Flame Warriors ~ View topic - Events April/May '11 on GTP and their Continuance in Present

Wow, that went right up to the title length limit. Anyway:

My hatred for bronies began on April 6th or 7th, 2011, in the funny pic thread on Gran Turismo Planet. On that day, the thread was invaded by War Horses, who claimed the right to post as many ponies as they wanted, without deference to the wishes of everyone else in the thread. (Well, technically they did, just like I have the right to go out to my garage at 3AM and use noisy power tools. You can be well within your rights and still be a jerk.) People begged the mods, the bronies themselves, anyone who would listen. "Make the ponies stop! This thread looks like a kindergarten now!" But when people asked for less, they got more.

At the time, though the thought should never have crossed my mind and it shouldn't cross anyone's, I may have even wanted to like the new My Little Pony. After all, it had this huge fanbase so dedcated that they tried to claim another thread as their own, the hype surrounding it was taller than Mount Everest, and this was before the first season was even finished! It couldn't be that bad, right? Wrong. It was that bad. I never got any farther than the first episode because the voices are high, shrill, and generally terrible, and the dialogue was intelligence-insulting in some places.

After some time, the Peace Without Victory moderators came in to solve the problem without really solving it: the offending bronies were still allowed to post there, posting ponies in general was still permissible, and no one was allowed to complain about anyone else's funny pics. Thanks, mods. Some help you are. They even got to keep their thread and group, despite many posts which seemed to indicate they a. were intentionally trolling (not that it wasn't obvious) and b. actually believed they were in the right. So, off to the brony thread I went, looking for revenge and maybe some answers.

A month or so later, my attempts at such were failing pretty badly, but something else disturbing had happened: the bronies seemed to have tacit approval to continue being as abrasive as they wanted with little fear of retribution. After some cleverbot trolling from one of them, and a blatant flame (as well as an attempt to incite additional spamming, this time on my profile page), another Peace Without Victory mod (now admin) decided the time had come to kick me out of the brony thread. That certain brony (who had stuck out as one of the most abrasive anyway) got a verbal slap on the wrist for the attepted profile invasion, and there was no mention of his flaming. No infraction for it either. The smugness and hypocrisy that radiated from the brony thread after that was so thick I could (still can) almost taste it, and so vile I'd rather not. The flow of ponies in the funny pic thread, meanwhile, had stopped almost completely, because there was no longer anyone asking them to stop. That should tell you a bit about their attitude toward anyone who dares to not want to see MLP in their thread.

Some perspective as far as the moderator's actions goes: the bronies were the agressors in this case, and had trolled much harder than I ever did, with what I recall was a fairly large group. Meanwhile, there were only ever about 3 people trolling the brony thread, and by the time the mod kicked me out, I was the only one left. Yet I was kicked out of the brony thread completely while the offending bronies were still permitted to post in the funny pic thread, and my prestige level on the forum went downhill big time while they continued to be loved & valued members of the forum. To be honest, I'm not sure the prestige thing happened right away, but it became clear at some point between then and the following autumn: despite the bronies' objectively terrible record on that site, opposing them or saying they got off too easily was status suicide. Not that I cared - truth is more valuable than status as far as I'm concerned.

This was the true beginning of my current quest to stop bronyism (especially on GTP).

Fast-forward to July 2011: the original brony leader is banned, apparently for becoming just a bit too obnoxious. I wasn't there when it happened, and the relevant posts were deleted. Too bad, because I'd really like to get an idea how far a brony has to go to get banned from GTP. To this day, he is one of only two known bronies to be banned from that site, the only one to be banned permanently, and the only one to be banned for offenses related to his fanbase.

Sometime that autumn - I don't really remember when, for some reason - another forum participant (who, unfortunately, has since turned coat and become a brony) formed a group called My Little Pony Resistance Group. I signed up almost immediately. The bronies also started invading us almost immediately, and the mods didn't even bat an eye. That one brony, who had already gotten away with trollspamming, blatant flaming, and attempting to rally a profile invasion, all right under the moderators' noses, is once again on the frontline, invading and trolling harder than just about anyone else. But when one of us (now my right-hand man in that group's successor) went to their thread to tell them off for it, it sets off a huge failstorm and the group is nearly disbanded. The invasions continue unchecked. Eventually, the future traitor gets tired of kicking them out every 5 seconds. After a period of lacking maintainence, he tries to transfer the group to me, but fails because of technical difficulties. Eventually, he deletes the group. At this point, it has already become pretty clear that bronies have some sort of special staus on that site, but no one seems to acknowledge it, or see a problem with it.

Time passes, and eventually, I take it upon myself to create the MLPRG's successor, the GTPartisans. The name refers to a Soviet Russian citizen-millitia during WWII, as does our slogan (Join the GTPartisans and beat the bronies mercilessly!). The overall intent is to portray bronyism as an unwelcome invasion of GTP by outside forces.

Of course, the invasion attempts start almost immediately once again, but this time the group is moderated. That means no one gets in without my personal approval. They soon learn and stop trying (for the most part). Other idiocy, however, does not stop. Including borderline harassment from the moderators, who like to take an unwelcome part in our discussion. Just to make sure we know they're watching us, I guess. I must have missed it when the bronies got the same treatment Rolling Eyes

Fast forward again to late March/early April 2012. That one brony not only hasn't been banned, but the site founder (who is usually a pretty cool guy) actually MADE HIM A MODERATOR. In an exchange of PMs regarding the issue, he said he'd been over it with the rest of the staff and was aware of his sordid history (which was less than a year distant when this brony was promoted). Man, I really wish I could have watched that discussion. Even if he specifically wanted a second brony mod, pretty much any brony on the site would have been better than that guy.

It's gotten to the point where we have a moderator or three breathing down our necks, threatening to disband the group, if we say anything remotely negative about any brony on GTP. They're still allowed to look down their noses at us all they want from the safety of their unassailable thread. I'd say staff bias is very obviously present and active in this entire saga of bull butter, but once again, no one is willing to acknowledge it, and if you try to make them, they'll just say you're paranoid. Maybe it'd be different if public conciousness hadn't been somehow shifted to view us as evil old funkillers and think of bronies as fair, gentle, completely harmless, not-trollish-at-all peace-lovers who never did anything wrong and never deserved any punishment.

GTP Bronies - and this moderator - seem to have achieved Untouchable status. They're Karma Houdinis of the highest (and most infuriating) order, Villains with (inexplicably) Good PR who have most of the forum participants believing they're great people despite their unpenalized crimes.

So, basically, I got, and am continuing to get, screwed out of justice in the interest of peace. I'm sick of being treated like the bad guy becasue I'm standing up to them instead of letting them get away with everything they did and said. What do?

*epic theme music suddenly begins to play*

...

*Mly suddenly appears out of nowhere, dripping wet; he quickly flicks his hair out of his face, wringing the water out behind his head, then tightly wrenches up his robe in several places to wring the water out of it as well; his lifeless, doll-like eyes suddenly stare down at Chopper from across the thread*

I'd suggest not stepping in that puddle. But anyway, *suddenly waves his left hand back and forth just once in a dismissive fashion, before returning it just as it was to his side* you've finally piqued my interest.

*summons up his mask out of nowhere, planting it firmly on his face even without straps, in defiance of logic, and flicks his hood over his head* More numbers are always useful. I'm a one-man army, myself.
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Everything that has transpired in this thread has done so according to my design.
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