I was waiting to see if he could actually make an on-topic post. I waited several days, because I know if it was possible at all, it wouldn't be easy.
Finally, I was notified he'd made a post, and went eagerly to see what an on-topic post from Tony actually looked like.
Unfortunately, in the relatively short time between when I received the notification and when I came here to look, I found nothing but smoking craters where his posts used to be. I can only assume that either someone else reported them, or else they were so virulent that the Admins nuked them without waiting to be asked.
How has Hidden Frontier changed MY life? Well, it gave me not one but two hobbies on which I could spend my time without overtaxing my limited resources physically or emotionally. I have become a decent actor, good enough for community theatre at least, and I've become a pretty good makeup artist as well, both self-taught.
It has given me a chance to learn just how weird it feels to have actual fans, people who think that just because I've stood on the wrong side of the camera, I'm somehow special (I'm not.). It has also given me my first unavoidable experience interacting with the mentally ill. (I don't count my previous encounters with the people shouting to themselves on Hollywood Blvd because I did my best to NOT interact with them.)
It has given me the chance to meet some wonderful people, some of them fans, some of them our fellow filmmakers. It has given me a chance to experience a fictional world where gays are treated like human beings, with actual rights. (As usual, the real world lags behind science fiction, but also as usual, it seems to be catching up. Humanity as a whole will probably always have stupid prejudices and unthinking hatreds, but it CAN be taught.)
It has given me, in a small way, a chance to participate in the ongoing civil rights movement. That, unfortunately, has caused me to be cynical about my fellow man, as I never before realized that there are people out there who genuinely cannot be moved by mere facts. I have found that there are people who not only bury their heads in the sands in fear of the truth, they angrily insist that everyone else do the same thing. But the contrasting thing I've learned is that such people are in the minority, and that most people are at least capable of entertaining an idea that they disagree with long enough to think about it.
It has given me a chance to try my hand at everything on a production, from acting to tape operator, boom operator to producer, background performer to makeup artist, and to be allowed to pitch in anywhere an extra hand was genuinely needed without worrying whether it was permitted by my job classification.
And perhaps most important of all, it's been fun. And no one can take that from me.
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