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This is me, releasing my burden
Sep. 1st, 2009 05:14 pmThe following post is multi-pronged and mostly just for me, but I'm making it public for a reason.
Recently I came across a post on a friend of a friend of a friend's journal, I think. It could have been on a journal that was linked to via a story in one of the communities I belong to. *shrug* Whichever, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that the author of the post was making a public apology for things she said and did in the recent past. Her post is the impetus for this one, the reason it's public.
Some of you know that I was once a part of the group Sylum Clan. I joined it back in 2005 when Bev first started it, was one of the first 100 members in fact. For a while I thought Bev and Sylum was the end all be all of my little world, meaning I was very much into it. I had never been so vocal in a group before. I even considered myself and Bev friends, not best friends, but very close friends none the less which is probably why when things began to sour it hurt and I struck out as I did.
When I first joined Sylum I wasn't a writer. I became one because of this group. I insisted I was only going to write in one fandom, CSI: Miami, but eventually started writing in Stargate Atlantis. Bev gave me permission to write the back story for my RP character, John Sheppard, and I ran with it.
Fall of 2006 I wrote a story that, when I started it, Bev told me was going to be canon. By the time I was done with it, it was no longer canon. I see now that that was the beginning of the end. I realize, in hindsight, that I should have stepped back at that point and taken a breath and asked how I could keep it canon but I didn't. I bitched to the person RP'ing as Rodney McKay. That was my first mistake. Trying to pull someone else into this and force them to take my side over Bev's.
February of 2007 I got my income tax check and reserved my room for the upcoming 'Gathering'. I emailed the three people I had been talking to about rooming together to let them know and things quickly snowballed into disaster. That all took place on a Friday. By Sunday I had decided to take a giant step back and gave up being John. Again, in hindsight, I realize this was yet another mistake but in the end it worked out for the best.
Anyway, after several weeks I came to regret it but before I could ask Bev if I could have John back, she announced that someone else was now playing John. The person who took over his RP'ing is someone I had had very limited contact with and was not part of any of the drama I was involved with. I started becoming disenchanted with the whole concept of Sylum in general and Bev in particular. I started doing some research based off things that were being told to me by different people. Several things that I had had no clue of when they occurred, now made tons of sense armed with the knowledge of how things had since played out, and things I had since been told. I took everything I learned and wrote a LiveJournal post and marked it private, something to use at a later date.
By May I was tired of being hit with posts marked 'John Sheppard' and knowing they weren't from me, plus the new girl had taken a character I had made into a self-assured Musketeer and turned him into a weakling who didn't know one end of his foil from another and was the butt of the clan's jokes for how poor his fighting skills were. I don't know how someone could watch John defend Atlantis against the Genii and see a weakling who has to have his Sire hold his hand. I decided to go to no-mail so that I wouldn't accidently come across one of her posts in a thread.
In June I wanted to begin RP'ing again so I checked the list of unclaimed characters and asked another friend who she thought I should claim. I discovered during the months since the argument in February that this friend was as disenchanted as I was. She said I should play the leader of the clan her character is from. I decided that would be fun so I claimed him. At this time there was no rule about how often members should RP. Shortly after I claimed my new character, Bev changed the rule to say that each member who had claimed a character needed to RP on at least two threads a week, but that three or four would be better. I didn't want to do that because that would mean I'd have to go back to getting messages and I didn't want to do that so I gave up yet another character.
July came and the 'Gathering' took place, minus me because I decided to take my daughter on a fun vacation instead, and yet another friend told me about some things that happened to her in LA.
October I decided to see if there was any interest in my John/Rodney stories set in the Sylum universe over on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
mckay_sheppard. I was getting very positive feedback; the 'I can't wait to read this' type. Then one person made a comment about how she had tried to get into Sylum but found the drama a bit too much. We got into a comment conversation that was too private for the public forum in which it took place. When asked about Bev I repeated what my friend had said about how Bev had treated her in LA. When I got up the next morning I found a comment from a member of Sylum, one of the three I had argued with back in February, stating that I had no clue as to what I was talking about because I wasn't there. Before I could defend myself someone else did by reminding this person that I said I had heard that Bev had been a snob. (Again I'm repeating something that was told to me and I have no reason to not believe the person who said this to me) I didn't find that comment until just before I had to leave for work so wasn't able to defend myself. All day at work I thought about this and formed my reply. When I got home I discovered that yet another Sylum member had gotten involved in this. This person was someone I had considered a very good friend. Others, none of them Sylum members, had joined in and I was ripped to shreds. The gist of the comments was that I had made public my 'ill feelings toward Bev' and had never made it secret that I 'didn't like Bev'. I replied to these comments asking for examples of when I had said that and never got a response which tells me that this person was just trying to stir up trouble. This person also said that I knew that there were several members of Sylum on that community but it's not true. I'm not in the habit of looking at the member list of a community I belong to nor do I read the comments left on a post unless the post is asking a question I also want the answer to. I asked the mods if I should delete the post and, by default, the comments but none of them replied so I left it. I discovered that I had been kicked out of the Sylum Clan and Sylum Clan Security yahoo groups, the latter is needed to get the monthly password to the Sylum website. I decided to retaliate by making the post I had written back in May public as well as adding a link to that post and the one on mckay_sheppard in my LJ profile and a page of my website that housed my version of John/Rodney's Sylum story.
After this I tried to move on but I was still very pissed over the way it all went down. I eventually found out that Bev had banned me from the communities she maintains. I began to find this funny. To think that Bev saw me as such a threat that she had to physically ban me from participating in any of the LiveJournal communities she's a part of just struck me as wildly funny. Until recently that is. All this has now started to affect a friend of mine but this post isn't about that.
So now we get to the actual reason for this post; namely the apologies. First: Benton and Peter, who are no longer on my friends list but hopefully someone will see this and pass this on to you, I'm sorry for the way I phrased my email back in February 2007. I'm sorry it came across as me telling you that you had to room with me in LA. That was never my intention. I merely meant to let you know that while I had the coinage I went ahead and reserved the room so that, should you decide to room with me, you wouldn't have to worry about it. Rodney, who is still on my list and will hopefully see this and pass the apology on to Peter and Benton, I'm sorry for the same thing as with Peter and Benton. I'm also sorry I lost your friendship. I wish you had told me you were feeling smothered by me. I would have backed off if you had. I thought you knew that I had never RP'd before and was therefore taking all my cues from you and the other RP'ing members of Sylum. I'm sorry you felt you had to have Benton tell me to back off. It hurt my heart that you didn't email me and tell me to not give up John when I made the announcement but I'm positive you had your reasons for not doing so. If you'd like to resume our friendship, I'm open and willing to that. Bev, who hasn't been on my friends list for a lot longer but hopefully someone will see and pass this along, I'm sorry I publicly bad-mouthed you. I shouldn't have done any of that. I also shouldn't have listed what took place in the relative privacy of the group (I have since deleted all the posts). I'm sorry that you feel I'm such a threat to you and yours that you have to let your childish pettiness hurt a damn good writer who is now not getting the respect and recognition she so richly deserves, and no I'm not talking about myself because I couldn't care less at this point. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just ask![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
losingntrnslatn. I have contacted her a couple of times about how my friend isn't being allowed to be a part of your awards because she's a friend of mine. But again, that's not what this post is about.
I could go on about how sorry I am that Bev's a narcissistic child who has to have her ego stroked by mindless drones, but I won't because this post is about trying to heal the wounds caused by hurtful words.
I'm going to end this post by saying that I forgive Bev for everything she has ever done to me and my friends, both on list and off, and I hope she has a great life going forward from this point. I know that from the moment I hit send on this post I will not be thinking of all the shit that has come before ever again.
And to show that this isn't so people can pat me on the back and tell me that I've grown so much, I'm letting anonymous comments in case someone wants to release their burden too but they don't want to do so on their own personal blog/journal.
Recently I came across a post on a friend of a friend of a friend's journal, I think. It could have been on a journal that was linked to via a story in one of the communities I belong to. *shrug* Whichever, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that the author of the post was making a public apology for things she said and did in the recent past. Her post is the impetus for this one, the reason it's public.
Some of you know that I was once a part of the group Sylum Clan. I joined it back in 2005 when Bev first started it, was one of the first 100 members in fact. For a while I thought Bev and Sylum was the end all be all of my little world, meaning I was very much into it. I had never been so vocal in a group before. I even considered myself and Bev friends, not best friends, but very close friends none the less which is probably why when things began to sour it hurt and I struck out as I did.
When I first joined Sylum I wasn't a writer. I became one because of this group. I insisted I was only going to write in one fandom, CSI: Miami, but eventually started writing in Stargate Atlantis. Bev gave me permission to write the back story for my RP character, John Sheppard, and I ran with it.
Fall of 2006 I wrote a story that, when I started it, Bev told me was going to be canon. By the time I was done with it, it was no longer canon. I see now that that was the beginning of the end. I realize, in hindsight, that I should have stepped back at that point and taken a breath and asked how I could keep it canon but I didn't. I bitched to the person RP'ing as Rodney McKay. That was my first mistake. Trying to pull someone else into this and force them to take my side over Bev's.
February of 2007 I got my income tax check and reserved my room for the upcoming 'Gathering'. I emailed the three people I had been talking to about rooming together to let them know and things quickly snowballed into disaster. That all took place on a Friday. By Sunday I had decided to take a giant step back and gave up being John. Again, in hindsight, I realize this was yet another mistake but in the end it worked out for the best.
Anyway, after several weeks I came to regret it but before I could ask Bev if I could have John back, she announced that someone else was now playing John. The person who took over his RP'ing is someone I had had very limited contact with and was not part of any of the drama I was involved with. I started becoming disenchanted with the whole concept of Sylum in general and Bev in particular. I started doing some research based off things that were being told to me by different people. Several things that I had had no clue of when they occurred, now made tons of sense armed with the knowledge of how things had since played out, and things I had since been told. I took everything I learned and wrote a LiveJournal post and marked it private, something to use at a later date.
By May I was tired of being hit with posts marked 'John Sheppard' and knowing they weren't from me, plus the new girl had taken a character I had made into a self-assured Musketeer and turned him into a weakling who didn't know one end of his foil from another and was the butt of the clan's jokes for how poor his fighting skills were. I don't know how someone could watch John defend Atlantis against the Genii and see a weakling who has to have his Sire hold his hand. I decided to go to no-mail so that I wouldn't accidently come across one of her posts in a thread.
In June I wanted to begin RP'ing again so I checked the list of unclaimed characters and asked another friend who she thought I should claim. I discovered during the months since the argument in February that this friend was as disenchanted as I was. She said I should play the leader of the clan her character is from. I decided that would be fun so I claimed him. At this time there was no rule about how often members should RP. Shortly after I claimed my new character, Bev changed the rule to say that each member who had claimed a character needed to RP on at least two threads a week, but that three or four would be better. I didn't want to do that because that would mean I'd have to go back to getting messages and I didn't want to do that so I gave up yet another character.
July came and the 'Gathering' took place, minus me because I decided to take my daughter on a fun vacation instead, and yet another friend told me about some things that happened to her in LA.
October I decided to see if there was any interest in my John/Rodney stories set in the Sylum universe over on
mckay_sheppard. I was getting very positive feedback; the 'I can't wait to read this' type. Then one person made a comment about how she had tried to get into Sylum but found the drama a bit too much. We got into a comment conversation that was too private for the public forum in which it took place. When asked about Bev I repeated what my friend had said about how Bev had treated her in LA. When I got up the next morning I found a comment from a member of Sylum, one of the three I had argued with back in February, stating that I had no clue as to what I was talking about because I wasn't there. Before I could defend myself someone else did by reminding this person that I said I had heard that Bev had been a snob. (Again I'm repeating something that was told to me and I have no reason to not believe the person who said this to me) I didn't find that comment until just before I had to leave for work so wasn't able to defend myself. All day at work I thought about this and formed my reply. When I got home I discovered that yet another Sylum member had gotten involved in this. This person was someone I had considered a very good friend. Others, none of them Sylum members, had joined in and I was ripped to shreds. The gist of the comments was that I had made public my 'ill feelings toward Bev' and had never made it secret that I 'didn't like Bev'. I replied to these comments asking for examples of when I had said that and never got a response which tells me that this person was just trying to stir up trouble. This person also said that I knew that there were several members of Sylum on that community but it's not true. I'm not in the habit of looking at the member list of a community I belong to nor do I read the comments left on a post unless the post is asking a question I also want the answer to. I asked the mods if I should delete the post and, by default, the comments but none of them replied so I left it. I discovered that I had been kicked out of the Sylum Clan and Sylum Clan Security yahoo groups, the latter is needed to get the monthly password to the Sylum website. I decided to retaliate by making the post I had written back in May public as well as adding a link to that post and the one on mckay_sheppard in my LJ profile and a page of my website that housed my version of John/Rodney's Sylum story.After this I tried to move on but I was still very pissed over the way it all went down. I eventually found out that Bev had banned me from the communities she maintains. I began to find this funny. To think that Bev saw me as such a threat that she had to physically ban me from participating in any of the LiveJournal communities she's a part of just struck me as wildly funny. Until recently that is. All this has now started to affect a friend of mine but this post isn't about that.
So now we get to the actual reason for this post; namely the apologies. First: Benton and Peter, who are no longer on my friends list but hopefully someone will see this and pass this on to you, I'm sorry for the way I phrased my email back in February 2007. I'm sorry it came across as me telling you that you had to room with me in LA. That was never my intention. I merely meant to let you know that while I had the coinage I went ahead and reserved the room so that, should you decide to room with me, you wouldn't have to worry about it. Rodney, who is still on my list and will hopefully see this and pass the apology on to Peter and Benton, I'm sorry for the same thing as with Peter and Benton. I'm also sorry I lost your friendship. I wish you had told me you were feeling smothered by me. I would have backed off if you had. I thought you knew that I had never RP'd before and was therefore taking all my cues from you and the other RP'ing members of Sylum. I'm sorry you felt you had to have Benton tell me to back off. It hurt my heart that you didn't email me and tell me to not give up John when I made the announcement but I'm positive you had your reasons for not doing so. If you'd like to resume our friendship, I'm open and willing to that. Bev, who hasn't been on my friends list for a lot longer but hopefully someone will see and pass this along, I'm sorry I publicly bad-mouthed you. I shouldn't have done any of that. I also shouldn't have listed what took place in the relative privacy of the group (I have since deleted all the posts). I'm sorry that you feel I'm such a threat to you and yours that you have to let your childish pettiness hurt a damn good writer who is now not getting the respect and recognition she so richly deserves, and no I'm not talking about myself because I couldn't care less at this point. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just ask
losingntrnslatn. I have contacted her a couple of times about how my friend isn't being allowed to be a part of your awards because she's a friend of mine. But again, that's not what this post is about.I could go on about how sorry I am that Bev's a narcissistic child who has to have her ego stroked by mindless drones, but I won't because this post is about trying to heal the wounds caused by hurtful words.
I'm going to end this post by saying that I forgive Bev for everything she has ever done to me and my friends, both on list and off, and I hope she has a great life going forward from this point. I know that from the moment I hit send on this post I will not be thinking of all the shit that has come before ever again.
And to show that this isn't so people can pat me on the back and tell me that I've grown so much, I'm letting anonymous comments in case someone wants to release their burden too but they don't want to do so on their own personal blog/journal.
