The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

SPaG is short for "spelling and grammar", and is a term we use a lot as a writing community.

Thanks for the welcome, guys. However, if you don't mind my asking, what's the SPaGhetti for?

That was actually my intention when I wrote that bit - to make a sort of general statement. I was worried that it wouldn't come across with the type of narrative perspective i was using, but I'm glad it did.

While "[the moaning] sounded really disturbing" would be correct, the narrator’s opinion that "[this kind of noise] sounds really disturbing when clearly enunciated" is a general statement – if not a general truth – that is still applicable at the time when we read it. Thus, using present tense can be justified here, and at least to me, seeing past tense used would look weird. (I admit that it wouldn’t be quite as annoying as reading "Earth was the third planet of the Solar System" in a story where the narrator doesn’t actually talk from a future perspective about a time before the Solar System's structure was drastically changed.)

HG

Thoth is right - Marion has clearly decided to blindly follow Bram's perspective on everything without even considering anything and everything we've been trying to say on the subject. This argument is going nowhere - everything we try to tell her will be countered with "but Bram is still right because...". We might as well stop wasting our energy on someone who refuses to listen.

Okay, you... haven't listened to or read anything I said. Certainly seems that way.

>Two of my heroes are Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin, so I don't consider breaking rules to be automatically bad.

That is the kind of blatant false equivalence that makes me just... almost angry. Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin knew what they were doing. They broke the rules they broke for the specific purpose of making an important, meaningful point, and leading an oppressed group of people to hopefully free themselves of oppression. (That is not a perfect summation, but I think I got the main points down. Civil rights scholars, feel free to inform me outside this thread because this is not the point).

Bramadin broke the rules they broke out of a pure self-serving desire to have what they wanted. And the rules in question were by no means oppressive. They were rules about being polite. And honest. And the likes.

>Bram said that a boarder told her that she should have lied during the first encounter and it would have saved her from banning, and that she has only ever been punished when being truthful.

If someone said that they were full of it.

>If you don't want to hang out with a person because of their disability, I don't think you have a right to judge her.

Read my post again. Or, if it wasn't clear enough, let me clarify: My point was not that Bram has a disability and is therefore bad. It's that Bram's disability is not and cannot be taken as an excuse for their behavior. It doesn't make that behavior okay. Not at all. They have stalked, abused, and hurt people in this community because they are bitter and upset that they didn't get their way. That is unacceptable.

>Would anyone have reached out to Bram or known that you hurt her if she didn't break the rules?

I'm not dealing in hypotheticals right now. The question, as I said, is not whether or not Bram deserved the initial ban. The time for that debate has long since passed.

The question is whether Bram's current ban is warranted by her behavior. And the answer is (spoiler alert) YES. YES, it absolutely is. There is no community under the SUN that wouldn't ban for this.

I'm done here. It's clear that either your perspective is so bent towards Bram that you can't see where we're coming from, you've already made up your mind, or you're absolutely not interested in hearing anything from us and just want a punching bag. Whatever the reason, I see absolutely no point in discussing this with you further.

Have a good life.

...that we choose not to associate with Bram. I myself have a disability as do numerous other Boarders who I will not name out of respect for their privacy. A disability is no excuse for malice and repeated harassment in a case like this.
Also, those heroes you named broke rules for an actually important reason, not because of a hobby, which for many of us is all that writing is. Bram won't quantifiably live a worse life for not being a member of this obscure corner of the Internet, and on the contrary I believe their life would improve if they let go of this chapter and moved on. Frankly, you seem to be heavily biased against us from the get-go. You're not giving us the chance that we supposedly denied Bram yet you claim we can't judge her. So why should you judge us?

I do agree that oppressive rules must be broken to change the world for the better.

I don’t agree that our constitution is oppressive or that breaking the rules is necessary just to get our attention. We are quite willing to discuss problems when they come up. We are less willing to rehash the same discussion again and again.

I’ve been around to watch it all, and as far as I can tell, everybody who attempted to reach out to Bram was hurt in the process, sooner or later. There’s nobody left who would try it again.

At this point, we aren’t judging Bram, we’re judging our own ability to get along with her, and we came to the conclusion that we just can’t.

HG

"Go away you filthy normies" is honestly a chilling sentence to read, given the connotations of such phrases. This sort of mentality led to Gamergate, to name just one of the nasty scandals associated with fandom gatekeeping.

Phobos' post explains it very nicely, everyone should read it.

But it's not just that the points are poorly worded, it's that they're worded in such a way as to invoke really ugly and damaging ideologies. For instance:

> The fact that I found the idea that the Trek fandom- something I felt privileged to be a part of, and thought of as a “exclusive” group (ie ‘go away you filthy normies’ exclusive)- was now considered mainstream was also horrifying.

Reminds me of the incel quoted as saying "I laugh at the death of normies." Just Google the terms "incel normies" and see if the results don't disgust you. That's not the kind of exclusive group I want to associate myself with. It's extremely troubling to me that Minh doesn't seem to mind using their hate-soaked rhetoric.

~Neshomeh

That's because gatekeeping somebody out of a fandom of something that's fake and doesn't exist and is meant to be enjoyed by a wide audience, and gatekeeping somebody for failing constantly to live up to their stated beliefs are two very different things which probably shouldn't be compared.

It sure takes a lot more than voting for the less-blatantly right wing Aussie political party and disliking Donald Trump of whom even alt righters are getting sick of to convince me you're half as progressive you like to say you are. Oh, you aren't my racist grandmother, I'll give you that. Cheers. But this isn't going to devolve into a series of debating about specific actions that merit this or that as if expressing political ideology is like a videogame karma system: I've already mentioned the way you keep hooting conservative ideology with conservative terminology.

My point is made and you have done nothing to really counter it. You espouse conservatism constantly! You denegrate progressivism constantly, except in the most tokenistic sense. You equally constantly present this sense of gatekeeping nerd-entitlement and ownership over your favourite media, furious at the idea of your once small exclusive club being invaded by new people who Don't Get It, being hostile towards inclusivity in general, which is itself a way of acting and thinking massively associated with right wingers.

You keep saying you're progressive but I dunno what to say, I've still never seen you act on it. If it sounds like a duck and acts like a duck and looks like a duck, and all that. What am I meant to think?

I tried my best to cut out the really nasty bits - I don't like showcasing the unnecessary violence in this kind of fic any more than necessary. I'm glad I've managed to turn the badfic into a mission that was more entertaining than mind-scarring.

And I thank you in Ruxie's name - May and Melissa will always be my favorite team to work with because I enjoy developing their dynamic, but Ruxanda is one heck of a fun character to write.
As to your other question about her drinking habits: yes, she does drink blood, but I felt like showing it here would take the focus away from her more interesting character quirks. But I do plan on featuring the blood-drinking more in later stories.

I get the feeling that you guys are putting words in his mouth because the way he worded his points in an awful way.

Are you trying to be constructive here?

The people who most hate Discovery are mostly right-wingers, huh?

Hmm.

The people I know who like it are liberal women.

Hmmmmm.

~Neshomeh

1. 'Gatekeeping' refers to people trying to keep others out of their community, especially in nerd culture, not to people giving perfectly justified criticism on someone's behavior and rhetoric. So no, this isn't gatekeeping.
   
   2. I don't care if you think it's apt language, learn already that we don't talk like that on the Board.
   
   3. *cracks up*
   You literally say that you're spouting the same opinions as right wingers, and still don't consider that maybe, just maybe it's because your attitude is problematic as heck?

...isn’t what you’re doing here ‘gatekeeping’? I am progressive. I’m quite offended that you think I’d support that asshole in the White House, but honestly? I use that language because I think it’s apt language. I use it primarily because the people online who tend to agree with me on STD tend to be- more oftenthan not- right wingers.

As for whether I’ progressive or not...I’ve voted for Labour here in Oz every election since I turned 18. We’ve had quite a few of those in the past decade. Far too many, mainly due to excessive political backstabbing with the Australian parliment. So please. Go and call me a right winger again. I might laugh abit more.

Minh, I can't even deal with you saying "feminazis" are worse than the actual Nazis who are actually murdering people on the basis of white supremacist rhetoric. Have you heard about the latest mass shootings? The shooters are white men, full of hate for anyone who isn't a white man. Show me one mass shooting by a man-hating woman, if you can. I'll show you thirty or more by white supremacist men. That is not hyperbole.

It's that sort of thing that overshadows the rest of what you have to say so much that we can't take you seriously. Take it on board that that what you said is seriously, seriously offensive, then take it back, and then please spend a very long time reconsidering your priorities. People (and dogs) losing their lives is vastly more important than a TV show, any TV show.

~Neshomeh

Larf said EVERYTHING I couldn't, is what I wanted to say.

You profess to have Progressive values, and I believe you might. However, it is hard to find any of that in any of your posts because you are so pissed off all the time and use rhetoric more akin to the Alt-Right to express that anger. Your behavior is the polar opposite of your stated beliefs, and that is a problem.

If you want to improve your reputation, and not just in this community, you need to cut out the name calling (Tumblerites, Femnazis), the personal attacks (Jar Jar Abrams, Mrs Scronch-face), and learn to let go of the anger. I don't care that you don't like Star Trek Discovery, you are entitled to that opinion and no one is trying to make you like it. I care how you express your dislike.

-Phobos

I'm so, oh so very fed up with nerd culture's gatekeeping attitude and complaining about the damn SJWs. Larf said anything I wanted to say but couldn't articulate, so if you don't at least consider what they'd said, I won't try to change your mind anymore. There's been way too much playing chess with pigeons going on here in the past few days anyway, and you know what, I ain't even mad anymore, I'm just tired.

Nice to see some plain old down-time.

So Ruxanda drinks beer and vapes? Does she actually drink blood at all, or . . . ?

I'm interested to see where this red-dressed lady is going!

—doctorlit, maybe should look up what strigoi are like or something