I mentioned in my review of 9-1-1 5×16 that I had more to talk about when it came to my feeling regarding the unintentional release of the 5×18 stills early. But this doesn’t really focus too much on the show.
No, this is about the Discord I was on.
Now, I normally wouldn’t talk about this at all, especially since the situation is over and done with (as you will see soon). However, as I have publicly supported this Discord server and talked about it here on my blog, I feel the need to bookend that. I won’t be naming or shaming anyone, just saying “the server” when referring to the server, and vague terms when referring to someone as necessary.
This is be the only time I bring up this topic in such a manner. Following today, if I have any reason to talk about the server, I will be brief and just barely mention it. I just feel it’s important to explain why I’ve been pretty late on posting things for the last couple of weeks. It all directly comes back to this issue.
Before we get to the fateful May 4th, we need to start the story back a bit further.
I haven’t felt comfortable on the server for a while now. Just something felt off. I was noticing that my comments and headcanons were being ignored or cut down. I wasn’t able to bring up an opposing point in a conversation, though others were allowed to push forward their own and those were taken as fact. In particular, I felt like I couldn’t be critical of two characters, both of which I felt were poorly written. But if I said something, I was given all sorts of hell. Or, it was implied that my personal feelings for a character impacted someone else’s headcanon of that character, and that the other person’s headcanon was more important. (Ignoring the fact that as a headcanon, it’s not canon. And at this point, this headcanon won’t be proven as fact anyway, because it seems this character’s time on the show is going to be done as of the finale.)
But I never really said anything about all this. For one, I honestly thought it was all in my head. There’s no way that a bunch of adults would do this, and I didn’t want to whine about it like a child not getting their way. But this had been going from the moment I stepped up into a moderation role, and seemed to kick up when I stepped back. (Which… I never mentioned on here, but my decision to accept the role led me to be gaslit to hell by someone I’d considered a friend, and me stepping away was seen as a betrayal to that person’s friends. It was all around a bad situation.)
Around the time I got good news for my job search, I decided that at the end of the season, I would be leaving the server. Yes, that would end up being a six week wait, but I figured that was the smartest thing to do. I wanted to see the season out. I was also trying to break my longest instance of writer’s block that I’ve had for a while, and I was hoping with the support of these people, I would be able to do so.
Things continued downhill pretty rapidly. My comments on episodes would be ignored, but then brought up verbatim by others and enjoyed. When I posted about the job search, that was ignored, until someone two hours later would bring up the same subject, and conversation would ensue. When I had a personal thing happen with my family (referenced on this blog, I’m not going into it), I got a “that sucks” message, then the conversation immediately shifted away to something complete different. (And just so it’s known, I always would make sure to post my comments or whatnot in the correct locations on the server. This wasn’t a case of me getting things wrong.)
It was becoming very clear that I was on the outside of the group, and the people I had considered to be acquaintances, perhaps even friends, just didn’t care. So, I firmly decided that I would leave on May 16th, or 17th if the conversation regarding the finale was decent.
And then, there were two instances that rapidly changed my mind.
First, immediately following the end of 5×16, everyone was talking about how great the Jonah twist was, and how it was so surprising, and no one could hate it. Well, me being me, viewed the storyline from a different point of view. As I’ve stated elsewhere, I found the storyline to be boring and formulaic, something done many times before. And so I said as such, but I tried to be polite about it. I was immediately and pretty viciously cut down, and flat out told that my wish for a “red herring” storyline was idiotic. Basically, no difference of opinion to the majority.
That was annoying. But like always, I tried to brush it off. I was still just going to deal with it and wait out the rest of the season, but then… May 4th happened.
As I mentioned in my review of 5×16, on May 4th, the marketing team accidentally released the stills for episode 5×18. These stills revealed that the characters featured in danger during 5×17 (confirmed in the promo) would be absolutely fine, or that there is a large time skip between 5×17 and 5×18. While the reveal of these stills already suck, it’s the fact that they were released instead of the 5×17 stills that was truly surprising.
While everyone on the server was cheering over the fact that we got the stills early, I thought of the marketing person who might actually get in trouble for this mistake, and for the casual fans on Twitter who perhaps don’t like to dive deeply into episodes, or pick apart every scene until the meaning of the episode is lost to wild speculation. They might happen upon the stills and have the suspense spoiled. (And it was spoiled, now that I’ve seen 5×17.) When I brought up the Fox employee and the casual fans, I was flat out told to can it. No one cared. I was wrong. And besides, the synopsis had already been released so my comments were “just there to bring the group down, and that wasn’t cool.”
I tried to defend my point, but it was clear that while I actually cared for people, the majority just cared for the show. Nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter that someone could have been reprimanded for once again releasing something relating to 9-1-1 early. It didn’t matter that there were already people making the same comments over on Twitter. Nope. Sucks for them, they should learn to be a part of fandom or get out.
And honestly? This mentality really bothered me. But, once again, I was pretty much about to ignore it.
But something weird happened. We found out that the stills were deleted from the marketing site, then restored, then the 5×17 stills were released. It was pretty clear that, yes, there had been a mistake that Fox was trying to correct, before realizing that the stills were out for everyone, so they might as well just leave them.
I summarized this on the discord (referencing tweets from the 911 News Twitter account. Only to be told that, great the new stills are here, I’m still wrong, just drop the stills and stop talking. And this was coming from a group of people, not just one. Regular members, and members from the various tiers of moderation.
At the same time, I was having a lovely conversation with someone in another part of the server, who was lamenting that they had just left their first server. I told them my philosophy: when it’s time to go, go. There’s a reason that you want to leave, and it’s totally valid. You can miss it, but you won’t enjoy forcing yourself to stay.
Which hit me like a ton of bricks. I was basically being a hypocrite. I was ignoring everything that I was telling this person to do.
So, I left. Without a word, without a trace.
I tried to message the head mod when I left, but the moderation team had their private messaging on lock down. So, I’ve settled for vaguely talking about it in the author note of my first fic in months, as well as two vague posts on Tumblr and Twitter, and now this. I made it very and blatantly clear that I wanted to talk about my issues with the handling of the server privately. There has been no response to those comments. The only comment I’ve received at any point since May 4th was a comment for on my newest 9-1-1 fic, where I was just told to “you do you boo”. I’m still trying to figure out of they were being sarcastic or not…
I’m 1000% aware that if one of them come across my blog and read this, they will argue about every single point. I could put money on it. But this is what happened from my POV.
It’s been a week since I left. The knot that has been my insides has finally eased. I survived watching 5×17 and 3×17 without seeing a myriad of comments, most of which would be people whining that their headcanons were wrong. (AGAIN).
And I have to say? I enjoyed it so much more.
So, in conclusion to this long post, I say this. I’m discord-less and have one foot out of the fandom (at least, publicly). But at the same time, I feel fine. I finally feel like I can publicly talk about characters and storylines without having to keep the words coming out of my mouth respectful.
I feel like myself again. <3
Until next time!
(Quick note: the reviews for 5×17 and 3×17 will be up in the following days. Just needed to get this out first.)
