On ne passe pas. (Modern Politics, the Middle Ages, and Hat)

[hat_plays_sims]

Last night, I got an anonymous post from someone who I thought had given up on convincing me to help them stir up trouble, or support them in their trouble, or-- honestly I'm not sure what they thought they were doing, but their post read like a list of warning signs for "If he does this, this, and that, run for the hills, you probably won't get out of this relationship alive."

Eventually, after I made it clear that I was not buying what the anon was selling (look, you send me nine paragraphs of trying to convince me to help you tear down another woman, and I'm not going to be nice to you, not even right out of the gate, sorry not sorry as the kids these days say), I got a nice little explosion wherein the anon informed me that they're glad Trump won because he's a Real American, that they're glad my 'bitch queen' Hillary lost, compared President Obama to a false god and thus, me to a worshiper of false gods (that gets you sent to Hell, doesn't it?), and called me a couple of names that were, frankly, a step down from the delicate implication of breaking an Old Testament commandment.

I was shaky when I made last night's post, and I said some stuff that was funny in my head, but I think it was 'funny in my head' in more of an adrenaline-crash 'oh my god did they seriously end what could've been a threat to my life by calling me a little monkey?' way than actually being funny. So, having had some time to think-- and re-read, and a long comment to answer, here's what I actually want to say to anyone still reading or following this blog:

When you start researching the Middle Ages-- and definitely when you start researching Vikings-- you learn pretty quickly that there are two kinds of hobbyist Medievalists.

There are the people who want to know what things were like in as much nitty-gritty detail as possible, especially as might pertain to whatever special area of history tickles their fancy. What sort of seams were on a houpelande? How heavy was a hauberk? Just how much smaller was a Medieval ox than a modern steer? Why didn't Saxons eat chicken eggs if they ate chickens? What was the Danelaw? If we don't actually know what apron dresses looked like, why do all the reenactors wear them the same way? Were there any black people in Medieval England?

Then there are the people who find the Middle Ages fascinating because they haven't, and don't intend to, learn about it beyond Victorian revisionism of the period. They want to keep reading about Europe, before the Age of Sail, before the purchase of the first African slave or acceptance of the first brownish refugee, when the whole continent was white people. The men were white, and they were strong Christian white men who kept their families in line with a firm hand. The women were white and silent (if they knew what was good for them). The children were white and obedient. The kings were white, and the good kings were tall, good-looking men who kicked Saracen ass for the glory of Christendom, while the bad kings were short, misshapen men who murdered little children or overtaxed the rich barons good free men of England, and always got their comeuppance in the end.

And it can be hard to know who's who. The second group sounds a lot like the first when you're talking about types of shoes or the worst jobs in a Medieval castle. And the second type often thinks that, because the first type is just as interested in the trappings of the Middle Ages as they are, the first type is just as white supremacist, too.

This can get particularly troublesome lately, because the incoming American presidential administration pretty much shares those views of a totally white, totally Christian, totally heterosexual utopia enforced by violence and the fear of violence.

I am a white person; I have white nonsense to unlearn (I'm working on it, it's a process). I'm also mentally ill, queer, and a cis woman.

This blog is a zero-tolerance zone for white supremacists, Neo-Nazis, fascists, and supporters of such. Anyone who stands for Donald Trump stands for putting my life* in legalized jeopardy, and is cordially invited to fuck right off my blog and unfollow me forever. I will not welcome debate on this topic. I will not agree to disagree. On ne passe pas.

Anonymous comments are currently screened, but still allowed. OpenID is still allowed, and Dreamwidth (although not busy) is free to join just in case some asshat ruins both anonymous commenting and OpenID for everyone. Disruptive comments will be frozen or deleted at my sole discretion.

*And the lives of a shitload of other Americans who happen to be a little browner or a little queerer or a little less Christian than the rest, but if I can't make them care about what happens to me through the content I've made, then I can't make them care about people they don't know, unfortunately.

99% of this blog will always be Sims related, history-related, or state-of-the-Hat posts explaining stuff that's affecting my ability to Sim or history or Sim History. Sorry for the disruption. Unless you're a white supremacist or white-supremacist-adjacent, in which case I'm not sorry about anything and I hope you step on a Lego. In bare feet, in the middle of the night, while you have a full bladder.

Original post below, it's terrible but it feels dishonest to just delete it.

This is a very petty post.

---

Hello everyone! Tonight I bring you a cheerful message.

Paradox07 is not on my side. Of anything. Apparently.

I don't know if she's decided to clamber unprompted onto anyone else's personal sites waving a laundry list of insults in Sunni's general direction, demanding help spreading word that a website administrator is a tyrant, but hey, that's how she came to mine, and now you get to be prepared in case she comes into yours. If she already visited you, now you know what happens when she's confronted, and that you're not the only person she's approached. (Was I defensive? Yes. I will always be defensive if your opening statement to me is to baselessly rip the hell out of another woman's character, because I will always be wondering, "And what do you think about me?")

Do not go out of your way to bother Paradox07, please. She's not worth the words I used on her; she's definitely not worth your time.

I'm making this post, and making an example of Paradox07, to say that if your politics are as Trumpist as hers, you are cordially invited to unfollow me forever. I am neither heterosexual nor neurotypical; Friday's regime change means I spend the next four years literally afraid for my life and bodily autonomy. I do not create content for neo-Nazis, neo-Nazi supporters, or people who think I deserve to live in terror.

Anonymous comments are going to be screened for a while, I think. OpenID is still available.

Comments

[sunni]

It's me again. I didn't realize that you had started a new thread dedicated to this issue. I want to apologize again that such drama has leaked from the Keep and do feel awful that it's caused you distress.

Everyone is talking about me and some pretty serious and crazy accusations have been flung. However, no one seems to have any evidence to back up these claims against me. No texts, screenshots or anything. I have remained silent at the advisement of those around me for a while hoping that this nonsense would just go away, but it won't seem to die. I have been in the community since 2004 and would like to think that I maintained a decent reputation. I've never been banned, gotten into arguments or made a scene. Yet now I'm the focus of some stressful negativity that I feel is undeserved.

I don't want to use your site as a means to add fuel to the fire, but I have been really sick and upset about these things over the past few months, on top of my real health issues.

Since Jason has been in contact and Paradox made herself known on his site, I would like to address him. I know he's upset that I removed his poseboxes from my forum. I have had a rule since day one that pornography is not allowed on the site. We have minors visiting all the time and I can't be 100% sure they don't make it into the "adult" section even though I try to limit it's membership. From a liability perspective, I don't need those kind of problems. While everyone here is so honest too, I'll just say that I'm personally uncomfortable with pornography, even if it is just "pixelated" people. Despite my own personal objections I allowed the poseboxes to be posted because I truly try not to be a dictator on the forum and limit things that other people want.

However, once the "rape" posebox was shared it did cause some controversy. I did get messaged by quite a few members which included the two that openly stated their opinions of it. I don't believe it's right to remove members that respectfully share their feelings about something. In the end it made more sense to remove something from the forum that should never have been added in the first place. I never wanted it, nor approved of it and once others expressed their opinions, it made sense to remove it. I believe I was polite and logical about it, whether or not the creator is happy about the decision. At the end of the day it is my site and I have to live with it. I'm sorry that this interaction wasn't positive, however I did not ban the creator nor did I censor/prohibit him from posting his work elsewhere.

As for the things that are being said by former members that have been banned -

In terms of Paradox being banned for cultural/racially insensitive remarks...Do I really need to pull the chat transcripts from a third party site and show them off or will her current posts speak for themselves? When members are banned I try to sweep it under the rug because I assume everyone is adult and I don't have time for childish things like humiliation. But I do have evidence of her nonsense if pressed. I think her reactions completely undermine her veracity and reliability as a witness against me.

What can I possibly say in defense against Steph's reaction? She created a whole website and wrote a book about me based on my one post and banning her. From there I became an evil villain in a novella. The prodigious text is overwhelming and includes not one actual piece of evidence or testimonial other than her own imagination. I've never had any real interactions with her and what there was in the past was positive. I'm truly at a loss as to where she could possibly create such a fairy tale about my persona.

At the end of the day I will say that these experiences have been incredibly tedious and disappointing to me. I do care and it does hurt me. I've worked hard to maintain a positive and drama free environment on the forum and in the community. I don't believe I am deserving of this level of hate that I've been at the receiving end.

Once again I'm sorry Hat!

[hat_plays_sims]

Hey, Sunni, welcome to my hot mess, I'd really like to ask you not to worry about it but your name kinda did get dragged in.

Let me say-- let me bold this, actually, that I do not blame any site or site admin for a) the behavior of their members off the site or b) for the behavior of banned members.

The only person I hold responsible for Paradox07's behavior is Paradox07 herself. And this isn't the first time I've had someone get banned from a site I don't run and turn up here-- the last one was banned from GoS for spamming the request forum, and signed up to Dreamwidth just to PM their requests for literally thousands of hairs. Literally thousands. Nouk, Peggy, I think Raon, and definitely Newsea's entire mesh catalogs (I think there were more creators but I remember those four), more hairs than I've made in all my hair dumps put together, and all in a unique texture/action set combo that no one else uses. (I told them that was basically a full time job for a year, and if they were willing to pay me for my time we could negotiate. They called me unhelpful and deleted their Dreamwidth. ... I actually was serious, I will take on big stupid projects within my skillset that I have no personal use for if you offer a fair price for my time. Or a fair content trade. I really don't have a lot of shame.)

... Okay I'm off track. The point of that was supposed to be 'these things happen.'

Anyway: Sunni, I know we're not super-close or anything, I don't think in the seven years I've been in the Sims community, we've ever really talked about anything other than Sims, or unrelated to Sims. That doesn't upset me or make me think less of you; it just makes you a person doing your thing over where you are while I do my thing over where I am. I support your right to run your site the way you want, which is my stance for basically every website everywhere.

I don't feel like it's super-appropriate for me to weigh in on what went on with Ocelotekatl and the poseboxes and such; I have nothing against rape fantasy or porn or rape fantasy porn, but I support extensive trigger warnings the same way I support may contain trace amounts of peanuts or tree nuts warnings-- if that shit affects your health, it's non-trivial information, so it's reasonable to insist on those warnings. But if you want to use this post as neutral ground to talk to him about it, and he's willing, well, feel free, I guess. I don't think this particular comment section can get much more fraught than it was when he and I started talking. All I ask is that if he doesn't want to talk to you about it (here or at all), the matter gets dropped.

I do not think you need to justify your banning of Paradox07 on this blog. Her comments here would have rattled my alarm bells no matter who they were about (which I tried to make clear when omitted your name from my list of quotes; I was trying to take you out of it as a person and just show how fucked-up those statements were).

I also don't think it's necessary or even fair, really, to go into any real detail about Stephanie, at least not here; my official policy is still 'I don't have to care what happens on websites I don't run,' but it was Paradox07 who pulled Stephanie's name, writing, and bannination experience into this-- as far as I know, without Stephanie's permission or consent. It's not Stephanie's fault that Paradox07 leaned so hard on her writings.

While I don't like using the word 'drama' to describe conflicts like this (people are entitled to their feelings and I don't judge that; I judge what they do with those feelings but it's really hard to help what you feel)-- but, Sunni, everything Paradox07 said to me was textbook abuse-and-control tactics. Okay? Page one of the textbook, from the opening salvo of insults to painting herself as a bullying victim while haranguing me to trying to remove potential avenues of support to complimenting my work and turning around and gaslighting me right after-- all the way down to the table-flipping insults at the end, when she realized I wasn't going to be of any use to her so she had to try to cow me into submission.

Textbook abusive tactics.

And while she's already proved she has no scruples about offsite harassment, basically every blogging platform and social media site comes with tools to keep problem posters at bay-- even tumblr lets you turn off anon and ban specific users. I've turned on the second step of mine; I've always logged IP addresses, and now I'm screening anon comments. I can turn off anon comments, too, and disable OpenID so you have to have a Dreamwidth to comment-- and I can ban DW users (and I think OpenID users, actually) individually. I'm safe, I'm fine, I can tighten this place down until the only one who can SEE my posts is me, and only if I'm logged in. If you want to make sure your users are safe, remind them to look into their personal sites' security controls, so they know how to tighten them if they need to.

Believe me, believe me, I get how stressful this is better than anyone, but Paradox07 wants you to blame yourself for her behavior. 'Look what you made me do' is page two of that textbook.

It's hard to think clearly sometimes when your emotions are running high, but Sunni, I have been through this before, only with added emotional connections. (My father was not the world's best, and the reason the 'working copy of photoshop' line in my standard credits paragraph didn't disappear just because I got a newer version of Photoshop.) So deep breath, and remember this:

You said 'Not on my site,' and banned her, and her reaction to that is her problem.

Paradox07 is responsible for her own words and actions. She came to my site-- and to Blue Heaven Sims. She tried to spread dissent, she tried to get us to split the fanbase. She started cribbing Stephanie's style. She decided to try gaslighting me. She did all that. Those were her decisions.

I appreciate your apology and I'm going to take it as 'I'm sorry this happened,' because this isn't your fault.

Oh, so we're doing this now?

[blueheavensims.blogspot.mx]

I’ll probably end up rewriting this about eleven times before it’s good enough to post.

@Hat: I’m sorry that the original purpose of your post has been derailed, and that I’ve been responsible for turning your blog into cyber-Geneva.

@Sunni: I will, as always, do my best to keep my response civil. I can’t respond for either Steph or Paradox 07, but I’ll do my best to provide my perspective.

I’ve gone back and carefully reread the Town Charter, and I concede that the “no pornography” rule is there. I would recommend wording Rule 2 a bit more clearly, but it’s there. The rest of my original post stands. I shared the poseboxes because I specifically received an invitation to share them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but calling it a “rape” posebox is a bit of a misnomer. The Bodice-Ripper poseboxes are broken up into “chapters” and presented in a narrative style. That is to say, of the three sets of posegroups presented, two depicted consensual (but not-quite-vanilla) acts. For the sake of accuracy, the objections were raised specifically about Chapter 13 (The Soldier).

You say “I don't believe it's right to remove members that respectfully share their feelings about something.” This was absolutely not the case. The member voiced her objections, I responded in good measure and met her demands as well as I was able within the framework of the message board (even though I was under no obligation to do so), and her response was something to the effect of “Either you agree with me and cave to every demand I make or you’re an EVIL RAPE APOLOGIST SCUMFUCK”. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but the conversation is pretty much public record. I copied the entire thread onto a Word document. I tried to pull it up in the Wayback machine as well so that I would have screen captures, but there isn’t a time signature for PBK around that time.

At the time, I explained clearly to the member that
1. Sims 2, not real life
2. I do not advocate rape, or non-consensual sex of any kind. To this end, I included it in a disclaimer at the beginning of the post and intentionally wrote the characters perpetrating the rape as unsympathetic.
3. Rape fantasy (as opposed to actual rape) is a legitimate and lucrative (and kinda hot, if the acting is done convincingly) subgenre of the porn industry. The viewer knows it’s all contrived. The actors know it’s just a paycheck. Win-win.

This didn’t stop the member from getting up on her soapbox, nor did it stop you from doing the same after you’d frozen the thread. I’m aware that rape is bad. I made it perfectly clear that I’m aware that rape is bad in the disclaimer at the beginning of the post that no one took the time to read.

Returning to the point, I don’t have an issue with PBK itself, nor with most of its members. For the most part, my interactions have been positive. I have nothing to say regarding your character; I don’t know you well enough to make that judgment. As a creator I admire your work and use it frequently in my stories. My only criticism is how you run your board, and you’re damn right it sticks in my craw that half of my work got pulled down for what I don’t consider to be a particularly valid reason. I still engage with the Keepers from time to time, offering encouragement and wicked modding skills, but I have no further interest in sharing any more of my creations at PBK.


I’m not sure what Paradox07 intended to accomplish by approaching us. I think Hat’s reaction was completely justified, given that the original post was light on evidence and heavy on slurs and disparagements. Hat was in no way obligated to engage with her, and responded as well as she could given the situation.

I tried a different tactic. I engaged with Paradox07, talked her through it, let her vent, and tried to convince her that all of that negative energy would be put to better use if she focused on creating of writing. I think I finally got through to her.


I’ll preface the next part by saying that Steph is one of my oldest friends in the modding community. When we were both just starting out on MTS, we collaborated on a few projects. I made her a modded fireplace a few months ago. She spent a bit of time crying on my shoulder (metaphorically, not literally) after she was banned. When my mom passed away recently, she was in near-constant contact with me. So I may be slightly biased in Steph’s favor.

I never put eyes on the original thread, or on the supposed comments that were added to David’s journal at MTS, ostensibly in your name. All I have to go on are Steph’s word (which I put a lot of stock in) and the posts on the “A Case Study in Sims 2 Forum Etiquette”. That said, the thread is either entirely true, mostly true with Steph’s personal biases inserted here and there, or a really, amazingly good creative writing project. I haven’t decided which. Forum drama isn’t really my thing, and I don’t have a whole lot to say about it, but I believe there’s some truth in there.