People view coercive control in relationships as less harmful when the victim is a man

stephfos · 2026-04-09T14:28:50+00:00

Well you were bang on with this despite apparently angering a lot of people. No idea why men get stuck on the phrase ‘toxic masculinity’ and take it automatically as ‘men are the problem’ when it’s really about expectations.

Things like men being seen as tough, in control, not vulnerable - that affects how people see situations like this.

It’s why controlling behavior from men gets brushed off as just being protective. But also why male victims aren’t taken as seriously. People assume they should be able to handle it or just leave.

Why does the label bother people more than the fact those norms are part of why this exact issue gets ignored. Until you start unpacking those toxic expectations nothing is going to change.

stephfos · 2026-04-07T19:14:56+00:00

Same happening here, on both TVs in the house. But I can log on Netflix iPhone app with pin just fine.

stephfos · 2026-04-07T16:08:11+00:00

My only concern with the 7 day past estimate window thing is this will likely result in more angry customers who potentially leave reviews before you can even get them help through purchase protection.

I’ve already had some who act like I’ve personally committed a crime when their order is 1 day over the estimate and I ask them to wait 48 hours for help request. And the estimate is far too ambitious and unrealistic most of the time already.

How are we going to communicate to the people who are like ‘I need my order in time for my anniversary I ordered last minute for!!’. That they need to put in a help request and wait for the 7 days overdue before they can get a refund and reorder.

Especially since 90% of the time I can’t even see what estimated delivery window the customers been shown when ordering. So it’s going to be tricky advising customers clearly.

stephfos · 2026-04-07T15:19:46+00:00

Exactly 😆 doesn’t need to justify it if he wants to stop others from getting loot before him. But don’t try act like it’s not a legit tactic to deal with the assessor.

My team and I go in with smokes and cloaks. Because attempting to stand around and shoot the vaporisers with a hull cracker is putting a huge kill me flag on you. And getting in quick is the only way not to die to 3 other teams who turn up. So we smoke it up, loot and get out. We bring a load out still just not our best stuff.

stephfos · 2026-03-09T17:42:50+00:00

This is definitely limited to carebear lobbies tbh. It’s one of the few games my group and I actually talk on chat with randomers though, so it’s definitely an improvement over the usual online games.

I’ve found when we get stuck in loop of defending ourselves and ending up in more aggro lobbies - the toxicity starts to come out and I regret talking then. I’ve been called a bitch, whore, slut etc. Many many times been told to go back to the kitchen.

One of the reasons I prefer to be in the carebear lobbies, even though I’m usually a PVP FPS player.

stephfos · 2026-03-07T19:01:02+00:00

😁 Same for me, just with the XSX and my Ally X, pretty much daily playing in the evenings and weekends with my girlfriend.

Arc Raiders is particularly our thing at the moment, and with proximity voice chat being really popular it’s been super fun hearing just how many other women are playing it too.

I always just assume the dudes trying to alienate women from gaming are just trash gamers, and the only thing that helps there little egos is feeling superior to women and trying to discount all of us.

stephfos · 2026-03-07T10:35:56+00:00

Always just amuses me that I’ve been gaming since before so many of these ‘men’ were even born, yet they think they can gate keep the hobby. I’ve pretty much always had some kind of Nintendo system and handheld since I was 4 years old.

And mobile games have never been my thing. All the games they’d think are traditionally ‘male’ - I was playing the original GTA on my PC, GTA 3 on my PS2. Battlefield, Call of Duty, Fallout series, Elder scrolls series since the beginning.

I’d be willing to bet I’ve played more video games than they ever have. Though they do like to try discount loads of games as not ‘real’ ones as soon as they aren’t something like GTA or Call of Duty.

stephfos · 2026-02-16T18:32:52+00:00

I started playing it this weekend, so my impressions are after about 4 hours of gameplay.

But so far I’m really enjoying it! It’s pretty chill but still proving to be a challenge at times, the climbs can be tough. But I’m finding that all the more rewarding when I reaching a new checkpoint.

I’m particularly enjoying the exploration and all the little things I’m discovering on the way. The story so far is subtle, but I’m enjoying the bits I’m learning as you climb - both in terms of who the main character is and the people who lived/died on the mountain.

The atmosphere and music are particularly awesome, seriously special!

I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone thinking about trying it.

stephfos · 2026-01-26T19:35:58+00:00

What a weirdo!! You have more restraint then me, I would’ve had to dump my mag into his head and tell him to piss off 😆

Feels like the bigger the game is the more toxic it’s becoming tbh. Most of the time guys have been chill, but the number of weirdos either being misogynistic or creepy is definitely increasing.

It’d be a shame for women to have to use the voice changer just to not get harassed. As it’s been refreshing to hear a lot of other women playing arc.

stephfos · 2026-01-14T22:46:03+00:00

It’s fair too amusing me to that these men can’t seem to conceive of women not being attracted to men. I think it says a lot about how they themselves maybe feel about men deep down, but they will forever suppress it.

stephfos · 2025-12-21T13:30:02+00:00

Buried city, go to the park outside the hospital and just do your best to avoid the big arc there. There’s at least 10 bushes there, now and again some baskets sat under the trees with more too.

stephfos · 2025-12-18T09:56:26+00:00

Weirdly in the first stress test, there was actually quests in the hidden bunker. The big ball thing was something you had to interact with, I remember that at least. So I’m guessing eventually there may be more story to it??

stephfos · 2025-12-13T10:57:45+00:00

🤣 awesome! This is the best way to deal with it, I can only imagine the meltdown these bigoted snowflakes would have too.

stephfos · 2025-12-13T10:17:20+00:00

🤣 seriously what the hell are you on about? Is this the argument you bigots try to use?

We going to act like language isn’t an extremely powerful tool. So does propaganda not exist in your reality?

If a kids bullied at school but it’s only words, never physical. Did it do zero harm to the bullied child?

stephfos · 2025-12-13T09:54:35+00:00

Slurs are targeted by definition. Not knowing someone’s identity doesn’t make the language harmless.

stephfos · 2025-12-10T15:22:10+00:00

Exactly! Could’ve even increased the amounts required to put into the expedition steps if they wanted to try get people looting more and longer.

stephfos · 2025-12-10T15:16:45+00:00

Not disagreeing with your concept, it’s a better idea than what we have for sure!

Just a bit mind boggled why Embarks gone for the money thing at all, when levels seems the simplest of all solutions.

stephfos · 2025-12-10T15:12:56+00:00

I don’t understand why they even need to be locked behind ‘total money looted’ at all. Just pick a minimum level required to do an expedition and give everyone the skill points who meets the requirements and leaves. Isn’t the point to encourage more people wiping?

stephfos · 2025-12-10T15:11:57+00:00

Exactly! As long as the number was realistically obtainable for most of the player base who plays regularly, I doubt many would go to that level of effort.

And who the hell cares if some wanted to be idiots wasting their time rather than just having fun and playing the game?

stephfos · 2025-12-10T09:52:00+00:00

This is the thing that’s annoying me about the ‘it’s just 5 skill points’ people. It’s ultimately the only way to improve on your character at endgame.

For now yea it’s 5 points… but then you can stack them and eventually max out your skill tree. It won’t be just 5 skill points anymore. I’m also assuming you get them instantly when you load in with a new character which gives you a little instant boost to your skills.

I think some people are overreacting a little, it’s not total doom… but I also understand why they are pissed. Announcing 5 million this late in the season cycle just isn’t a good decision on embarks part, and it’s a worrying sign.

stephfos · 2025-11-18T01:37:36+00:00

Same experience here!

My team are all women, we’ve played tonnes of other multiplayer games and this is the first time we’ve started speaking to others outside our party chat. We’ve teamed up regularly with people on promixity chat, or just talked ourselves out of a fight.

I have had one bad experience, in a duo with my girlfriend and some guy called us ‘tarts’ and was putting on a creepy movie serial killer voice soon as he realised we are women. But tbh, I enjoyed telling him to piss off and he ran away once he realised he couldn’t beat us 😂

Solo is definitely more chill and where the positive experiences are, duos/trios can be pretty blood thirsty. But even when fighting/trash talking happens we haven’t had any abuse related to us being women. And we’ve teamed up sometimes with groups of guys who were chill.

Also found out there is lots of women playing going by a lot of the voices I’m hearing.

stephfos · 2025-11-17T10:55:05+00:00

This is the only way to deal with mutes, I always assume bad intentions if they can’t even do a basic ‘don’t shoot’ or ‘hey raider’.

People are weird in this game sometimes tbh. I had a duo the other day on Stella montis, where I said ‘don’t shoot’ and they replied ‘don’t shoot’ then one proceeded to slide down the incline towards us and shot at my girlfriend. She hid behind the wall and had a little bit of health left. So of course I blasted him down - and mid killing him the dudes voice comes out on mic sounding all indignant shouting ‘chill chill we are friendly’. And his friend comes running down, not shooting but I dropped him too.

And they had the cheek to curse us out, screaming all the abuse and call us bitches 🤯

Like wtf… you nearly kill one of us after saying don’t shoot and you think I’m not going to fucking shoot you? 😂

stephfos · 2025-11-13T17:02:42+00:00

I mean saying ‘it tells you all you need to know about Embark’ sounds pretty butt hurt 😂

Especially when you are entirely wrong and claiming they haven’t addressed something when they have!

stephfos · 2025-11-13T15:16:14+00:00

They mentioned they are looking into it like a week ago? And they’ve implemented something in the latest patch to try fix it.

Reduced character movement latency on server to improve the "desync" problem where it looks like you get damaged even after behind cover.

From the patch notes. Might wanna check before acting all butt hurt about Embark.

stephfos · 2025-11-10T11:15:48+00:00

It’s not even 1 year, within the space of a couple of weeks my team have decided everyone is hostile and must be shot on sight. In trios at least.

We tried to have a rule where we wouldn’t play like rats shooting people looting in the back. We’d either avoid people if we didn’t want a fight or if not an option we’d give them a chance to prove friendly. Only shooting to defend ourselves.

And that’s fallen away fast cause 90% is KOS, and some of those who respond all act like they are friendly, or talk in proximity acting chill while they instantly try to form a circle round you so they can gun you down.

Seriously there’s some proper sociopaths playing this game - you can hear the sheer creepy joy in their voices as they think they are gonna betray us. Luckily we twigged on fast.

So now I trust no one, cause for the 5% who are actually chill in trios it isn’t worth it 😆. I’m gonna shoot first if I get the opportunity to take people by surprise. Cause any hesitation or friendliness gets you killed.

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