I think I've caught up on the drama... and I'm using this post to just, collect my thoughts and speak my mind on what's been happening over the past 24-48 hours. So, as many already know, @StygianSis is a personal friend of mine. Outside of the fandom. In fact, she's the one who got me into the fandom in the first place and encouraged me to keep posting. She really is a lovely person (please don't stop reading, lol -- understand that fandoms can create warped perspectives based on where you sit). I've always said, I think Stygian is one of the smartest people here; and also one of the better debaters if not the best debaters for the Cloti side (since I'm now a Clerith anyway 😅)... I say all of this because she's my friend, and I really don't like seeing the level of personal attacks against her. I've said many times in our conversations, that it does bother me when I see her past get brought up; I've voiced that to many of you and I get many of y'all have your own beef, and so much of it predates my time on this side of the fandom. I just want to say I do hope we can all try to give some grace. Personally, as someone who enjoys shit-talking people relentlessly, even I don't go past a certain point... I know I have a reputation of being aggressive -- but I hope people understand there is a distinction, a limit, that I think we should try not to cross. Did @princessD3mi cross that line? IMO, yes. I tag her here because I understand she feels she's defending herself from a horde of people attacking her and others. And I'm hoping to bridge the divide here. That said, I'd be bullshitting if I ignored the litany of toxic shit she and others have been showing from the Cloti side of the fandom; and I remember a lot of it, and I myself have been on the receiving end of a lot of it including suicide baiting, racial slurs and an impotent death threat within the past 30 minutes. I literally had someone, seemingly while attacking @princessD3mi , in a whole different thread about pancakes or whatever, tell me to off myself this morning. Out of the fucking blue, on an alt. I had no idea WTF was even happening?😅 BTW, that person is @Taytorade1106 BTW. Whom no one is going to police; nobody is going to do anything about it. Proving the point of this post. Then you've got some 4'10 munchkin fresh off the bus from his shift at McDonald's saying he wants to shoot me and posted a picture of himself in his little Stride Rite's holding a rifle that's bigger than him with his face blurred. And like, yeah, I get it -- someone's got some serious issues. This is a person who sat through a 6 hour space, absolutely fixated on listening to the sound of my voice; hate-listening to another grown man. And no, I'm not making this up, this came out of his mouth. Mofo literally said "I hate you" or some such, and mind you I still have no idea who this person is other than these bizarre interactions.. But that's the nature of this fandom. Very unstable individuals coming here to "express" themselves freely, on Elon's Twitter. And this is not to mention the countless times myself or @mlwjrpg have been called racial slurs, repeatedly, and with very few people on the other side of the fandom actually stepping up. And I say all of this to demonstrate the problem with these conversations. They're not actually about actually trying to encourage people to be good or decent; they're too often about scoring points or trying to wage some bullshit ship-war. To try and shift perspectives about which is the bullying fandom and which fandom are the perceived victims... I digress. Would I like to see the community police itself? Yes. Would I participate in that. Absolutely. But it can't be one-sided. Actually do something about the racism, toxicity, harassment campaigns, doxxing in the CT community ~ PLEASE ~ and that would make actually holding others in the CA community to some higher standard much more feasible and practical. You can't tell someone to rise to a standard while their perceived opponents are steeped in the gutter. Surely that makes abundant sense? Right? Otherwise, this just continues round and round and honestly, I've just seen this song and dance so many times at this point, I can't take the idea that many in the community don't want this seriously. But I hope to be proven wrong.