troubling situation

[fpb]

I generally take no interest whatever in the people who tried (when I knew nothing whatever about them) to make me a fandom wolf's-head. However, there have recently been some violent ructions whose echoes reached me through friends. This has made me curious; and, following up a series of fairly vile LJ entries, I have made a discovery that troubles me greatly.

Molly Moon suffers from a frightful, probably incurable and certainly hideously painful condition.

Let us get things straight. This is the person who (edited)was the first to rush in with the GAY BAR witch-hunt. She has spent months lying about me and misrepresenting me. She has done her best to turn all her friends against me, and a number of the people who are on my never-speak-to-again list have got there because of her incitement. I have not read, and will not read, her fic "featuring" me; but the fact that Chthonia, who knew nothing about the whole matter, was stunned by its contents, tells all that needs saying. This is a person whom I have banned from this LJ as soon as I knew how, and whose "anonymous" posts I have been deleting for months. This is a person whose behaviour towards me (and, I gather, towards one or two other people) I can only describe as despicable.

At the same time, she is in the kind of condition with which, had I known, I would have not wasted a second in offering sympathy and any help I could.

This does not make her behaviour any less putrid. Let us not forget that (edited)she threw herself into the GAY BAR witchhunt with enthusiasm, without making any attempt to understand what it was about and what I was about, at a time when I knew nothing whatsoever about her; she was inspired purely and simply by the need to hate, to find a target for some inner fury that has nothing to do with me, to persecute and misrepresent and tear down. (Incidentally, madam, I have only a BA and am self-taught in all essential areas from Latin to drawing. This for the record.) It may even have something to do with her condition; although I have known many disabled people (having had a little to do with disabled organizations and pro-life groups) and many, perhaps most, of them, however terrible their condition or their pain, were sweet, open-minded, kindly and untroubled souls. I suppose that pain may make you better, or may make you worse.

And here I am. I would be a fool if I forgot what this person has actually done, what she is still both capable and willing to do; at the same time, I really have a violent personal reaction against doing or saying anything against her, because I feel very strongly that birds with broken wings should not get extra kicks. This is my situation.

Let me however say that the other people who involved themselves up to their necks in the witch-hunt, especially the odious person who signs herself with the significant name Narcissa Malfoy, have no such excuse. I feel no compunction whatever about labelling this egotistical, lying, emotional-blackmailing drama queen for the scum she is. And I will be glad to go on doing so.

EDITSomeone whom I have no compunction at all about deleting sent a post full of inaccuracies and persecution-minded nonsense. There was however one statement there that I have also received from another source, namely that Molly Moon did not actually start the GAY BAR witch-hunt, she was only the first to publish. OK. But the rest of the charges stand, and I know for a fact that she has chosen to take the above remarks as insulting. Evidently her hatred for me is too precious a thing to forego lightly - another reason, perhaps, to feel sorry for her.

Comments

[muffytaj.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm going to give you a priceless piece of advice here. It's never done me wrong, and I hope that is also serves you well.

The way to end this nastiness is simple: Silence.

For a while, there will still be heated words, but if you say nothing more, they cannot pick up anything else. Talk of other things, your pets, your house, do not reply to them and do not attack them. Do not look at their livejournals, or look them up. Do not read what they say.

If you do not attack, and do not feed, there will be no more arguments, or "witch hunts".

If you truly want this sort of cattiness to stop, then you must be the bigger person, and stop first.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I DO NOT read other people's blogs, unless they are on my f-list. Molly Moon and others tried for months to get me to read their LJ and MM's story, which I steadfastly refused; I only ever had a look at it recently - out of curiosity as to what was going on elsewhere - and only then I found out about MM's nerve condition.

On the other hand, I do react to what is written on mine, or on review threads for my stories. And to avoid trouble does not seem to me necessarily a high moral dictate.

[muffytaj.livejournal.com]

Alas, then you court hatred.

A pity.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. By reacting to hatred when it is expressed, I court it. Is there not a certain amount of wrong-end-foremost here? And, more to the point: are you saying that I should publish views and/or fics and not defend them when they are attacked? I truly don't understand your morality. It seems to me that it begins with Thou Shalt Avoid Trouble.

[muffytaj.livejournal.com]

But you're not changing anyone's minds, and you're simply inflamming them. So stop it.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's all died down. You are the last person who is still posting.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

(Er... that was rather optimistic. It seems that some people are still eager to find The Crushing Retort.)