I probably shouldn’t make this public post, but I’m going to anyway.
I’m sorry to anyone following me or just around in general that’s getting harassed and abused by people (or possibly one person) that have it out for me. I block them when they come after me under a new name, but there’s not much I can do to stop them from going after other people.
Aaaand abusers gonna abuse. I definitely want to be informed if I’m being an ass and don’t realize it, but if the person saying it is making up things about me, twisting my words and acting in bad faith, I’ll assume they’re just trying to hurt me.
Also: I’ve had this username for over a decade. I’m not going to abandon a part of my identity that I care about, especially not if making me drop it is one of the goals of harassment directed at me. I’m not important, my thoughts and feelings don’t carry much weight, but I’m still me. Harassment isn’t going to change the fact that I’m alive.
*looks at latest reblog notifications*
… Really? Three different accounts, nearly a week after my initial post, just so happen to reblog each other’s remarks on that post within the same couple hours using the same logic, with its progression slowly building toward increasingly hostile and abusive?
That’s… that’s not very subtle. I mean, none of it is subtle, but especially not that.
I’m sharing this on my account for a couple reasons. One, to further demonstrate that harassment is bad, and excessive harassment is increasingly getting punished via law. Two, because of the number of accounts he used.
This is a guy who created 300 Twitter accounts for the sake of harassing other people. 300. Social media like Twitter and Tumblr makes it INCREDIBLY easy to make multiple accounts, and extremely devoted people can and will be heavily active with a slew of them to make themselves and what they’re doing look bigger and broader than it really is.
I’m saying this because I’m extremely familiar with fandoms and social media use. I know there are some great, amazing people out there who get bombarded with hate in this fashion. Without having experienced it over a long period, it’s easy to think all that hate is a wide swath of people and you did something horribly wrong to deserve it. In reality, a lot of the time, it’s one person with multiple accounts and a mission or vendetta of some sort.
“How can someone maintain 10 or 20 fairly active accounts? This can’t all just be one person.” That’s the most common thought, and this article is proof that a single person can definitely maintain that many active accounts. If this man could maintain 300 accounts, what’s 10-20?
Puerto Rican with 300 Twitter accounts accused of harassment
I want to make a quick post about “true fans”, the people who insist they’re the real fans of a franchise or character to the point where they will smear and abuse anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
Most of us already know how awful this is. The people who do it are trying to become the ones who have total control over fandom. They want everyone to adhere to whatever they decide is best, and they want everyone to admire them.
It doesn’t work that way, of course. Toxic fandom is toxic not only because it hurts people, but because it hurts the very things people insist they’re fans of. With every person that gets driven out of the fandom because they don’t want to deal with abuse, the object of fandom has fewer people to support it. The object of fandom gets fewer pieces of fanart, fanfiction, cosplay, and fewer reasons for the company that actually owns the rights to care. Once the fandom has lost so many fans that hardly anyone’s talking about it, the fandom becomes much much less than it can be. It’s a direct attack on a much loved dream.
There’s another element, though, that’s extremely important to bear in mind.
“True fans” don’t flock to things that are worthless. They don’t abuse people over things that have no value. Abusive fans are horrible to have and everyone would be better off if they stopped being abusive… but they also demonstrate that what they’re being abusive around is meaningful in its own right, and that a LOT of other people can see its worth too.
No matter what happens, how horrible it gets, it’s important to remember that. Past the vile behavior, there’s a wonderful franchise or character that has so much to offer. If that was not the case, abusive types would focus on a different franchise or character with a much bigger following.
This is what really keeps me going in spite of smears and attacks: knowing that the thing I’m getting abused for supporting has a lot to offer.
…I’d read that team-up.
– House of M #4
As would we all. 🙂
I don’t see what’s the new thing about this. A thief? We already have a thief and that’s Storm. Why another story about thief? I’m glad Lorna said “Heh. Absolutely not” She’s not Storm. Glad this is not 616.
By contrast, I don’t see why it couldn’t be done.
There’s nothing that says being a thief has to be exclusive to one or a very small group of characters. Felicia’s a thief, Storm’s a thief, but so is Gambit.
To me, this is a lot like the argument that Lorna and Magneto both wielding magnetic powers is redundant and you can’t have both around or on the same book at the same time. Nobody seems to have a problem with it when super strength, psychic abilities, claws, etc come into the mix. It’s also a lot like some arguments people made that Lorna couldn’t be Magneto’s daughter because it would somehow take away from Wanda’s role as Magneto’s daughter.
If Lorna were to become a thief, it wouldn’t detract from Storm at all. She’s far too popular and mainstream for those things that define her to be lost to another character so easily. If anything, I’d say Lorna as a thief only makes things MORE interesting and presents MORE opportunity. For one, Lorna’s hardly had any experience as a thief, so Lorna could learn from Storm while Storm learns something from Lorna. For another, their approaches to thievery could be very different, especially where mutant powers are concerned. It presents an opportunity to emphasize how they differ.
Now, WOULD Lorna become a thief? That’s an entirely different question. I don’t know the answer to that, as I need to think about it more. But if it’s a question of “I called dibs,” I don’t subscribe to that philosophy. It’s unnecessarily limiting, and squanders a wealth of potential.
Nobody seems to have a problem seeing both Magneto and Polaris in the same book or team either (except you). Besides, they are father and daughter duh. Polaris as a thief is not going to happen (that would only make people to talk shit about her like you do. Yes, I read a lot of your hypocrisy comments. So that’s what you want I guess, but ain’t going to happen). You can only dream lol. She is not a queen of thief like Storm is. There would be no reason for Lorna to steal. She does not come from a low class people. She come from high class people and she’s going to steal what?? A piece of metal? AAAAJAJAJAJAJA que estupida oh estupido tu eres mijita/o.That’s not her characterization and I’m sure this is out of character.
Storm is not too far popular and she has a lot of fake ass fans. I mean A LOT of fake ass fans. Trust me I know. The x-men are no longer the same and Storm in mainstream like in movies are so weak and shit. Storm ain’t nothing when it comes to Magneto and Cyclops. Storm with the rest of the x-men are nothing more but a piece of cloth for Marvel to dry their ass with. At least Polaris gets to shine better than those who are so “popular” and “mainstream” pfft Polaris is popular and maybe you tying to make it look like she is not. You can fool yourself, but you ain’t fooling me. Storm is popular only to Chris Claremont because on line there are probably thousands different of avatars running by only ONE PERSON lol to like or reblog Storm. Storm became a shame characters when you see her drowning with the rest of the X-men. Storm’s cancellation book explain a lot.
I only want to make it clear that Polaris as a thief is not interesting and will never happen. You can only dream… sure pero no puedes hacer que esto pase porque tu no tienes el poder de joder a Polaris chico/chica. Despierta que estas en las nuves.
Nobody seems to have a problem seeing both Magneto and Polaris in the same book or team either (except you).
>(except you).
That is literally not what I said.
*skims rest of reply*
Oh, that’s why. Hi again. Bye again.
This article actually came up among the people I follow on Twitter. Discussion was pretty much how bullies really aren’t about the fandom they claim to be about, as illustrated by these ones even attacking the team that created Steven Universe. Bullies only really care about bullying people, and attacking anyone that gets in the way of the “thrill” they get in doing it.
‘Steven Universe’ fandom is melting down after bullied fanartist attempts suicide
I’m sorry, I know I’m sticking my nose were it doesn’t belong, but I
just wanted to let you know… I dunno. I don’t think you deserve any of
this and you’re great and amazing and it pisses me off when literally
every blog I visit is shitting on you in some way.
I’m including the text of your second message here as well, so I can answer both at once. 🙂
First, thank you so much for these messages and support. It means a lot to me, and in the beginning, those smears and twisting of my words really upset me.
Anyway, it’s definitely not Polaris fandom in general that hates me. I’ve been heavily involved in Polaris fandom for 6 years now, and in all that time, I never received any attacks like these ones until this year when I started using Tumblr more.
I believe it’s one person or a small group of people creating multiple accounts that’s really obsessed with attacking me, and in some cases people who have associated with me. They’re usually easy for me to spot out, because they all talk the same way, use the same logic, and make the same false accusations.
As for their reason(s) for attacking me, it could be any number of things.
The most likely reason is that I’m really opposed to Polaris getting back in relationship with Havok, or even interacting much with him, for at least a decade.
I have a reason: when they’re together, Lorna is usually written as if her whole identity revolves around him, and she doesn’t get a chance to develop as her own character. There are exceptions, but by and large, editors and writers at Marvel seem to be stuck in a mentality that Lorna is not her own character when she’s with Alex. So, I want them to remain apart so editors and writers are required to figure out who she is beyond her boyfriend’s girlfriend. Then, if they get back together, their relationship will have much more depth and be better depicted.
That attitude is actually an improvement for me; I used to think Havok was bad for Lorna no matter the circumstances, and their relationship could never be salvaged. But, it could be the reason I’m getting attacked. That also seems to be when I’m more likely to be directly attacked by whichever new account they make next.
Another possible reason is my calling out Marvel for its treatment of the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises, especially where it concerns Polaris. A common refrain for these accounts is to suggest that Marvel can do no wrong, that Marvel has given Polaris everything and the moon already, and fans can do nothing to influence Marvel.
There are other possibilities, but those are the top two. All the others are far less likely.
Any time a new account they make is directly abusive toward me, I block it. I think not being able to abuse me directly pisses them off, so they resort to smearing me any other way they can.
As I said, it upset me a lot at first, but I’ve had much worse in my life, and what they’re doing to me is nothing compared to the awfulness I’ve seen GamerGate do to innocent people. Getting smeared by these guys is nothing compared to seeing others getting SWATted, doxxed, accounts hacked, harassing phone calls, etc. It was just a couple days ago that I had a run-in with one GamerGate person that was much worse to me than this. Social media is developing an increasingly hostile environment in general.
I don’t worry about their smears much anymore because I trust most Polaris fans and good, reasonable people will see past those smears.
Whatever their reasons, I’m more worried for them than of them anymore. They’ve been at this for months, and they’re wasting all this time and energy on attacking me, a random person on the internet, when there’s so many more and better things out there in life.
I know that’s a lot of text. Thanks for bearing with it if you did, I don’t blame you if you didn’t, and thanks again for sharing this support. 🙂
“there are bad and hypocrite people who like to discredit characters and you seem to be one of them“
Yeeeeeah, maybe try not introducing yourself with the fan equivalent of “I don’t like what you said there, therefore YOU ARE LITERALLY THE EMBODIMENT OF HITLER.” That’s an insta-block. Especially because it’s now an M.O. I’m very savvy to.
I actually kind of have mixed feelings about being targeted like this. On the one hand, I don’t really want to be a big known name of anything, if I did then I’d have a real blog with featurettes and regular output and such. That was never my goal.
On the other hand, if we’re to the point where a person or group of people is trying to harass and smear me like this, it means progress. People don’t typically launch attacks against fans of obscure nobody characters, they’d see it as a waste of their time.
So much progress has been made for Polaris since I discovered her and started campaigning for her back in 2009. We went from a character hardly anyone knows, who never got to lead a team in her own right, never had her origin story told, whose status as a mutant AND as Magneto’s daughter was up in the air, to the Lorna of today.
She has an origin story, after over 40 years without one. She led her own team in All-New X-Factor. She’s her father’s daughter again. She’s a mutant again. She’s getting tons of cameos as AU versions during Secret Wars, including a big role for her House of M counterpart. It’s becoming more common for people to actually know who I’m talking about if I mention Polaris, and there are all these wonderful pieces of fanart and cosplays coming at least once per week for a character who once had hardly anything.
We’ve come so far since 2009, and the days when people would argue against Lorna being restored as Magneto’s daughter or insist she should remain in space limbo and “out of the way.” Not just fandom, but even awareness and acceptance of her as a meaningful character has really grown, and I’m so happy to see it.
I didn’t really expect to become a target of harassment in the process, but if that’s a necessary sacrifice, I’m willing to make it. I’m not going to stop pushing for Lorna just because some guys decide to smear me for my efforts six years into it, especially with the progress that’s been made for her.
Ok, where to begin with this trainwreck.
Gaming was never yours. Never. It was not designed as a safe space for guys free of women and you have no exclusive rights to the medium in the same way that no gender have exclusive rights to film and television. If women said you were not allowed to read books because that is their safe thing you would think they were ridiculous, you do not own a medium.
Women are not required to want to hang out with you in real life in order to game, that is another bullshit standard you apply to them and not to men. If a guy is a jerk whom you wouldn’t want to hang out with in real life you don’t throw a tantrum.
Women are not a hivemind, we each have our own individual thoughts and feelings and judge you individually.
That being said, women don’t want to hang out with you, not because you’re socially inept, but because you are an entitled asshole who thinks that women owe you their time outside of games in order to be able to play games without hostility.
If men weren’t hostile towards women, who have just as much a right to game as them, and weren’t so hostile towards the concept of fair representation then there would be any changes to the “scene” required, because people would already have a fair and fun experience.
Games are not your sanctuary mate, they are a product medium and never once has it been yours. Get over yourself.
“When women invade those safe spaces they leave men with nowhere to go”
Even if this load of absolute bullshit had any truth to it I’m deeply confused as to why this Anon believes that I or any other woman would remotely CARE
Pathetic loser men, and it’s actually been proven that men in games who attack women ARE literal losers, do nothing but act as gatekeepers to something that was never theirs to begin with.
For anyone wondering what big-wired is talking about, here’s the article.
Increasingly, fictional mediums, franchises and characters are getting this sort of exclusionary talk where certain people try to dictate who is and isn’t allowed to be involved. They try to be gatekeepers, deciding that certain criteria that conveniently aligns with their own opinions and experiences determines who has legitimacy.
In this case, it’s guys trying to insist that geek culture – the entire pop culture section of society encompassing video games, comic books and similar mediums with multiple genres, and the ability to make them or fanworks based on them – is a place where women do not belong.
Unfortunately, this is a byproduct of past sexism in these industries. For both comic books and video games, marketing types with false assumptions about boys and girls decided the two mediums are exclusively for boys because a lot of products have action and violence. A lot of the boys who spout this “geek culture is a male space, women are invading it” talk are simply repeating the marketing junk fed to them in their youth without putting any thought into it.
I, for one, am happy to see so many women involved. After growing up with the same marketing junk, made to believe girls enjoying such things is a bizarre anomaly, I’m happy to see women making comics and video games and cosplaying their favorites. I especially love how I’ve seen many women pick up female characters that have been treated very poorly in the past and push companies to do more and better for them.
salarta 