The Lunar Logs

In a rather dramatic fashion, Mango_Podz was banned last week after evidence was brought to the staff team of him using illegal client mods.  In an effort to help JimyHendricks track down the last of the secret tomb raids, he opted to use freecam.  For those unaware, it’s a mod that allows you to disconnect the camera from the player to fly anywhere and through anything.  Specifically, he used the freecam found in a high profile hacked client called Impact.

Mango as a player has gained a bit of an infamous reputation among parts of Freedonia, yet still a lot of people (such as myself admittedly) considered him a friend.  For full disclosure he was a previous client of mine, someone who paid me to edit and do some animation work for him.  Nonetheless that is now more than likely at an end, and I’m taking the neutral approach for this article.  Different players have had many different opinions on him it seems.

“He was cool.”

– EastDakota

“I just know him as the dude who got high and made great mapart”

– Luigifan100

“I liked him before he got weird c:

He used too be the funny chill stoner c:”

– Erttum

“..weird being making pedophilic remarks towards me joy rofl.”

– Nikta (in response to Erttum.)

Having been banned once before X-raying, this next cheating ban came swiftly.  I personally found out after he left a message in my Discord dms accusing me of reporting him.  He calls back to a situation where he thinks I overheard him mentioning freecam, but to my knowledge this never actually happened, or maybe I simply missed it.  Had I known, yes I would have reported it as any responsible player (especially staff) would. 

The same day I ended up completing and releasing my video about the tomb raids.  It was the follow up to the original MCO’s Oldest Secret now with the epic conclusion of it being solved by a team of dedicated players.  In the end I felt it important to mention Mango and his ban though, giving his affiliation to the team and the bans direct connection with the hunt.  I made a few mistakes, like calling him the lead of the team (assuming since he had created the group chat for the hunt), but aside from that it mostly holds up.

He did release his own video shortly after.  It mostly was focused on his personal statement about the situation (not the first time this sort of thing has happened) but it did include some responses to my segment on him.

“To go ahead and add a disclaimer; I hacked- and there’s nothing more to it.”

Mango_Podz (aka WonkaOil420)

Of course there is more to it, but this quote rather states that he isn’t going to argue the fact he was cheating.  He spends a considerable amount of time pushing the notion that I was wrong in claiming he was doing it for personal gain (likely interpreting when I said he got a little too greedy haphazardly in my video).  He instead claims it was to help Jimy specifically, and that Jimy’s desperation is what emotionally drove him to cheat.  To him, it’s this idea that he felt emotionally compelled by his desire to help which led him to breaking the rules.

“My downfall in life has always been the fact that I’m too caring.  Even though I may seem like a genuine asshole, and even though I might seem like a bad guy, because I constantly went around that server not only being controlled by my own emotions… but I trusted the people too much.”

Mango_Podz (1:15 in the video)

Prefacing this next bit, I want to say this is purely my opinion based off my own experience and I’m not trying to label this as fact.  I’m not an expert in the field of psychology. As someone who has actually had struggles with what can best be described as “uncontrollable empathy” in the past, it’s usually paired with a strong moral compass.  While I don’t want to entirely dismiss the scenario he is presenting, I’m not sure if I totally believe it.  In my experience, and the experience of my only friend that has had a similar problem in the past, we are generally attracted toward people that need help.  We try to offer anything we can, support, reassurance, and a plethora of other things often to a level where it becomes a detriment to our  ourselves.  It’s not usually over minor things like being the first to find a forgotten build in a minecraft server, but usually in personal tangible struggles people suffer through.  There is also the fact that we both heavily avoided being “assholes” because it was contradictory to over desire to help everyone we came across.  If what he is saying is true, I believe it demonstrates a deeper issue of prioritizing minecraft too highly or getting too attached to the server where it’s unhealthy.  If that is the case, he has likely made the right choice by leaving.  If its not, then he stills needs to grow up a little more.  Because admitting your wrong is one of the best things you can do in a situation. Personally I think it’s somewhere in the middle. I believe that his emotions probably got out of hand but I do think to a degree he knew what he was doing, and how it could likely end for him.

“I’m not gonna get into my childhood because nobody cares at the end of the day.  But I am not mentally okay.”

Mango_Podz (4 minutes into video)

Mental health is a serious issue and it has caused some players to leave the staff team or the server outright in the past.  I won’t name anyone for privacy reasons but things can happen and it’s important to step back when they do.  Even in 2020 after my demotion where I was honestly quite pissed, I left the server for a few months partly because I knew I would become severely depressed had I remained.  Ultimately I do think he made the right decision, granted he didn’t exactly have much of a choice after being banned to leave the community. If its proving to be more harmful than helpful, cutting loose was probably the healthiest thing he could do.

“My own family would rather put me in a mental facility than you know, truly understand and try to get me help.”

Mango_Podz (5:17)

Maybe he doesn’t understand but most “mental facilities” these days, assuming he means mental hospitals, are actually made to help the individual. They put you in a safe and observable environment where doctors are very efficiently able to experiment with treatment (usually medication) and find what works for you. Although it’s more personal than I usually would go, I have been in two of them myself while in adolescence. They aren’t always a favorable option as the isolation from family and friends can be really depriving for some people, but they do serve a purpose. Bad childhoods can really scar adults but it’s important to seek help where you can find it if it’s too much to bear. So wherever he finds himself, I do sincerely hope it’s beneficial to him.

“Void, at the end of the day you didn’t do anything to piss me off… You just, you kinda changed.. I really kind of hated you for no reason because I thought it was fucking funny you know?”

Mango_Podz (6:07)

He continues on explaining why he was mean to some individuals. These include because he found it humorous, people already having a bad reputation, and just to troll some people. At the very least he offers apologies, despite playing the victim card for people bullying him in the past off of servers.

I knew the entire time that it was too good to be true. Fraccu befriended me, Fraccu acted chill with me, and it was just so he could get his evidence.”

Mango_Podz (8:50)

The way he goes on to discuss that he has gotten used to people knowing him, only to stab him in the back later leaves some lofty implications for some of his former friends. Me and Fraccu (who he credits as leaking the evidence) seem to have been swept under this rug, although he does follow up by saying that it was the responsible thing to do. Regardless, he states that Fraccu befriended him solely to collect evidence on him. This is despite the fact that according to Fraccu they had been friends for around two months, long before any of this started.

“I’ve heard that admins kind of choose what goes to who.”

Mango_Podz (11:15)

The last segment of the video acts like a will, designating who he wants to take ownership of his various belongings and builds. Despite his wishes for the admins to “honor” his request, this isn’t and has never been how it works. When a player is banned, all ownership of their belongings is essentially transfered to the admin team and no one else unless they already had prior permission.

At the end of the day, it’s hard to ignore the manipulative feel of parts of this video. I believe it comes from a genuine place for the most part but it’s not always crystal clear. Not that I haven’t made that mistake before after I went through my demotion. When your so invested in a community and you are essentially forced to step down or leave outright it can be pretty emotional. No matter how much people can say it’s “just a block game” I will no longer believe that. MCO is a multi-medium community that transcends the standard survival experience. We have animations, (mostly bad) music, lore writers, YouTubers, journalists, event coordinators and a whole lot more. If this were just a block game, then none of that would exist. But you still have to know where to draw the line so it’s a healthy involvement. You have to take responsibility and do what’s best for yourself.

Mango_Podz, if for some reason you are reading this, I do genuinely hope your health improves, regardless of what you think of me. Otherwise, until next time Freedonians, stay tuned for the next lunar log.