All this for a loaf of bread: The Toast Wank of Rassilon (November 2016-June 2017)

[pirate_anon]

All this for a loaf of bread:
The Toast Wank of Rassilon
(November 2016-June 2017)

In 2016, Panopticon stages a harassment campaign because
of a toast joke. Yes, really.

At that time, doctorwhokinfessions is an anonymous ask
tumblr for Doctor Who fctionkin to leave their confessions--who
they miss, who they care about, things like that. On the fateful
day of November 29, 2016, one anonymous leaves the following
message: "Dat feel when ur making toast and Radsilon comes and
claims it as the toast of Rassilon and eats it b4 u. (Left the typo in
his name cos it was kinda funny)" (doctorwhokinfessions, 2017
June 28a). There is no other content; that is the entire message.

The post is clearly random silliness, not meant to be taken
seriously, but Panopticon perceives it as a personal attack. Cass in
anonymous mode immediately descends to say, "@ Toast of
Rassilon anon please kindly stop imitating me and mine. It's not
funny and if there really was an alternate version of my Patron
[Rassilon] out there we would've heard about him" (ibid). The
next day, a Gallifreyan Tradition follower I know as Shilo appears
to say, "for many of ours with soulbonds, said soulbonds are
damn near what Humans call Guardian Angels. To call oneself
'Toast of Rassilon' is beyond 'irritating;' it is borderline
disrespectful [...] show some respect." Within twelve hours of the
original post, an anon notes, "awfully funny how toast!anon
hasn't showed up to plead their case" (ibid). It seems a safe
presumption that this anon is also one of Panopticon's followers,
or Panopticon themself; who else would care?

Apparently there are more messages that never get posted
at all, because the mod fnally posts, "Okay no more confessions
about the Toast Discourse unless the original Toast!Anon sends
something in. This is getting a bit too extreme" with an Aladdin
gif reading "all this for a loaf of bread?" (doctorwhokinfessions,
2017 June 28b)

The original anon comes back a few days later, and seems
understandably taken aback by the furor. They say, "I did not
intend for it to come off so troll-ish. I suppose it would come off
as such without prior context" (ibid). It's far more beneft of the
doubt than Rassilon of Panopticon gives; he makes some
semblance of an apology, but mostly it's an excuse to berate:
"Toast anon, we apologize for our previous assumptions about
you and yours. Though, in the future, please do try to show a bit
more respect to the version of me that you have with you. I am
not asking that you emulate the [religious devotional]
relationship that I have with my Acolyte, but that you try to be
mindful of who it is that you are hosting" (ibid).

Toast Anon later posts that their Rassilon wasn't against
the idea of them posting the joke, and also that "this is why I'm
too scared to come out and fully integrate into the kinmunity"
(ibid). Who can blame them?

At this time, Rassilon is Cass's "literal deity" (2017, May
27). But Rassilon is not just Cass's god; he's a headmate, a person
who interacts with other people in this world, and to quote Kerry
Dawkins from the Sylvans System: "Thor still has to pay the bills.
Lord Voldemort still has to hand in his time sheet. Batman still
has to sweep the floor. The Snow Queen still has to fnish that
work project" (Sylvans, 2017). Whatever his status in Panopticon's
system, Rassilon still has to be an ordinary person when
interacting with other people in our world. By acting as though
all Rassilons deserve a certain level of formality and respect, just
because they're Rassilon, Panopticon is dictating how a random
stranger speaks to another, and claiming religious reasons for
doing so.

Considering this behavior, more unsettling connotations
come up than just a silly Internet fght about toast. Rassilon is a
fronting member of Panopticon, and his acolyte Cass is at this
time the President of the Gallifreyan Tradition Society. The GT in
turn is based on reconstructing the culture that Rassilon founded.
Venerating him as a personal deity is one thing, but Panopticon
seem unable to differentiate their personal beliefs about Rassilon
from how the greater world should treat him. That begs the
question: are Gallifreyan Tradition members obliged to treat
Rassilon with the same "respect" that Cass does? Panopticon jokes
about this as an absurdity (2017, August 27a), but look at how
members of Gallifreyan Tradition stride forth to protect Rassilon's
honor from the indignity of toast. They aren't acting like people
helping a friend; they're acting like worshipers protecting their
god. This won't be the only time, either.

The community of doctorwhokinfessions may not seem to
fully understand what Panopticon and GT's problem is, but they
do seem to recognize the absurdity of it all. In response, for the
following six months, they celebrate the 27th of every month by
discussing their favorite things about toast (Anonymous, 2017
June 28c). This is not a euphemism for mocking Panopticon, who
is never mentioned. They are purely discussing things like
whether they prefer Nutella, butter, or jam. It is utterly harmless
and silly, but Panopticon keeps reading and getting angry about
it.
Finally, six months later, Panopticon comes back (2017,
June 28d). But they don't back down about their initial
overreaction to the toast joke; instead, they claim victimhood,
that Toast Discourse Day is being made solely to cause them pain:
"I don't really see why toast discourse day is still a thing. I know
that we made a terrible mistake, and we talked it over with the
person we were attacking. Sorry if this comes off as
confrontational, but I really just want to know why."
The mod responds, "I like to hear about everyone’s
opinions on toast" (ibid).

Panopticon clearly doesn't like that answer; a day later, a
follower called HIY comes to defend their leader again, asking,
"yo why is toast discourse day still a thing? It was funny at frst,
but at this point it's kinda ridiculous. Especially since it all
stemmed from an autistic person thinking they were being
mocked... which wasn't entirely unreasonable, considering that a
lot of people in the fandom have mocked them and their spiritual
beliefs" (ibid).

Indeed, this becomes Panopticon's narrative regarding
Toast Discourse Day, that it's ableist spiritual harassment. A day
after their follower's defense, they lick their wounds on tumblr
via vaguepost: "What kind of world is the doctorwhokinfessions
mod living in where 'it’s not okay to have a monthly special
occasion on your blog devoted to making fun of an avoidant
autistic person’s insecurities' is harassment?" (2017, June 29). To
which the mod of doctorwhokinfessions vagueposts back: "When
someone thinks a day were [sic] u talk about opinions on Toast is
fucking harassment And also uses the fact their [sic] autistic as a
get out of jail free card when the person they’re talking about is
also Autistic LOL" (Missy, 2017 July 11).

The Toast of Rassilon may appear to be a minor, stupid
thing among the stalking, abuse, and psychological breakdown,
but it's a perfect encapsulation of Panopticon's misbehavior--
acting as spokesman for all Rassilons or Doctor Who fctionkin,
taking the slightest joke as a personal attack, and then
transforming it into a noble battle against oppression in which
their followers take part as a form of social bonding.

Doctorwhokinfessions ends up deleting their account not
long after, due to the badgering from Panopticon and their
followers. But even with the account gone, even with Toast Anon
having backed down, if not disappeared, Cass still sees
themselves as the wounded oppressed party, and
doctorwhokinfessions as the over-sensitive hysteric crying
harassment. Cass rolls their eyes at doctorwhokinfessions for
deleting their account, saying, "I sent them one ask about that,
[HIY] sent another ask voicing agreement, and the mods of DWK
apparently think that constitutes harassment?" (2017, August 22).

Apparently oblivious to the irony, in the same paragraph, they
describe the Toast of Rassilon as "a monthly special occasion
dedicated to harassing an avoidant autistic person over
something that they already apologized for," even though
Rassilon's apology was really a scolding in masquerade, which
will also prove to be a common theme.

Eventually, doctorwhokinfessions creates a new account,
but relations only continue deteriorating.