~there's no such thing as enough

Lessons in Futility (or: When Will the Absurdity End)

There is a saying I grew up with, that “you can’t beat a dead horse.”

Beating a dead horse is more or less a lesson in futility.

Now, I’m pretty sure that the explanation of what that means is obvious but I’ll expand a little further in case it isn’t: you beat a horse to death. It is dead. There is no reason to beat it but for whatever reason, you are compelled to continue to beat the horse. It can’t be any more dead and beaten than it already is, but you don’t see it that way. You’re going to beat that horse until is the most dead, the most beaten it can ever be.

filed under: #h50

wanderlustlover:

(#H50) Right…so…my second ever conversation with Michelle Borth

So the first two, are the two I went to bed on, because they were sent my way by another fan, shortly after their posting. Which, you know, frustrates me. But, then, that’s not surprising. When you have in your hands the physical, imperial evidence that makes someone’s words a lie is hard not to be frustrated. I have write-ups and true to shots of tweets missing now.

I wasn’t going to write about it originally. Because it was too easily proven a lie by at least half of the other posts I’ve written up here, with direct proof.

But the last two, though, are what I woke up to around 9am.

Along with people warning me that she’d tweeted me, again, and linking me to her innocently telling her followers she had no clue why I’d blocked her, because she hadn’t blocked me. Which was a bit gauling given That List I know I’m the first person on, all of whom she blocked, raved happly that she hated the guts of, and threatened to unfollow/block everyone else who was friends with myself or anyone else on it.

So you can bet the first few hours of my day, instead of doing the Assessment I meant to do and prepped for four hours last night, were suddenly spent being engaged by Michelle Borth for Conversation #2.

So. Uh. Yeah. That was…..that. I’m still figuring out how I feel.

In space of over an hour and half the words ‘sorry’ and ‘apologize’ were used six times. All by me. And aside from the one reference to a very generalized forgiveness to everyone who’s ever said or done anything wrong to her, there still hasn’t been a single, sincere, even one line, apology for or recognition of the way she treated me, nor for the other people who were vastly worse treated.

I am opposed to any of these conversations happening in private, because everything before 16 days ago happened and happened under the radar because it was in private, on the downlow, no one knowing about it. I’m not in the least interested or comfortable in entering into that same old pattern.

I will admit I am the most vocal of this bunch on Tumblr (though I’d hazard at least one or two of them are far more vocal on Twitter, I’m just the girl who likes to give you all the proof in clear shots and write it up and answer any question anyone poses me). All of them can speak for themselves, and I hope they get to. Because I was not about to speak for them. I’m not a president or the voice of the people she’s attacked.

But she did make an effort to reach out.

I’m not sure I believe it was sincere and not for saving face, but the truth is I hope (because I’m mortally over-optimistic and don’t know how not to hope for a better tomorrow and better, safer fandom) that she did mean some part of it. We’ll see. I’m incredibly wary given the way things have been ramped up nearly every day for the last two weeks directly by her, and all the proof lying around as recent as four this morning.

But I’ll check back in on this for the world, and for myself, once I’ve seen any actions taken to back up her words where it comes to others on The List. If there is proof and she puts in actual work, with all of the other eight people on the list, and does not simply stop at getting applause about being the bigger person and having tried even if she failed (without putting in any work but the above), I’ll be glad to eat every single one of these words.