Oh yeah, so there's more detail I want to give here:
In November 2002, the groups are put on "winter break" (2004, February 10a). Nothing of substance is ever done afterward, except for a vague statement of "Pavilion editors begin implementing updates and changes" in July 2003 (ibid). And that's basically the end of Pavilion's "active" period.
The "winter break" had a really bizarre story behind it. In October 2002, the last Lancers meeting was held, and we were told that Lucas was stepping down as director (again, not that any of us had voted for him >.>) and Gina of the Hondas was replacing him. Gina was basically a bully who screamed at everyone for "needing coddling" if they were nervous about doing a "hey, I'm plural/median/multiple which is a functional and healthy state of being, unlike DID, ask me anything!" thing. I mean, if people volunteer to do that, that's totally fine, but we were being told we MUST do it or risk destroying the entire cause of plural activism. ...also, we were being told we must do it in places like soulbonding forums, in order to convince soulbonders they were medians. We were afraid it would look like we were trolling, and according to some people who were on the forum at the time of the unofficial "soulbonder campaign," yeah, it did look like a coordinated invasion and people were suspicious.
Gina also said that the Codex was "complete" and could not be changed any more no matter what. She said that "all of Lancers and all of Pavilion" was based on the Codex and if people continued to revise it, it would "make our position look indefensible" (whatever that actually meant... the Codex looked indefensible enough in the first place) and that they "needed fanatics" for Lancers. It's like, jesus, how much can you proselytize in a group of five systems?! And considering Gina wouldn't criticize the Blackbirds for anything, it was actually only the other three of us that she was yelling at and proselytizing to! Like, this is seriously the hill you want to die on?
...which we can say in retrospect, but at the time, we were upset enough that we were almost crying in a public computer lab at our school. But we could never say that we felt bullied and intimidated, because the Blackbirds and sometimes the Hondas would often lash back with "Oh, so you think none of US have ever had those feelings before in our life?" If we said we were upset, "you think none of US have ever had hurts that could compare?" If you were afraid of backlash over being essentially forced to out yourself online, "you think none of us have ever been afraid of repercussions?" There seemed to be literally NOTHING we could say-- and it seemed to be targeted at us in particular-- without the Blackbirds accusing us of "thinking we'd had it worse than anyone else," or going to rant to Astraea about how we supposedly did. One of the logs we found out about two years after it happened involved them going to Astraea and asking about our childhood trauma and, like, "how bad was it? Do you think it was worse than OURS? Do you think it gives 'her' an excuse to not participate in Lancers projects?" EVERYTHING was the goddamn dicksizing contest with them. EVERYTHING. We got to feel after a while that we couldn't even mention it if we cut our finger without them going "oh, so you think WE'VE never been injured in our life?"
So anyway, the meeting ended after Gina yelled at everybody, we felt like shit and weren't sure if we even wanted to continue with Lancers and Pavilion, and then nothing happened until November, when the Lancers' Hill journal announced a "winter break," and we were told we could continue to work independently on the projects we had been assigned. After that, nothing. There was no activity until sometime in January or February of 2003, where the Blackbirds added someone they described as a newly self-aware median system to Lancers' Hill, and then sometime later, removed them and made a post saying that this other system had constantly criticized people and attacked them for making private posts in their LJs. (Something to that effect, anyway... I'll log in later and re-check what it actually says)
And, you know, I don't want to be mean or anything, and it wasn't that we had no sympathy for having to deal with someone doing that, but I have to admit we were thinking "well, you made us feel constantly criticized and attacked, but we felt we couldn't defend ourselves because otherwise Lancers would fall apart." We didn't say it, though. Then, dead silence on Lancers' Hill again except for Gina talking about changes she had made to the page, and nothing in her journal or the Blackbirds' about this other system that had been so critical.
Or more accurately, they didn't tell us about it. We only found out about it through Astraea, and the story as it was apparently told to them made us go "WHAT." Apparently, their newly self-aware median friend was someone who had been skeptical and critical of the whole concept of multiplicity, thought that all plurals were self-indulgent wanky teenagers who wanted to feel special, and gave the appearance in public of mostly thinking it was bullshit. And then, somehow, went from that to... realizing they were median? Complete with a Multiple Code on their new plural LJ and an angry person who apparently yelled at everyone a lot? I mean, there are people who will attack something if they don't want to admit they do it, but there was a lot of... ??? ??? in this. It was just bizarre.
Also, this friend, who I'll just call "C," I guess, had never been part of Lancers or Pavilion until January or February of that year. But according to what the Blackbirds told Astraea, C had been criticizing Pavilion, Lancers, and the Codex since last summer and they had supposedly been revising the Codex over and over to "try and keep her happy." Instead of saying "Well, it's our personal project, and if you're that interested in it, join Lancers and discuss it there" (I mean, if the Codex hadn't been a giant pile of bullshit to begin with)... the Blackbirds, who had been constantly intimidating and criticizing us, somehow just completely folded for C and did everything she wanted? We were like "were we seeing a totally different set of people than C was?" But according to them, no, it was the same people! They said Lucas had stepped down because of all the stress C was causing him, when we had only ever experienced Lucas as pushy, critical, and passive-aggressive!
And I just... I don't want to sound like an ass, but we couldn't make sense of any of it. I know people can change a lot depending on who they're with, but somehow, the way the Blackbirds told it, even though they had no problem slapping us down and berating us for nonexistant offenses, C was somehow just so intimidating and overbearing that they were completely cowed by her and went along with whatever she said. This also meant that all the Codex changes since August were blamed on C demanding them, and the winter break was said to be an attempt to cool things down with her. They also blamed their constant attacking and criticizing of us (or "Azu" since they still kept calling us that) on C, because C didn't like us. (Which we had been well aware of before any of this happened; we only trusted their "new median friend" because we had no idea that they and C were one and the same, and the Blackbirds seemed to think they shouldn't have to tell us!)
And again, they told this all to Astraea, but not to us. They said they were sorry, but they apparently didn't feel strongly enough about it to apologize to us personally. They just told Astraea to pass on an apology to "Azu" from them and tell them the whole story they had told Astraea.
And, like... We have treated people badly in the past because we had friends who didn't like them and wanted us to shun or snark them. We also felt a lot of guilt about it. We've tried to apologize to those people personally, when we knew where they were, in the years since, whenever possible. I'm trying to come to some kind of conclusion here, but... all I can really think of is that it felt like we were constantly punished for not being able to read people's minds during Lancers, and that that would have been the only way that we could really have kept anyone happy.
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Date: 2019-03-16 05:18 pm (UTC)In November 2002, the groups are put on "winter break" (2004, February 10a). Nothing of substance is ever done afterward, except for a vague statement of "Pavilion editors begin implementing updates and changes" in July 2003 (ibid). And that's basically the end of Pavilion's "active" period.
The "winter break" had a really bizarre story behind it. In October 2002, the last Lancers meeting was held, and we were told that Lucas was stepping down as director (again, not that any of us had voted for him >.>) and Gina of the Hondas was replacing him. Gina was basically a bully who screamed at everyone for "needing coddling" if they were nervous about doing a "hey, I'm plural/median/multiple which is a functional and healthy state of being, unlike DID, ask me anything!" thing. I mean, if people volunteer to do that, that's totally fine, but we were being told we MUST do it or risk destroying the entire cause of plural activism. ...also, we were being told we must do it in places like soulbonding forums, in order to convince soulbonders they were medians. We were afraid it would look like we were trolling, and according to some people who were on the forum at the time of the unofficial "soulbonder campaign," yeah, it did look like a coordinated invasion and people were suspicious.
Gina also said that the Codex was "complete" and could not be changed any more no matter what. She said that "all of Lancers and all of Pavilion" was based on the Codex and if people continued to revise it, it would "make our position look indefensible" (whatever that actually meant... the Codex looked indefensible enough in the first place) and that they "needed fanatics" for Lancers. It's like, jesus, how much can you proselytize in a group of five systems?! And considering Gina wouldn't criticize the Blackbirds for anything, it was actually only the other three of us that she was yelling at and proselytizing to! Like, this is seriously the hill you want to die on?
...which we can say in retrospect, but at the time, we were upset enough that we were almost crying in a public computer lab at our school. But we could never say that we felt bullied and intimidated, because the Blackbirds and sometimes the Hondas would often lash back with "Oh, so you think none of US have ever had those feelings before in our life?" If we said we were upset, "you think none of US have ever had hurts that could compare?" If you were afraid of backlash over being essentially forced to out yourself online, "you think none of us have ever been afraid of repercussions?" There seemed to be literally NOTHING we could say-- and it seemed to be targeted at us in particular-- without the Blackbirds accusing us of "thinking we'd had it worse than anyone else," or going to rant to Astraea about how we supposedly did. One of the logs we found out about two years after it happened involved them going to Astraea and asking about our childhood trauma and, like, "how bad was it? Do you think it was worse than OURS? Do you think it gives 'her' an excuse to not participate in Lancers projects?" EVERYTHING was the goddamn dicksizing contest with them. EVERYTHING. We got to feel after a while that we couldn't even mention it if we cut our finger without them going "oh, so you think WE'VE never been injured in our life?"
So anyway, the meeting ended after Gina yelled at everybody, we felt like shit and weren't sure if we even wanted to continue with Lancers and Pavilion, and then nothing happened until November, when the Lancers' Hill journal announced a "winter break," and we were told we could continue to work independently on the projects we had been assigned. After that, nothing. There was no activity until sometime in January or February of 2003, where the Blackbirds added someone they described as a newly self-aware median system to Lancers' Hill, and then sometime later, removed them and made a post saying that this other system had constantly criticized people and attacked them for making private posts in their LJs. (Something to that effect, anyway... I'll log in later and re-check what it actually says)
And, you know, I don't want to be mean or anything, and it wasn't that we had no sympathy for having to deal with someone doing that, but I have to admit we were thinking "well, you made us feel constantly criticized and attacked, but we felt we couldn't defend ourselves because otherwise Lancers would fall apart." We didn't say it, though. Then, dead silence on Lancers' Hill again except for Gina talking about changes she had made to the page, and nothing in her journal or the Blackbirds' about this other system that had been so critical.
Or more accurately, they didn't tell us about it. We only found out about it through Astraea, and the story as it was apparently told to them made us go "WHAT." Apparently, their newly self-aware median friend was someone who had been skeptical and critical of the whole concept of multiplicity, thought that all plurals were self-indulgent wanky teenagers who wanted to feel special, and gave the appearance in public of mostly thinking it was bullshit. And then, somehow, went from that to... realizing they were median? Complete with a Multiple Code on their new plural LJ and an angry person who apparently yelled at everyone a lot? I mean, there are people who will attack something if they don't want to admit they do it, but there was a lot of... ??? ??? in this. It was just bizarre.
Also, this friend, who I'll just call "C," I guess, had never been part of Lancers or Pavilion until January or February of that year. But according to what the Blackbirds told Astraea, C had been criticizing Pavilion, Lancers, and the Codex since last summer and they had supposedly been revising the Codex over and over to "try and keep her happy." Instead of saying "Well, it's our personal project, and if you're that interested in it, join Lancers and discuss it there" (I mean, if the Codex hadn't been a giant pile of bullshit to begin with)... the Blackbirds, who had been constantly intimidating and criticizing us, somehow just completely folded for C and did everything she wanted? We were like "were we seeing a totally different set of people than C was?" But according to them, no, it was the same people! They said Lucas had stepped down because of all the stress C was causing him, when we had only ever experienced Lucas as pushy, critical, and passive-aggressive!
And I just... I don't want to sound like an ass, but we couldn't make sense of any of it. I know people can change a lot depending on who they're with, but somehow, the way the Blackbirds told it, even though they had no problem slapping us down and berating us for nonexistant offenses, C was somehow just so intimidating and overbearing that they were completely cowed by her and went along with whatever she said. This also meant that all the Codex changes since August were blamed on C demanding them, and the winter break was said to be an attempt to cool things down with her. They also blamed their constant attacking and criticizing of us (or "Azu" since they still kept calling us that) on C, because C didn't like us. (Which we had been well aware of before any of this happened; we only trusted their "new median friend" because we had no idea that they and C were one and the same, and the Blackbirds seemed to think they shouldn't have to tell us!)
And again, they told this all to Astraea, but not to us. They said they were sorry, but they apparently didn't feel strongly enough about it to apologize to us personally. They just told Astraea to pass on an apology to "Azu" from them and tell them the whole story they had told Astraea.
And, like... We have treated people badly in the past because we had friends who didn't like them and wanted us to shun or snark them. We also felt a lot of guilt about it. We've tried to apologize to those people personally, when we knew where they were, in the years since, whenever possible. I'm trying to come to some kind of conclusion here, but... all I can really think of is that it felt like we were constantly punished for not being able to read people's minds during Lancers, and that that would have been the only way that we could really have kept anyone happy.
-Riel