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[Alex Ayres]

The city is better off.

^^^ This is what's wrong with the community, not people like Alise.

Words like this prove the people who choose to leave are the ones who are better off. They don't have to deal with needless and senseless cruelty anymore.

[Greyce]

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if you don't want to hear it. If you're so upset with everyone in the city, you can get on one of those buses and leave too. Complaining and shaming, which is what you're doing, isn't going to miraculously bring around change.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” -Greek Proverb.
If you want to see a change you need to start it. Don't sit there and point fingers, don't throw a 500 word fit. Change your attitude. Spread positivity and growth.

[Vex]

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if you don't want to hear it. If you're so upset with everyone in the city, you can get on one of those buses and leave too. Complaining and shaming, which is what you're doing, isn't going to miraculously bring around change.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” -Greek Proverb.
If you want to see a change you need to start it. Don't sit there and point fingers, don't throw a 500 word fit. Change your attitude. Spread positivity and growth.

All of that.

Instead of assuming it’s “needless and senseless cruelty,” you should perhaps look into why people have that opinion of her. If someone’s tried to slip into every bed possible, never taken no for an answer, and was utterly incapable of defining/accepting boundaries with people, perhaps the ire is earned.

Work on fixing the problem instead of whining about the repercussions.

[Amaya_Shannis]

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if you don't want to hear it. If you're so upset with everyone in the city, you can get on one of those buses and leave too. Complaining and shaming, which is what you're doing, isn't going to miraculously bring around change.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” -Greek Proverb.
If you want to see a change you need to start it. Don't sit there and point fingers, don't throw a 500 word fit. Change your attitude. Spread positivity and growth.

Not only all of this....

Self-righteous indignation is fine, but you wield that indignation with all of the subtleness of a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat.

And you change nothing, Ayres, when you know one side of the story, but not both and, thus, cannot find the truth

[Arallara]

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if you don't want to hear it. If you're so upset with everyone in the city, you can get on one of those buses and leave too. Complaining and shaming, which is what you're doing, isn't going to miraculously bring around change.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” -Greek Proverb.
If you want to see a change you need to start it. Don't sit there and point fingers, don't throw a 500 word fit. Change your attitude. Spread positivity and growth.

All of that.

Instead of assuming it’s “needless and senseless cruelty,” you should perhaps look into why people have that opinion of her. If someone’s tried to slip into every bed possible, never taken no for an answer, and was utterly incapable of defining/accepting boundaries with people, perhaps the ire is earned.

Work on fixing the problem instead of whining about the repercussions.

Not only all of this....

Self-righteous indignation is fine, but you wield that indignation with all of the subtleness of a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat.

And you change nothing, Ayres, when you know one side of the story, but not both and, thus, cannot find the truth

May I just say that this is one of the moments that I am actually proud to be a part of this city? It is beautiful to see people actually considering that the person saying something potentially hurtful has a real reason to be doing so. Maybe it shows that there is a potential for everyone to look at various sides on other issues too.

For what it is worth, it is sad that Alise potentially left people behind who are now suffering. It is also sad that she left the impression that she did for others who either did not know her as well, or maybe more accurately, in the same way. Hopefully everyone can find a way to make the peace they need with the situation.

[Julia]

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if you don't want to hear it. If you're so upset with everyone in the city, you can get on one of those buses and leave too. Complaining and shaming, which is what you're doing, isn't going to miraculously bring around change.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” -Greek Proverb.
If you want to see a change you need to start it. Don't sit there and point fingers, don't throw a 500 word fit. Change your attitude. Spread positivity and growth.

All of that.

Instead of assuming it’s “needless and senseless cruelty,” you should perhaps look into why people have that opinion of her. If someone’s tried to slip into every bed possible, never taken no for an answer, and was utterly incapable of defining/accepting boundaries with people, perhaps the ire is earned.

Work on fixing the problem instead of whining about the repercussions.

Not only all of this....

Self-righteous indignation is fine, but you wield that indignation with all of the subtleness of a barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat.

And you change nothing, Ayres, when you know one side of the story, but not both and, thus, cannot find the truth

May I just say that this is one of the moments that I am actually proud to be a part of this city? It is beautiful to see people actually considering that the person saying something potentially hurtful has a real reason to be doing so. Maybe it shows that there is a potential for everyone to look at various sides on other issues too.

For what it is worth, it is sad that Alise potentially left people behind who are now suffering. It is also sad that she left the impression that she did for others who either did not know her as well, or maybe more accurately, in the same way. Hopefully everyone can find a way to make the peace they need with the situation.

We could sit here and nitpick peoples feelings and words to death, that is one thing that this city does well. In every capacity.
In an attempt to see one side of the truth or the other. Essentially telling someone that they are not justified is, in fact taking away apart of their personality.

So while we are on the morality verse's immorality issue that stems from this kind of ignorance. We must ask ourselves, if we are truly seeing both sides of the story.
Not to long ago, I was railing at the fact that I wasn't allowed to have a grudge of an unpopular opinion of someone, because the masses deemed it rude or bullying.

Because in fact we are immortal, we feel things more keenly or deeply than others when we do decide to feel.
So while you Alex, may feel one sort of way, and that's okay, it's also okay for Stryker to also feel the way he does. Each for your own reasons, in their own due course.

I don't think it's wrong in either point, except for you Alex to point out that what Stryker is feeling is wrong. You are not the morality police, however you could be a voice of reason if you were more informed on things, and people; but that by far is a mark of your own ignorance. I don't say that to be mean by any ill intention. It's just a personal flaw, that I see in many of your posts here in this paper.

If you truly want to do better, as it was mentioned above, build people up, support them, put past grievances behind you, and grow.

You could, and I see this. Perhaps to a fault of my own... you could be a decent voice of reason. I see you trying to do that, but not you're not quite there yet.

[Gypsy]

I go take a nap and have been gone for a months and I see nothing has changed.

[Alex Ayres]

So what you're all saying is:


It's okay for Stryker to publicly share his opinion that the city is better off without her, but I should be ridiculed and called names for publicly sharing my opinion that using that sort of language hurts the fabric of our society?


None of you have to agree with my opinion, but just like he has the right to share his, I have the right to share mine.

Do you want to know what the difference is?

I didn't fault Stryker. I didn't call him names. I didn't say he was in some way a bad person for his belief. My gripe was with the words used, the tactic of going out of your way to say something negative about someone for no reason other than to be cruel.


And there's no world where going to someone's obituary and saying the world is better off without her isn't needlessly and senselessly cruel. She's not here to see that comment. The only people that will see that message and be affected by it are the people left behind. The people trying to cope with the fact that they lost a loved one. People who Stryker has probably never spoken a word to.

So yes. It is needlessly and senselessly cruel. And yes, he does have his right to share his opinion on Alise after her passing. And yes. I also have the right to share mine.

And if you want to call me "the morality police" or "self righteously indignant" or assume because I'm sharing my opinion I'm not also actively working on ways to better things in ways you can't and won't ever see or understand, that's fine.

But I'd encourgage you to consider how sharing your opinions on my opinion (in fact, some of you chose to share your opinion on me, not my opinion) is any different than my sharing my opinion on Stryker's words.

Regardless, thank you for your thoughts and opinions. I'm always happy to see people exercise their right to speak freely on any topic, even if I don't agree with them or particularly like them.


ETA: words after Stryker's. My opinion wasn't on his opinion (or him). It was on his words and how they affect people in our community who are currently in our community, not those who have passed and will never see the words that were written. I don't have any opinion on Stryker or his beliefs.

[Greyce]

I'm sure you're not surprised, but I'm going to disagree.

I have the same problem with your current response as I did with the first, which prompted my own.
It's your clear and deliberate generalization of "the community", "all" of us. All against one. This is coming off as victimization and I don't agree with it. I don't know, speaking as genuinely and honestly as possible, who you were appealing to while blaming all of us.

Even after that, I see that some people have stated that you have great ideas, and they come from a good place. The "gripe was with the words used".

Your delivery here was inflammatory, just like the comment you reacted to. You're grieving, and I understand that this is a hard time for you. This is not an easy event to cope with and you might need someone or something to blame. "The community" is a big target, and you're going to isolate yourself by going after it.

What I was saying, before others tacked on, was that if you want to change what you perceive as being wrong with the environment and society around you, then you have to bring that change. You chose to take what was said and come here, to a place that is literally titled 'SOAPBOXES', to vent your outrage and say that those who leave us are better off for it.

You could have responded differently, and it might have garnered a different reaction. You could have taken the opportunity to remind people that an obituary is a place for remembrance and mourning. You could have spoken privately with the individual involved to explain that it hurt you to read that, and while he is entitled to feel that way, you would prefer it be removed. You could have responded by opening up about your grief to appear to those who have also felt it. To start a kind of courtesy that will prevent this from happening in the future.

But you did none of those things. You took up arms, you came here, created this thread, and pointed fingers.

While inconsiderate, I don't think Stryker's post was cruel. The difference between inconsideration and cruelty is the intent. I don't think it was said with the intent to hurt those left behind by Alise, but I also don't agree with the fact it was done in the first place. We have a WAYT thread for that reason. Had you started a movement to keep negative and painful posts out of obituaries, without pointing fingers and throwing blame, I would have supported you.

Maybe that's worth a moment to think about.

I'm sorry for your loss.

[Alex Ayres]

First of all, thank you for your response and approaching this in a reasonable way. I just wanted to address each point separately. I don't wholly disagree with you, but I think there are some things worth expanding on.

It's your clear and deliberate generalization of "the community", "all" of us. All against one. This is coming off as victimization and I don't agree with it. I don't know, speaking as genuinely and honestly as possible, who you were appealing to while blaming all of us.

Actually, I think by using the word "community" I am actually speaking to a smaller selection of people than most people are when they generalize and use the word "city". I've been actively trying to stop using the word "city" because there are probably so many humans and supernaturals in this city who don't even know what goes on in this paper or in the streets and go about their lives none the wiser, and wouldn't care if they did know.

And when I said "all of you" I meant the people who responded to the thread, because you all had one thing in common: You took what I said and made it about something it wasn't. Every comment (except Gypsy's) made the assumption that I posted what I posted because I was upset or hurt by what Stryker said about Alise. They made this thread about something emotional and personal, when that's not what was intended. And that may have partly been my fault.

When I said "this is what's wrong with the community" I didn't mean that the community is only negative and wrong. I just mean that this specific behavior, this specific act, is a facet that is wrong with the community. I do realize now that to say "this is what's wrong" makes it sound like this is the only thing that's wrong, and it isn't. But I also don't mean that the community is strictly wrong, evil, cruel, etc. etc.

I should have said "this is one of the things that's wrong with the community." And that I stand by. Such acts are one of the things wrong with the community.

In trying to be succinct, people misunderstood the post to be about my feelings and emotions towards Alise and/or Stryker, when that couldn't be further from the truth, and I misspoke in saying "this is what's wrong with the community."

To me, it was clear what I was referring to because I specifically said "words like this prove..." but maybe that wasn't enough. I take the fault for any misunderstanding concerning those things.

Your delivery here was inflammatory, just like the comment you reacted to. You're grieving, and I understand that this is a hard time for you. This is not an easy event to cope with and you might need someone or something to blame. "The community" is a big target, and you're going to isolate yourself by going after it.

My delivery was not meant to be inflammatory and I'm not trying to blame anyone for anything. In fact, who committed the act and who they were talking about isn't even relevant to the point I was trying to make. Regardless of who said it and who it was said about, I would have made this point. I've seen it happen on many an obituary, from people I don't like to people that I loved, and every single time I thought it was something that reflected negatively on our community as a whole and something that drives people out and stops people from coming. This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

What I was saying, before others tacked on, was that if you want to change what you perceive as being wrong with the environment and society around you, then you have to bring that change. You chose to take what was said and come here, to a place that is literally titled 'SOAPBOXES', to vent your outrage and say that those who leave us are better off for it.

This is the part of your initial statement that had me answer all of the responses in the way I did. In every single response, either an assumption was made about what I was doing (for example, you flat out said I was "shaming" Stryker, and I wasn't, as stated above), or people were calling me names ("morality police" and "self righteously indignant") for reasons that were so far off the original reason from what I posted.

Every response after yours, made the assumption that what I said was in defense of Alise. That I was upset with Stryker for saying mean things about Alise. That if I knew Stryker's side, maybe I wouldn't have attacked him. Literally every person had a reference to "both sides of the story."

I've already stated that neither side of the story is relevant in what I am speaking out against, so I won't belabor the point.

Here, again, you say that I came to vent my outrage, which, again, is an assumption. I don't feel outraged by what Stryker said to Alise. I don't feel anything towards it. What I feel is what I've stated many times at this point: That the act that was committed is a negative one for our community and drags us down.

You could have responded differently, and it might have garnered a different reaction. You could have taken the opportunity to remind people that an obituary is a place for remembrance and mourning. You could have spoken privately with the individual involved to explain that it hurt you to read that, and while he is entitled to feel that way, you would prefer it be removed. You could have responded by opening up about your grief to appear to those who have also felt it. To start a kind of courtesy that will prevent this from happening in the future.

But you did none of those things. You took up arms, you came here, created this thread, and pointed fingers.

While inconsiderate, I don't think Stryker's post was cruel. The difference between inconsideration and cruelty is the intent. I don't think it was said with the intent to hurt those left behind by Alise, but I also don't agree with the fact it was done in the first place. We have a WAYT thread for that reason. Had you started a movement to keep negative and painful posts out of obituaries, without pointing fingers and throwing blame, I would have supported you.

Maybe that's worth a moment to think about.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Here, I do disagree. Cruelty isn't only doing something with the intention of harming, but doing something and not caring whether or not it harms anyone.

I wanted to publicly state that I thought that the act that was committed is one of the things wrong with the community, and a small part of the reason that it has stagnated. Then, people chose to focus on something that wasn't the point of my statement and here we are now. Maybe I should have expanded on my post, but I thought that specifying that it was "words like this" that "prove the people who choose to leave are the ones who are better off" clarified that my issue wasn't with Stryker, but his words. The act committed.

Again, I don't know Stryker, so I couldn't say if this was characteristic of him or a one off or anything, so I wouldn't shame him or make fun of him or insult him.

I wouldn't do those things anyway if I did know him, just vehemently and publicly tell him that his actions are cruel (if he repeatedly did cruel things).

In trying to make up for the lack of clarity in my attempt to be succinct, I've probably over corrected and become too verbose. I apologize for that.

And yes, it's worth more than a moment to think about for the future.

Thank you.