My Little Pony is known for espousing virtues of love, tolerance and friendship, but sometimes its fans forget how to play nice.
Purple Tinker, a transgendered LGBT advocate and founder of BronyCon, published a post to her Tumblr yesterday alleging that several staffers working at the Canterlot Gardens MLP convention in Ohio made false claims about her. Purple Tinker claims that she was slandered and libeled when staffers at the convention spread rumors that she was arrested for being hopped up on meth and wielding a knife.
According to her Tumblr, where she has documented four separate people who have confirmed the slander, Purple Tinker alleges that staffers told fans in attendance:
1) That I was arrested, in Ohio, on the convention weekend…
2) That I was found to have a knife on my person (I don’t own any knives except kitchen utensils, box cutters and other utility knives.).
3) That I am a meth user, or in some iterations even a meth dealer (I have never done meth, nor have I done ANY other illegal drug, nor have I taken legal drugs to excess, and in fact I have never even partaken of tobacco or nicotine— much less marijuana, and FAR less meth!
Purple Tinker avidly denies each claim pointing to the fact that she was running a LGBT charity event called “Tink in a Box” during the time of the Canterlot Gardens convention. To raise awareness about LGBT issues, she locked herself in her room for 72 hours with no Internet access save a webcam where interested users could watch her progress. “My only moments of privacy were for attending to my personal hygiene and sanitation behind a folding screen,” she wrote. The event would have made it impossible for her to have been in Ohio in time for the alleged arrest.
In the pantheon of American brony conventions, Canterlot Gardens is second in size only to BronyCon, which Purple Tinker started. Hasbro, the maker of the My Little Pony franchise, also sends representatives to this conference. Purple Tinker claims that several months ago, a handful of BronyCon staffers split from the group after she refused to give them “logistical and financial control” over the event. One post on the bronies forum from May 2012 states that Purple Tinker has a grudge against Canterlot Gardens, as it was primarily established by ex-BronyCon staffers that forced her out of her administrative role at BronyCon.
“Of course I have a grudge against them,” Purple Tinker told Betabeat over email. “They’ve been spreading rumours and lies about me, feeding information on me to 4chan (who mocked me for being a “tranny”), and trying to discredit me, off and on, for seven months. Their con org stole from me (and then he stole from someone else!), then his buddies tried to convince me to give him access to the convention finances.”
“These aren’t upstanding citizens. They’ve done terrible things,” she added.
Purple Tinker has started a petition on change.org asking Hasbro, Everfree Northwest and Equestrian LA to cut ties with Canterlot Gardens following the alleged conduct of some of its staffers.
According to the petition:
I do not believe that any honourable organisation, much less an internationally-known toy company such as Hasbro or respected conventions for fans of Hasbro’s products, should be affiliated with a convention whose staffers– including higher-level staffers (“the person who ran the con”, “The Chair”)– openly slander an unaffiliated third party by accusing her of heinous criminal activities including possession of a knife with intent to murder.
Looks like some little ponies are learning that life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows.
Update:
Purple Tinker wrote on her Tumblr that she has called a truce with Canterlot Gardens and has taken down the Change.org petition.
