Subject: There was a misunderstanding
Author:
Posted on: 2015-06-16 14:38:00 UTC
I honestly thought that the whole trouble stemmed from me writing without permission, and I believe I had said something to that effect.
You're treating me like a Mary-Sue.
I knew there would be a catch-22 if I broke the promise not to let things fester. I'm giving you people an honest chance to prove you're capable of listening.
I know you wanted a few more months to calm down enough that you wouldn't pitch a toddler temper tantrum every time I failed to read your mind, but you've used up your quota of talking me into doing things that I don't want to do. My mistake was in trying to please the unpleasable.
Walking on eggshells not to upset someone is a symptom of abuse. Feeling like your feelings and opinions are rarely validated is also a symptom. Feeling like you're unable to discuss problems is also a sign. Every time I tried to politely open a conversation about the problems I was having, you either ignored or attacked me.
I'm using up the last shred of respect I have for you, (and a promise not to let things fester,) to warn you that by next fall, your abuse may be irredeemable. You may still choose to wait until then to have a civilized discussion about what you did wrong. I encourage you to take a full week to think about it.
Perhaps, when you show up with a proxy account in a bit, you'd care to lie down on this couch and tell Ix about your mother...
Can we not keep ragging on her? It's over; the ban is in place. Regardless of her behavior, she's still a person, and continuing to insult zdimensia is giving in to the same unhealthy villainization she displayed towards us.
The punishment has been doled out; now we move on.
(Not aiming this specifically at Scapegrace, just tacked it on to the highest post on the thread. Sorry, Scapegrace.)
I'm actually becoming slightly scared that we're all being rather unfair to people like this; bias against 'evil' and all that.
And I did say that we hadn't been whispering about zdimensia behind her back during her ban. Can we please not start now?
I really don't want to become a bully in any sense of the word.
*throws a puppy to make everything better*
Shall we say, meeting adjourned and forgotten for the better, please?
... you know that only one person responded to zdimensia after she was blocked, right? Which means three of you have now jumped on Scapegrace for it.
hS
TBH, jumping down my throat is the most effective way to get me to shut up. If nothing else, I'm not a fan of the taste of shoe leather. =]
Sorry.
*tiptoes away*
Besides, me calling someone else out for dogpiling? Liiiiiittle bit disingenuous. =]
Congratulations. You’ve not only completely failed to understand how the community works, but also implied hypocrisy on your part to the highest level. I wasn't a part of this myself (and I never wanted to be a part of it), but accusing the rest of the Board like you've done? What kind of egotistic ass thinks THAT is a good idea?!
I never wanted to see this happen on the Board, and I hope it doesn't happen again for a good long while. For now, though, goodbye, and no good luck whatsoever. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
*flips desk and storms off*
Usually, we use it to sniff out bad writers. However, it also works to see how the bad writers handle rejection. If they are a bad writer who is trying to improve, they will take the rejection for what it is, look over why they did not make it, and try to improve. If they are a toxic member of the community, however, they will show themselves as such. They will whine, complain, and blame the system for their failure. Truth be told, it is really easy to get permission. You just have to show you can write well. Not brilliant, you're not submitting a story for a Hugo award. Just, decent, and with some humor.
Is our system perfect? Maybe not, there is almost always room for improvement. But is it hideously broken? Absolutely not. It is a far sight better then what we used to have, that's for sure. Used to have almost no structure, just send in a story, and hope the Permission Giver who reads it likes it. So much nicer to have a guideline and prompt to work with.
So, I am glad to see our filtration system has worked. Goodbye, and as far as I am concerned, good riddance. This community was clearly not for you.
If your goal is to parody fanfiction, the PPC isn't the only way to go about it. There are other "Sue hunter" groups you can look into, you can write MSTs, do a webcomic, even just compose essays critiquing negative fanfiction tropes. You've been told "no" here, but I think you've become more focused on seeing us as antagonists than on pursuing your goal down other avenues.
It's clear that, regardless of the reasons, this community hasn't worked out for you. Rather than spinning your wheels here, why not move on and find another way to write fic parody?
As far as I can tell, the only thing you care about is whether or not you can write PPC stories. Unfortunately for you, we don't allow people to write stories in our universe if they can't function peacefully in our community, and this post proves you are unwilling or incapable of engaging with us without insulting and threatening us.
I vote for a full ban, and I'd like to make it clear that being banned from the community ALSO means that you do not get Permission and you are not allowed to publish PPC stories. We do not want your attitude on our Board or in our universe.
How many people have to tell you that the problem is yours, not ours, before you realize that you're in denial?
~Neshomeh
zdminensia/Anonymous, in the interests of fairness, I invite you to post one final comment in this thread, with any length and content you desire. If you wish to continue any of the ongoing conversations, please request email addresses or other means of contacting people away from PPC spaces. Once you have made such a post, your IP address will be blocked.
You claim to want to be a part of the community. A community which you claim is abusive to you. You broke the ban, which wasn't so the community could calm down but rather so you could get yourself together. You've proven that you can't abide by the rules, you've insulted the community and several members therein. Your attempt at "civilized discussion" is laced with disdain and vitriol.
If this is an abusive environment, then let us help you escape it.
Nameless Admin, please block her IP. For her good, as much as ours.
(And I'm genuinely curious about this; not trying to be disrespectful in any way.)
If you were so upset with us last time, why did you come back?
I seem to recall that we already had a civilised discussion when you left/got banned last time. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I wasn't involved that much. And as Tira pointed out, it's been 10 months in which we literally haven't done anything to attack you. Heck, we didn't even talk about you, let alone whisper nasty things behind your back.
I really don't see any reason for you to have returned, unless you wanted to apologize and possibly rejoin us. Which you clearly aren't doing.
I didn't pre-draft an apology. I forgot how you do them here and would need help.
It would say something like "sorry for treating you like you've treated me," which was in an apology that was checked by a forum member. Have you apologized to that member for going ballistic, spitting on it, and stomping it into the ground?
I'd like to re-join without the baggage of you not listening to me, and I feel like it may be impossible unless you actually prove that you're capable of listening to me. Seriously, I still feel like the forum is just assuming that I'm out to offend everyone when I'm just trying to tell you how I feel.
I'm not good with names, and I failed to search out where we might have had a conversation that was different than this attack-session.
Oh, I do have this apology attempt, but I admit that it's horrible and a proper invitation for you to kick my teeth in.
I was wrong to call your permission process hazing. Hanlon's razor states “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” It's just that I keep forgetting that, and had a hard time believing it.
Then there was "Being a discovery writer is as evil as writing with my pen in my left hand."
Actually, I think I should apologize for believing that you could be at all reasonable and admit that maybe you're capable of being wrong.
I was wrong to call your permission process hazing. Hanlon's razor states “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” It's just that I keep forgetting that, and had a hard time believing it.
I'm going to ignore your blatant insult for a moment so I can clear up this hazing nonsense. We have a Permission process because we don't want our writers to essentially be hypocrites. Would you really take a mission seriously if the characters and writing were just as bad as the fic being sporked?
Now, going back to your insult. It was this sort of thing that got you banned in the first place. Why you have such a hard time processing this simple fact is beyond me.
Unless you're trolling, and in that case, bravo.
Hypocrite time...
7. If someone says something that seems offensive, but you’re not sure exactly what they meant, ASK them first, before jumping down their throats. Astonishingly enough, most people aren’t out to offend anyone. (If they are being deliberately insulting, believe me, you’ll have a lot of backup.) Don't be afraid to ask what someone meant- it isn't silly to want the full facts.
What's a polite word for stupid? Yes, I can be stupid at times, but I'm still having a hard time believing that you're not being malicious.
I can address the problems with your permission process if you would choose to listen. The short of it is that I don't know what you hope to accomplish by having characters so OOC that they're unrecognisable.
I will admit that perhaps I was stupid to try and point out that I didn't want to use those two when I could have just designed a pair of characters to get through the process and had them share names with the bad pair.
You throw out an insult, just twisty enough to be deniable, and then get offended when someone calls you on it. Good times! Makes whoever you're talking to look like a jerk (at a glance, anyway), as well as frustrating them, making it harder to stay calm in the discussion.
In this case, you said, about the permission process, which you first refer to as "hazing," "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Now, because you established the subject in the previous sentence to be the permission process, there's only one way to read this: you first thought it was hazing (and thus, malicious), but then, uh… decided it was in fact merely stupidity on our part.
Iximaz, a permission giver themselves if I recall, took offense to this, and you backtracked by pretending they were misreading you (and therefore violating the Constitution).
The problem with this, of course, is that as pointed out, and especially given your long, long track record of calling PPC conventions, processes, and members stupid (or malicious), your meaning is quite clear. I remember you doing this nigh-on constantly in the old threads, and it being exhausting to try and stay polite and reasonable with someone who twisted not only your words, but their own.
Regardless, I make this point here not to try and sway you - that is clearly far beyond any of our efforts - but to hammer home the point, for anyone who's watching this without context, and at a glance, may think Iximaz is being too hard on you. I have seen this happen many times with aggressive, malicious people who thrive on taking offense after their insults are interpreted. There is no mistake here. You attacked people on this 'Board, you slung insults at members and all sundry, and this "walking on eggshells" excuse does not convince anyone who saw the argument that you are, or were, a victim.
If they are being deliberately insulting, believe me, you’ll have a lot of backup.
Also, I must say, it sounds like you were planning on trying to fool the Permission Givers by saying I didn't want to use those two when I could have just designed a pair of characters to get through the process and had them share names with the bad pair. (Emphasis mine.) This really doesn't sit too well with me.
There's no reason for your agents to not be in-character in permission prompts. Your prompts should essentially be a snapshot of how you plan on having your characters interact, either in a mission or in an interval. The only thing you can't do is have them missioning an actual badfic. You can even invent a fictional badfic for them if you - heck, I did that for one of my Permission prompts.
If you can't write them in-character for your Permission prompt, then you probably aren't familiar enough for them.
You can see my gmail address if you click on my name. I'm honestly interested in seeing your response to this question, so I'm willing to discuss it with you, but I will block if you start being abusive.
And is now ready to defeat us for all time. We will never rise from the ashes of our shame and humiliation!
*cough*
Seriously, though, zd? You don't scare us. At most, you're being a nuisance by breaking the one-year ban and coming in here to threaten us. Please leave. We don't want to put up with the insults and tantrums you threw at us last time.
1.) It's not abusive to remove toxic people from a community. It is abusive to force people to tolerate toxic behavior. It's also abusive to try to threaten people into giving you what you want.
2.) You were banned. You've been banned for ten months now. We haven't done anything to you in ages. The only exception would be if people are having trouble with you off-site, which isn't a matter of concern for the PPC community at large.
It's not abusive to remove [victims] from a community [of abuse].
I agree. The stuff before that was the abuse. Being able to work on my spinoffs in solitude was great. There are a few I'm not sure of, but there's also one or two that I'd feel confident in mailing to the original writer once they're done being polished. And the timer on me saying that I'd keep it on my hard-drive runs out.
It is abusive to force people to tolerate toxic behavior.
Does this mean that there's a way to write officially-endorsed PPC stories without hanging out on the board? Seriously, did you miss the part where I pointed out that you ignored or attacked me every time I tried to open up a serious discussion about what the problem was?
It's also abusive to try to threaten people into giving you what you want.
What do you even want?
What I want is to be treated like you want to be treated.
We haven't done anything to you in ages.
Exactly, you haven't listened to my concerns at all, which was the original problem and why I started treating you the way you treated me.
First off, it's not really appropriate to send your sporkings to the original writer. It's trolling.
Second, why do you want us to place your well being over that of other community members? Your behavior was harmful and upsetting to other people. I understand that you have your own issues and struggles in life, but so do several of the other people in this community. Are you saying that your well-being is more important than theirs? You can't expect us to allow you to behave in a hurtful way; that would be enabling your abuse.
People did try to have serious discussions with you about your issues, but you uniformly ignored what they had to say. People tried to explain what we wanted from you, but you refused to listen to them.
I only stopped listening to you when you stopped listening to me. Considering your reaction, well, I'm confused about whether or not it's right to get angry in that situation. I'm ready to listen to you a little, but you've got to reciprocate to keep that door open.
I don't want you to place my well-being over other community members. Though I can't find it now, one of your community members kept yelling that my feelings were fake and then asked me to think about theirs. I was willing to meet people halfway, but I was expected to ignore my own pain in favor of theirs.
As for the spinoffs, trolling depends on the intended reaction. One is from a goodfic, where the constructive critism is mostly praise. Another is nowhere near ready, but the anti-sue is obvious, and I'm treating it in a positive manner. The third, my agents realized if one big detail and two small ones were changed, the whole story would be very good.
She have us way too much trouble last time and if she's breaking the agreement to stay away for a year, I don't want to put up with that again.
I honestly thought that the whole trouble stemmed from me writing without permission, and I believe I had said something to that effect.
You're treating me like a Mary-Sue.
I knew there would be a catch-22 if I broke the promise not to let things fester. I'm giving you people an honest chance to prove you're capable of listening.
Because at the time you had no intention of posting it. Now, though, if you do post an unauthorized spinoff like you are threatening to do, we'll add your name to the list of such unauthorized spinoffs.
No, the problem came from you refusing to listen to constructive criticism and insulting just about everyone on the Board. I don't know if you're willing to listen to concrit now, but so far, it looks like the insults haven't changed.
This is from IP evidence (it matches hers and her stated location) and general textual style.
For reference, zdimensia was banned until 22nd August 2015 last year.
Given the content of this post, Nameless Admin blocking will not be enacted until requested.