For ease of reference, I'ma copy-pasta Worldmaker's rant here. I find it to be quite... compelling.
Quote:[b]Worldmaker on FFN said:[/b]
[b]What Happened at Twisting the Hellmouth:[/b] What happened was this: I included a scene in Origin Story
that included a realistic depiction of President George W. Bush and
Vice President Dick Cheney. I did not libel these two men. I did not
turn them into mustache-twirling Snidley Whiplash clones, I did not turn
them into bloody-minded serial killer psychopaths. I depicted them as
ambitious politicians. Which is, of course, what they both are. I also
depicted them in accordance to the way Marvel Comics was portraying
them: as, ultimately, the people who were authorizing and approving the
human rights abuses present in the Marvel Comics Civil War
storyline. Oh, and one person actually complained that I gave George W.
Bush a "clownish" accent. Folks, the accent I gave him was a standard
Texas accent. You know, because he fucking has one of those.
Anyway,
three yahoos got butt-hurt about how I was "making a mockery" out of
the president, and complained. A like-minded conservative moderator, who
calls herself "Demona", used those complaints to lock my story up and
threaten it with deletion unless I "removed George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney from the story." So I did. I removed those words from the story,
literally. I followed her directions to the letter.
My next message from her said the following she told me that what she meant
was for me to rewrite the chapter so as to remove the scene with the
president and the vice-president entirely, not merely remove their
names. Sorry, but fuck you, Demona. I write the story as I am inspired
to write it, and I stick by what I write because of that inspiration. I
will not adulterate my writing to fit someone else's whim, especially
someone who is demanding arbitrary changes not on the basis of the
strength of the plot, but for politically-inspired personal whim.
I
was warned by five different people that Demona has a long memory,
holds grudges, and absolutely despises it when "one of the peons" (not
my words) disagrees with her, implies that she's wrong, or argues with
her moderator decisions. Thus, I felt it best to just pull up stakes and
let the petty tyrant rule her small corner of a very small sandbox.
I'm
fairly sure that there are several other writers who will take note of
Demona's attitude, and alter their attitudes toward Twisting the
Hellmouth accordingly.
Most recently, Twisting the Hellmouth admin
JoeHundredaire posted an ultimatum that read, in part, do something
about Demona and the rules that allowed her to abuse her moderatorial
power or I walk. I and several other people told him that if he was
gone, we were gone too. So now we've left, permanently this time. In
response, naturally the admins of Twisting the Hellmouth are calling us
(especially me) a bunch of arrogant, bad-tempered cretins who had no place among civilized folk anyway.
The
fact that the people who are walking out are some of the most creative
and most prolific writers on the site hasn't sunk in. But they have all
rushed in to calm the populace and let the sheep know that there's
nothing to be concerned about. Meanwhile, Demona's still a moderator,
and she's still within her rights to fuck over people who she doesn't
like. Keep it in mind if you're thinking about posting your stories
there.