Where Have I Been? Re: Rape · 7:05am Jun 27th, 2015
If you have not read the original blog post, please go here before reading on. Thank you.
Okay, so a few days while on campus I was listening to my mp3 player loaded with mlp fan music and jamming out when I enter the introductory dorm and was passing through its lobby when I noticed a laptop open and a small group of four to five huddled around it and was watching the season 5 premiere episodes. As a fellow fan, I made my way over to watch and introduce myself. I come to discover that one out of the four who were watching was a brony and was slowly converting two others. They were watching the episodes as part of a deal where one party had to watch a couple of episodes in exchange to go larping the next day. (for those who don't know, 'larp'ing is Live-Action-Role-Playing where people go around swinging foam swords around at each other; I will admit, i have dabbled in it during my time there)
Since I had just met my second fellow brony while there, I was excited and happy to know that there were others just like me so we began talking. During one episode, a guy named Brian asked if I was a clopper. I told him that I was not going to answer that. He then asked if I was a furry. I gave the same response of not answering the question. He then pulled out his smart phone and started showing me his very large collection of photos on it, and most of it was mature content of the explicit kind ranging from normal to mlp to furry. Remember, I've only met the guy for about 30 minutes by now. Anyways, I remembered that I had a collection of my own photos I have found through out the fandom (all of them being clean) and offered to show them. It turns out, one of the guys who was being forced to watch went by the name of 'Big Mac' and I had just remembered that I had a flash drive with a picture of big mac and ran off to get. long story short, we had a good time and we went to bed.
The next couple of weeks, I would say hi to them as I was passing by going to the next thing on my schedule or briefly converse with them before moving on to find other things to do. Brian happened to hang out with another guy named Conner so the two were often seen together. I later found out that they both shared the same room together as well. Now over the couple of weeks, I heard rumors that Brian had been caught jerking off in dining hall bathroom. I had already thought that was weird in itself, but I wanted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt because he was a fellow fan and the fandom (despite all the hate it gets) had a reputation of most of its members being genuine and benevolent.
Fast forward to about two weeks before we head home for break. At around 5:00-6:00 in the afternoon, word starts spreading that a raping happened today and there were already witness accounts of a cop on campus and a guy being arrested. Over the next couple of days I start hearing more details about the rape. It turns out, the rape was a male-on-male raping, only two people were involved, it happened near the admin building near the front of the center, and that Brian and Conner were both involved in it. Now I don't know who was raped or who was doing the raping, but both guys are no longer at the center.
Now I am not here trying to say something like, "I knew this guy was a crack case and should have been arrested sooner" or "I am no longer a part of this fan base any more because of this one incident". This was more of an eye opening moment for me, as it was a reminder that even in kind and respectful communities like the mlp fan base there will always be cases like these. Its an unavoidable probability. We aren't perfect and we never will be. But we can still aim to be the best that we can be.
I have no idea what happened to the two guys involved in the raping, but the one who went to jail no longer has his collection of pictures to look at, no longer has any of his music that he has collected, and now has a record as a rapist. It sucks to see a fellow fan fall like this, but I have my own life to think about. Remember, he made this choice so now he has to live with it.
I guess what i want to say is, keep yourself in a safe environment and choose your close friends carefully. Don't let yourself be a victim.
I know this is a bit of a heavy topic, but I wanted to share this experience and how it related to me. Even in such a great fandom like this, there will always be unfortunate events like these. May we continue to make this fandom better every day and help each other from doing things like this.
