Online Abuse On Fimfiction, part four of four. · 6:59am May 28th, 2013
The Story Of My Leaving
By Chatoyance
You who follow my work here on Fimfiction may be curious about the circumstances of my leaving. I left abruptly, and without explanation. I would like to correct that.
In short, I left because I felt heartbroken. I had been the focus of organized online and offline harassment and bullying because of my Conversion Bureau stories, but this was not the main reason for my flight from Fimfiction.
What was the final blow for me was the betrayal of some of those who I considered dear friends and allies, as well as the failure of the Fimfiction management. It was possible to nearly cope with the constant abuse so long as I felt support from those I trusted. But when some of my trusted friends failed to back me up or stand with me in a time of trouble, when some even joined with those who were abusing me, that was simply too much.
During the worst of the harassment directed against me, I received multiple death threats, countless letters and messages of hatred and insult, constant downvote abuse that rendered my own posts silenced, and in the real world suffered targeted denial of service attacks against my family servers and mailservers, as well as hacking attempts, some successful and quite destructive.
All of these attacks came with proxy-anonymized messages of hate and insult, directed personally at me, from members of the Anti-Conversion Bureau. They claimed the attacks were specifically because of my Conversion Bureau stories, and the stated goal was to force me to quit writing. It was an organized, orchestrated, ongoing assault that affected my family and myself.
The abuse began in the March of 2012.
Until that time, for a full year, I had enjoyed the most joyful and wonderful creative period of my entire fifty-three years of life. Better than my entire software career working for companies like Activision and Electronic Arts, more enjoyable than my second career helping to develop and run one of the first, and most successful games websites at the beginning of the internet. More fun that my third career as a cartoonist. It was the happiest year of my life, in terms of creative expression.
I needed such a happy creative outlet because it was also a year of fear and near tragedy. Two of my spouses nearly died from terrible infections, one lost her esophagus from food poisoning, another nearly perished from a seemingly unstoppable kidney infection. Only last-resort antibiotics barely saved their lives. The single thing that kept me going during this nightmare was writing my stories. There were times the only bright thing in my life was the camaraderie of my fellow Conversion Bureau authors, and the support of my fully engaged readers. That kept me afloat, and able to help my spouses.
While this year of online joy and real-world horror went on, a group of young men on a wargaming forum called ‘forums.spacebattles.com’ decided they were deeply upset that anyone was writing about the Conversion Bureau universe. They seemed to feel that the mere existence this fiction somehow threatened their own beloved fantasies of power-suited supermen killing aliens in bloody, nightmarish wars. They ranted and raved about how anyone could write stories where humans would willingly become aliens, rather than kill aliens.
This caused so much trouble that they were asked by their own community to leave.
So it was that in March of 2012 this same small group of wargamers joined Fimfiction and immediately began attacking the Conversion Bureau authors. Naturally they attacked the most prolific author preferentially, and that author was me.
In short order they attracted a following (the internet loves a gang-up), pulling in people from many other places on the internet and worked to create what amounted to a hate group - the Anti-Conversion Bureau Group (now renamed as the ‘Alternative Conversion Bureau’ as an escape from censure by the moderators). The attacks increased as inflaming posts and angry diatribes encouraged collective violence against the authors of the Bureau stories, and very specifically me. It was calculated online terrorism, and it naturally just got worse and worse.
I, having no concept of the scale of the attack, did my best to ask those that persecuted me to stop. I suggested that if they did not like my stories, that there were thousands of other stories to turn to. I begged them to simply not read my work.
But they were not there to read pony stories. These bullies were very clear - they had come purely to silence all of the Conversion Bureau authors, destroy the Bureau genre itself, and - because I was prolific, to especially silence me. The reason for the attack? They did not personally approve of such stories, and since they did not approve, such stories should not exist for anyone.
They were wargamers. The campaign they launched was carefully architected and carried out, and in the end caused many authors to abandon Fimfiction, including myself.
I begged the moderators to help. I begged the site owner, Knighty, to help. I provided concrete proof of the abuse directed towards me. A weak, ineffective effort was made to deal with the most egregious of the growing group of bullies, but in the end, nothing real came of it. There was no follow-through whatsoever.
Evil, true evil, is always a matter of institutionalization. For harassment and abuse to exist, those with power and authority must turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. Through failure to actively protect those within their care, authority offers tacit approval of abuse. Through thoughtless coding of features, programmers make abuse easy, and thus unintentionally encouraged.
Despite clear examples of blatant abuse and real-world attacks, the moderators failed to confront and stop the abuse, and ultimately Knighty - who barely made a token effort to deal with the bullies and their hate group - failed everyone.
But the final blow came when many of those I considered my friends - those who I had shared my glorious year of joyful creative fellowship with - either silently ignored the ongoing attacks, or blatantly caved in and chose submission to the abusers, rather than to work together to oppose them. By then, I had become essentially the sole focus of attacks, yet only a handful of people stood by me.
You only know the true character of a friend by what they actually bother to do when you are under attack.
Management would not help. Many of my former friends on Fimfiction remained uselessly silent or joined the bullies. Eventually several of those who had courageously stood with me became so hurt that they simply had to leave - in disgust, in grief, in sadness.
Then I too, seeing their wisdom, also left.
No truly sane or decent person ever abuses or harasses another person.
That so many people were driven to gang up to destroy a genre of fiction and the authors that wrote it is not a sane, or a decent, or a kind, or a good thing. It is worse that Knighty and the moderators of Fimfiction effectively stood by and let it happen. All evil requires is that good men do nothing, or in this case, little.
In the aftermath, the leaders of the original attack have consolidated their victory. They have begun a widespread effort to delete the bulk of their own vicious and threatening postings from Fimfiction, and the scars left behind by this mass deletion are easy to see. Only the responses to these vile and sometimes frightening attacks remain, ghostly quotations merely hinting at the truly terrible threats and slander now purposefully deleted.
The victors write the history books, and an effort is ongoing to make the creative authors of the Conversion Bureau out to be the aggressors - especially me. That this is ludicrous should be obvious with even the simplest thought about it. The very notion that a creative person, busy writing stories to an appreciative audience, could somehow magically force dozens of people to join a website so that they could then be attacked is utterly insane. That a happy, content author with many fans has any reason to cause trouble to anyone is beyond credibility.
That one little author of pony stories could be the aggressor against over four-hundred members of a group dedicated to eliminating that author and her choice of genre? It beggars the imagination. Yet this is their Big Lie.
It is always the behavior of bullies that they paint their victims as deserving harassment, and ultimately being to blame for their own abuse. Apparently, I dressed provocatively.
It is beyond silly, of course, but this is the story that is being crafted, and the bigger the lie, and the more often it is repeated, the more people will believe it. Already, some people on Fimfiction are actually falling for this ridiculous revisionism, simply because it is all they hear, it is not being challenged - as it should be - and it is not something that is being thought about at all.
No person should ever be harassed, or bullied or attacked online. Abuse and harassment should be challenged at every appearance, friends should stand together to oppose harassment, and all should demand that the management of a website aggressively and universally protect and defend its users from abuse - both by action in the moment, and by website design that eliminates the abuse of tools that permit harassment, and the provision of working tools for users to protect themselves.
I was terribly harassed, yet only a few true souls tried to defend me. The management failed me utterly at every level, and the structure of the site itself is easily abused to cause harm.
This is why I left Fimfiction.
Petal Chatoyance, 2013
(Jennifer Diane Reitz)
The Complete Abuse On Fimfiction Blog Series
Quick Links to previous parts
Part One: Abuse, why, how and how to cope
Part Two: My letter To Knighty
Part Three: What you can do to help things
Thank you for posting this, Chatoyance. I'm am ashamed to say that I was unaware of the extent of your harassment, and thus did not defend you as you deserved in your time of need. I'm sorry for being part of the problem.
I don't know your plans for the future, and I'm guessing we on Fimfiction won't play much of a part in them, but I promise to stand by you and protect you as best I can, if you do choose to stay here.
I'm sending links for these blog posts to Knighty and the other Admins. They most likely won't care, but I'll try.
Please remember, Chatoyance, that you aren't alone, and the more people who know exactly the troubles you are facing, the more we can help you.
Thank you again for everything.
The Articulator
By the time I found your works and began to read and enjoy them, it was really too late for me to have done anything. I didn't even see any of the abuse.
I suppose that sounds a little defensive, which maybe it is, that's a bad habit of mine.
What i'm trying to say is, i'll be glad to back you up should you ever feel the need of support.
Best of luck.
As much as I don't want to see you go, I understand if you choose to stick to your decision. I've resent my friend request to you on Skype, and if you'll have it, my door's always open. *extends a paw in friendship*
Ha, you know I'm always around. It seems like we just bump into each other no matter where we go. You remember when you sold that banner on the market back in February? That was actually me that bought it, out of outrageous coincidence. I'm sure we'll see each other again, no matter what.
That really is rotten. I still can't believe people can be so... I suppose 'brain-dead' would be appropriate, but I fear that may lump me in with your attackers.
It's a shame to see you go. Even if some of your stories were a little discomforting at times, you are a great writer. You may not want to do any more stories for this community, but don't stop altogether. Keep your chin up, enjoy what you have and remember, you are a great person. Those bastards who persecuted you don't know what a blow they've dealt to this community.
1109628
I have you back on Skype again, at least I think so. Good.
*Extends hoof in friendship*
Well damn, that is just terrible. There are few things worse than a bunch of moralizers banding together to convince each other justice is being done by stomping all over someone else. I wish I'd known the extent and organization of it at the time, or I'd have done a hell of a lot more than try to change the subject or mood when I saw things start to get heated.
But there's no hiding from the past on the internet, and if these people said and did these kinds of extreme and aggressive things, it will catch up with them.
At least now people's consciousnesses have been raised towards this kind of thing happening and how institutional structures and designs can either try to stymie it or let it flow freely - Hopefully the former now that it's been brought to their attention.
i am really sorry for what they did to you. that is completely ridiculous, i have sent a message to knighty myself, i hope that he listens to the things you said. but are you feeling better after all that?
The link to that spacebattles page was most beneficial, it helps the inner scholar in me to have at least one citation for abuses rendered.
As one TCB author to another, and as a fimfiction writer in general, I hope that every single one of the people who think they could keep passionate writers down forever see that their hopeless, because, as history has shown, hatred has always been ultimately trumped by compassion. If that wasn't true, we wouldn't be here, would we?
Well, i guess i can't stop you from leaving no matter how much i like your stories. Good luck on whatever you decide to do next.
Still though, i can't believe this actially happened. It's quite baffling how people can join a website on fanfiction just to hate some author off it. Seems to indicate a lack of a social life and a really really sad existence.
Are you leaving or did you leave earlier? I'm confused. I'm sorry that I didn't notice this was happening. I guess sometimes we get so caught up in our own problems that we fail to notice the hardships of others. The folks I know at Love and Tolerate get the hateful insults and down votes, but cyber attacks? What is wrong with people? You show so much more strength of character than they ever could in living through all of this. I hope things get better for you in the future. The way the site runs does need to be changed. Maybe we need to create a petition or something.
1109651 not to intrude but if i use skype, can i follow you off fimfiction?
Hoo boy, they came from Spacebattles? I've had... experience with them. Back when sci-fi debating was still a thing, I was on the other one of the two big boards for the subject. We were both routinely trolled. "My" board learned that counter-trolling didn't work, and instead learned how to make trolling un-fun. SB... didn't. They seem to have learned the wrong lessons from their attackers.
Note 1: I may be biased, as there was a fair bit of interaction between the two sites, and much of it wasn't positive.
Note 2: FiMfic has none of the systems we had in place to make trolling un-fun.
1109651
Krass and I are enjoying your blocked members list. We got Jameson, Braeburn and a bucket of lube.
Dear god, what did I miss?!?!?
I'm really sad to see you go, but like the others here, I can completely understand the why. If there was another repository where fimfictions could be found and read (besides googledocs), I would probably join you in leaving this site in light of what all transpired.
I do hope that you leave your stories here so that we may continue to read and enjoy them, or if not, have a place where we can read and enjoy them again (I must've read "Friendship Is Optimal: Caelum Est Conterrens" several times already, probably because I can totally imagine myself in Siofra's spot).
Sorry to see you go. Your Conversion Bureau stories were one of the first ones I read here on FiMfiction and even inspired me to write one. I was unaware of the harassment, but I did see how there were many who showed an uncanny dislike for any Conversion Bureau stories which led me to believe that there was more to this than a simple dislike.
I hope that you would reconsider that you would return maybe not as an author but at least to be here, but I learned years ago it's hard to change people's minds.
Anyway, thank for being part of this community.
Lux
Mob mentality and boredom. They constantly look for flags to rally against - raison d'être - and TCB is simply one of those flags.
*I* feel TCB is a really interesting premise, and I enjoy the psychological implications of this sort of species-wide 'do over'. I especially enjoy the observations on how various people would handle it - in both the stories *and* in the online community.
I have seen it asked a few times - how could something like the HLF come to be? Well - look around for the *very* real-world analogues to these concepts.
I merely made two 'ad spot' style videos for the stories - simply as a way of saying thanks to the writers for coming up with what has resulted in a lot of entertainment for me. And even I - out on the very, very fringes of TCB - get rafts of hate over it. A recent public post on one of the videos resulted in my actually getting cross with the poster:
I am glad you have an opinion about Chatoyance's work, and in a few years you may even be able to express your opinion in a concise, adult fashion.
Unfortunately though, this is not a forum for Chatoyance's work, it is a place where I display videos I have made. So if you have a wondrously well-worded and eloquent review of the /video/, I would love to hear it. Otherwise, you are probably best served raging against someone else's machine.
It is enough to make one write off the internet in general as a seething pit of vileness and hate... Especially when one gets *the exact same treatment* for pretty much anything that becomes successful online and becomes that aforementioned flag.
Several of my online dealings have the exact same sorts of grief as TCB - slander, trolling, targeted attacks on services, spam campaigns, etc, etc... Simply because it is 'cool' to tear things down online. Because it allows them to be a virtual bad-guy and forget, for a little while, that in the real world they are a powerless little punk raging against a machine run by people just like us - the creators, the visionaries, the dedicated and driven who build these 'big things' that they so love to tear down.
So this happening here on FimFiction is not "new", and it is not "novel" - it is sickening and disheartening. And as community managers it falls to us to create safe havens in the cesspit the internet is becoming - and if a community manager cannot do so, they can only ride the coat-tails of popularity for so long before they sink beneath the waves like some sort of virtual Atlantis...
I am looking at you, FimFiction...
I'm at the same address as I've always been, Chatty. Adam-The-Hedgehog on Skype. If you ever need somepony to jaw with, just ring me up.
1109907
It becomes hard to differentiate hate. I mean, the fellow who posted this on my youtube page recently:
He may not be part of your group - but he certainly sounds like it. How are we to differentiate these groups when they all do, say, and act about the same?
It really gets hard to see shades of grey when the world is black Krass - you know this better than many. So, yeah - Chat may not have been able to see the separation of "Enemies actively shooting at her" and "Enemies only planning to shoot at her".
Like the guys in Washington who call the shots from their desks - it is a lot easier to see the entirety of the battlefield when you're not on it and dodging mortar fire...
1109907
Speaking from personal experience, these guys are the direct descendants of organized groups such as the "Anti-Idiot Invasion Force", which was specifically designed to go out and troll (or counter-troll) people they saw as idiots, which usually meant "they hold opinions we don't agree with." Been there, done that, dealt with them on both sides.
... Well, I tried to help a bit...
TheGodKingOfWhiskey -
Sold out to the Anti-TCB
Sock-puppet account
Openly paranoid that Middy and I would use our admin status to 'take over'
So he unilaterally 'took over' the TCB himself.
(That's why I re-opened my original, earlier TCB group)
Bad mouthed me to those attacking while smiling to my face
Posts here to dismiss the validity of what I have proven to Knighty
Deleted the thread on TCB where I cornered and proved all of this and made the leader of the Anti's back down. Now the proof is gone.
Claims to be my friend while slapping me down
Justifies it as 'tough love'??? Whaaa...?
All it would take is one genuine apology for it all.
Deleted. Blocked. I am not stupid for once.
Chatoyance, thank you so much for coming back and having the courage to share this room in your heart with us. I might not agree completely with some of the subtext in your stories, however, I will never, ever, lose my capacity to be objective while reading the carefully constructed ideas of another being.
Your stories were magic, they lit up my dark world and gave me something to look forward to each and every day.
I hope that from this experience, you can heal and return to a happier place, because you don't deserve the shit-storm that the internet threw at you. Unfortunately, people have a tendency to fall prey to thinking trap that: "Someone else will step in and help this person, after all, everyone can see how bad this is going in front of us".
But this doesn't mean that humanity is without hope. I am not so young and naive to say that our world is a perfect place. There is darkness on all sides, threatening constantly to overwhelm us as individuals. However, through the bonds of true friendship, we can endure through the mad discordant attacks of said darkness, and eventually see the beauty of the world come dawn.
There is beauty here, but it isn't easy to find.
There is hope everyday, but it is trapped beneath an ever-shifting veil of malicious thoughts.
There is love for everyone, but only if we are brave enough to trust in others to be as brave as us.
If you are ever in need of a listening ear, a kind word, or anything of that nature, please feel free to contact me personally through skype, (my account is "Thoragnor") I can't respond while I'm at work, and I leave my status on DnD simply so that it doesn't beep at me incessantly while I talk to people, but I read everything that people send to me.
Thank you for all the magic,
Wishing you the best,
Your fan, your follower, and hopefully someone you can consider a friend, JackShine.
1110366 If I may be so bold, perhaps you could post the evidence here on the blog? At worst it is downvoted, and even then it can still be accessed by simply clicking on the comment to show it.
1110466
It was actually my intention to do just that - but that is when I found the campaign to eliminate the worst evidence. If you go to stories I did, like the writing contest entry 'Ten Minutes: Aftermath' (especially) or any of my other stories, you will find large blocks of deleted posts. I did not delete them, their own authors did. Those posts contained some of the most egregious material. The deletion effort is massive.
Likewise, in the upstart TCB, Group 26 - not mine - the entire dialogue between me, and the leaders of the Anti-TCB has been removed. It happened immediately after the coup that dropped Midnight Shadow and myself from admin status. I have tried to use the internet wayback machine to recover this material, because I had spent several days putting together a truly damning collection of posts all in one clear statement to prove that I, personally, was the focus of the attacks (something the Anti-TCB denied).
This post of mine caused their leader figure at the time to resentfully admit the truth, and apologize, after which he resigned from the Anti-TCB. The other members of the core group did not.
All of that is gone now, and all that remains are the deletion scars or, in the case of the Group 26 TCB, a statement about getting rid of the contentious fuss for the sake of peace, more or less.
Eliminating evidence, really.
Seeing this, I changed my tone. Where before I was going to sweep in here with fire and brimstone, I instead chose to act as a gentle educator. In the end, perhaps that is better all around.
As I've commented before, Chat, I don't always agree with you on everything. In fact, early on, I admit to being as irritated as any of your detractors by some of the things I read. But, when I stopped to think about WHY those things irritated me so much, I realized I was being pretty damn foolish getting so riled up about something so trivial. And while I didn't agree with everything you said - and to be honest still don't always - I value your differing take on things, and came to appreciate your writing for what it was. If nothing else, I believe you learn a lot more by interacting faithfully with people nothing like you than you do by sitting around endlessly agreeing with each other.
There's no question that you were harassed, and heavily, and inexcusably. And I fully support your decision to just block the hell out of the people doing it. I'll be honest and say that I think you went too far with comment deletion and blocking sometimes, but in light of just how poorly you were being treated overall, I can more than understand it. We all love to talk about discussing our differences and freedom of speech and such, but some people are simply not acting in good faith no matter how much they may claim otherwise. Heck, no matter how much they may even believe it themselves. In such cases, there's little point in humoring them; they're going to find a way to twist anything you say, so you might as well cut them off in advance.
It's censorship, yeah. And not all of them are there to start fights, some really do want to talk it out and they're going to be understandably miffed. But given the general response to your works, I can very much understand being defensive, and erring on the side of caution, and sometimes perceiving an attack where there is none. I think anyone would likely respond the same in your position. It's not fair, but neither is getting bullied.
In a way, I'm thankful I got a chance to see this all going down; it gave me an excellent demonstration of the kind of person I realized I did NOT want to be, and showed me just how easily people can justify disgusting behavior if they've got enough voices agreeing with them. We don't always see eye to eye Chat, but I definitely respect you. And I've absolutely no desire to be associated with your average detractor - they do NOT make good company.
1110673
From what I understand, knighty could search the backups for evidence.
Unfortunately, he will do no such thing.
EDIT:
Also, I checked the thread that you linked. The people posting blatantly exhibit less than... pleasant opinions, transphobia being one of them.
1110673 I perused the story's comments, and there was a block of comments that was deleted. It was all from one user, and was a quadruple post (never a good sign).
Perhaps proving you were wronged is impossible. But it's becoming apparent, both within and outside this group, that fimfiction's present state is starting to show rust. You may be right when saying it is better to push for change and education rather than retribution.
1110673
A massive post deletion effort. You suggest your attackers were highly coordinated and extremely numerous.
The former seems improbable. The latter I can buy, I guess. I still don't see why you care all that much.
You get mockery. Welcome to the Internet, please show your ticket to the conductor.
You get hate mail. Congratulations, you're a well known writer, albeit one whose writings are extremely disliked. Frankly, I can see why. I find your prose... heavy-handed, at best. And unless your TCB fics are the brony equivalent of A Modest Proposal, well... I doubt more needs to be said.
Does it make the hate mail right? No. The mockery, on the other hand... Well, I can see that being perfectly deserved, and perfectly legitimate. Consider taking that mockery, sorting through the insults to find legitimate advice, and using it to improve both your writing and your own behavior. It works quite well in my own writing group, particularly when attempting to build an internally consistent setting. Bad/nonsensical ideas can be shot down abruptly, while those with some small potential can be fully developed. That's something you don't get with more "supportive" groups, which I personally consider detrimental to the growth of a skilled author.
1110673
Dear Chat,
I'm glad you decided to make this effort. If anything good comes from all the sad events that led up to your departure it will hopefully at least give you a reason to smile when you think of this community.
I've said it before Chat, there are a few key people that are the heart and soul of any community, and you have been that for me, not just for TCB but for FIMfiction as a whole. You are one of the main reasons I decided to author my stories in this context rather than others. Your stories and ideas have breathed life into this community and driven much of its intellectual and philosophical discussion. Many other authors (myself included) have written works based on yours - and your support in the efforts has been VERY appreciated.
As a friend and fellow writer, I hope you come back to FIMfiction, because I know the joy you felt in creating and being part of a group of people building something beautiful together, and I want you to experience that joy again. It's part of who you are. The trolls, bozos and bullies don't deserve to take even an instant of that away from you. You have my full support if you consider staying - and even if you don't.
But if you do come back, FIMfiction will be a better place for it, and as you can see in these posts a lot of other folks feel the same. You won't be alone.
From this, and everything I've heard elsewhere... the biggest pain I felt when reading through your stories was to wish that I had been here sooner... not just to comment and cheer you on, but to defend you from the mob of bullies. I wish I had known. I wish I'd been there.
So much of my desire to see you return is selfish, a desire for my own redemption, by standing with you in the future.
Why did I delete OnlyUseMeWallet's post?
It was a rambling statement about how I - any person really - should naturally expect abuse on the internet, and that trying for better was itself somehow offensive. The term used was 'hugbox' - apparently an insult.
It was clear he had not bothered to read anything I wrote, had no idea of what I actually said, or what actually happened to me, and even went so far as to imagine that I claimed the abuse that went on here was only directed at myself - despite my clear and repeated statements that I was not a special snowflake, that the abuse caused many other writers to leave, and well, you get the idea. He had read nothing of what he was so adamant about.
I point this out because while this sort of post is not precisely abuse, as such, it is a slap in the face made by someone speaking from ignorance. They haven't a clue what they are referring to, yet they have an opinion that claims just that. Such a thing isn't evil, just annoying and empty. It clutters useful dialog with prattle ignorant of the actual material being discussed - a strong opinion without any basis for it except emotional reaction.
You know, I think life is far too short to bother with such things, don't you?
Da Bunnana King -
I don't have time to waste on negativity. I am not here to be lambasted or scolded. I am here to say my peace and learn to not bother with anyone who gives me shit or makes me feel bad. And if you think that 'hugbox' is a term that should be considered an insult, then perhaps you would be happier dealing with someone who - unlike me - does not think that Temple Grandin is utterly brilliant.
I don't mind anyone having an opinion utterly opposite my own. I am happy to listen to any viewpoint and even to enjoy spirited debate.
But I am utterly done - completely done - with anyone who can't be kind and gentle and polite and civil to me. As for 'privilege' - it absolutely is my privilege to block and delete any person who is incapable of proper civil discourse. My time is my own, and no person has any privileged right to waste it or abuse it.
As you just did.
I think that was his opinion 1111665.
Chatoyance, this is just making more drama. Please stop.
Which is one of the many many various reasons I keep writing mine; I get very contrary when bullying happens, I like to find whatever pressure point caused the abuser to go off and squeeze it until they can't see straight enough to even function anymore.
As an example; it made some people livid that the predatory races of my Equestria were powerful enough to overcome most human military technology. When they reacted poorly, instead of dialing back or continuing on as before, I actually *increased* the proportionate power of my Equestrian races, then blocked them and deleted anything they posted or would post so that they would have to either watch in silence, or learn their lesson and go away.
Just like a rat consistently shocked when he tries to take a block of cheese, pain can be utilized to eventually force an abusive personality to stop abusing.
So fight. Win.
1111697
I can't agree with your logic; if someone attacks your country, your family, or your personage, do you stop because retaliation, even for the sake of self defense, would 'create more violence/drama'?
1111999
I've seen comments like that, and I always think "here is a person with no knowledge of history and no understanding of war". I think of the Zulu engagements, The Battle of Maiwand, Teutoburg Forest, Little Bighorn... heck, even the successful holding action of North Vietnam that brought the might of the American forces to stalemate - and eventual, shuffling withdrawal.
In all of these cases - and vastly many more - superior technology was no match for determination, situational awareness, total commitment, and vastly superior moment-to-moment tactics on the field or a solid overall strategy applied well.
And as for Afghanistan in general - The Place Where Nations Go To Die - the former Soviet Union utterly dissipated itself fighting brutally impoverished men in caves using outdated weapons and the occasional captured toy. The US is stuck in there now, and the same fate awaits it... as has happened to many other nations before both the USSR and America.
Technology is powerful, but by itself it is not any sort of panacea for victory in war. It is easy to laugh at the Teddy Bears of Endor beating the Imperial Troops in Star Wars, or the Navi beating mechs and airships on Pandora in Avatar, but the reality of earth history shows us just such improbable match ups ending in shocking turnabout victories over and over. These things happen for real, 'primitive' can beat technology, which is why such stories are written at all.
I share your upset with the ignorant who complain about such matters. They are like children, overawed by the propaganda that shows them shiny planes and phallic missiles and comforts them with the assurance that superior technology beats everything.
Sorry, General Dynamics, it just ain't so.
Which is why I'm putting my money on the gryphons.
1111680
As I stated, I don't mind an opinion. I object to it being told to me rudely, like a superior parent scolding a retarded child while holding up a hand ready to slap.
DBK could have approached me as a friend, not as an ass.
My position now is firm - be polite, be civil, and you have my ear completely. Be rude, be childish, and the block-and-ban is automatic. Don't like that? I am very sorry you feel that way, but I am unwilling to put up with less than mutual respect.
Do note the effort to downvote my post above into invisibility already in progress. My very point of downvote abuse, in action, right now.
1112509
Yeah... but the reason the Zulus or the Battle of Little Bighorn or such stand out is because they're the exception, not the rule. And in both cases the faction in question didn't last long beyond that engagement.
I'll be honest, I started to read Gamma and found some of it rather distasteful to my preferences, griffons being rather ludicrous high among my objections. I personally didn't complain though; I just stopped reading.
1112509
I think it is also important to note that climate plays a very key role in these types of conflicts. Any creature, whether it be on the scale of a species, an individual, a village, or a country, tends to fail when it tries to thrive in a new environment. How do us folks in the USA adapt to the desert of the middle east? We bust out the AC, hydrate ourselves to the point of delirium, and we cycle out folks who are currently out there, theoretically giving them time to recuperate back home.
In the short term, many times the "superior fighting force" will win. But that is only in the short term. Eventually whoever knows the environment best will be able to use it to their advantage, sometimes to surpass even the most overwhelming of odds!
In a rather extreme case, just recall the final battle of Avatar, they dominated the invading humans by using the toxic and unknown environment (to humans anyways) to their great gain! (And I believe the "evil commander" actually suffocated... although my memory of that is slightly hazy... I found the invasion to be kind of "tacked on" in the storyline... and thus it didn't really stick with me so much as the rest of the movie.)
In a somewhat less extreme, but more real case, look at any invasion of Russia in the winter. Didn't go too well for them did it? (If you aren't a historian, here's a link to the wiki of Russian Winter, it's an exciting read!
)
Sorry to detract from the original content of this blog post, but Gryphon definitely doesn't deserve any flack for having humans fail when it comes to invasion. Although I think it is probably important to note that the races of Equestria would probably have just as difficult of a time if they tried to invade. The barrier being an invasion-halting theme has always given me a warm fuzzy feeling that authors won't go off the deep end and have humans exploiting Equestria through war.
Colonial exploitation doesn't work forever... history has shown us that. (And I'm not talking about British-Colonial America relations, although they do apply here... More fun history for you to read, see how many countries tried to colonize places half-way around the world, and see how hard they failed!
)
Again, sorry to go all history-nerd here, just had some interesting thoughts that I hope will broaden someone's mental horizons, as I know mine get expanded every day by tangents!
1112523
I just want to point out that, oh hey, this is Chatoyance's Personal Blog. (within fimfiction anyways...)
So that means that it's perfectly within her right to block things that don't follow her method of operation on it. When you deviate from the rules of engagement, expecting anyone in a position of authority to do anything less than mete out appropriate punishment is pure stupidity or insanity.
I'm pretty sure she wrote something in her last four blog-walls here that she:
A: Doesn't appreciate or deserve to be harassed.
B: Is irked when appropriate punishment is not meted out.
^(Sorry, I don't know exactly how you feel, so I'm using a rather vague word here)^
C: Is not going to tolerate any kind of open negativity to her on her own blog.
No one deserves to get flamed on their own personal space. I know it bothered the heck out of me when I received a nice little mess of PM's and messages stating that my poetry or ideas made people "want to kill themselves", "want to kill celebrity X", or even make an empty threat at me. Shoot, I live on a military base, and hardly ever leave, and when I do it is usually with a fairly big crowd of other military folks. So if you really want to be messing with me, go right ahead, I really don't give two damns about it.
But I can completely understand that most people, and sane people especially, are effected by that kind of thing, and that is why no one deserves it in any regards, be it private or public.
Public humiliation destroyed about half of my life. I've been told that I should have rather serious depression and trauma flashbacks. The only reason I don't is because I'm a special star, and my learning disorder causes me to be almost insanely objective when it comes to a great deal of things.
No one should have to go through the shit-storm I've gone through. I'm young, so I've got plenty of time to build up a rapport, build a career or two, and then throw it all at the wall of modern society, and hope that someday, no one will remember me, but that the world will be a slightly better place because of the actions I took.
I'm an invisible person on the internet. I believe that this is the only method of communication in which humans are completely stripped of the laws of society. And in this mad design, we can truly learn what other people are like...
-That being said,
I'm sorry that I don't publish all the things I write. I really, truly am sorry to the 14 followers who I let down in the past year. I honestly cared about you guys. So everyone else can go ahead and flame me for not being famous, for not having my stories published, for being too much of a tight-lipped perfectionist to actually put my stories out there. But, when I do make it, I will let you all read the tons of crappy writing if you really want it, but I honestly don't want to waste your time.
(I'm not nearly as meandering or verbose in my formal writing format, this is more of a rant, again I'm sorry!)
TL:DR;
The world is not a very bright place, but I am trying my best to light as many candles as I can. The least everyone can do is just mind where they decide to piss, lest they put out a light.
Cheese and crackers this started all the way back in March of 12. i've went all this time and didn't even no this was happening (not like i could have done anything)... cripes i'm an awful person.
its ashame to see another brony leaving do to bullies, i really wish people could learn to act mature and not like monsters.
i'm really sorry i didn't even notice this. i do hope you one day decide to come back; if not as a writer, just for the hell of it.
1113112
Your words about the importance of environment are appreciated. Very much a factor indeed. Well said.
I think this is the biggest circle-jerk i have ever seen on the interent thus far, wow.
In all honesty Chatoyance, you alienate a lot of your potential readers with actions such as this (causing drama/ trying to get sympathy), as well as deleting comments by people who do not agree with you. If they are rude or w/e just let them be, people will be able to see for themselves and it would be "evidence" for bullying.
As well as that, the whole drama over ACB and CB stories was silly, if people wanted to write CB stories from a different perspective, (aka humans win/ponies are evil) why werent they allowed into the CB group?
Sigh
Honestly, you just seem to have a big ego that needs stroking every now and then and a "I can do no evil" personality, and this just put of me and probally many others of reading your works and downvoting them.
I mean, did you seriously come back to write a four blog post about why you left?
Or was it simply for some more attention and people patting you on the back.
1111117
You do realize mockery usually doesn't include helpful advice and is not sent with good intentions to make the author better right?