"The Internet Is Screaming"

"The Internet is screaming with the harm caused, Zak; this very conversation wouldn't be happening if you'd not actively hurt and pissed off a great many people."

   -Sean Patrick Fannon

Well 'the Internet screams' when 2 boys kiss on TV. The Internet is dumb as butts.

But not always.

Got a note from Zeea last night...

(EDIT LATER--Zeea recanted this, and began re-harassing me on RPGnet. Her alleged grounds for doing this are a pair of literally insane beliefs:

-Mandy outed the Something Awful harasser sometimes screen-named Mikan as trans (despite the fact Mandy and I have no way of knowing secret info about Mikan)
-The Dongion blog, which is on my blogroll, referring to Mikan as "grotesque" was a reference to her trans status--which is impossible since that happened long before the alleged "outing" so how would The Dongion know?

So point is Zeea is either lying (seems unlikely, she's very earnest) or merely literally insane. However I've left the rest of the post intact for the record:)

--a trans gamer (and now RPGnet moderator) who often points out things she thinks are problematic in games, and whom, until recently, this guy Sean above might characterize as part of the "screaming" about the "harm" I caused by having the audacity to respond to the Dungeons & Dragon's peoples' request to email them my thoughts on the recent edition of D&D and then collect a check for it.

Zeea said:

Zak S:

So, I've spent a few hours doing as much research as I can, and I've talked to folks some more.

I'm not going to equivocate. People made accusations against you without proof, the accusations got amplified and distorted and repeated through the Telephone Game effect, and I bought into it when I shouldn't have.

I can't find any evidence of you making broad transphobic statements. I can find evidence of you making trans-inclusive statements. Every transgender person involved in arguments with you was in an argument about something unrelated to being trans, with the exception of the "morphodite" thing, which was such an over-the-top obscure thing to say that I'll take you at your word that you were using it to parody a certain posting style.

Furthermore, in every one of those discussions, there was a lot of shit and toxicity flying around and everyone was hot-tempered. And finally, because all of the incidents I've found any public examples of were "person and an entire faction of people vs. person and an entire faction of people," even if there was cyberstalking aimed in either (or both) directions, there's zero evidence you instigated it or posted non-public information.

I don't think anyone I talked to privately is intentionally lying about this. I think they believe it. But perceptions color memories, as does hearing the same event discussed by multiple people, and some of things look a bit stretched by this point. I can't base an opinion on stretchy-looking facts.

So, I hereby apologize for and retract any implication that you're transphobic or have engaged in cyberstalking. I'm sorry. I'm going back to my original statement on the subject before I got all the private messages, which was, "As far as I know, neither Pundit or Zak S have said anything transphobic."

Furthermore, while I highly doubt that my opinion has _any_ influence on the subject whatsoever, and I wasn't the one who started this whole line of discussion (nor was I the person that got Mike Mearls involved*), I sincerely apologize if anything I said on this subject damages your industry reputation in any way. I disagree with you on plenty of subjects, but I fucked up here and let that influence me to believe and repeat something I shouldn't have.

Oh, bonus apology. I said you were disingenuous. Know what? I've reread a lot of stuff you've posted and then read it in the context of other stuff I've found in places I don't normally frequent. I retract and apologize for that, too. While you can be abrasive as hell and tend to accuse people of disagreeing with you because they're "conservative," it seems you're arguing based on a sincere belief and not intentionally strawmanning. Plus, you've displayed more nuanced opinions on the subject in some places, and if I'd seen those before, I'd probably have had a different opinion.

--Here

A complete history of the grudges that brought on the bullshit is here. The thing that got blown up into me "stalking someone" (I found someone who lied about me online and asked them a question. I did it by clicking on their screen name) is here.

And, if you need it: further evidence of my innocence of the various fuckwadderies published about me this week. The most obvious one being: people were asked to send evidence of me being bad to WOTC, the D&D company, aaaaaand: they got nothing.

If anybody ever has me saying a single bigoted word, they haven't got a single quote. For the best shot the rest of the opposition has taken, here's a hilarious list they've made of my despicable crimes, including tagging a guy into a Google + conversation about his ideas in case he wanted to defend himself and making this awesome cartoon:

I'll be accepting apologies all week. Roll up.

ANYWAY:

Lots of other things going on in RPGland soon:

We are working on new episodes of I Hit It With My Axe (watch this one if you never saw it).

Outside-the-box genius RPG artist Scrap Princess and outside-the-box genius RPG poet False Patrick released Deep Carbon Observatory which looks to be exactly the kind of folk-art kludgewithchery the old school has been promising to make for years.

And Red & Pleasant Land is chugging along. Should be out this summer. Started working on a new edition of Vornheim and I helped James Raggi write a DeeeeeLuxe Death Frost Doom that'll be out soon.


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