• Member Since 14th Jan, 2012
  • offline last seen Monday

MrNumbers


Stories about: Feelings too complicated to describe, ponies

More Blog Posts335

  • 12 weeks
    Tradition

    This one's particular poignant. Singing this on January 1 is a twelve year tradition at this point.

    So fun facts
    1) Did you know you don't have to be epileptic to have seizures?
    2) and if you have a seizure lasting longer than five minutes you just straight out have a 20% chance of dying in the next thirty days, apparently

    Read More

    10 comments · 432 views
  • 18 weeks
    Two Martyrs Fall for Each Other

    Here’s where I talk about this new story, 40,000 words long and written in just over a week. This is in no way to say it’s rushed, quite the opposite; It wouldn’t have been possible if I wasn’t so excited to put it out. I would consider A Complete Lack of Jealousy from All Involved a prologue more than a prequel, and suggested but not necessary reading. 

    Read More

    2 comments · 504 views
  • 20 weeks
    Commissions Open: An Autobiography

    Commission rates $20USD per 1,000 words. Story ideas expected between 4K-20K preferable. Just as a heads up, I’m trying to put as much of my focus as I can into original work for publication, so I might close slots quickly or be selective with the ideas I take. Does not have to be pony, but obviously I’m going to be better or more interested in either original fiction or franchises I’m familiar

    Read More

    5 comments · 520 views
  • 23 weeks
    Blinded by Delight

    My brain diagnosis ended up way funnier than "We'll name it after you". It turned out to be "We know this is theoretically possible because there was a recorded case of it happening once in 2003". It turns out that if you have bipolar disorder and ADHD and PTSD and a traumatic brain injury, you get sick in a way that should only be possible for people who have no

    Read More

    19 comments · 709 views
  • 32 weeks
    EFNW

    I planned on making it this year but then ran into an unfortunate case of the kill-me-deads. In the moment I needed to make a call whether to cancel or not, and I knew I was dying from something but didn't know if it was going to be an easy treatment or not.

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    6 comments · 780 views
Jun
5th
2020

Positivity · 2:32am Jun 5th, 2020

Just a followup to the last one, in much more positive terms.

I've felt like i haven't been able to say what I did for a very long time. But because I couldn't say it, I didn't get to learn how many people really didn't know how bad the problem was getting for me, and how many people weren't ignoring it - they genuinely weren't seeing what I was seeing, weren't having the same experiences. I really wasn't respecting the response I got, at all.

That's not to say that I think I was wrong about what I was seeing. I haven't realized that it was 'just' a vocal minority. But it's been very relieving to know that other people, in curating their own experiences with the site, have just not allowed these problems into their personal communities. As far as reasons go to not see the problem, that's a damn good one.

So, there is something I have been meaning to write after all.

Report MrNumbers · 1,456 views ·
Comments ( 29 )

I feel this is best as well. Stay positive you will find those that agree with you. Even if they don't agree with you they will still respect you. At least that is from my experience with a lot of folks. It's always best to just simply be happy.

iisaw #2 · Jun 5th, 2020 · · 1 ·

Good to hear! :pinkiehappy:

5276974
From what he's showed me?

I doubt it.

A rule of fandom I learned to follow early on was to find your niche of people and stay there, lest you sink in the mire and stop having fun. It works out pretty well, though the unfortunate result is... well, you're not the only one with a niche and some of those niches are pretty nasty.
But I like to think I breeze through a decent amount of FimFic places, and aside from certain factors, I feel generally safe here. There are places where the alt-right, far-right, or whatever totally-not-white-supremacists-we-promise like to call themselves these days like to dwell and I just.... don't associate with those people. It's something that absolutely made me uncomfortable when I encountered it, but I could step around those spaces and avoid them. If they step into my space, I deal with it there.

Except for that one time I got PMs from a channer who gave me a glowing and very insightful review for Last Human while at the same time giving off /pol/ (or at least /co/) vibes all over the place where I couldn't tell if he was just dicking around or serious. (If the difference even matters.) We had a generally friendly exchange, he called me an SJW in the nicest way possible, and he seemed to hold me in high esteem.

It was weird. To this day I still have no idea what to do with all that.

I'm concerned that the admins/mods didn't take your complaint seriously. But I'm glad people showing up have kept you around, and I too was heartened by the comments section. Thanks for making the original post - that sort of thing is really hard to do.

And it reminded me I have something of my own to write up.

Your words carry weight. The stories you write paint a picture of the cruelties that can come from tyranny, the sorts we’re staring down the barrel of even now.

Where you share these words is your choice. But they deserve to be shared, on their own merit alone. I believed that when I wrote my glowing review of Cinema Verite, and I still believe it today. You put yourself on the front lines, mentally if not physically— Attempting to push against a cancer of ideology alone, as it encroached upon your hobby, one of your passions. I can understand how you felt alone in this, as in all likelihood you were— Nobody else could respond to the messages you received, nor could they offer a retort or support you against whatever vile thoughts were spewed towards you. And I’m certain it must have been the worst of looks, to see this entire nest of cockroaches come crawling out from their holes to support a man who attempted to do harm in defense of a toxic force who uphold a toxic ideology.

But you aren’t alone. I hope that much is evident, now. You never were. And as long as you have words to share, a story to tell about the evils of tyranny, I can promise that at the very worst you will have an audience of one.

It's great to see all the people learning/talking about this, the more the better.

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Oh hey, The Last Human is one of my favorite fics on this site. Thank you for writing it.

But yeah, supremacists can be articulate and are often nice. "Nice people made the best Nazis." My experience is that they're nice to everyone they know, especially to their faces, and the only problems are that 1. most of humanity are strangers to them and that's where the niceness stops and 2. "nice" and "kind" are very different things.

I’m really glad you’ve got something coming out after all. As I’ve said, you’re one of my favorite writers and I’m here at least in sort because of your smart politics and well researched opinions.

And yeah it really is a matter of being very picky about what people and fiction I interact with, simply because I don’t have the time or energy to read nearly as much of it as I want to. Add the fact that the gay poly liberal fantasy I like doesn’t exactly attract the goons and I’m lucky.

I’m still very dissatisfied that the mods don’t seem willing to accept that inaction is complicity.

5277054

But you aren’t alone. I hope that much is evident, now. You never were.

This.
My feed's been blowing up all day today, and at the heart of all of them was this. Despite some clowns in the comments, overall it's still good. We're still good. Or at least we're trying our best to be.

You will NEVER be alone, I have to believe that there are many more good people in this fandom than there are bad. If all of us quit or give up then the bad guys win, they get the control and the attention that they so desperately crave. I am not saying it isn't a rough ride, and I am far from perfect and am not exactly a shining example of social justice reform. In all honesty, If it weren't for people like you showing me the dangers in a way that affects me, I would probably be crying on the inside, but nothing more than that, because I don't like conflict, never have for as long as I can remember.

In short, to use a quote from a tv show my family used to watch called the Red Green Show...Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together.

I'm glad to hear that you've decided to stick around in at least some capacity. This community would be lesser for your absence, in every respect.

I feel like I have to echo what others have been saying--I was aware that there were, perhaps, some fringe elements that showed up occasionally and stood out for their grossness. Between your blog post and Cynewulf's though, I've learned that not only is all of this more pervasive than I thought, but that site staff are astonishingly unwilling to even address it. Which is... disappointing, to say the least.

I'm sad I had to learn this, but I suppose knowing allows me to guard against it.

I think it was Bad Horse who said there are twelve to fifteen discrete communities on Fimfic. That's the problem with this sort of thing; you don't have to pay attention to the nutters over on the other end of things. Nice for day-by-day atmosphere, less so for long-term festering.

But yeah, going by how my feed blew up yesterday, there was a silent contingent who weren't saying anything because we couldn't hear the ranting a few rooms over. That's definitely changed.

You and I have had disagreements in the past but this is something I think we agree on: I don't want these racist people in my fandom. Here's the rub: I think the fact that "brony" was born on 4chan has fucked it pretty hard from the start. It's more right aligned and toxic than many fandoms. There's safe places within it and lots of positive people but the fact is that it was born from the alt-right faschist asshole of the internet full of edgy teens and people who are sapped of empathy by the *chan hivemind. I say this having spent my high school years as a channer and having left that because I saw how toxic it was and the mentalities of the people who were the heads of the hivemind, the people capable of directing the flow of shit in ways constructive to their causes. It was becoming a breeding ground for shit that I didn't want to be a part of.

Bronies were born from that, and there's a big mountain to fucking climb to get it to a place where we can overcome it. Battle worth fighting? Maybe. I see the furry fandom handling their shit and casting out their worst elements, and I wish that was bronies. I wish that was the MLP fandom. But somewhere along the way assholes co-opted love-and-tolerate into "that means we have to accept everyone even if they're being bad or mean uwu" and peddling false-equivalency to the kids who were too naieve to notice how by accepting "everyone" they were also accepting racists, faschists, and other problematic elements into the fandom.

There will always be problematic elements in any fandom, you can't stop shit from sticking to your shoe, but we've been stepping in shit and letting it accumulate for a long time. We're gonna need a fucking hose to get it off.

5277422

We're gonna need a fucking hose to get it off.

More like a diverted river or two. (What? The official comics recently dropped the mares of Thrace on us, I'm allowed to reference the other horse-adjacent Labor)

Honestly? The level of condemnation that this many people have been willing to put out is a huge relief. I ffffuuucking love the Brony fandom. I love the music I've gotten out of it, I love the cosplays, I love the plushies, I love the friends I've made (that's you, Jed) and I've always felt a sense of support from it.

But I've also been aware that the fandom has been a... questionable, toxic place, even if I've never engaged with much of that. It's made me lose a considerable amount of faith.

If people weren't condemning Jetfire, then this... would be it for the fandom. Would've packed my bags. Moved for the Owl House fandom or something. Let my cosplay just hang in the closet.

But seeing posts like yours, Rk-striker-JK-5's, cynewulf's, and Wanderer-D's have given me some hope. It's not perfect. Of course it's not. But fuck, at least I'm in the same fandom as people that seem to have actually practice what the show preaches.

Guess that cosplay is gonna be sticking around a bit.

I haven't been here (both Fimfiction and the fandom) very long, and hopelessly naive as it may sound, I genuinely didn't realise there was such a groundswell of dipshits. Sure, I'd seen a few militaristic avatars and crossover stories that seemed incongruous, and I'd seen Aryanne references, but honestly I tended to just keep away from those people and the places they congregated, and assumed that based on the bronies I knew, most people were doing the same. My experience of MLP fans, as a parent and later a writer, has been pretty much uniformly positive.

So it wasn't until this week - and posts like yours - that I realised how much of a problem there was, or really even that there was a problem at all. I have to therefore say thank you for shining a light on it; even if it was painful to write it's been genuinely helpful and educational.

5277124

Despite some clowns in the comments, overall it's still good. We're still good. Or at least we're trying our best to be.

As a latecomer and an outsider, this was the impression I had until recently, and in light of the overwhelming majority of the responses to posts like this one, it's still the impression I have now.

That's not to say that I think I was wrong about what I was seeing. I haven't realized that it was 'just' a vocal minority.

Could I just say that is a fantastic use of emphasis.

Because the trouble with phrases like "vocal minority" is that their connotations reach far beyond what the words denotatively mean. After all, if the number of people who make up such a group is smaller than the number who don't, even if by only a single member, then technically, it is still a minority.

However, the phrase "vocal minority", no matter how true it may be, often carries the implication that, because such people aren't the majority, that you don't need to worry about them; that it's fine to ignore them; that they're not a problem. And that is not only incorrect, but also extremely dangerous. Because even if you don't see any other problem with these people being here (which you absolutely should see), the fact remains that, as the saying goes, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

And as one of the many people who were unaware of this rot within the community, all I can do is assure you that I, like I suspect most of us, will never knowingly go along with this kind of evil.

5277739

And as one of the many people who were unaware of this rot within the community, all I can do is assure you that I, like I suspect most of us, will never knowingly go along with this kind of evil.

That's a much better way of phrasing what I wanted to say, so thank you!

I am glad you had a positive experience related to your last blog and it was heartwarming to see so many follow your example and call out some of the unacceptable shit going on right now. It’s opened my eyes to some of the less than savory stuff that has been occurring in a community I care deeply for.

I may have been unaware of the extent of the rot, but I can wholly say that while I will always strive to be apolitical, I will never tolerate heinous fascists and racists while I’m here.

I feel your blog has opened a lot of people to some ugly truths to which they were not aware. But most of all to me, of which I’m very grateful for.

5277669

If people weren't condemning Jetfire, then this... would be it for the fandom. Would've packed my bags. Moved for the Owl House fandom or something.

...Yeah. Yeah, actually. A terrible act like Jetfire's bad enough, but when it comes from one of your own, that... that hits different. I'd gotten used to the idea of these sorts of people in fandom spaces, and I knew they were here even if I didn't want to deeply examine what that might mean. In the cold light of day so many many many tiny cuts I'd tried to dismiss started bleeding all at once.
I don't know if I'd have left for good, but I was like ten minutes from taking a six-month break from Pony entirely and just exclusively stuck to Invader Zim fic for a while.

Also, uh. Can we all just... please agree that Aryenne ain't cute no more and never was?

5277888
Dood, I'm Jewish.

I've been raised since birth to hate stuff like Aryanne :pinkiehappy: No argument here, my dood! :pinkiecrazy:

And now I find about this "Aryanne" thing. What the fuck.

I hate 4chan so much. Imagine this fandom if they hadn't gotten here first. I don't know how many people have heard this one, but I've been told there are two kinds of pony fans left: LGBTQ+ and neo-nazis. We could be in Gay Elysium right now if this site didn't smell like /pol/.

You know, there's some community stuff on fimfic that I've been trying not to be paranoid about -- I think a fic in the feature box a few weeks ago had an anti-miscegenation argument in the backstory, and there's a pretty active commenter out there with an avatar I don't trust. Fascist propaganda these days hides itself in plain site by appropriating mainstream language and imagery and then carefully introducing their own narratives in order to normalize them, and at almost every stage they rely on plausible deniability. One advantage to this strategy is that they can claim you're jumping at shadows when you call them out on it, and the less-informed may well take their side, because the alternative is admitting how thoroughly bigotry has polluted the world. Another advantage is that decent but clueless people can adopt their imagery and help normalize it because they just don't know. This site works as a confluence point for those two groups, and it makes it hard to tell the difference between the suckers and the propagandists.

So now it gets tricky to tell who to trust. The "no politics on my site, please" people are obvious suckers, and the open bigots are being open, but the bits in the middle make things tricky. We got any strategies?

5278389
Might something like this will help?

The primary role thus, of any sort of anarchist propaganda strategy, is combating narratives. “Counter-propaganda.” Posters calling out nazis, calling for action, or calling for action against nazis are half the battle. It is also imperative for us, as anarchists in general, to counter and combat the monopoly on narratives.

I think any advanced writer/artist used some of those elements for making their point in the world already populated by opposite ideas ...

5278748
Hell yeah

Regardless of if you stay or go, I'm thankful for the stories you've written. I regard your mare on the moon story as a shining testiment to the creativity and talent that this fandom has if you look for it

I'm a bit late here, but I'm really glad you made you that post. It needed to be said. If I could upvote a blog, I would. You're very far from alone on this matter. This problem has been progressing for years now. I practically left this site and the fandom as a whole way back in 2014 for a couple reasons, but the biggest one was the issues you describe. I still came back to read stories sometimes but that was it. Multiple groups here were inundated with these people who seemed to miss the entire message of the show. If I remember correctly, even the original LGBT group was plagued with this stuff before it got deleted. This place was gradually becoming more toxic and I thought I was one of the only ones who noticed. People who spoke against it were lambasted as "Social Justice Warriors", who, of course, were Public Enemy #1 in those days.

It seems like such a contradiction. A site for fanfiction of a girls' show created by a feminist becoming a home for reactionaries? Fimfiction isn't even the worst site when it comes to this, Derpibooru has steadily gotten worse and 4chan is a cesspit. I'm guessing it has a lot to do with the fandom's origins on 4chan. Another reason is probably that the disaffected young men who make up a large portion of this fandom were radicalized by movements like Gamergate who sought to use them to strike at their enemies, the "evil progressives ruining everything they love". Of course, this happened to many other nerdy sections of the internet. You can't go far far without running into people with profile pictures of anime girls wearing MAGA hats or fascist imagery. :trixieshiftleft:

Maybe I'm idealistic, but the posts from you, Cynewulf, PresentPerfect, and others make me think we're not too far gone. That this fandom still has a lot of good in it. It's refreshing to see the resistance to this reactionary toxicity. I still have yet to read The Mare Who Once Lived on the Moon, but it would be saddening to see you go.

I must confess, a fascinating discussion on fringe movements was NOT what I was expecting when I clicked on your name...
Having just read The Demesne of the Reluctant Twilight Sparkle, I was expecting funnies. These two blogs are disturbing, but far more interesting... Much like the furry fandom, it seems the MLP fandom has a reverse bell-curve; that's to say, the far edges are much more involved and vocal than the middle-ground folks, most of whom are clueless to the fact the fringes exist.

I'd never heard of half this stack of ponyfeathers before today. I rarely leave my Romace-taggéd little nook.

Most of the encouragement I could give you has already been said, by the other commentors. I'd keep these guys, if I were you. I think you've found some friends...
All I'm going to say is, we'll keep an eye on you. Whether or not you decide to write again, you've spoken out, and... I think "Proven your Awesomeness" is applicable. So you've got Internet Friends (tm) now. I hope you know we're here to listen, even if it's depressing...
How the bloody Mods treated you makes me want to go hit something. With my computer. Someone HAD to say something, I'm just sad and angry it had to make YOU sad and angry.

I'm no good with words. I hope you get the general idea.

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