for the protectors [venting and advice]

Some MF on the street behind us just fired off 15 rounds. Got me up and tracking. Our perimeter's secure. Didn't take any incoming. I keep telling Host we need a gun. He's against it. Not safe. Thinks we'll off ourselves. If this $#%^ keep happening we won't have to. Some dumb MF will do it for us! Looks like I'm going to be up for a while.

Colin

Heard some automatic weapons fire last night. Off to the east. Didn't take any incoming at our house. Don't know what's happening. Safe so far.

Colin

Glad you guys are safe.

WTF! I'm tired of some ######6 asshole firing off rounds like it's ######6 Beirut! If I find him I'm going to shove that AR-15 up his ass! It's putting me on red alert all the ######6 time!

Iain keeps telling me to calm down. I'll ######6 calm down when we're not living in a ######6 warzone.

Colin

Good luck, Colin. It sounds like an awful situation.

I understand that some countries have the right to bear arms, but it does not give anyone the right to act like that and fire shots all the time, scaring the whole neighborhood. Weapons are not toys.

The day this person will need their weapon for an emergency self-defense situation, nobody is going to realize something is off and nobody is going to come to their help, because the whole neighborhood will be too annoyed of hearing the awful shots all the time. I know it is not nice to say this, but, it will serve them well.

Though it would be better if they could just, stop. Like you said, you are not living in a warzone. There is no need to shoot all day long. They should go to a proper practice place if they need to practice. Not do it in the open in their backyard.

Sending moral support your way.

__
David.

Thanks David. That asshole's assault rifle has a range of 800 yards or more. It's a ######6 neighborhood. A lot of $#%^ is inside 800 yards! Legal weapon or not he's responsible for the round from when it leaves the muzzle until it's at rest. Going through somebody's house and killing their kid is a mistake where 'sorry' just doesn't cut it.

Colin

So yesterday evening / last night, someone got bent out of shape about something in one of viola's stories. Brief background, she posts 95% of her work on a website where her stories are available for free. (She has another site where people pay to support her work, they get early access & bonus material etc but the lions share of it is available for free.)

So this person got pissy about something they read in a story that's available free, and instead of just ######6 off and minding their own business they left a pissy annoyed comment about it. And that sparked a huge ######6 debate.

Now normally viola likes to get feedback. An average chapter will get 2 or 3 comments. 5 or 6 is nice. But when there's 10 - 20 comments in the span of a couple hours, that usually means the $#%^ hit the fan. And while viola's getting better at coping with that kind of thing, not everyone in our system can. Teg especially gets really scared when people are angry. When they're angry with us, she can spiral into flashbacks and pull the whole system down with her.

Except that didn't happen this time. I was ready to put up the defences or shut things down, but viola responded to a couple of the comments herself. She wasn't rude or harsh, she was maybe a bit snarky but we don't think she stepped on anyone's toes or anything. Then she just closed the browser and left it at that.

Then we get pinged on Discord, turns out someone viola is friends with (someone viola trusts & admires) is also friends with the person who was pissy about the chapter. We didn't know that right away, but this friend was checking in that our system wasn't upset or stressed etc. Then she talked with viola about the stuff going on, and eventually it was like she was basically getting viola's side of things, like how & why & whatever. Like she wanted to moderate I guess, between her two friends?

I'm not sure how I feel about that either way. So far it seems ok, but we'll have to wait and see if this person turns on us or not. I know viola would be upset if I blocked that person or otherwise intervened, so I hope they're not going to turn on us.

Then another author friend messaged us on Discord as well, she wasn't trying to solve anything she just wanted to know that we were ok. Other authors and creatives know what it's like when that sort of thing happens, like it can really ruin your day.

By that point it was 2 or 3 hours past when we wanted to go to bed, we'd basically had to stay up dealing with all this crap. Before we turned in though viola touched base with Teg and asked if she was ok. Teg seemed all right but she wanted us to bring her fox plushy to bed, so viola grabbed it.

Anyways, long story short, it was kind of ###$ up and I'm pissed off at people who feel like they have the right or the need to $#%^ on something they're given for free. Like seriously, just ###$ off and read something else if you don't like what an author is sharing out of the goodness of their heart? We ended up only getting about 4 hours sleep which isn't going to help us today.

On the other hand viola was really touched that one author reached out to check we were ok, and this morning we found a supportive note from another author. viola's also happy about how things went with the friend who was mediating but I'm still on the fence about that. We're glad though that Teg survived the ordeal ok, and that she just needed us to bring her stuffy to bed.

Em

Potential trigger warning for venting/frustrated tone. I actually am not completely sure that I didn't write this, but I wanted to post it because I don't fully remember writing this and I don't know where any of these frustrations are coming from so I think maybe a part just needs to vent/some support.

I wish she would realize were trying to keep her from doing things that would hurt her. No-one is against her, were literally all trying to protect her or us in some way

Hey, my name is Dom ( nickname for obvious reasons)
*mod edit* I'm friends with Peter and he's helping me navigate. Cheers

Hi, its robin. I just need to vent a little. I feel so unsafe and depressed. Last week something happened and that made me want to pull away from the front but now i get pulled out because we're a mess. Its chaos and i am trying to make us feel somewhat safe.
-------trigger warning, suicidal ideation---------
But i dont want to be here. I can only cry and i just want everything to be over. In my opinion the only way everything is safe is when were not on this earth. But i know i have to keep us safe. But is just so hard.
--------end trigger warning ----------

I feel so depressed. I dont know what to do about it.
-robin