stuff. I’m currently working on a podcast with a friend of mine and that’s been a nice positive thing to focus on, rather than being reminded that shitty things have happened to me. I feel like there’s nothing to hold over my head anymore, and that’s good. Dealing with the fallout is all I have to really batten the hatches down for now.

I really just hope I helped at least one person out with this. That’s all I asked for and I think I’ve gotten more than that by now. Given the number of posts that have sprung up about harassment and bullying, I think I did an okay thing. (I’ll link all of them at the bottom of the post.) I’ve gotten some flack for the radical notion that this is a feminist issue and one that is heavily gendered. Well you know what? It is. It still is. What my personal story was, for me, not just a story of my “mistakes” (as some hilariously terrible Reddit posters put it) but also a spotlight on something that happens to a large portion of women online. What I didn’t say in my post was how that despite having a full-time stalker, I’ve been randomly harassed in Trade Chat, I’ve had people be weird to me all over in WoW or the Internet, simply for being female. Sexist slurs are easy to use against women because that’s what kind of society we live in. This absolutely is a WoW thing, a feminist thing, a sexism thing and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Men get harassed and stalked too and I want that to end as well. I don’t want anyone to feel like that they have to suffer this kind of abuse. The problem is that it has gone so unnoticed from women because we’re just expected to roll over and take it. We’re used to having our lives defined by how far men want to intrude in it without our permission. So anyone who says that my post was just about me and my problems wasn’t really looking that hard at me or my blog. But I have a feeling they never really intended to anyways. That’s kinda how this stuff keeps going on – people don’t realize how the world works for other people.

I’ll keep on though. I’ll keep on regardless.

Thanks to:

Vitaemachina – for being the most amazing, ineffable web admin a lady could ever want for or have. He’s been keeping me afloat the last couple of days by taking most of the pressure of screening comments off my shoulders so I could focus on writing. He’s a cool as heck dude and I hope everyone gets blogs with him.

My boyfriend – for holding my hand in the court room, for giving me hugs every time I was frightened or upset, for sharing stories with me to make me laugh, for being by my side and strength.

My guild – for being the most wonderful group of people to play video games with, even when I freak out about shit going on in Trade Chat or need people to come do weird raids with me. You guys make World of Warcraft bearable at the worst times, and amazing at the best. I wouldn’t be playing still if it wasn’t for you guys.

My friends - for being here for me on Twitter, in my real life, and elsewhere on the Internet. You’ve gotten phone calls at strange hours, IMs, texts, RealID whispers and all that jazz. Having a support structure is what helps people out of the shitty morass that is their life sometimes, and you guys are it. I love all of you.

My readers – Old and new, thank you for linking and spreading the word, giving me support. Saying things like that I am brave and courageous, that I’ve endured so much. It makes me feel less alone. Special thanks to Big Bear Butt, The Borderhouse, Gazimoff, MMO Melting Pot, Shamanoholic and Digitally Incorrect who wrote very touching posts about me and sent a bit of traffic my way.

Bullying/Harassment or Related Blog Posts

D/E the Tank! – Bullying: Why My Online Personality isn’t My Real One
Digital Incorrectness – A Wordy Response
Grimmtooth’s Troops – A Word of Appreciation and Support
Mana Obscura – Sub-Humans and the Shallow End of Gaming
MMO Melting Pot – Being Harassed in WoW or Another MMORPG? Here’s What to Do.
The Anxious Gamer – Trust Me
The Big Bear Butt – I Strongly Encourage You To Read This. Please.
The Borderhouse Blog – An Incredibly Brave Story of Cyberbullying and Harassment
Way of the Totem – Why I React So Violently to Bullying, A Personal Story

If anyone else knows any other links that should be thrown up here, comment.

Internet Harassment And You – A Guide

Posted by Apple Cider in Guide, Real Life and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve written this guide before in various places, but it bore reposting here. It’s mostly WoW-specific, since most of us play WoW, but if people have specific questions regarding non-WoW harassment, you can contact me directly.

I am here to discuss with you why harassment is never right, what you can do to help yourself, and with some additional, new information on writing tickets to get max benefit from GMs in-game.

What Is Harassment?
I know it is hard to think of just someone random saying or doing something stupid to you as harassment, but if it makes you uncomfortable, it is absolutely harassment. Sometimes harassment is isolated; sometimes it is on-going and continuous. Sometimes it is someone you know. A lot of times it isn’t. Maybe it is a former guildmate, a PVP buddy or a random level 1. Someone from your current raid team. Recent/former significant other. It can be anyone, it isn’t just people you don’t know. A lot of times it is people you know, and maybe even trust.

Here is how Blizzard defines it: Blizzard’s Harassment Policy.
Notice how not all things that are defined as “harassment” are spoken – a lot of them have to do with spamming, zone disruption and things like that. Those absolutely should be reported as well, but I am going to focus on the more personally scary/harmful portions of harassment. These are things that focus on making you feel upset/uncomfortable – sexually explicit messages, vulgarity, calling you explicit names or making fun of some essential part of your real life character (race, religion, orientation, gender, etc.)

Besides just being harmful in speaking to you, harassment can also occur if someone is trying to impersonate you for the purposes of defaming you or tricking people into thinking it is you. (Like rolling an alt with the exact same spelling of your name and trolling Trade Chat.) Harassment also incurs a harsher penalty if it is done in a public channel such as Local Defense, General, Trade or Looking For Group.

What Do I Do About It?
This is the real crux of the process.

First off, always take it seriously.
If it isn’t clear to you what is going on, ask for clarification. But in most times, it is fairly clear that this is a serious attempt to make you upset and should be treated as such. I know we get a lot of confusing messages as women (and even as men) that we are supposed to take this “with a straight face” or that they are “just words on the internet” but I assure you that if they make you upset, you have the right to be upset and do something about it. So always take it seriously.

Tell the person(s) that this is unwanted, very clearly, and ignore them.
The only communication (which I’ll touch on in a bit) you should have with someone who does this or says something gross or rude is to tell them that this is unwanted, tell them NO! and to stop. And then put them on ignore. That is the only interaction you should have with them if they are harassing you. I know it is super-tempting to fight back, to troll them, show you’re not upset, but it is not helpful when it comes to eventually ticketing to GMs. Be short, clear and put them on ignore immediately. If they are someone you know – take them off your friends list, take them off RealID, and if it is someone in  your guild or raid, alert a trusted officer immediately that this is what you did and why if it will cause problems for having someone on ignore.

Examples for telling someone that this is unwanted:
That message was rude and I would like you to stop. Do not contact me again.
This conversation is inappropriate and is not to continue. Please do not contact me further.

– then ignore. –

Putting the person on ignore is pretty much what I’ve gotten boilerplate from any GM I’ve spoken to in-game, and it is very solid advice. Why is this? Because putting someone on ignore who goes around to circumvent it (escalating the abuse) on a level 1 or another alt only incurs a lot more punishment. It also shows that you made every good faith attempt to resolve the situation yourself (in a very neutral way) and it didn’t work. If harassment stops here, great! A lot of times it doesn’t, however.

Document, Document, Document!
Even if something is a one-off attempt to harass you, always document it. Document every single time harassment occurs to you. Enable chat timestamps in-game or use a chat mod (Chatter, WIM are two popular ones, especially for tracking whispers) with time-stamps and the ability to read whispers or other channel messages clearly.

My personal favorite is that I create a chat window specifically for whispers – Go to your general chat tab, go to “Create New Window” and label it “Whispers” and then when it is created, go to the tab > Settings, and only check off “Whispers” and “RealID” whispers. This makes is easy to isolate whispers and realID messages.

It is very, very important when it comes to reporting harassment that you have documentation for every single time it happens if only because knowing who said what, when and where can be crucial in creating a case for someone. Take screenshots for your own records if you have trouble remembering things or if you do not have time to sit down and write a ticket immediately. While GMs do not usually accept screen-shots, it is good to keep it in case this goes outside of WoW as well.
Chat mods are also really helpful in that they allow you to copy-paste any chat text (even channels like Trade) into a ticket.

Reporting and Ticketing a GM
This is where it gets a little confusing and scary! Ticketing a GM is hard sometimes because it feels very serious and what if nothing happens? Trust me, things will happen. But making a GMs job easier will make the process even smoother. Some key things to remember here in terms of what to actually SAY will be easier if you remembered to document.

Ticket harassment every single time it occurs. Every single time. As soon as you possibly can. Lumping up a bunch of incidents or waiting may seem like a good idea to “prove” that someone has been a big deal but GMs have their own way of tracking this. So making tickets clear and precise about every single incident makes their job easier. Reporting it often and early makes it easier to track.

ALWAYS INCLUDE: Character name, time and date. If you can’t ticket when the harassment immediately occurs (which makes finding what was said easier for GMs) including these things makes it easier to track and find. These are the most essential pieces of information for a GM ticket and almost everything else is not important. Only other pieces of information that you should possibly include other GMs you have spoke to (if this is continuous), if this message was spoken in whispers or a channel/guild, and that you put the person on ignore. If this is on-going, clearly state that this is on-going harassment.

That’s it. Don’t include what you were doing, or any extraneous information. This just makes it harder to figure out what was going on.

Example tickets:
I received a harassing whisper from Bloobloo (Cenarius-PVE) at 4:50 AM, on 7/26/2011. This person has contacted me before. I have put them on ignore but they rolled a level 1 alt. I spoke to GM Stradavarius prior about this. This is on-going harassment.

Dumbdumb (Saurfang-PVP) was trying to impersonate me in Trade Chat, using sexually explicit language at 3:45 PM, on July 27th, 2011. I have put them on ignore.

Since the last time I wrote a harassment guide, Battle.net now has the feature to include any and all tickets you file under your Battle.net account (which is why is a good idea to report harassment from the same battle.net account if you happen to have more than one) so that you can see what you said, when you said it, who answered it and what they said. It also means you can screenshot your page in case you need to take this outside of WoW.

It looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/EYcyW.jpg
Notice that there is a spot for images, so if you would like to attach a screenshot, I suppose that is where you would do it.

To find your tickets on your Battle.net page – log into your B.net account, go to the Support Tab, and then Tickets. It has all of them listed there.

After you have reported (and every time you have reported something), you will have that ticket show up there as well as receive an e-mail saying the same thing.

What happens if you get a boilerplate auto-message from a GM regarding harassment or a auto-response that doesn’t seem to apply? It could be that your ticket wasn’t clear on it being harassment. Re-ticket. Keep ticketing until you talk to a GM. This is important. You are important. However, writing clear tickets is a good way to get a good, fast GM reponse.

What happens now?
Well, hopefully it stops. GMs can’t tell you what happens, obviously, but know that you reporting makes it more likely that these dumbheads get caught or punished. It is likely that you are not the only person they feel like targeting if they are repeat offenders and it will catch up to them. But continue putting people on ignore, ticketing and remaining calm.

If this moves into non-WoW related harassment, knowing the statutes regarding harassment in your state or the states involved is good. Getting in touch with the police to report the harassment and reminding them of these statutes, also good. But be aware that a lot of people still don’t understand how internet harassment affects you. It was my own personal experience that the police sometimes don’t take you seriously unless the person is up on your doorstep with a knife. However, reminding them that you use the computer every day means that this person IS on your figurative “doorstep” when they actively comment on the things you do. Keep trying and don’t give up. Getting a police report down is a really good step if you have to move forward into legal action or restraining orders. If the person goes on to post your full legal name, your address, your Social Security number or other legally identifying information about you, as well as concretely stating they are going to do something to you, this is a THREAT and needs to be reported immediately to the police. 

Some Helpful Things to Remember:

1.) Always take it seriously. 
Like I said before, I know it’s our “assumed” place as women to just brush things off, to not get emotional about it. It’s your life and you don’t deserve it. You are an important, worthwhile person. Whether it’s whispers or trade chat or things people say in cross-server PUGs, always take it seriously. People who try to hurt you with words are in the wrong.

2.) It’s not your fault.
Harassment/abuse is not your fault. I know it is easy to blame yourself, that maybe if you had done things differently, you wouldn’t be in this situation. But it is not your fault someone responded to whatever happened in an inappropriate, gross way. Ever. No matter what you said, or did, or thought you did. A lot of times people will harass you for no other reason than being there at the wrong time, or the wrong sort of person to them. There’s nothing you can do to make yourself less or more of a victim, and don’t listen to people who say that you can. Being a victim is because someone wants to hurt you and that’s wrong. It is always their fault for harassing you. It isn’t just words, it isn’t just “lol internet” and if it affects you, then that’s all that matters. And you can always DO something about it, but don’t feel guilty if you’re scared or terrified. They intend to scare you. That’s what they want. It is very brave to report them, and that’s awesome. *hugs*

3.) Support Structure
Telling other people might seem antithetical but I have to personally say having a strong friendship network is a way to escape the misery from someone invading your life, especially if this is someone you are close to or personally know. A lot of times, people try to shame you into being quiet, hurt, and having friends have your back can do wonders. Having someone to just listen to you vent can make the process easier. And always know that a lot of us in the WoW community are open to listening and supporting you too. You’re never alone. There’s always trusted officers in your guild, GMs, your friends, your family, your pets and the police. Have faith. This won’t go on forever. Trust me.

If anyone ever, ever wants to contact me privately regarding this post or about WoW harassment, I can be contacted.

What if someone I know is being harassed?

Let them know that you are there for them. Be a supportive friend – whether that means listening to them be upset or leaving them alone, as the case may be. Gently remind them that reporting is useful, but don’t be forceful about it. Taking the step to report something is on the shoulders of the person being harassed and can be really scary/upsetting. Feeling pressured from friends can feel stressful.  However, if this is something you see publicly in guild chat or a public channel, absolutely ticket! A lot of things go on publically

Harassment and Victim Blaming:

It is unfortunate that we have to write these sorts of posts. It is unfortunate that people have to go through this. It is doubly unfortunate, as evidenced by comments I’ve seen at WoW Insider, wow_ladies, that people still like blaming a harassment victim. No one deserves this abuse from people. Blaming a harassment victim is disgusting and wrong. There’s often a lot more at play than just “putting someone on ignore” or “stop letting someone’s words affect you” or that “it’s just a game.” It isn’t just a game. It is people saying very real, hurtful things to another person. It is using someone’s emotions and experiences against them, and over what? Something they said in-game? A real or imagined slight? A fight? Just because they are gay/woman/person with disabilities/a certain race? It’s NEVER okay. Never, ever, ever!

If you think that harassing someone in-game is a good way of “getting back at them” – just stop. It’s not. Grow up and find a productive outlet for your anger. And it can often have very real legal consequences if you take it too far.

If someone tells you to stop talking to them, respect them.

Harassment will not end until the end of human malice, unfortunately. What we can do is educate ourselves, support our fellow peers and practice safe and respectful Internet behavior – respecting people’s privacy and autonomy, assisting our friends and supporting them, and knowing that there’s help if we need it.

Thanks and have a great day in World of Warcraft, ladies (and lurking gents.)

Helpful Links:

WoW Insider – (Lawbringer) Internet Harassment and You

How to Report Cybercrime

Cyberstalking and Online Harassment

Cyberstalking, Cyberbullying and Cyberharassment Laws in Every State

 

Learned Helplessness: A Cage Called Harassment

Posted by Apple Cider in Personal, Rant, Real Life, Sexism and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Trigger warnings: frank talk about sexual acts, sexual violence, harassment, animal mistreatment, stalking, depression and mental illness, and “slut shaming.”

This post is intensely personal/raw.

My therapist leaned forward a little.

“There was an experiment a long time ago, one of the first ones they had done regarding anxiety. They put a dog in a cage. This was a long time ago, obviously, before…”

“Before they had ethical guidelines, right?”

“Right.”

Continue reading →

Then and Now: A Retrospective on the Author

Posted by Apple Cider in Personal, Real Life, Screenshots and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

I thought I said I wasn’t a fan of memes, but this was too good to pass up, especially as a long-time, vanilla player like myself. Vidyala over at Manalicious decided to talk about “then and now” when it came to such important things as her mage’s looks, her UI and even where she played. I’d consider myself pretty boring in that regard. My gnome hasn’t really changed much; there’s been some cosmetic differences in the 6 years I’ve played her, but I haven’t even been in a different guild!

Continue reading →

The Screams of a Thousand Nerds: Blizzcon Cancelled in 2012

Posted by Apple Cider in Personal, Real Life and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My apologies for a lack of polish on this post, I woke up literally 30 minutes ago.

While announcing that Blizzard would be holding a Battle.net competition in Asia (I presume a gaming tournament for Warcraft 3, Starcraft II and possibly some form of World of Warcraft arenas), it lightly spun the news that Blizzcon would not be happening until 2013. They said this is because of a “jam-packed” schedule that, in my mind, includes Mists of Pandaria, releasing Diablo 3 earlier in the year as well as necessary work on Titan. That’s all well and good, I suppose. My cynical nature feels that Blizzard, which always operates Blizzcon at a revenue loss, felt that they’d be taking too much of a hit this year. Combined with so much money sunk into the year’s assumed gaming title releases, this makes some sense even if it is depressing. I do not announce the end of the world, especially not where it concerns something so mortal as gaming, but not having a community outlet like Blizzcon is a blow to my outlook this year.

Some of you may recall that I even started blogging shortly before Blizzcon last year; if it wasn’t apparent to you then, I’d hope you’d understand now how awesome and fun Blizzcon is for me. This is ultimately why the news that Blizzcon is being put off for a year is so saddening to me. The convention is a giant place for relaxation but mostly for community. Not only do I get to see guildies, but I can party with website staff I’ve grown to read every day, bloggers I’ve connected with and even now fans. Blizzcon means a lot to us because it is where we get to share our experiences as Internet People in a real life, social environment. We get to scream at new World of Warcraft releases, to meet people like Zarhym, and generally bathe in all of the nerd stink (literal and metaphorical.) It brings us closer together when most of us are all so far apart, even when we play video games. World of Warcraft, and in a larger way, Blizzard, made it possible so that we could build social structures that weren’t just someone down the street, but take down Lich King with someone possibly halfway across the world. Bringing that distance to a minute fraction when you can daps server buddies or raid team crews is heady and intense. Blizzcon is a social touchstone for us. I cannot impress that enough.

Sure, will it be back next year? Indubitably. But judging by all of the Twitter responses to the news even a half hour after it was subtly dropped? There’s a gaping hole right now in our sense of community and I’m not sure what’s going to happen until 2013. However, despite Blizzard’s best attempts to recoup and regather, we will still persist. I have no doubt in my mind that this year may be the year that fans do what has always come naturally to them and just do shit themselves. Sure, it won’t include a free in-game pet or statue, but it will be just as meaningful.

(And if you do do something, remember to invite me!)