Personal Update

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Hey everyone!

I thought I owed everyone, especially the folks in AARland, my home and birthplace here on the fora, a bit of an update on what's going on with my life and how it's impacting things here. This is also a bit of a preëmptive 10th anniversary as a moderator post.

Obviously I've always been one to come and go as I fancy, I'm pretty flighty and have a tendency to start and abandon projects pretty quickly, and that is probably very annoying to everyone. I'm not here to say that's over, I have always been like that. I love projects and I loathe projects. I cycle through them pretty quick. Some are much more long-term, and others are really just trists and flings with other hobbies. If you know me outside of the forum you know my many ongoing projects:

1. I am a long-time fan of Detroit City FC and I participate in many events as well as going to all home games of the club. Obviously 2020 has wrecked that for the most part but it is still a major focus of my life and I devote quite a bit of attention to it.
2. My writing. I am still writing a 4-part book series that is inching toward completion I swear. Books 1 and 2 are done and ready for a final pass of continuity edits (mostly ripping out unfinished threads) and copy edits. Book 3 is undergoing the penultimate edit before it goes to beta readers. Book 4 is on draft 2. I suspect editing and draft 2 will complete sometime next year.
3. Football! Soccer! I run a co-ed rec team with some of my closest friends. We are currently in the process of being not able to play but also getting new equipment and a new sponsor, so I've been busy dealing with that.
4. Charity. I don't talk about my charity work, as I feel charity done in public isn't charity, it's "PR", but they do - unfortunately - take up a lot of time and mental faculty. Especially when delivering ews of a setback as was the case today.
5. Moderating! That's right! This forum takes up a large part of my emotional time and effort. February of 2021 will mark my tenth anniversary as part of the staff. January of 2022 will mark ten years as a full moderator. December of 2023 will mark my twentieth year on the forum as a member! it is crazy how the time has flown by.

All the above in one way or another, plus many unspoken things, impact my ability and willingness to moderate or how much time I dedicate to moderating. In the end, I moderate out of a sense of community and - yes - even a small amount of pettiness to the "haters" who I do have and I do see the reddit threads, my pretties. This year has been particularly rough as a moderator, and so my willingness to commit the same amount of time as I had in the past has waned slightly. But I do keep a careful eye on things, especially my beloved AARland, which is why I am posting this here, and not in, for example, the general discussion board. So I am glad many of the community-maintained projects are running smoothly, and do remember that you can always ping me with an @ or via DM. I am always happy to lend a hand, even if I'm a bit older and slower than I was before.

Lastly, and I think most importantly - especially for those of you who are thinking of joining for the holiday cocktail hour - I have made a very big life change recently. For those of you who don't know, I live outside Detroit, Michigan, and we've been under a stay-at-home order of varying effectiveness, which means I now work from home full time. I've elected to use this time away from the office to come out as a trans woman and begin medically and socially transitioning. Some of you might've have noticed some weirdness around my profile, but it was not something I was ready to share this broadly. However, I've been out on social media and my website since August, socially out since November, and will finish coming out at work in January. For the interested, my pronouns are she/her/hers. I am currently working on changing my legal name, but my forum moniker will remain as misspelled and misleading as always. If you have any questions and are capable of approaching in good faith, I am always happy to talk about transitioning, or the facts of life for trans folk.

Anyway, that's a lot off my chest. I'm going to cook dinner with my wife and I hope to see some more folks sign up for the cocktail hour! Cheers.

 

[Director]

Bravo! May truth give you peace and joy in the new year!

I also hope you find acceptance, but if you don't - well, then as my mother used to say, you need a better class of friends.

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Bravo! May truth give you peace and joy in the new year!

I also hope you find acceptance, but if you don't - well, then as my mother used to say, you need a better class of friends.

Thank you. It means a lot, @Director.

Luckily the community I have built around myself in the nine years since moving to Detroit have been absolutely amazing and supportive. I am very loved here. It was actually my weekly friend meeting that gave me the idea for the cocktail hour.

 

[DensleyBlair]

As @Director says, Bravo! and all the best to you for the new year.

(And I do still try to keep the very occasional eye on how Detroit are doing after you first introduced me to them many many years ago. I can’t claim to be entirely assiduous in this so long as Aston Villa keep putting me through the wringer every week, but they are there still in my mind )

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

As @Director says, Bravo! and all the best to you for the new year.

Thank you. <3

(And I do still try to keep the very occasional eye on how Detroit are doing after you first introduced me to them many many years ago. I can’t claim to be entirely assiduous in this so long as Aston Villa keep putting me through the wringer every week, but they are there still in my mind )

Haha. Ah ol' Villa. A name of great esteem to this Toon fan.

Glad you've been following us. We've had quite the run under the new Gaffa. Just wish I could've been there in person.

 

[RossN]

Congratulations and I wish you all the best! I know that must have been a difficult decision to be open about something so personal but I admire your bravery!

(Unfortunately I know less than nothing about American football so the best I can say there is "go local sports team!")

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Congratulations and I wish you all the best! I know that must have been a difficult decision to be open about something so personal but I admire your bravery!

Thank you! It's been very scary at times, but very rewarding as well.

(Unfortunately I know less than nothing about American football so the best I can say there is "go local sports team!")

Oh, we're talking about football-football. The sawker, if you will.

 

[coz1]

My private comments to you remain my public comments to you. Find your voice, my friend! Frankly, I'm more interested in your negative comments on reddit! I did 5 years under the traces and only got one off site place angry at me!

I think the best way to truly comment is a line from a film (my favorite medium)..."Choose life."

 

[Idhrendur]

Thanks for your many years of helping this be a pleasant place to hang out.

And thanks for trusting us enough to share about your transition!

 

[DensleyBlair]

Haha. Ah ol' Villa. A name of great esteem to this Toon fan.

Were meant to have played each other last weekend, of course. Until you-know-what got in the way.

Glad you've been following us. We've had quite the run under the new Gaffa. Just wish I could've been there in person.

Aye, outside of my own very amateur exploits on the pitch, it’s been far, far too long since I’ve been to a proper game. Things are starting to open up in a very limited way in some areas over here, but not near me. Seeing premier league stadiums “full” of 2k odd fans is… surreal to say the least.

 

[loup99]

Congratulations, I join others who have already posted to wish you all the best! And thank you once more for all the work you put into moderating these forums.

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Thanks everyone!

 

[Nikolai]

Well done to yourself @Mr. Capiatlist ! I almost wrote "man" there, may I ask forgiveness in advance for such follies. I'm happy to hear you've found your voice/calling, and wish you the best for the future!

 

[Chilango2]

My congrats to you and my well wishes.

I'm just some random internet person, but you have my full fledged support.

Live your best life and be you, unapologetically.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

First of all, congratulations on your transition progression. It's been a rough few years for trans people everywhere (when has it not been?) but my own country seems to have taken this as the last hill to die on in terms of progressive queer politics, and honestly it often feels like the internet is not much better...still, aarland seems mostly chill and safe for all peoples (which is odd considering our collective obsession with war, conquest and imperial ambitions...and that seems if you aren't a ck player and thus into even darker stuff).

Your point about the cocktail event finally made it click that this is going to be a video thing too. For some reason thought it was going to be text based. Now that is unconscious bias in action...

 

[GangsterSynod]

First of all, congratulations on your transition progression. It's been a rough few years for trans people everywhere (when has it not been?) but my own country seems to have taken this as the last hill to die on in terms of progressive queer politics, and honestly it often feels like the internet is not much better...still, aarland seems mostly chill and safe for all peoples (which is odd considering our collective obsession with war, conquest and imperial ambitions...and that seems if you aren't a ck player and thus into even darker stuff).

Your point about the cocktail event finally made it click that this is going to be a video thing too. For some reason thought it was going to be text based. Now that is unconscious bias in action...

Yes, it's strange, but AARland seems in many ways to be the most casually progressive part of the forums. i wonder if it's more down to the community that's built up over time or whether it's due to the nature of AAR commenting itself. You know, is it that engaging with the writers of stuff you like on a semi-regular basis make you more likely to be cool with them as humans, or do the rude people* just not feel welcome to be rude here?


Also, why the heck do you guys have a higher percentage of trans-exclusionary people on your left/social liberal center? Over here, TERFs and such are loud, naturally, but pretty negligible in terms of numbers, but you guys seem to have way more for some reason, in addition to all the "PC culture gone mad!!!" guys that we have too. And, before I forget, best wishes @Mr. Capiatlist! May everything go smoothly and may you run into as few idiots as possible.

*insert harsher term if desired. I don't really want to break forum rules, even if it's for a good cause.

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

And, before I forget, best wishes @Mr. Capiatlist!

Why thank you.

May everything go smoothly and may you run into as few idiots as possible.

So far it's been going very well. And here on the forums it took a whole four days to get my first hate DM from a sock puppet. But given the vitriol I get just day-to-day, it really wasn't much out of the ordinary.

Yes, it's strange, but AARland seems in many ways to be the most casually progressive part of the forums. i wonder if it's more down to the community that's built up over time or whether it's due to the nature of AAR commenting itself. You know, is it that engaging with the writers of stuff you like on a semi-regular basis make you more likely to be cool with them as humans, or do the rude people* just not feel welcome to be rude here?

Writing is an act of empathy, first and foremost. To do it well, you need to be the sort of person who can understand a wide variety of people, put yourself into their boots, and understand how they walk. So purely looking at a socially conservative/socially liberal dichotomy, a lot of writing types fall into the categories that support people living their purest selves without feeling the need to meddle.

Also I'm a huge bitch and I deal with trouble makers on sight.

Also, why the heck do you guys have a higher percentage of trans-exclusionary people on your left/social liberal center? Over here, TERFs and such are loud, naturally, but pretty negligible in terms of numbers, but you guys seem to have way more for some reason, in addition to all the "PC culture gone mad!!!" guys that we have too.

If you mean the UK, when a certain Irish ex-comedy writer and a certain wizarding world conjurer brought up their own "gender critical" concerns, there were certain groups within the US that put a lot of money behind empowering them, making sure that they were amplified. If you're in the US and it seems eerily similar to the Prop 8 fiasco - it's because it's much of the same people and much of the same tactics working behind the scenes. The so-called LGB Alliance (which has effectively outed itself almost entirely as an anti-LGBT organization at this point) is funded mostly by the Heritage Foundation, which is very openly and purposefully not an LGBT-friendly organization.

I'm not going to wax about it much more, as that's what I have a twitter account for, but needless to say, I have watched the situation in the UK and Ireland very closely, as those were high on my wife and I's list of potential places to move to. (The Republic of) Ireland is fairing slightly better, mostly because their version of the LGB Alliance keeps giving itself away as English and England-based, to much derision from the lovely Irish.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

Also, why the heck do you guys have a higher percentage of trans-exclusionary people on your left/social liberal center? Over here, TERFs and such are loud, naturally, but pretty negligible in terms of numbers, but you guys seem to have way more for some reason, in addition to all the "PC culture gone mad!!!" guys that we have too.

It's a worrying thing, especially because the UK is much more left-leaning so there's more (by default) of these sorts of people spewing this crap.

I'd say generally it's because the UK generally has issues with discrimination because we almost never confront it in a big way...but then again, the push back from other leftists over anti-trans pushers and (more recently) anti-semitic issues dating back to Marxism's earliest days...it may or may not be slowly getting resolved.

idk. Ask Mr Blair, he's a proper communist.

So far it's been going very well. And here on the forums it took a whole four days to get my first hate DM from a sock puppet. But given the vitriol I get just day-to-day, it really wasn't much out of the ordinary.

rawr! Angry sock puppet!

If you mean the UK, when a certain Irish ex-comedy writer and a certain wizarding world conjurer brought up their own "gender critical" concerns, there were certain groups within the US that put a lot of money behind empowering them, making sure that they were amplified. If you're in the US and it seems eerily similar to the Prop 8 fiasco - it's because it's much of the same people and much of the same tactics working behind the scenes. The so-called LGB Alliance (which has effectively outed itself almost entirely as an anti-LGBT organization at this point) is funded mostly by the Heritage Foundation, which is very openly and purposefully not an LGBT-friendly organization.

I'm not going to wax about it much more, as that's what I have a twitter account for, but needless to say, I have watched the situation in the UK and Ireland very closely, as those were high on my wife and I's list of potential places to move to. (The Republic of) Ireland is fairing slightly better, mostly because their version of the LGB Alliance keeps giving itself away as English and England-based, to much derision from the lovely Irish.

Ireland is pretty liberal and currently seems to be enjoying a broad swing to the left, and away from a more Conservative form of Catholicism. We voted in Gay Marriage, lest we forget. My advice would be to avoid Northern Ireland like the plauge. Its the most solidly Conservative area in the UK and pretty heavy on the woman-hating in general (abortion law was forced on them only after their government collapsed).

Otherwise, Brighton is nice LGBT friendly. Manchester. Liverpool. London. Go for a city, basically, and you should be fine....

 

[DensleyBlair]

Also, why the heck do you guys have a higher percentage of trans-exclusionary people on your left/social liberal center? Over here, TERFs and such are loud, naturally, but pretty negligible in terms of numbers, but you guys seem to have way more for some reason, in addition to all the "PC culture gone mad!!!"

I was going to answer with a hunch about how it’s to do with the way that our media is structured, but frankly it depresses me so much and I don’t want to bring that business here so I’ll leave it.

Also I'm a huge bitch and I deal with trouble makers on sight.

And more power to you.

EDIT:

idk. Ask Mr Blair, he's a proper communist.

This appeared while I was typing so I’ll say that if anyone is interested in my hunches about the awful state of the British left, my PMs are open.

 

[Mr. Capiatlist]

Otherwise, Brighton is nice LGBT friendly. Manchester. Liverpool. London. Go for a city, basically, and you should be fine....

Found Newcastle to be lovely and Geordies remain very close to my heart. Of course I was still not out at the time, but I am involved with Newcastle United on social media and they have remained very supportive throughout.