On June 21, an unfamiliar MBer called Sans Orchestre left a comment on the random thread saying that she* had posted before under different aliases but now wanted to return for a fresh start.
Searching the blog and other sources, we discovered that her history went beyond simple changes in alias. We replied that first she should tell other MBers who she had been. Since then we haven’t heard from her or seen her on the blog, so we’ve decided to post that information here.
- Sans Orchestre has posted about 700 comments over four-and-a-half years.
- From December 31, 2005, to June 5, 2007, she posted mostly under the names Bellatrix Lestrange and Necromancer.
- From July 18 to December 27, 2007, she posted as The Invisible Chameleon (identified as Necromancer’s friend from music camp).
- From January 1, 2008, to October 4, 2009, she posted as Faye Beauchamp, who claimed to be a 19-year-old college student at the time she first appeared.
*(We’ve learned that in real life Sans Orchestre is a 17-year-old girl.)
MY HEAD ASPLODE
Yes.
Isn’t that from some Strong Bad Email on the .com of homestarrunner?
Wow. Faye?
Huh. Never would have expected that.
It surprised us, too. We were on the lookout for adults posing as kids, but we didn’t think anyone would try to do the opposite. It seemed pointless. It still does — a lot of work, for what reward?
Well, at least it wasn’t a perverted kind of reward. >.<
i can think of a ton of reasons why a kid would want to pose as an adult, or why someone would want to pretend to be someone they’re not. i mean it doesn’t have to be toward some tangible end, maybe it just made her feel better about herself or made her think that others thought better of her. it would be silly, because we’re all musers here, and there’s almost no age-judging, or really any kind of judging, but if she was starting to think people didn’t like her, or thought she wasn’t being very interesting or something, it would make total sense to her to change her identity.
also, it’s honestly not -that- much work. it’s the internet.
just out of curiosity, did you guys know it was me posting as julia and jade a while back? i forget what thread, but i think we made it sort of obvious :-/ but nobody ever said anything
It’s easy to start pretending to be someone else online, but it must be hard to keep doing it. So much to keep track of! I think I’d get confused and probably bored after a while. Maybe that’s why she stopped.
Ebeth — Are you asking whether the GAPAs noticed your Jadestone/Julia switcheroo? We knew. We thought it was silly, but silliness doesn’t usually bother us.
haha okay good
i was waiting for the big “YOU GUYS ARE SO RIDICULOUS” and then i was like “…wait…they didn’t believe that, did they? :O”
Aww now I thought that was actually JULIA doing it. Silly me!
Did you notice I posted as Julia after?
And it was just silliness.
Oh my god guys I know I’m sooooo ~internet famous~ but must you always try to steal my glory? SIGH.
Wow. Seriously? Similarly to Piggy, Arrfishi and probably everyone else, my mind is blown….
What? Faye? I would never have seen that coming. Most peculiar.
Ditto.
I agree with you and what pretty much what everyone else has stated on this thread – I agree, I never would have guessed. I think I pretended to be a phyte awhile back but I got bored after one or two posts, which was kind of ridiculous. *sigh* Like Robert, it just seems like an awful lot to keep track of, even if you did get the satisfaction from pretending to be younger/older.
I can’t fathom why anyone would want to be – I can see the personal glee in having fooled others, but really, what’s the point? I’ve never pretended to be a ‘phyte, and have had only three names and primarily use this one. This seems more than a bit odd now. Why would she keep up a nineteen-year-old-college-student persona for a year? And how do we know she won’t see this and scamper and never explain to us why?
Please, Faye, if you’re reading this, we’re really confused.
Same.
Wow, I didn’t know Faye was also Bellatrix and Necromancer. And now Sans Orchestre? Hmm. The internet is a strange place.
Wow.
I’m too new to really know any of those, though I remember Faye and think I’ve heard of Necromancer.
Still.
How… peculiar.
Especially because in my head I remember Bellatrix AND Faye, and I wouldn’t have connected them at all. I never remember anyone being mad at her or anything though, so it’s odd to me. Hm.
Well. -shrug-
I’m actually super impressed. And a little bit surprised, because I always thought she was so much older and scarier than me (at least back when she was Necromancer). But seriously. I’ve wanted to do something with aliases and stuff but I’ve always been too chicken. Now I am impressed. That takes a lot of work.
Anyway, I don’t really see why it matters too much. I mean…we’re all Musers here, right? -ducks pies- And it’s the internet. Everyone’s basically just words on a screen anyway–albeit words with personality and ideas–and if some of the personalities and ideas are fictional, that’s OK by me.
I disagree, Alice. I, for one, would be extremely disappointed if you turned out to be some fat, sweaty guy with a laptop in a smelly basement apartment in Hoboken.
I agree with Robert. Although technically everybody is just words and ideas from who-knows-who, I’d still like to think you’re all who you say you are…because I guess that would mean that there’s a true life form behind it all, someone really experiencing what they say they are. And because, of course, I like honest people.
I’m with you, starr. Especially on a blog like this one where finding kindred spirits is such an important part of what makes MuseBlog.
A little silly fooling around is one thing. Even wanting to start with a clean slate is something I can understand. But putting so much effort into deliberately deceiving people you’ve been hanging out with for almost two years is another.
I find this all very sad somehow.
Yes; I think that and Tesseract’s comment both sum this up. Heck, I’ve started with a clean slate (and thankfully nobody seems to remember me as a neophyte, because I was obnoxious).
I think it’s sad that she felt she had to change herself to make herself feel more liked… We’ve made it perfectly clear that we accept everyone here, as long as they have a shred of respect for others.
What I’m interested to know is how we would react if Faye came back. Would we accept her back into our ranks? Would we demand an explanation? I would be slightly wary around her, and perhaps ask politely for an explanation.
Ohh, I was the worst neophyte ever!! I think my record for posts is about… seven? And I would always use chatspeak. I even got told off by Zinc once. I feel so ashamed whenever I read the Off With Their Heads, Part 5 thread. Near the end, though, I started posting better. Ugh, to think… I was the biggest caking wung button I’ve ever met…
This should probably be on the Rants and ‘Plaints Thread, so I think I’ll post it there too. (Sorry for the pointless post… here’s your 50 kilos of chocolate…)
I know that this is the MB and this kind of talk is discouraged, but: LOL.
Ugh, just imagine, a New Jerseyite!
*Kidding,* of course. Roo is from New Jersey and he’s very cool!
Somehow, I feel like this explains a lot. Will Sans Orchestra be continually posting, do you think, or is she done?
I don’t know, Gim. We weren’t trying to scare her off by telling you about her, but I think we might have done that already by asking her to tell you herself.
Out of curiosity, what do you think this revelation explains?
I knew her (as most of the people here did, it seems) only as Faye.
I just feel like, looking back, a 15 year old Faye Beauchamp seems a lot more fitting then a 19 year old one, in regards to the way she acted. It also explains a slightly more unlikely finding of MB for the first time by an eager 19 year old.
When she wrote to us she said she had subscribed to Muse since its beginning, saw a reference to the blog in one of the issues, and decided to see what we were about. That’s not entirely implausible. College students often rediscover favorite things from childhood when they get away from home. Maybe because they’re old enough not to worry about being mistaken for a child. Maybe the associations offer a little comfort for the homesick. Even the official college orientation can be more like summer camp than school. A bunch of girls in my dorm actually became obsessed with coloring books for awhile.
Alright. That does sound reasonable enough.
i went back to coloring books in high school
it did feel like camp for the longest time though. and musically, i remember listening to more classic rock and blues (which was more my childhood music) than i had before.
also disney. but that was also a thing in high school as well. in fact the only time i -didn’t- enjoy disney and coloring books was for a bit in middle school when i secretly loved it but wouldn’t admit it because i was too old for it (which is always a lie, i don’t care what it is, you’re not too old for it)
Now that this came up, I think she’ll be done.
FAYE? FAYE? NO WAY>
Whoa… Faye? That doesn’t seem like Faye… What is this?
I’m so confused.
Sans Orchestre, I for one would appreciate a word of explanation. This is really weird for me–it never even occurred to me that everyone on this site wasn’t who they claimed to be. I know it’s a sort of safe haven for a lot of us, and the idea that people could be meddling around with it for their own amusement is a little hurtful. It also makes me feel a mite less safe posting here (although I still trust the GAPAs not to allow identifying information, of course).
You’re absolutely welcome to post as yourself from now on, but I would like to know why you had all those aliases. Also, if anyone else isn’t who they claim to be, I’d like if they said so now.
I completely agree. (Nice job wording that.) I know that I for one have been totally honest, but the fact that someone else hasn’t is, quite frankly, more than a little alarming.
I guess it’s a wake-up call for all of us, and I really hope Faye explains this somehow.
*sigh* I’ve been waiting for a while to get what I’m about to say off my back, and I guess now’s the perfect time to do so. Here goes…
When I first saw this thread, I had a big reaction, just as I think we all did, but for what I’m assuming to be a completely different reason. Because, to be frank, I was a tiny bit thankful that I was not the only one to play around a bit with the simplicity of changing aliases and the forgiving anonymity the Internet (sometimes) provides. Remember Peace*, originally known as Peace_Pie_The_Beatles_Rock, my alleged cousin? Well, she is not my cousin. Nor is she my friend, or of any sort of other relation to me. In fact, she doesn’t exist at all.
Â
When I first came to the blog, I was–as most neophytes are– horrifyingly clueless and very naïve to the ways in which the blog works. After making my first few posts over a couple days,  I began to feel insecure and embarrassed by everyone’s feedback. I know now that they were all trying to help me, just as they do the other ‘phytes. But our help can be bloody mortifying at times, at least to someone as irritatingly sensitive as I.Â
After a couple days of taking everyone’s advice the wrong way, I quickly created a new character– friendly, obediant, eager-to-learn Silver Lining, conveniently cousins of PPTBR. I weaseled around the fact that we had identical email addresses (and, later, Gravatars) by saying that Peace* had strict parents so I lent her my email address. That was the first of a series of complicated lies I told to retain my dignity on MuseBlog.
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Following Silver Lining’s appearance, I used Peace* as a metaphorical crash dummy, breaking rules as I pleased to see people’s reactions and then following their orders as Silver Lining. It helped me get accustomed to the blog, yes, but it was a stupid way to do such a thing. I slipped up many times (replying as Peace*, for example, to Silver Lining’s posts before they were moderated, etc.) and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the dear GAPAs suspected something like this of me.
Sometime during the summer I got banned from the computer for two weeks due to a personal problem. When I finally returned to the blog, I realised that I was tired of having to always have to change names and keep having  to tell lies. This was also the time I realised that MB is somewhat of a long-term commitment, that we are all truly friends and it’s a real community, something I knew nothing of when I first joined. So I slowly stopped posting as Peace*, hoping that eventually everyone would forget that she ever “existed.” I now consider this to have worked, somewhat, but her being forgotten isn’t making the problem go away.Â
At first I was hesitant (very hesitant) to tell you all this when I saw this thread. The reactions everyone (including myself) had made me nervous, and for a moment I almost clicked out of the browser, hoping it would blow over. But Tesseract’s request for anyone else to reveal themselves was what made me realise that I had to say it.
I want to apologise to each and every one of you, including the GAPAs, for doing such a thing. It was a stupid, selfish thing to do and it’s been bothering me ever since I did it. I realise that I now may no longer be trusted as I have been before because of this, but I swear I never told a single lie as Silver Lining except for things to cover up for Peace* (but what’s to make you trust me for saying that? :-/). I never intended to disrupt the safety of MuseBlog. You all mean so much to me, and lying to you for so long is no way to thank any of you for what you’ve done. MuseBlog is sometimes the only place I feel truly safe and accepted, and I, in part, have slightly sabotaged everyone else’s similar feelings for that.
Thank you for reading all this, if you did. Â
Love,
Silver Lining  Â
I can easily forgive you. I can see how, as a neophyte, this helped you. I really appreciate the fact that you were able come out and say this all so eloquently, as it must have been very hard to do. I’m very glad that you did it, too. Thank you, Silver Lining. Rather than diminishing my trust for you, this has made me trust you more; your message was deep and very heartfelt, I can tell.
Silver Lining,
To be honest, your confession affected me more so than the reveal of Sans Orchestre. Because unlike with SO, I remember both you and Peace* (although Peace* is more of a faded memory, and I dont’ remember en being that bad, just your average ‘phyte, who could’ve fit in quite well–and was even beginning to, I think). Sans Orchestre, however, I only vaguely remember her Faye Beauchamp alias, and in fact was often confused, wondering is that her real name, meaning she’s 18+, or is that an alias that just sounds like it could possibly be real? Because I thought it sounded a bit more like the latter, but presented itself as the former. I guess my “suspicion” of the name was right.
Do I hate you for your subterfuge? No. I like you. You fit in pretty well here. To me, you’re one of those established ‘bloggers, who’s pretty much past that phase where I still think of you as something of a ‘phyte, just because I can remember when you came around. There are several people, who although they are now over their ‘phyte behavior, I still think of as closer to such, just because I still vaguely remember how aggravating some of them were, before they caught on to the general atmosphere. Before long, though, that will have all faded into the background, and they’ll just be X the established ‘blogger, who I know and love.
I do, however, feel sad that you felt you needed to do that. this is not your fault, though, I can see how you might take friendly help as something else, when you’re not familiar with the ‘blog, and it’s generally accepting atmosphere.
And I forget where this was going, but….*shrug* I appreciate you coming forward, I know that that takes quite a bit of courage.
Love,
Luna (almost signed that Michelle….so used to saying Michelle after “love”, lol)
Thanks for telling us, Silver Lining. I appreciate it, as well as the thoroughness of your explanation. I understand why you created Peace* (or I guess why you created Silver Lining, but that’s your actual persona), and yeah, it wasn’t an admirable thing to do, but it’s understandable. We’re a little harsh on ‘phytes sometimes, while they’re still learning the ropes, and that’s something I think we as a community should work on. But anyway, I’m not mad at you in the slightest, and I think it’s really admirable of you to have posted that (because you’re right–I for one had almost forgotten Peace* until you mentioned her). Thanks.
That’s true. I think we all need to be a little more gentle on ‘phyties. A little more pieing and mild-mannered pushing in the right direction, and a lot less yelling.
Can we all try to do that?
No harsh feelings. I remember Peace* a bit. I remember Silver Lining a whole lot more. And I understand. Fitting in on MB isn’t always easy. And you will want to bury your head behind mistakes and start over under a new name. I wouldn’t recommend it. But I certainly won’t hold it against you. Or at least not much.
*brain implodes* Sans Orchestre is Faye Beauchamp is The Invisible Chameleon is Bellatrix Lestrange? Wow.
Silver Lining– I’m glad you’ve said that. I always thought you were really similar, and after “Peace*” stopped posting but I didn’t really “know” you I sometimes thought of you as almost interchangeable, but because most neophytes are terrible in some way or another (but usually improve!
) anything Peace* did must have faded from my memory.
To be perfectly honest, I considered doing it when I was a neophyte, but as I revealed I was Australian with one of my first posts and would probably have let it slip out under another alias, which would naturally cause suspicion, I decided not to.
And to echo what everyone else has said, no, I don’t like you less because of this. I think of you as just another MuseBlogger, and it was good of you to tell us.
Thanks guys, for being so understanding. *hugs* I think I’ll just let anyone who reads that think what they want of me, and I’ll continue to post as I have been before.
Re: “Why did we have to make a whole thread for this?” I agree, to me it was a bit of an extreme to make a whole thread devoted to one person’s experience on the blog. Although it did pose an interesting discussion, I think that there just could have been a thread devoted to discussing the seeming anonymity of MuseBlog and how that could be misused, perhaps. *shrug* It doesn’t bother me much.
P.S. I just realised that I used the word ‘somewhat’ wayyyy too many times in my explanation…
I vaguely remember Peace*, but I definitely remember Silver Lining much, much more, and to be quite frank, I love the Silver Lining that I know. Even though it wasn’t an admirable thing to do, it is admirable that you gave us such a nice explanation, and I definitely think of you as one of the more established MBers – you came before me, so that’s part of it, so I’ve never known you as a phyte, but I still completely forgive you.
Like Luna, I think your confession is what affected me more than SO turning out to be several people. I think part of it was because I don’t think we should be so harsh on the phytes, and this is a perfect example of why. I think that sometimes MB feels a bit like a club, and it can be really hard for phytes to settle in. Obviously we should help them as much as possible, but it makes me a little sad to think that a phyte would feel so overwhelmed that they had to create another persona. :/ I agree that phytes can be annoying sometimes, but it’s still sort of sad that you felt like you had to do that to become accustomed to MB.
Oh, I love the starr that I know too!
And I agree, we should be a little more gentle on the phytes, but I want to point out that it’s also part of my personality to have wanted to create another persona. You see, I absolutely hate doing things with new people that I don’t know without at least one person that I already know and love. This is why I wanted to take my friend to the Kokon, why I hated my Spanish class this year, a multitude of other reasons. Having a “friend” (or in this case, “cousin”) whom I already knew made me feel safer and more relaxed. Does that make sense?
But yes, I think we as a community need to be kinder to the phytes. There’s a definite and obvious hierarchy on MB that even as a ‘phyte I could detect. For example, some of us don’t use the shift key as frequently as they could, and some of us don’t care too much about their spelling and grammar. But the rest of us don’t say anything about it because the chances are that they are ‘higher up’ on the MB hierarchy and we don’t mind at all because we love them. Yet the first thing we often do is bash the phytes for their lack of spelling/grammar/capitalisation skills.
Of course that makes sense! I, too, feel much more comfortable when a friend is nearby when I’m in new situations – and I think most people in general would agree that knowing somebody when you’re new is always a good feeling. (Unless, of course, you don’t particularly like the said person, which has happened to me before.)
I agree. I’ve been a little too harsh on phytes myself, but it’s something I think that I personally am going to work on and should encourage others to do the same. Of course, we should still promote general Muserliness, but personally I believe that part of being Muserly should also mean being nice, kind, and welcoming. I feel like exclusive should not be part of that list.
But then again, that’s probably a discussion for a different thread…
I can definitely forgive you on that. I did a similar thing myself, by making my brother try MB. I sometimes posted under his name, either because he wasn’t posting anything, or because I felt like doing something “SilverLeopard” or “Cyndi”, whichever I was at the time, won’t do.
Don’t worry, Silver Lining. You’re still awesome! I would have done the same thing as a neophyte (had it occurred to me). *hugs*
i am sure many people here have had aliases. to be honest, i see little difference between completely different aliases and a simple change in name, there are so many MBers running around that i can never remember who became who, so to be honest i don’t really care if you’ve used past identities to get accustomed to the blog.
the MB is a place of GROWTH and LEARNINGS. if you settle into one definite person that i can appreciate, that is great and we are cool. if you settle into two different people who are both muserly and fun, that’s cool too. it’s not like anyone is -really- the same person all the time anyway, most people do have slightly different identities for different occasions, because people are layered and not two-dimensional. it is sort of sad that anyone would feel the need for separate identities, rather than just throwing it all into one lovely person, but it is certainly not something i’m about to get upset about.
anyway. i honestly don’t know that this even deserves a whole separate thread, i’m just finding it hard to see it as a huge deal. i know people think of MB as a haven of rainbows and bunnies and eternal honesty and goodness but this is still the internet. heck, this is still -life.- i’m really not that shocked or offended by any of this. maybe i should be, but the solid fact is i’m just not.
“Bunnies” should not be mentioned in the same sentence as the rest of that sentence.
Why does this matter?
People call themselves various things on the internet. People represent themselves in various ways. I seriously doubt that _anyone_ has been “totally honest” – really? you’ve never portrayed yourself as a bit more intelligent than you are? a bit more attractive? more popular? less popular? better loved? more put-upon and woe-is-me?
Does anyone represent themselves the way others see them?
I mean, I get it, it’s drama. And everyone loves drama. But, really, is this such a big deal it’s worth making a thread over?
In some ways, this is one of the things that makes the internet attractive. We spend so much time judging and being judged that it can be nice to have an arena in which you can be whoever you want to be – the physical traits that make it so easy for people to write you off in real life, whether they be how you look or your gender or your age – aren’t present here. And yes, this can lead to trying on different roles, to pretending to be someone you aren’t, but, really, it’s not the end of the world. People lie for various reasons, and, frankly, I don’t feel like Sans Orchestre owes us any explanation or really see why it was necessary to “reveal” this in such a dramatic fashion.
People on here change their names all the time. This really isn’t much more than just another name-change. If someone wants to start fresh, why shouldn’t they?
(also, re: “We were on the lookout for adults posing as kids, but we didn’t think anyone would try to do the opposite. It seemed pointless.” I play an online game, and I did my best to avoid sounding like an average teen [although I didn’t lie about my age if asked]. Very few people respect or listen to teenagers; and someplace like here, where the average age is younger, being a college student is a way to get respect, attention, be heard in a chaotic environment.)
9.1- Ha. Yeah, me too.
But the thing is, that would be creepy, because we’re all kids, or young people anyway, and a kid pretending to be another kid or a slightly older kid among other kids is one thing, whereas an older person pretending to be a kid among kids is vaguely stalker-ish and potentially pedophilic.
Would you be disappointed if I turned out to be a fourteen-year-old girl in the Midwest pretending to be a sixteen-year-old girl on the West Coast? With roughly the same writing style and personality really, since if you think about it, Necromancer and The Invisible Chameleon were a lot alike in a lot of ways, and I think Faye Beauchamp was pretty similar too–I can’t entirely remember, which makes me feel kind of bad, but that was a time when I was on MuseBlog less, and she wasn’t really on writing threads At All.
15- Fully agreed. Well said.
Also, a lot of you are kind of taking for granted the idea that she didn’t feel good enough about herself to be herself or something…I don’t know. Has she told us that? What if it’s just an experiment? Or a writing exercise? Or something. I know I’ve tried to write diaries pretending to be someone else. I’ve lied about my name to people just to see if they believe me. Who doesn’t want to be someone else occasionally? Perhaps it’s not entirely fair to lie about your entire identity and you can lose a lot of people’s trust that way, but…it’s the internet. And Sans Orchestre isn’t a creepy stalker, but a teenage girl who hasn’t really done any physical or emotional harm to anyone (I don’t think? Are you all traumatized and in need of therapy?), so all’s well that ends well. If anyone’s hurt and traumatized, it’s probably Sans Orchestre because of all this fuss about her identity. And maybe I’m a little bit less inclined to believe her when she tells us who she is For Sure, but that’s my own suspicion acting up.
I agree with Ebeth and Lizzie in that I don’t find this to be a big deal. Maybe I’m jaded from spending a lot of time on the less sunshine-and-rainbows-and-Care-Bears parts of the intarwebz, but I don’t get the drama. Do I find such a long and complicated charade to be a waste of time? Sure. I wouldn’t have done it–too much work. But am I mad or scared or disappointed or upset that SO/Faye/Necromancer/whoever did what en did? Nah. En did it for the lulz, and I don’t have a problem with that. Life goes on, filled with rainbows or not. Like I said, I’m probably just more inured to life on the rough streets of the internet than most MBers, but this seems neither odd nor negative to me.
*shrugs*
I am a little ticked, and a little surprised, but after the shock wore off I agree with Lizzie and Ebeth… It’s a bit disappointing, but I guess I have to lose my naïveté someday and it may as well be sooner rather than later.
This thread has sort of inspired me. I feel like it’s time to make a confession. Here goes *deep breath*
Ebeth is a fake. My real name is Elizabeth. That is what’s on my birth certificate. I am sorry.
*gasp* OH NOES, really?!?!?!
I guess also since we’re using this thread as a “confess your misrepresentations” type of deal, I should tell you guys: My name isn’t really Lizzie. Lizzie is a pseudonym. I’m really Elizabeth.
Sorry, guys. I won’t deceive you again.
for the record, I thought of the post before ebeth
yes she was just slooow
20, 21- Holy cake, I’ll need to think these over.
I guess I should come clean too. MB… my name isn’t actually Piggy. I’m not even a pig, I’m a human.
LIES!!!!!
NO WAY. *faints*
My name isn’t Ducky, either, and I’m not a duck.
Nooooooo!
I’m truly devastated and disappointed in you, Ducky. I think I might go cry. My whole entire life is a lie….
*goes to ponder the meaning of life*
What! I thought for sure…*shakes head in disbelief*
You’re not a cute little pink anthropomorphic pig with opposable thumbs?
Cute, possibly. Opposable thumbs, yes. Anthropomorphic, sure. Little, sorta. But pink and a pig? I’m afraid not.
In fact, my name isn’t muselover, and
I don’t love MuseI’m not really a blue triangle with a hole in the middle.20&21-
Oh my god guys
I feel so… deceived
I mean I can forgive you probably but, man, I just need time to think about this.
20 & 21- You’re BOTH Elizabeth! You never told me you were the same person! I just can’t believe it.
*is laughing* *hard*
I… I can’t cope with these revelations! They’re just too much! *quietly sobs in corner*
22 – are you a pig dreaming that you’re a human, or a human dreaming you’re a pig?
24 – I know. I’m ashamed of myself.
Well, I’m a bit late to the omg party.
But honestly, I can’t see what the big deal is. What’s there to think about? I remember Faye and Bellatrix and whatever and she was cool. Her motivation for posting under different aliases and lying about her age might be completely innocent; perhaps she had fun, perhaps there were personal or privacy issues. She didn’t attempt to gain personal information from anyone (as far as I knew).
What’s there to think about? Nothing, ever, if you don’t like thinking about things. Plenty, always, if you do.
And as long as we’re doing dramatic personal revelations, I’m really Beavo. I’ve always been some sort of Beavo on here, as far as I can remember, anyway.
^LIES I’m Michael and I think I posted with my real name once or twice but I don’t remember.
But seriously. I’m Beevs. And I’m not sweaty, all though my laptop is getting warm.
By creating this thread, we weren’t saying that SO’s imposture was a huge deal — just a piece of MuseBlog history that should be clarified. MuseBlog isn’t exactly like a real-world community, but it isn’t exactly like a movie, either, it seems to us. The way you interact with one another isn’t the same way you interact with fictional characters. (Things may be different elsewhere on the Internet — but as we’ve said many times, we don’t care about that.) “Faye” came on the blog asking people to share her excitement or sadness about experiences she described, and offering advice presumably based on experiences she presumably had had. People who liked and admired her, and who may have taken her advice, deserve to know that she was made-up — that’s all.
When we Administrators found out about Faye, we had a choice: tell the blog, or hush it up. There didn’t seem to be much middle ground. We opted for openness. Arguments could probably be made for keeping the information secret, or for burying or soft-pedaling it in some way, but that didn’t seem very MuseBloglike to us.
So we’re not saying that Sans Orchestre committed the crime of the century, and we’re not pillorying her for it. We’re just doing what the title of the thread says: setting the record straight. You may use that information to reevaluate your experiences with Faye Beauchamp, marvel at her creator’s daring and workmanship, or decide that it doesn’t matter — as you choose. But we thought you ought to have that choice, and now you do.
Faye, wow. Yeah, that was like a sucker punch. I mean, FTW. Personally, I don’t like being fraked, but in this case no real harm came out of it. Now, if it had been a perverted 40-year-old posing as FAYE – yeah. No.
SFTDP –
Ebeth – wait, but if you’re Elizabeth….and Elizabeth is Elizabeth, than that means you’re….Elizabethi? Elizabethus? Beths’?
Hmm.
Anyway, to set the record straight, I was eragon at one point in time, but no longer.
Like I said, I did pretend to be a phyte a few times but never went “long term”, I guess because I just never had the organization to do so. I’m cringing just by writing those words though, because even though I know it’s not a huge deal, it does make me upset to think that I once thought it was ok to mess around and pretend to be someone I’m not – basically I lied to everyone on here, and thinking back, I wish I hadn’t. I also can understand how it would make people who’ve never pretended to be someone they’re not feel uncomfortable on what should be a very safe site – and once again, I owe all of the MBers and the GAPA’s and apology and hope that we can all move on from this.
_____________________________________________________
I wrote all that right after I saw Tesseract’s post about revealing yourself if you had ever been someone that you’re not and then after reading SL’s confession. Then I read lizzie, and ebeth, and Piggy’s posts, and to be quite honest, I started cracking up.
I’m still not sure that I’m quite as unaffected about learning about all this as some of you are, but like Piggy said, I’m not as accustomed to the rougher streets of the Internet, and quite frankly, I’m fine with that. (I’m also younger than Piggy and a lot of you, so that could be part of it, but still…) I’m more surprised than anything, but I’m not definitely not mad.
The thing that would bother me a lot more would be if SO had ended up actually being an adult modeling as a kid – but instead she was simply a teen modeling as another teen (yes, there was an age difference, but let’s face it, two years isn’t really all that much), and although I am surprised that she put so much effort into it (and a little bit sad that she thought she had to become so many “different’ people to feel accepted), I would be much more disturbed if it was an adult pretending to be a kid. Even though I’m curious for an explanation, I don’t feel like she really needs to give us any one. I can understand if she feels a bit overwhelmed now that this has turned into a discussion, and if she wants to give one, fine, but if not, I think that’s ok as well. We’ll simply move on and I’m actually glad that this discussion came up on MB.
/longer post than needed, but ok…/
I’m on the same page as Starr about all of this, at this point.
It can certainly be argued that 18 is an arbitrary standard for adulthood. We’ve all seen examples of 14 year olds, say, who show more maturity than their elders. There may not be much by way of notable difference between ages 17 and 19 (although, for point of accuracy, S.O. was actually 15 when she created Faye). Nevertheless, like it or not, there is a legal distinction, just ask anyone who lost ens liquor license for accepting a fake ID as proof of age.
On the blog we have different rules for adults. They’re required to post under their full, actual names, no aliases allowed (except by prior arrangement). They can state their location if they wish; they don’t need parental permission to have photos of themselves posted, and so forth. We make those distinctions because we have only limited tools to work with in keeping this site as safe as possible. Masquerades make our job that much harder.
In the case of “Faye” the infractions were minor, her location was bogus and we have since removed her photo, but we were lucky. The situation could potentially have had more serious consequences, given the proliferating avenues of offblog contact.
As an aside: my only hesitation about becoming a GAPA in the first place was that I would have to appear here under my actual name, something I really did not want to do for assorted personal reasons. But I understood how important it is for the adults on this site to be identifiable to MBers and parents both.
You make a good point, Rebecca. I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to the fact that the difference was from 17 to 19, which like you said, is a legal distinction. Thank you for that point, now I understand how those two years do make a difference and no doubt how pretending to be over 18 is much more serious than that.
14- I remember Peace*.
I don’t remember her being obnoxious at all. In fact, I was wondering awhile back why she wasn’t posting anymore.
I can’t really sort out how I feel about this, but I know I don’t feel upset, or angry. Vaguely interested, I suppose. But this hasn’t impacted my perception of you at all. I feel like I know Silver Lining, and just because Silver Lining was another person doesn’t change her.
Or something.
It’s funny. This entire thread made me remember that time I was thinking, and I thought it could be fun to adopt a new alias, and go on a PoPo spree with that name for one day, then drop it.
Now I don’t know what I was thinking. The entire thing seems silly now. I never actually did anything, and for that I am thankful. I can only suppose I was a different person, a younger, less mature person.
Oh, and I, too, have been lying to everyone. My real name is not Errata.
(30) Castle and others: We did keep an extra-close eye on “Faye.” As a self-identified over-18-year-old, she had to get special permission from us to start posting. (She introduced herself by e-mail, with a plausible-sounding cover story.) We identified her as an adult on the “Who’s Here” page. And we watched her posts carefully for anything creepy. Nothing like that ever showed up (though the complicated love life she described didn’t exactly recommend her as a role model).
She did break blog rules once by posting a photograph of herself without parental permission — something we wouldn’t have let her do if we’d known she was 15. We’ve taken the photo down.
In the end, I think Sans Orchestre found that being “Faye” was more trouble than it was worth. She couldn’t talk about her real life, because it wouldn’t match the story she had constructed. It’s like the old saying about riding a tiger: once you’re on its back, it’s very hard to climb off.
Out of curiosity, are you planning on changing that status on the Who’s Here page now that you know the truth?
We already changed it.
Honestly you guys, I think that it’s one thing to change your name but another thing entirely to change your persona. I don’t care about names, names are just sort of convieniant sometimes. But I do care about personalities and people. On MB, I don’t get to know people the same way I do at school, for instance, I get to know (and love) personalities. I wasn’t familiar enough with the whole “faye” thing and all the personalities she switched, so that in itself doesn’t especially bother me, what bothers me is that the personalities were inconsistant, and I trust all of you, so I feel my trust slightly betrayed. But not much. And the other reason that bothers me as much as it does is because I’m OCD when it comes to consistancy. Inconsistancy is too similar to injustice and both really bother me.
I’m mostly shocked because the whole getting-to -know personalities thing here on MB is great for me because it creates another environment for me to express myslef, engage in discussion and generally be me and get to know other, often more similar to me than most people I know in “real life” people. And that’s important to me, because there are times when MB is the only place I’m really able to be myself, and there was a fairly painful time where MB was the only place I felt safe being myself and expressing some of my opinons, so I don’t know, I find incredibly odd that someone would not be themself here, I just don’t understand that.
Before this all dies down, I have a confession to make. To set the record straight. I’m fairly sure most people here remember Cerise, an obnoxious MBer who spontaneously showed up on the dying WoP part 5 thread, insulted everyone and disappeared again. En was me. The views expressed in the post are exactly the opposite of mine. Why did I post that? I love WoP. For over a year, it was my favorite thread. It was where I learned the most about MB and ‘matured’ into an MBer (now you know why I’m such a barbarian). Except the WoP I knew was different. Less polite and more senseless. Every now and then, the fight would die down and be rekindled by a silly boast/threat/whatever by one of AJARs aliases. Tired and irritated, I tried to write a similar post, so that ‘cerise’ could be crushed by mounds of pies and the wars would erupt anew. Needless to say, I went way overboard and only realized it later. I never thought people would actually take something posted on WoP seriously. I tried to steer the argument into harmless ridiculousness, even admitting I was a paleophyte so that the ‘being nice to neophytes’ would finally stop and everyone would just see it as a prank. Paranoid, I stopped posting under Cerise. I knew that the GAPAs could identify my IP adress and would intervene if things got too flammable which seemed inevitable. This was the last wave of AJARs posts and naturally people suspected him. If I, even under the alias of cerise, said that it was just a prank to save the thread  he would be eliminated as suspect leaving only me. I hated the idea that he (en?) was being blamed for my posts, but I was afraid of being seen as ‘second AJAR’, probably not banned but looked down upon everywhere, an outcast in the on place I really wanted to fit in. The GAPAs didn’t tell the others it was me so when the fuss died down I was conveniently able to repress everything. I felt like a rat for standing by and not daring to say anything. Another pie war came up, but I couldn’t post there without a bitter taste in my mouth. And then comes this thread, with SL telling about his deception. And everybody starts joking around and I feel the topic is closed.I regret what I’ve done. I’m not going to give you any “don’t judge my by it” crap, because I would in your place. I guess one thing I’ve learned here is that it’s better to speak up for what you believe in and I believe you have a right to know.
Sorry. Â Â Â Â
Oh, wow. I was totally sure it was AJAR.
When you first come to the ‘blog, you try to adapt to the posting style of a prevailing MBer there. After three months as neophyte posting almost exclusivly on a thread dominated by en, I do AJAR better than himself.
Actually, that’s not how it worked for me. I just stumbled onto the blog and slowly adapted to become an Everyblogger.
First of all: This may have been a typo, but SL is a girl.
Second of all: I don’t remember Cerise. But I can understand why you did it, even if it wasn’t the best move. All is forgiven, and I’ll definitely still treat you the same!
I was guessing it wasn’t AJAR, because Cerise didn’t sound like a name AJAR would post under.
It’s funny. All these people are confessing to their crimes and describing everything, and apparently expecting us to outlaw them, or something.
But I’m not even upset. I might be rather upset if those were your actual views, but since they weren’t, I have no problem with any of it.
Thank you so much for explaining; I was indeed curious as to what you were up to but figured you were just letting off steam for whatever reason. It all makes more sense now.
Yes, I am indeed a girl.
But seriously, bookgirl, although I don’t recall Cerise, I can understand why you did it, and of course I won’t judge you by it.
Hey, it’s OK! I’ll always remember you as the cool girl who wrote to Muse in November/December 2006!
Umm… I didn’t.
Before the GAPAs start suspecting me of faking because my early email didn’t look like I had a Korean name, I only got my own email account this year (the gmail I’m using now) and I was using my friend’s old email, set up on my family’s two computers, (with my parent’s permission, I don’t know how they saw a difference between me having an email and using another person’s email, but they did).
I’ve been away for almost a week, so I missed most of the hubbub.
Not really sure how I feel about this, honestly… I didn’t know any of these various aliases well, except for a friendly rivalry with Bellatrix/Necromancer on the Ships’ Logs threads.
I always thought “Faye Beauchamp” was a strange name… That was suppose to be a real name, right?
I will continue my policy of first name nondisclosure.
I thought I remembered her saying it wasn’t her real name once. Which it obviously isn’t even now, but just thought I’d throw it out there.
I think we would have noticed if she’d said that. We tend to be aware of statements of the sort. When she emailed us as Faye Beauchamp, we made it clear that adults are required to post under their real names. It is a theatrical sounding name, but there are some actual Faye Beauchamps out there.
Ahh. Well I’d always assumed it was a false name, I don’t know why.
-tackles- TMFA!!! How many years has it been?
OK, OK, like .5 or something. It’s been a long time, anyway.
Wow. I was not expecting that…
Well, I just googled the name. Multiple Facebook results, as expected, plus a rather disturbing obituary for the homicide case of one Ms. Glayds Faye Beauchamp.
I cannot find it…*looks again* A couple of articles about the homicide, but nope, still nothing. Link?
Sorry, I’m just interested to see this thing. ( I did not read the articles, just so no one thinks I’m disturbed. )
Okay, here’s my two cents on the main topic: I never knew Bellatrix, Necromancer, or The Invisible Chameleon. I did know “Faye”. I liked “Faye”. I might like Sans Orchestre.
Of course I feel lied to, because I was.
I am willing to forgive her. I understand wanting to re-invent oneself, though I wish she had done so through an RPG.
About the side revelations:
14 (Silver Lining): Forgiven. I’m actually not surprised. I find it completely understandable.
20 (Ebeth) and 21 (Lizzie): I am astonished. Completely and utterly astonished. Yet, somehow, I always knew…
22 (Piggy): How could you not be a porcine creature with remarkable typing skills? It is staggering.
This is also a good opportunity to clear up any confusion there might be about me:
I am not cerulean, or any other shade of blue. (Please, control your astonishment.)
I am not on fire, made of fire, a controller of fire, or anything similar. (Could someone help that poor chap who just fainted dead away?)
*attempts to control astonishment*
No…that can’t be true…*faints dead away*
I know I’ve had alter egos [Added later, for clarification: Here, I mean.]. Extended ones. I’m just not exactly sure who they are anymore. (And I know I’ve done work trying to conceal my IP address in the past, so there is the possibility that the anonymity was, in fact, completely successful.)
On the topic of drama: Hey, it is drama. I couldn’t tell you why, but people react badly to it. Maybe those whose trust hasn’t been shaken enough by the world yet? Who knows? But it is what it is, and some people take it badly, and others don’t.
(Read this if you want, I guess. See below, though.)Storytime. I took up Anemesia Regalia’s life way back when… I know I revealed myself to people last summer, and I was active during the winter, so I’m betting it was fall of 2008. I’m not sure if I’ve posted as her. Anyway, things were great and I had two lives. Who knows why I wanted that, but I guess I did, or I wouldn’t have done. After I told people who I was at the start of summer, things were still fine. People were a little shocked. I’m not sloppy going about it (actually I’m fairly obsessive), so the few mistakes I did make went unnoticed.
Unfortunately, I have one friend who doesn’t take kindly to their trust being violated in any way. She took it as more of a lie than anything else… I can’t really deny that it is, on the whole. Overall? Of course I shouldn’t have done it; it was a huge waste of energy. In the end, though… I don’t really know what I’m trying to say, here, but I gained a gender and a few great pieces of writing.
Disregard those last two paragraphs. Here’s the TLDR. I have one alter ego (of many) named Anemesia Regalia. I’m not sure if she’s posted here. Overall, regardless of the fact that I did gain something from it, I think the experience was negative because of how it turned out with my friends.
Right, it’s officially really difficult to make sense when you’re tired… The point being that in my opinion, this sort of thing isn’t bad. The other point being, though, that in other people’s opinions, it is. Which is the problem. This is the sort of thing where you’ve got to make sure that everyone is going to be okay with going out of their comfort zone, but that completely ruins the idea of anonymity, so you can’t. Which makes it risky.
(Oh yeah: The reason I sign ‘-A’ has two facets. One, because I need to remember the Anemesia Regalia episode and how it went wrong. Two, because I discovered a bit of myself in Ana and I can’t forget that, either.)
I swear this is the last summary/conclusion I’ll write in this comment:
Don’t make alter-egos unless you’re prepared to face the consequences (but remember, consequences can be good or bad (but remember that the cost:benefit risk ratio is rather large)).
-A
gradster:
You’ve never posted as Anemesia here, but you have mentioned her once before.
Oh, and another thing: Of course I can’t stop anyone from commenting (lords know there’ll be replies to this, just to spite that (or maybe there won’t, just to spite that (or maybe there will, just to spite- Ahem. Et cetera.))), but I for one would like to stop bickering about the matter until we hear from Faye herself. There’s no point speculating about something when you have reliable information about it right at your fingertips. Especially when that reliable information comes directly from the source.
(Please, Faye, if you do read this – even though I doubt you will – I’d love to hear what you have to say.)
For that matter, actually, I’m really curious about what she has to say about this; all this discussion and its internal conflict.
-A
You never know how many responses you’ll get until you check a week later. For example, the servers could go down, and the thread could be deleted. Or, perhaps, all the OTHER threads would be deleted and people would flock to this one and comment in droves. You never know until you check back.
Sorry, I just learned what Schrodinger’s Cat was, and now I’m obsessed.
I’m actually surprised that attempting something like this never crossed my mind, as I was embarrassed enough about my behavior. I vaguely remember Faye, but not personality-wise. I actually remember Bellatrix more. I must say I don’t feel personally connected to many MBers, but as to that, I blame History Day. I’m a bit surprised that someone would go this far.
14.2- I’ve witnessed a couple of people maturing on MB. Can’t say that I have. I do hope that I’m not aggravating to anyone.
SL- That’s not so bad… It’s good to tell everyone though. I think that if Faye also came out like you did everyone would have been just as accepting.
Anyway, I hope to be on the blog more from now on!
History Day? Why???
Well, History Day and school in general. Too much time researching and time spent thinking about it. I wasn’t being completely serious, but it did contribute to why I haven’t been on too much this past semester. That’s not to say it wasn’t worth it to meet an MBer.
That has never stopped me from procrastinating on MuseBlog when I’m supposed to be researching or something. XD
Note to self: Change avatar.
Even though things here have become strange, I’d really encourage Faye to come back and rejoin the blog as herself and as nobody else. I think she was an interesting person and I’d hope that none of this commotion has scared her away. I would welcome her back should she choose to do so, and hopefully others would too because I know that MuseBlog is a very tolerant and forgiving community.
Also, to clear things up, I am not a fish, but a girl.
I changed my email address about a year ago when I got a new address separate from my parents, which I’m not sure that I told the GAPAs but I’d like you to know anyway, it’s still me.
The only time someone has ever used my computer to make another blog name is when my cousin visited our family on vacation (you may remember her as QueenOfAces).She is older now but still asks about the blog from time to time.
Wow. This is news to me. Have I been gone that long?
About alter egos, I have only once posted under a name other than muselover. That was when I did a silly little post on a recent Mr. Joe thread as CATS, which incidentally was my name on the Alter Ego thread at the time. You all know quite a bit about me, and as far as I know, everything I have posted about myself is true.
I do remember Faye, though I never chat with her much. I don’t really feel lied to for that reason.
Man, this post is going on for waaaay too long. Over and out!
Wow. Thats wierd. I remember a lot of those names she posted as.
Oh, semi-randomly, while I was at work today, I came across a file with the last name of “Beauchamp” for the animal’s owner.
I remember Faye! She was on MA for a while in a treehouse with the first pie war!
Well this has come as a shock.
I never suspected that Faye Beauchamp was anything other than who she said she was, although everything from her name to her behavir was laden with fantasy.
But I think the response is a wee but on the harsh side. I have a feelng She (I am not going to attempt to put a name on her) is never going to come back, however much she wants to, for fear of being accepted badly. From what I have gathered here, I think in an ordinary situation she would compose another alias of herself, but she has lost that power here.
In all, I am impressed she was able to keep up the alias so long. I have always failed rather grandly with anything related to that.
Whoever you are, if you ever return I shall do my best to remove all prior knowledge I had of your previous exploits.
Why is this ‘Currently Popular?’ As far as I can tell, no-one has posted here since July…
Spambots.
20~ BUT EBOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! NOES! But you go by Ebeth, don’t you? Like, in real, off the intarwebz life? >.< I feel dumb.
(Oh, and my birth certificate doesn't say Midnight Fiddler, either. I'm a fake. I'm actually Fern Aviva H******n)
50~ It's probably because the spambots are attacking. But we don't see that, because our tireless GAPAs are zapping junk. But it still shows up in the sidebar.
It's too bad about Faye, I liked her a lot. I'd probably like her creator, if she's anything the same.
I…..have not really had any aliases. Well, a few times on the rants and complaints and/or R&R threads. But that was because I was afraid of people in real life possibly finding out, or others on the blog knowing who I was because of shame or whatever reasons I had at the time. Sometimes it's easier to say things when you don't reveal who you are, since you don't want to be stigmatized by it, or have people watch you extra closely, even if it's because they're genuinely concerned.
Anyway, I think I did eventually reveal who I was after those times.
i do indeed go by ebeth. some people still call me elizabeth though. my parents, a few old friends, teachers, and people from work all call me elizabeth. with stuff like class and work it’s a lot easier to just say elizabeth. when i tell people my name is ebeth i tend to have to repeat myself. and then endure jokes about how i’m electronic, like email, etc
…not to mention your sister iBeth.
I know this thread has been dead for a while. But I became curious tonight.
And so I went to the MuseBlog. Scrolled around, and then searched for my name to see if I’d been mentioned since I was first booted off the blog.
And, to my suprise, it had been. There was a whole frikkin’ thread about me.
I will admit. It angered me. And it saddened me. And I was comforted by those who still stood by me, as they have for years.
No, I am not some troll. I am the real deal. I remember sailing the seas with POSOC way back when, fighting pie wars, partially causing the end of an rpg thread because it got too violent, etc.
This is excerpted from the email I sent the GAPAs when my identity issue first came up nearly half a year ago:
“Greetings mighty GAPAs,
Let me start by writing that I perfectly understand your concern. For all you know, I could be some creeper stalking the interwebs. But, I’m not. My truest representation on MB was Bellatrix Lestrange. I then moved on to The Invisible Chameleon, and finally Faye Beauchamp. Faye was and still is my favorite – she was loved. But with Faye, I came to a point where I couldn’t write as myself because then I would give myself away. So I left for a while. I was planning on disappearing for a year but the boredom of summer overcame me. I didn’t want to return as Faye, though I would certainly be welcomed by MBers. And I didn’t want to return as Bellatrix because… she’s just not who I am anymore. Bellatrix was my 15-year old self. Sans Orchestre is me two years later.
As I wrote on the blog, I wanted a new start. It’s nice to see my old friends like Ebeth and Piggy, but… I don’t want to be remembered. I’m starting over. They can guess all they want, but I won’t tell exactly who I’ve been.
When I first saw your reply requesting an explanation, my first instinct was to just leave the blog and never come back. But I kept looking back at the blog, wanting to post soooo badly. So here we are, in a lovely email.”
I don’t know if anyone will still care.
I didn’t want to expose who I was, but when I found out the GAPAs had done that anyways, I guess I had nothing to lose tonight.
I am upset that the GAPAs took it upon themselves to create this thread and tell the blog of my treachery. But I can understand why they did that. That doesn’t make it any better. I feel like it was an invasion of privacy. But I can understand their actions.
I suppose I will give you all an update on my life. If anyone cares. If anyone can accept what I say as truth.
I am a college freshman. 17 years old. I skipped 8th grade. I dreamed for years of attending Berklee College of Music and becoming a rock cellist. However, my father refused to allow me to attend or even audition, believing I would fail out of college. I was always a B student in high school, due to lack of effort, but my dad failed out of college five times until he joined the army and gained discipline.
My dreams were shattered when my parents required me to go to an in-state school for my freshman year. I ended up in a hospital for a week suffering from severe depression and suicidal tendencies. I got on medication and I eventually got better.
This semester, I have been at a state college, working for geneds that would hopefully transfer to whatever school I decided to go too. I was still intending on transferring to Berklee next year. However, somehow during this semester, I lost myself. I lost my dreams and any bit of motivation I had. I stopped going to classes. I stopped practicing cello.
For anyone who has a passion in life, they will understand that my passion was cello. And yet here I was, unwilling to do anything with it.
I screwed up this semester. Because I no longer understand what I want from life.
Therefore, I am taking next semester off from school. Two summers ago, I attended an Outward Bound course: 28 days sailing in Maine. It was very inspirational to me. Beginning the end of March 2011, I will venture on a 7 week (50 day) course with Outward Bound to Utah, to go desert backpacking, rafting, etc. The rafting part will be interesting because I don’t swim, only dog paddle. I hope that this course will teach me discipline, as well as give me a chance to pause and question: what do I want to do?
I regret wasting this semester. And wasting my parent’s money. But I do feel it was necessary for me to find out that college isn’t for me yet. I’m smart and gifted and talented, but I have trouble finding my inner flame to push myself forward in life. It may be because of my Seasonal Affective Disorder (depression), which has come back with a vengeance, but my collegiate malfunction began before it started.
As few may remember, Faye was taking a gap year between high school and college. I had wanted to, but my mother refused to allow me. Somehow, I’ve forced her now to accept that this semester off would be best for me. Fortuantely, my father has high regard for Outward Bound and fully supports this course.
Until the course, I look to do volunteer work, possibly in another state.
Don’t lose your dreams like I have, Musers. Don’t lose yourselves. Your dreams, I’ve found, are the only things you have. They are the only things you can rely on through thick and thin – they will feed you when you are hungry and supply light when all is dark. I know this sounds overdramatic, but your dreams are all that you will ever have.
In the words of Jason Mraz:
“Just take it easy
And celebrate the malleable reality
Nothing is ever as it seems
This life is but a dream.”
I may or may not stick around to see responses. I suspect my curiousity will overcome me though.
I love you all. You have helped me through thick and thin. I am sorry I lied to the collective you. But I love you. Always.
Well, hey, many-named girl. I don’t think my bloglife and yours ever overlapped, but it’s nice to hear from you nevertheless. I hope you can understand why the GAPAs made a thread about you… it certainly wasn’t to invade your privacy or point and laugh at your attempted deception or anything. It was just to “set the record straight”, done in the interest of honesty and such.
Obviously I can’t speak for the blog, but I have the feeling I may be speaking for more than a few people when I say we’d love to have you return, hopefully as yourself and not an alter ego.
Good luck, and that!
I agree with everything Cat’s Eye said above.
The same here.
First and foremost, I want to give you inconceivable amounts of hugs and choklit. In my mind, what’s done is done. I personally couldn’t care less that you created personas and posted under them. Thus, I see no reason to continue conversation about it–you’ve been, admittedly unintentionally, explained by the GAPAs, so now everyone’s on the same page. Now, does our knowing your history prevent you from making a fresh start? Not remotely! In fact, it only provides a stronger basis on which you can return to MuseBlog. In any case, I hope that you’ll keep posting. The past is over with.
As for the present: I’m sorry to hear about your depression. I’d be lying if I said I “know” what you’ve gone through, but please understand I sympathize as much as is humanly possible. I hope this semester off gives you a new perspective on life, if nothing else. You’re only seventeen. You have another seventy years to live out your dreams–and do things far beyond that, things that haven’t been imagined yet. One of the most fascinating things is to learn that adults are, quite often, wrong. Even your parents. Now, that isn’t to say you should ignore or abandon them. Just don’t let them live your life for you. And don’t let depression do so, either.
Above all, just don’t give up. Obviously you’ve learned thoroughly that life’s, as the phrase goes, a bitch. But you’re better than it. Keep posting here on MuseBlog. Even though I’ve never known you, I really miss you. Don’t think you have to be ashamed because of things long past. This is MuseBlog. We’re all Musers here. Especially you. And we love you.
I can’t seem to write an appropriately thoughtful and sensitive response, so I’m just going to have to ditto everything everyone else said.
I hope your semester off is beneficial for you in every way. I am currently taking a gap year, and I do feel that it helped me recover from my senior year breakdown. I don’t think that’s exactly what you went through, but I hope you get a breather and the chance to relax with some time to yourself, without the pressure of exams and whatnot.
Welcome back, SO.
Sans Orchestre,
Burnout of the type you’re going through isn’t unusual. People your age nowadays are under a lot of pressure — worse than when I was in college, and it was bad enough then. Sometimes a time-out is the best thing you can do for yourself.
Billy Joel sang this long before you were born:
Funny, that song has been stuck in my head lately.
I think it’s one of those songs that come back to you when you need them.
I’d never heard Vienna before, but now I’ve had it on repeat for the past few days. It just feels so applicable – and the fact it feels so applicable makes me feel not alone in feeling overwhelmed and lost. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want and other general teenage angst, and giving myself permission to relax is starting to feel okay. Thanks for posting it.
We’ve all been there. I’m glad that it helped.
All right, I was reading through the rest of the thread before I got here. Just for the record, my name is not Choklit and I am not an orange. Sometimes I wish I was, though- life is very simple for oranges.
I definitely remember most of those aliases for Sans Orchestre- I lurked for a very long time before I first posted as Kokopelli52. I hope everything goes well for you, SO. My cousin took a gap year and said it really helped him get his life straightened out. Good luck!
Sans Orchestre,
First of all, welcome back. MuseBlog is a very safe place, and by revealing your story, the GAPAs were maintaining this environment. But this same community is understanding and here for you, whenever and however you decide to jump back in.
Second, I hope you have an absolutely fantastic trip next semester. I’ve been studying a lot about experiential and outdoor education this semester and have met so many people who have been on Outward Bound trips–and loved them. I myself was backpacking in Utah for a month this summer on an OB-like program through my school; having never been to that area of the country, it was a beautiful setting for an amazing experience.
In the words of Kurt Hahn, “We are all crew, not passengers.”
…whoa.
Hey, guys, I have a confession to make.
…I’m not actually a rhombus.
And y’all, this isn’t really the thread for it, but I just wanted to say I’m sorry, ZNZ. I know the whole thing about my friend doesn’t seem plausible, but he really did post it, and I want you to know I would never do something like that because I respect both you and Spuddy. I hate that my friend went on my computer and posted that, and I hate that I allowed something like that to happen by trusting him with the MB, but I would never actually commit an act that disrespectful – unlike him, I’ve actually bonded with you guys and respect you more than most of the people I know in real life.
Love y’all.
So, just clarifying.
And I…well, I think this has been a long time coming. I have to get it off my chest.
I’m…um, I’m not actually a castle. Or Hat Guy. I’m human.
This is all very touching. I suppose I should take this opportunity to confirm that my name is, in fact, Robert Coontz, but that I am not a heron or any other sort of bird. I’m a mammal, like all of my ancestors for the past couple of hundred million years.
I actually am an appreciator of fantasy. I have not pretended to be anything I’m not.
It makes me feel a bit boring, to not have a great and terrible secret like everyone else.
Rest assured, you more than compensate in other realms.
And I do, in fact, love Muse magazine.
I am not a prairie dog, a skyship captain, a small space-dwelling cnidarian, a knight, or an anonymous blob. Sorry to disappoint.
You’re a sailboat, just like me!
I… actually live only in three spatial dimensions.
I’m sorry.
Keep working on it. The wungs may be able to help.
I’m not actually a cat, you guys. I’m so ashamed to have led you on like this!
If I was, all my posts would be really mixed up. It seems like it would be hard to type with paws.
You have a point. It’s bad enough when my cat Mina tries to play the piano.
Well, you all can rest assured that I, at least, am certainly a giant space squid. No secrets there.
I don’t think anyone here really believes my head is triangular or my skin is blue (especially since I posted pictures of myself at the World Science Festival two years ago), but just in case, no, I don’t look like my avatar. It might explain a lot in some of your eyes if I was an alien, but I’m not.
I’ve met you, and yet I still identify you with your avatar at some level.
But Kai… aren’t you the most wonderful triangle in the universe?…
No, that title belongs to the one formed by Vega, Deneb and Altair in the summer sky.
I think it’s time you guys learned that… I’m… not… a tree.
If in the past you have been misdirected as to think I am a moon of Saturn (with or without arms and a tongue), I apologize sincerely for that and must admit to not being the only moon in the solar system discovered as of to possess an atmosphere.
And SFTDP. But I should admit… one of the Mr. Joe posers on an old Dissing Mr. Joe thread, the Mr. Joe with the actual Mr. Joe avatar, was me being silly.
I suppose it is worth mentioning that I am not a rutabaga.
And… I am not working for any sort of secret orgnization that requires I use the code name “Lightning”.
I am not actually Horatio Hornblower, nor am I actually named Oxlin. Penty, Jade, and Robert can all confirm that I’m actually a 21 year old college student, though.
Okay, okay, can people finally stop with the I’m-not-my-avatar thing? It wasn’t even funny the first time for me and it hasn’t gotten better now that we’re at pseudo-revelation number 19.
You’re probably right. Sorry. From now on we use this thread for actual confessions? (I didn’t count 19; I only counted 12.)
Ebeth (20),
Lizzie (21),
Piggy (22),
Ducky (22.3),
muselover (22.6),
Errata (32),
Cerulean Pyros (40),
agrrrfishi (44),
Midnight Fiddler (51),
Choklit Orange (54),
small but fierce (57),
Castle (59),
Robert (60),
POSOC (63),
Tesseract (64),
LBK (65)
KaiYves (67),
*Cskia (68),
Agent Lightning (70)
oxlin (71)
…eeps now it’s 20… Never mind. I don’t mean to criticize anyone who did it and I’m sure plenty of people find/found it funny (at the beginning), I’m just personally starting to get a little sick of it, probably because I *ahem* have a confession up there about some trolling I’m not too proud of that I was equally afraid of admitting and not-admitting, so I was somewhat less shocked that so-and-so isn’t *insert avatar/name here*.
Whatever the exact numbers, I’d say you have a point.
Of course, I have always been exactly what I appear to be: a 6-foot-tall rabbit who paints with a carrot.That’s a carrot?!I do see your point. I’m sorry.
Wait, what are these numbers?
Our post numbers.
First I will note that the sarcastic jokes here have had me chuckling in my seat for a few mintues.
Piggy posted in 2010 saying he didn’t know why this thread was back on the Currently Popular bar. I don’t know why it is now, an entire two years later, but it was certainly interesting for me to read through the whole thing.
My only comment that I wanted to make was that I’m glad that I had Groundhog to lead me so that I could mostly skip the phyte phase. Warm and accepting as we are, it must be hard. (I will note that my writing style has thankfully improved since 9th grade).
I hope that this hasn’t been a total PoPo. I’ll hand over a pile of choklit, which I need to get rid of anyway because Passover is coming, and this beats eating it all
((Ack – SFTDP!))
Also, I wanted to ask before I forget again: since I am currently 19, do I need to reveal my actual name, even though I’ve been on the blog since pre-coming of age? I know that Groundhog still goes as Groundhog, even though she’s 23.
Don’t worry, you’re fine.
Okie dokes! Thank you so much.