TruthTellah

Be hurtful to others? Well, okay, but I'm telling people milkman told me it was okay.

Guys don't forget about Nintendo.

Good call. I like it.

Being confrontational doesn't necessarily mean you are more passionate or more honest. You can defend your position in a way that is thoughtful and constructive. You can respond to criticism in a way that is fair, balanced and that also takes into account that there is another human being at the end of those critiques. Of course, fight mean nastiness with mean nastiness if you wish, but if someone says that they were hurt by something you said, it's best not to automatically jump into attack mode. Again, from personal experience, attacking instead of trying to understand a person often leads to more trouble. Not only that, but if I were the face or voice of a brand I would make certain to put my best foot forward in all of my public dealings. It's not being dishonest, it's trying to put my business and the people that depend on me for food, shelter and employment, at the forefront instead of my own ego. This of course is just my own opinion on what I would want to do, I'm not trying to speak for anyone obviously.

If he's serious about wanting to change and legitimately makes an effort, that's really great and I applaud him for having the strength of character to look at himself that way, come to that conclusion and set himself towards the course of making himself a better person because he doesn't like who he's become. It takes a big person to look at themselves, their flaws, and realize that they want to change.

In my case though, the damage is done for the time being. Avoiding criticizing his character over this because that would be a shitty thing to do towards someone that realizes he's made mistakes, i t's less about what he did and more about the effects from what he did that make me unhappy. I live a thirty minute walk away from the ferry terminal to Seattle, and then it's just a ferry ride and a ten minute walk to the building where PAX is held every year. I do not feel safe going there anymore. The whole Dickwolves fiasco has made PAX a... weird place, weird enough to the point that companies like Cards Against Humanity actually put signs on their booths to signal that it is a safe place to run to if you don't feel okay or are being harassed or discriminated against. I haven't been paying much attention to Penny Arcade or PAX since that whole thing, but if some of the fans responded to the transgender stuff he got caught up in the same way they responded to the Dickwolves stuff then I doubly and triply don't want to go back.

And that's really it: As a local trans girl,

I don't feel safe going to PAX as a result of everything that has happened.

I don't think we've reached such a low point as a community where these sort of disclaimers are really necessary. There have been plenty of instances where conversation has generally stayed on topic for several pages, which considering the amount of users on the site is quite a feat. We even got over the Patrick bashing in every article which is nothing short of a miracle.

And as I write this I see it has already derailed the conversation into needless territory. Here's hoping that the coming year will be less rocky for "Gabe" and "Tycho" (don't know their real names off-hand)