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Notes -
Hey, you've known me for a long time—long enough that you can know I am wholly capable of maintaining equanimity and responding with grace when I want to do so. Tonight, I did not want to do so. I wanted to react from the heart, without my usual filters, to the small group of people who have made it their mission to damage this space for years—and who have succeeded in doing so. I'm responding to everyone who made this place unappealing for CanIHaveASong, for paanther, for heterodox_jedi, for Gemma, for Yassine, for countless other posters a thousand times better than the miserable ankle-biters who drove them away in a quest for a twisted sort of purity. The miserable scolds are here, and the rules here are incapable of seeing the miserable scolds and chasing them away before they chase everyone else away, so it's time to let them have it and continue to build elsewhere.
My foot was already mostly out the door. Now it's out, and I want everyone I like here, and everyone who likes me here, to understand exactly why.
See you on the other side.
I say this with love TW, histrionic breakdowns of any sort are an invitation for the wolves to circle. They embolden your enemies, an indication that their needling is effective. I don't know if we're tugging on the same side of the rope here but there's enough in your writing that reminds me of myself and should I ever encounter a new article of yours in the wild again I will read the whole damn thing even if only to humor that connection.
I respect and appreciate that.
The reality is that their needling has been effective. Not on my life, my career, or my writing as a whole, all of which are on a trajectory I could never have imagined or hoped for. But they have caused serious long-term damage to a place I loved over many years, made things unbearable for people I respect, and made this forum increasingly one-note and lifeless. Letting them know that they get to me personally does nothing to impact any of that, it just makes this a place I no longer want to spend my time.
At the same time, having watched it for years, I did want to share my sentiments with them directly before I left. I don't know whether they're bad people in some abstract sense, but they damaged something I loved and are now jealously guarding its corpse. So be it.
It doesn't matter whether they know they got to me or not. If they want to follow me elsewhere, I don't have to dance around the way I do here, and the chorus of malcontents on Twitter is large enough that another voice or two makes little difference. One way or another, I'm leaving this site, though, and it did matter to me whether I said how I felt before then.
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