Fat Pigeons

At the top of this post is a picture. It is a stick figure. It says: “Hello. I am the prophet Muhammad.”

The drawing is crude. It could be of anyone. The picture is not a caricature. There is no judgement attached to it.

However, the word-bubble attached to it makes clear, explicitly and absolutely, that it is a drawing of the prophet Muhammad.

This is my line in the sand.

If you are scared of killers, I am not. I am an atheist, and I am willing to die for my beliefs.

There are people in the world who believe that drawing or publishing an image of the Prophet is blasphemous and should be punishable by death.

I have done both. This is my line in the sand.

Some years ago, I had a minor entanglement with Alex Dally McFarlane and the notable hatemonger known as Requires Hate (also known as Winterfox, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, and too many other aliases to mention here), where they bullied a friend of mine off of Twitter and very nearly out of fandom altogether for the crime of Not Being Anti-Racist Enough.

So proud was MacFarlane of this feat, that she crowed about it on Twitter (tweet since deleted) and in a blog post on her own site which – at the time of this writing – is still up. (In case it should mysteriously disappear at some point in the future, here’s a copy from The Wayback Machine.)

As mentioned in the comments, the tweets MacFarlane presents are quite one-sided, and she tells a wee porkie about the number of people who confronted her for bullying. Alas, I didn’t screencap the whole conversation at the time, as like most of the people involved, I simply blocked and moved on, figuring – to quote MacFarlane’s own words to me – Not interested in working with idiots.

However, things have recently started to come to light suggesting that this was not simply an isolated incident.

It seems that MacFarlane and Requires Hate have a track record of attacking women on the Internet. Here’s another tale of their methods. And another.

Should you wish to go deeper down the rabbithole, Laura Mixon has a very fine overview of Requires Hate’s output over the last ten or more years.

These are not just isolated incidents. Many other people are now discovering that they, too, were bullied by Requires Hate, often abetted by MacFarlane. Many of them didn’t realise it was a campaign of deliberate hatred, and often blamed themselves. Others had seen how people who attempted to speak up against Requires Hate were bullied and attacked in literally every venue on the Internet where they appeared. Here’s Requires Hate attacking a rape victim for over six months.

And now, one-by-one, her victims are beginning to speak up. To realise:

No.

It was not me.

It was not my fault.

And I was not alone.

And people are beginning to realise that those who attacked anyone who dared to disagree with them under the battle flags of Justice For The Oppressed and If You Are Not With Us Then You Are Complicit In Oppression might not be doing it because they believed in the causes they espoused. Requires Hate, for example, has been sending death threats to people who disagreed with her for years before cloaking it in the flag of social justice.

And now all the karmic justice that has been piling up behind her has finally caught up. The mills of god grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.

If you’ve been harassed by Requires Hate, you may want to contact Laura with details. As Laura says, “BS/RH’s targets need to know that they are heard and believed.”

Each person who reveals their story makes it easier for the next person to reveal theirs.

It’s often said that sunshine is the best disinfectant.

Let us bring some sunshine into the dark corners of this world.

I was dating someone a while back. Doesn’t matter who.

It ended.

Shortly afterwards I started receiving emails from sockpuppet accounts on an online dating site which we both frequented. It was easy enough to tell who they were from, because after a few how-are-you your-profile-looks-interesting getting-to-know-you exchanges, they would make the same claim as the person whom I’d been dating: specifically that all of my female friends were whores and cunts, and that I was having sex with all of them.

Also that I was going to get what was coming to me. That was new.

One I particularly remember, because it ended with the words “We know where you live.”

It got to, I think, about three of these before I’d had enough and reported it.

Around this time Housemate Matt came home one day shocked and surprised because someone had thrown a stone at him in the street. He never did see who or find out why. It may have been unrelated. But I have my suspicions.

The last interchange I had with this person was via another sockpuppet account, this time purporting to be an old male friend. This time that someone I was seeing was ugly, and that they would see me in Leeds, where I was going for a conference.

Needless to say this old male friend didn’t exist.

At this point I’d had enough and spent a few hours looking up the law, and sent this to the latest sockpuppet.

Hi [REAL NAME REDACTED]

You’re probably not aware of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, as amended by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Here’s a helpful link. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-change-to-the-protection-from-harassment-act-1997-introduction-of-two-new-specific-offences-of-stalking

You may be particularly interested in reading the guidelines on sentencing on that page.

You’re probably also not aware that your IP address, which tracks the computer you’re on, is recorded by [DATING SITE] whenever you access the website. 

Get help. Do not pull this shit again.

The response from “jamessprat” was as follows:

I think you meant this for someone else, but will say hello in Leeds.

The harassment stopped, and I’ve never heard from them or their sockpuppets again. Which is all for the best. And, needless to say, the mysterious Mr Sprat did not turn up to say hello in Leeds.

During this time, I thought to myself that this, in some small way, must be what it’s like to be a celebrity on the Internet.

It was only a couple of days afterwards that I realised that wasn’t quite right, and the following was closer to the truth:

This, in some small way, must be what it’s like to be a woman on the Internet.

M’brother Rafe taught at East 15 Drama School on something called The Project.

It’s a big part of their training, and basically involves a metric shit-tonne of research, followed by an in-depth week-long semi-improvised residential workshop where you will be in character almost all week long. It’s completely immersive, and if you’re interested in how to merge yourself into a character completely is an experience unlike any other.

Everyone I’ve spoken to who’s been through the training has said it’s helped them as an actor, and most have said that it was the high point of their training.

Also that it was physically and emotionally draining, and not something to go into lightly.

He and Kelly Golding have teamed up to make the training available for those outside a drama school for the first time.

The training is for professional actors only – you need to have been to a drama school or have half a dozen paid gigs under your belt even to apply.

Basically, this is a postgrad course for actors. There are no workshops, showcases, or films made as a result of this. It is purely and simply an opportunity to get new tools to help make you a better actor, without the pressure of public performance.

The cost for nine days of training is a heavily-discounted £550.

Find out more and apply on the Red Table website.

Ages ago, I made a Final Draft Template for Stage Plays.

People keep asking for a copy, so here it is.

Stage Play

Just add it to your Final Draft Templates (or double click on it to open it) and, voila!

This version is for FD8. I may have an older version for 7 lurking around somewhere. Ask if you need it and I’ll try to dig it out.