My favorite pony is Fluttershy and I still taste the blood in my mouth from where a boy’s elbow met my cheek. He hit me hard enough that I hit the floor. His shirt had her shy face on it. I kissed the concrete and he kept walking.

I am five feet and two inches and I’ve been shoved to the side so many times that if you are going to look for me, always scan the edges of a crowd for a small girl with wide eyes and bruises on her knees. I like Fluttershy because she’s like me, she likes animals more than people and when things get too loud, she shuts down. I like her because I’m scared of most things even though I know I shouldn’t be.

I am filled to the brim of moments where My Little Pony started turning into ashes where once had been a harmless little girl’s show. Boys with Rainbow Dash on their hoodies have sexually harassed my underage sister. They have touched my hair and made comments to my brother about whether or not he and I were fucking. They have made me scared for the little girls in my second grade class who are old enough to search for pictures of their favorite show. A boy with a pony bag threatened to rape me because I said I was a feminist. I wasn’t even talking to him at the moment.

I have grown to fear the title “brony.” I use to love the idea that a show could teach everyone who watched it friendship and compassion. I loved the idea of an all-inclusive community.

My favorite video game is anything I can shoot things in. I have been playing since before the PS was a thing. Yet with more geek cred than my boyfriend, I have been stripped down by worse words than I care to repeat. I have been asked to do anything from make a sandwich to suck a dick to kill myself. The whole nerd culture rails against the idea that I can dress in flower print and still have played both Portal games more times than I can count. I’m not supposed to be a girl and be in their space. This is for boys, get away.

This is my petition for every girl who has been spat on for liking comics. This is my petition for every person who loved something hard and watched a group of angry men ruin it. This is for every man who flinches because they’ve taken his fandom from him and made it disgusting.

Step on them by giving them the exact shit they’ve been shoving down your throat since you were fifteen and admitted that you liked Bioshock. Ask them if they only like My Little Pony because their girlfriend does. Ask them if they know every word to every episode. Sneer at them when they dress up, ask them to get back behind the grill, catcall them. Let them know you’re done letting them walk all over what you love. Take it back. Take back everything they wrenched from your fingers. Make the spaces they poisoned become unsafe for them. Stop rolling your eyes and letting it happen. Stand up. Destroy them.

I am sick of privileged babies making every community cater to them. I am sick of their pickup lines and reddit threads and antifeminism. I’m sick of their memes and fedoras and resistance to women. I am sick of them.

Take it back. This is my petition. I’m calling it reappropriation.