(Cover image by furrikira) Since last Monday, I’ve been on hiatus from my personal Twitter account (@prpltnkr), and this has given me a lot of time to think about recent events. Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to, after a week of “sleeping on it”. By way of background: Putting things plainly, the month beginning a week or so prior to BronyCon was one of the most dispiriting months of my life. Here’s a brief rundown. I spent much of the run-up to the final BronyCon fighting behind the scenes to get the con to ban a nasty troll, “Vida”, who was using transphobia as a deliberate weapon against non-binary and trans people in the brony community. No matter how much evidence of malfeasance and ill intent I brought to the con staff (pages upon pages of evidence!), it felt like an uphill battle. From what I was told, many powerful people within the con staff— notably including their Security department (!)— fought back hard against the idea, using the con’s rules as justification for not