#also thinking about how badly martin is mischaracterized

[riseriseleo]

was recently reminded about the fact that tim worked in publishing for a few years before going to the magnus institute (thanks jay!). i think he maybe met sasha there. maybe he bumped into her while getting coffee. maybe she was visiting a friend. either way they hit it off, and though tim was cold and closed off, she brought him out of his shell.

he was still broken when he started at the institute, but he was thawed enough to create a personality out of the scraps of danny and the pop culture that were laying in his brain. it's instinctive to him to crack a joke to ease tension; it was easy enough to glue the cracks with flirtatiousness and charisma.

he didn't reach out to anyone, is the thing. he was well-liked enough except for when he wasn't, avoided everyone except sasha and a select few others, and threw himself into his work. and then jon joined, of course, and tim saw too much of the shattered pieces in jon's face and he was still refusing to grieve so he decided to try to be to jon what sasha was to him.

jon refused, but he gave in enough that he formed a tentative friendship with tim that eventually turned into something a little more real.

and then the promotion, and sasha and tim and jon down in the archives, the only two people tim really willingly spends time with nowadays, and he's forced to get close to martin because if he doesn't work will be even more insufferable than it already is. he smoothes over what he can with jokes and probing questions and attempts to get jon to lighten up but he's wary of martin, of this man he doesn't know and doesn't trust.

they're forced together, obviously, but tim is still hesitant. and this is getting too long and getting away from me too much so i'll stop here.

[esther-dot]

Did GRRM actually insist that the show ending is his and accurate and so on? Did he not say "yes and no and yes and no" in his blog post, implying at least some notable differences, especially alongside saying that the path to the end will also be different?

He maintained for many years in many interviews that the show ending would be his. I have some quotes and links here, but there are many instances of him saying this. I wasn't referring to one line from one blog post, I was referring to something he has consistently, clearly stated over the course of years. @kellyvela​ has a more thorough compilation of Martin quotes about the ending here. You can make hay with the "yes and no" bit, and I know Dany stans ran with that quote from the GoT book about characters having different endings, but I can't convince myself to not believe him. I believed him before s8, and if I had gotten what I wanted, you can be damn sure I'd point to these same quotes as evidence that the books will end the same, so I'm not going to not do that just because I hate the ending. 

I think Martin had no idea how badly written the last season would be, and each time I remember he watched 8x01 I cringe, but Martin is the man who said GoT was "extremely faithful" as late as April 2019, so I think the fandom needs to brace themselves for certain beats we hated on the show coming straight from Martin (x). Even with what he's said, that leaves a lot of room for speculation about the journey (because of the deviations from the existing source material/mischaracterization we all witnessed), but no spec I've read, no scenes/lines I've rethought have made me change my acceptance of Martin's words regarding the ending.

That being said, my response to the ask you’re reacting to (link) wasn't even adamant about this being the ending. Reread it. Seriously. I was very namby-pamby. I didn't preclude the possibility of a different ending. What I said was that Martin should have clarified. I'm not going to pretend that a wishy-washy statement is a real contradiction to everything he’s said about the show over the years or a thoughtful response to the outpouring of anguish from fans who have been waiting ten years for a book and had to watch that massacre of their beloved characters. Writing is hard, I don’t expect him to churn out books on my schedule, but he could have shown his fans respect and appreciation by confirming or denying the endpoints in a meaningful way. He didn’t.

[tiergan-vashir]

@aegirward​

I wanted to address some things about your reply to me, but all of it was quite long, so to spare everyone’s dashboards, I’m just going to leave a link here for them to read it, as well as @friendly-fire-engaged​‘s response to you.

There's a lot of misinformation here to unpack, so let me just start from the top:

Sorry if I wasn’t clear in my previous reply. I didn’t mean I was wary that Sylb specifically had photoshopped screenshots. I had become wary in general after being burned once.

Whether you were wary in general or wary against Sylb specifically is completely irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if it was Sylb in particular or any other woman on the planet. The fact of the matter is that when faced with a woman who presented you with screenshots of sexual harassment from man with a long established, self-admitted history of sexually harassing women - you still decided the screenshots might have been photoshopped.

That’s not ‘wariness’ - that’s a blatant denial.

You also seem to be extremely determined to paint a very benign picture of yourself in which your only two flaws when it came to Sylb and her harassment were:

You wanted to give Kale a second chance despite his history, because people had given you a second chance in the past.

You made a mistake and believed that Sylb must not have been suffering that badly, because she was willing to continue RPing with the group despite Kale’s presence.

There’s much more to it than that. You conveniently glossed over your most egregious, malicious behavior: 

Despite how kind and accommodating you were to Sylb’s face, you were actively sabotaging her to other people behind her back.

You made the conscious, willful choice to not only buy into the idea that Sylb may have photoshopped the screenshots and that she must not have been suffering all that badly because she was still RPing with EA, but that Sylb was the one who wronged Kale and that other, completely uninvolved people needed to be convinced of this as well.  You held up a double standard where it was okay to trust Kale despite his past, but Sylb was not trustworthy from the beginning.

Here are some screenshots from @diskwrite-ffxiv’s post which show you driving a wedge between AMoB and FLEET by bringing up Sylb out of the blue in AMoB’s moderator chat and intentionally mischaracterize her to Renata and Berrod as someone who was just out to ostracize Kale.

https://imgur.com/a/i7SJjlq

The screenshots show you and Iota worked together to paint Sylb as someone trying to manipulate others into hating and shunning Kale.  You brought up how Zheng ‘questioned her intentions’.  You described her as someone who will “rant to anyone about Kale” - a falsehood I know is patently untrue. Sylb was extremely anxious and nervous about talking about her situation to anyone and didn't want to appear like she was trying to run Kale’s name through the mud. 

She didn’t even bring it up to the majority of her own FC.  Most of FLEET was in the dark all the way up until @diskwrite-ffxiv’s post was created.  The only people who had in-depth knowledge that she was even suffering from anything were a small handful of her closest friends for support, the EA Mods she passed the document off to, and eventually Martin.

The screenshots also show you making the claim that she “copy/pasted her story about needing to block Kale and why to pretty much everyone” despite Sylb ONLY giving that document the EA Mods, Martin, and that handful of close friends she was going to for support.  She went out of her way to specifically ask Iota not to share the document containing her request around to anyone outside of the EA mods without her permission first, as seen below:

https://imgur.com/a/4SHtSLd 

All of this clearly demonstrates that contrary to what you claim, you actually very much did try to stop collaborations between AMoB and FLEET.  You tried to convince Renata that Sylb was trying to smear Kale’s name and nearly succeeded in doing so.  Renata herself admitted that as a direct result of this, she brushed off Sylb’s legitimate complaint.  You smeared a woman’s name to people she didn’t know, because you and Zheng “questioned her intentions”.

In the next part of your reply, you’ve conflated two entirely separate events Sylb wanted to create: The FLEET-Resistance collab event and the Soldier’s Ball.

Your original reply to the ask mentions the FLEET-Resistance event Sylb wanted to create with AMoB.  I was referencing this FLEET-Resistance event when I when I asked why it was suspect that a victim of sexual harassment wouldn’t want to create an RP event where she would have to be near the person who harassed her in the time immediately after she outright blocked him as opposed it being a completely sane and normal response from a victim of sexual harassment.

AMoB was not directly affiliated with EA. The FLEET-Resistance event was not an EA event.  Kale, as a character, has nothing to do with FLEET and the Resistance.  So why was it strange for a woman to want to exclude the man who made her uncomfortable in an event she was trying to collaborate on the day after blocking him?

Here are the screenshots of that conversation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l_kPtTU-YjJy335F1yB4KLyvFVaNbz2cr0xI2FCTU3U/edit?usp=sharing

You, her, Iota, Martin, and Zheng were all in a group chat together brainstorming.  Sylb mentioned she didn’t really want a public event as she’d been hoping for more of a Maelstorm vs Resistance event and that it was too soon for certain characters to show up.  Note how she went out of her way to avoid mentioning Kale and is wary of discussing her situation in front of someone who is not an EA mod until she is made aware that Zheng is already in the know. Notice how she finally agrees to open the event up further - just before Zheng insinuates she is spearheading a “Fuck Kale campaign”.

Another thing I want to point out is that Zheng never apologized to Sylb after that discussion for the “Fuck Kale campaign” comment and you did not provide a proper apology either.  This wasn't a matter of “Golly! We thought Sylb must not have been suffering so badly, because she was still RPing with EA!” - this was a matter of you both explicitly not believing her and punishing her for it.  As the AMoB mod channel screenshots clearly showed, you admit to questioning her intentions and actively worked to sabotage her.

The Soldier’s Ball is an entirely different event, and I notice that you have a very different timeline of events than what actually occurred.

At the time this conversation was going on, Sylb was still participating in EA events with Kale. If I remember right, it was shortly after the Ala Mhigan Ascension RP. I had not been told that she no longer wanted to do any event with Kale or have Kale at her other events.

Sylb said she would not work directly with Kale and that was the reason for not choosing him as a representive. But prior to that, she was in our group DMs with Kale helping plan for the ascension ceremony. That was the event where I offered to translate anything Kale said and pass it on to her, rather than have her be in the group chat, if that made her more comfortable.

So the situation perplexed me, because in my mind, she had just been dealing with Kale and this combination of choosing Raniall over Kale and Martin over Zheng seemed less about comfort and more about a decision that would make things awkward with Kale’s group.

I told her the situation made me uncomfortable, because it did. I was thinking of the impact it would have on the 4th. The position it would put Raniall in and what it might make the other 4th members think. I never told her not to do it, just that it wasn’t something I was comfortable with, so I wouldn’t be attending the event, but I WOULD make sure it was promoted in all the usual places. I didn’t think my lack of participation would matter ICly, because I was not RPing anyone needed for the event.

Firstly - the notion that “she no longer wanted to do any event with Kale or have Kale at her other events” is flagrantly untrue and easiest to disprove.

In the screenshot conversation with Iota I linked above where Sylb hands over her document to the mods to lay down her boundary with Kale, Sylb explicitly states:  “I’ll continue to be polite to him in group channels and in voice chat, but I don’t want to have direct one on one contact with him anymore. I’m not asking the Eorzean Alliance discord mods (or anyone else) to take any sort of action against Kale. I’m just letting you know about this boundary that I’m establishing with Kale because it’ll likely impact the way that FLEET communicates with the rest of the EA group (as in, I’ll reach out to other GMs instead of Kale about stuff).”

This was copy-pasted word for word from the document that was shared with you and all the EA Moderators.

Secondly - the Ala Mhigan Ascension event happened in December, two months after Sylb had blocked Kale in early October and informed the EA moderators of her boundary. (Timestamps visible in the Discord screenshots where Sylb laid her boundary down.)  By then you should have been more than well aware of it.  There should have been nothing ‘perplexing’ about what was occurring.  

Unless you did not care enough to read her document laying out her boundaries in its entirety when it was shared to you, you would know she was doing exactly what she’d stated her boundary was two whole months ago: cooperate politely with Kale in group chats, but bar him from talking to her in direct, one-on-one conversations.

Lastly - the most glaring mischaracterization you’ve written of everything surrounding the Soldier’s Ball is the idea that Sylb: 

Uninvited Kale from the Soldier’s Ball. 

“Sylb said she would not work directly with Kale and that was the reason for not choosing him as a representive”

Sylb was not selecting representatives - she was literally trying to get people to pick songs.  She thought it would be nice to have a song for each Grand Company at the Soldier’s Ball, and was considering asking individuals from each Grand Company group to pick one.  That’s literally it.

Here is your conversation with Sylb regarding Soldier’s Ball, where she is clearly discussing the selection of songs - not representatives: https://imgur.com/a/2ON3xLf

Because she did not want direct, one-on-one conversations with Kale as per her boundary, it only made sense for her to reach out to Raniall, Kale’s Second-in-Command, to get a Flames song.  And because her last interaction with Zheng/Beowoad was him literally accusing her of launching a “Fuck Kale Campaign” (and even you mention in this exact conversation that Zheng ‘questioned her intentions’) - she understandably felt more comfortable reaching out to Martin to pick a song for the Resistance than Zheng/Beowoad. Yet she even offers to ask Zheng/Beo instead of Martin for the song if it too uncomfortable for you.

I will add that Martin was only initially uncomfortable with the Soldier’s Ball because you misled them entirely as to what the entire situation was even about.  You provided them with a small section of the conversation, outside of its context and mischaracterized what Sylb wanted.

The rest of your reply to me is completely irrelevant, because it’s filled with baseless assumptions on what Sylb may have been thinking and more assertions that it was somehow “confusing” that she was still participating in EA events and working in group chats with Kale, but not in direct contexts despite you having knowledge of what her boundary was for months at that point.

All in all, your response here makes it clear that the public apologies written by you and Zheng are catered more toward damage control than actual reflection, assessment and change.  Neither your apology or this post owns up to the fact you and Iota were kind to Sylb’s face, but actively slandered her as a person to other people behind her back.  Neither your apology, Zheng’s, or this post owns up to the fact that you and Zheng went much further than simply assuming her situation was not as bad as it seemed - you both flat out didn’t believe her.  You “questioned her intentions” and punished her for daring to lay her boundary down.

When asked to leave AMoB, Zheng tried to argue that G&G has dealt with four sexual harassment cases and one had an “issue that appeared to be a plot to discredit someone falsely.” (https://imgur.com/a/r08qz70)  If it is not Sylb Zheng was referencing, then perhaps this other individual’s case should also be given a second look considering how poorly Sylb was treated.

Aegir, Instead of taking responsibility for the your true actions, you eagerly paint yourself as a man whose only flaws were that he miscalculated how serious the situation was and really wanted to believe in second chances. You talk repeatedly about how “confusing” Sylb’s behavior is to try and paint her inconsistent so your actions seem more excusable, while Sylb was doing exactly what she stated she was going to do to the EA Mods to keep herself safe.  You present a timeline of events that is muddled and out of order to serve your own needs and place yourself in a more sympathetic light.  A real apology doesn’t try to replace the other person’s story with your own reconstruction of events, rewriting what needs to be apologized for.  

To put it bluntly, I question your intentions, Aegir.

Your apology, and by extension, Zheng’s apology as it contains much of the same face-saving “we misjudged how serious the situation was and thought the issue was minor because Sylb was still working with EA” language - won’t feel genuine by any stretch of the imagination until you own up to your true mistakes. 

If you can’t admit to where you actually went wrong, how is anyone supposed to trust that this is more than a simple attempt at damage control?  How are we supposed to believe that you and the rest of the G&G leadership have actually learned from this and will truly change?