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the-nanowrimo-chronicles · 1 year ago

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Discords, forums and a decade’s worth of allegations: how Nanowrimo started a revolution against it.

I’m just gonna copy paste the Reddit post since. I cannot figure Tumblr out. So I apologise for the weird formatting. If you’d rather read the Reddit posts:

Trigger warnings: child abuse, assault, predators, racism, fetishes, ableism, terrorism, bombings, and just plain abuse.

This will also include brief mentions of religion.

**Terms used in the Nanowrimo community:**

Nanowrimo: national novel writing month: a writing challenge to write 50k words in November. This is also used to refer to the organisation, a Californian 501c3 that the challenge originates from, with a website and a forum. However the challenge can be done without the organisation. Often called ‘nano’ for short.

Young Writers’ Program: a Nanowrimo run platform aimed at people under 18. A separate site with classrooms and its own separate forum. The forum is for people aged 13-18. Often called ‘YWP’ for short.

Municipal Liasions: community organisers responsible for one region. This could be a city or a country depending on size and population. They help organise local events and mod their regional forums. Municipal Liasions are not paid. There are several hundreds of them. Often called ‘MLs’ for short.

Christian Teens Together: a group on the main Nanowrimo forums, and the largest group on the forums. Despite the name the group is not entirely composed of Christians or teens, however that is where the group originates. The majority of the group are minors. Often called ‘CTT’ for short.

Random Thoughts and Exclamations: the main thread of the YWP forums, basically a general. Often called ‘RTAE’ for short.

Prior to the meltdown, Nanowrimo had around 15 salaried staff. These are collectively referred to as HQ. However, they also have several forum moderators. These receive a $100 check at the end of the year, but are mostly considered volunteers. These mods have no involvement in the main site. However, some staff that worked on the forums were salaried and had main site involvement and so will be considered part of HQ unless stated later on.

**Scam sponsorships.**

In December 2022, a group of Nanowrimo users raised concerns about a pair of vanity publishers that had sponsored the Nanowrimo challenge. (A vanity publisher or vanity press is a publisher where the author pays the costs and surrenders a large portion of the rights to their work.) Nanowrimo had promoted discounts for these publishers, Inkitt and Manuscripts, to winners of its challenge. Staff and mods suspended and muted multiple accounts who raised the initial concerns, but eventually allowed a forum thread discussing concerns to remain. One of the affected users explained the concerns as follows:

> Now that I’ve been unbanned, I will try to keep the last 24 hours of thoughts…concise. Inkitt should NEVER have been accepted as a NaNoWriMo sponsor. They have changed business models every few years, and every business model has involved using up the first pub rights of any author who submits, WHICH IS A BIG DEAL, and promising them sketchy ‘prizes’ or ‘contracts’ in return. People who have given them a try also say that getting their content removed is a nightmare and they had to threaten legal action. These are just the starting points.

> There are blog posts about them from many authors dating back to at least 2016, [including my own](https://wrrrdnrrrdgrrrl.com/2016/05/23/inkitt-scam-spam-no-thank-you-maam/), that are easily discoverable by searching “Inkitt scam.” None of this should ever have happened.

> That said, it happened. And the mods panicked, and I went and wrote a [whole new blog](https://wrrrdnrrrdgrrrl.com/2022/11/30/on-nanowrimo-inkitt-and-being-an-author/ ) (which I will update soon to reflect NaNo’s better handling of things today) to warn people away from Inkitt because I wasn’t allowed to do so on the forums. And because I have some audience and writer friends, that got around, and [Victoria Strauss](https://twitter.com/victoriastrauss/status/1598114401818902529) got involved, and eventually we got here.

The following day, the Executive Director responded to the concerns with this message:

> I appreciate everyone’s thoughts and feedback, and want to start with an apology that our vetting process hasn’t met the high values we place on our community care. It shouldn’t have come to this (like so many of you said), but now that it has, we’re taking it as a learning moment to improve our sponsorship processes and find ways to dig deeper into an evaluation of a company.

> We’ve also ended the sponsorship with Inkitt and Manuscripts.

> Currently, the vetting process involves talking to writers, editors, or those working in the writing/publishing “ecosystem,” and then interviewing the potential companies. We often have a long-term relationship with a company and work with them year-over-year, but as the writing/publishing landscape changes so dramatically every year, we often find out about new companies and reach out to them or they reach out to us. We will do a more thorough evaluation of these processes and policies as part of our 2023 planning process to see what changes we need to make. Our goal will be to ensure our policies are in line with our organizational values, and to make sure the process is more transparent. For example, we’re discussing how we can ensure that a wider range of community and trusted industry voices are heard in this process, and on that note, we have already asked Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware to act as a consultant. We’re really pleased that she’s generously agreed to this, as this is her area of expertise and her ethical standards are admirably high. Also, she’s been passionately committed to analyzing products and services for writers for so long.

> We’ll also be sure to consult the resources you’ve already named, such as the various forum threads where you all have been sharing your experiences with companies.

> Thank you again for raising your concerns. We take your feedback very seriously and center it in our plans to care for the community. I’m not just saying that—this has been a valuable learning moment to help us do a better job of vetting sponsors more thoroughly. Your voices are the most important thing we consider when making decisions—not sponsors, but you. I’m sorry that it hasn’t always felt like that in the past, and hope that we can make sure it does in the future. Like you, we think NaNoWriMo should be a place where writers can come for trusted resources. We’re disappointed in ourselves that we lost that trust, and we hope to regain it. I invite you to send on feedback at any time to [email protected].

While Inkitt and Manuscripts were removed as sponsors, it recently emerged that Inkitt was a major donor for Nanowrimo. Some users were beginning to feel that Nanowrimo was protecting their own interests over the interests of their users, which only got worse when new allegations came out the following year.

**Inaction against predators.**

In May 2023, a group of users raised allegations about a moderator of Christian Teens Together. The [allegations](https://nitter.net/Arumi_kai/status/1722007756058574916#m) were that this moderator was luring minors onto a fetish site they ran. The allegations were sent to the Executive Director and the Director of Programs, but no actions were taken after a month. An FBI report had already been filed, but the fetish site was being scrubbed, suggesting that the staff there had been tipped off after the allegations. The group built a new case and after public pressure, got the moderator removed for violations of the forum Code of Conduct after they started threatening the group and the Nanowrimo organisation offsite. This moderator could be a whole post on their own, and has used sockpuppet accounts to lurk on the forums and has commented on the situation on their tumblr. They are often referred to as Mod X, and will be referred to as such in this essay.

In June, a thread on moderation was opened, and a discussion began about the culture of CTT, where it became clear that Mod X had isolated the group and emotionally abused them. It was also revealed that the CTT had a ‘three strikes and shutdown’ system for a group with over a thousand members. One user explained the problem as follows:

> How the CTT members were given only three strikes for over one thousand people is, frankly, appalling and obscene. I can understand treating them as a group; if you give them all three strikes, that’s over three thousand strikes. But they need more than three. But even with that, hanging that last strike over their head for over six months is unacceptable, and yes, I said it before and I’ll say it again, it is emotionally abusive to tell them that one more strike and they’re getting shut down for over six months. Never knowing who’s going to make the mistake that gets them shut down or when, and worrying about when someone messes up. Worrying that they’re going to be one that messes up and is blamed by the group. Terrified of reporting things because what if that report is the reason their community is shut down?

More users came forward with grooming allegations, but these posts were frozen and hidden. However, the cat was out of bag, at least on the main forums. And in a retrospective thread on the 10th of November, a former YWP user spoke up about a similar situation that had happened the month before.

> They did this to the YWP too. When a message was sent outlining evidence of a predator it was ignored for 3 days (iirc) and initially responded with ‘we reviewed this account and found nothing that broke our rules’ only after it was posted publicly on the forums. They did take the account down, but only hours later (once we had made a major fuss with pretty much everyone who knew the situation calling the mods out) and with no further communication for two days, which sent us into a spiral of panic and teens leaving as they didn’t feel safe on the platform.

The following day, the COO responded to this post with:

> Hi there, I wanted to speak to this directly since it relates to a lot of the youth safety issues people are bringing up, and YWP has different systems. First off, we did indeed look into the participant that was flagged on YWP. [YWP lead] and [Director of Programs] discussed and investigated on Oct. 3; they responded on Oct. 4. Our search into their history and their other social media accounts did not find evidence that they were a predator or someone else than the person they claimed to be. We were wrong to say that nothing crossed the lines set by our codes of conduct, and we should have issued a reminder about those codes. However, no violation crossed the line that would require banning. We kept a close eye on this account following the reports and encouraged participants to follow their guts and keep a wide berth. After the account was suspended due to user flags, we agreed their account should not be reinstated.

> In the long term, we’re bringing in additional moderators in the YWP forums. Role plays occasionally skirt the codes around keeping it PG and partly in response to this situation we’re adding a volunteer mod next week who will just be monitoring role plays and the forum for personal conversations, where the majority of these flags came from.

This response was immediately torn apart by the adults on the thread, while more members of the YWP started speaking out about what they had been dealing with for years.

**The Wild West of the YWP.**

The YWP had two or three mods, which changed across the years due to differing roles. These were members of HQ, and now have all been fired or quit. These were: a Lead Forums Moderator who resigned in October 2023 and had stopped working with the YWP a while before that, a Community Manager who was put on leave at the beginning of November 2023, and the aforementioned YWP lead and Director of Programs who were either fired or quit in December 2023.

There are three parts to the YWP: the individual users, which are under 18, the classrooms, which are controlled by a teacher and are meant for educational settings, and the forums, which are open to users aged 13-18 whether they’re writing individually or as part of a classroom.

However, investigation revealed that the security of these classrooms are remarkably lax. It only required an email, username and password for an ‘educator’ to set up a classroom, and student accounts didn’t even need an email. Multiple YWP users confirmed that they had used this to gain access to private messages, as the classrooms have a PM feature while the forums did not. On top of this, it was confirmed by a moderator that classrooms are basically unmoderated:

> it's almost impossible to moderate these. There was a rash a few years back of the kids themselves making classrooms and the only way I could track them was to manually go through the admin panel and look for the most recent ones and click. They're almost entirely disconnected from the moderation tools and are completely unmoderated unless someone in one reports something. I actually gave up even trying to patrol the classrooms in any form because there's too many and the admin tools suck.

And on the forums themselves, it only got worse. The moderation often ignored its users, and when they intervened, the intervention often worsened the situation. This got to the point that in August 2022, a group of users held a [strike](https://speak-out.carrd.co/) against the moderation due to neglect and incompetence. However, the problems only continued to grow, and in December 2022, there was a incident of a user faking a disorder and, when called out on it, sending death threats. This user also made accounts in order to impersonate and harass users on the sites. It was not uncommon for users to run others off the site, which, justified or not, was often fueled by lack of mod intervention.

This came to a head in October 2023, when a predator was found and the moderation response was once again inadequate. On the 1st of October, moderation was privately contacted by a group of YWP users about a predator that had been on the forums for two years. After three days with no response and no action taken, the group took the information public and a mass flagging campaign began in order to gain the attention of the mods. And five hours after it began, a response was finally posted by the YWP lead:

> Ні,

Thanks for writing to us with your concerns, and for being so thorough keeping track of the places that made you uncomfortable.

> First of all, I want to say: good on you for following your gut. If you ever run into something online that makes you feel scared or worried or unsafe or just seems a little bit off, it's always okay to back away. Trust yourself, and don't do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, no matter who is asking you.

> The other moderators and I looked (and are continuing to look) more into this person, and from what we can tell, it seems like they are who they say they are. Nothing in their posts crosses the lines set by our Codes of Conduct (though they do come right up to the line sometimes). Like I said before, you can absolutely draw a boundary and not interact with them anymore. It just means we can't take any action on site besides marking their profile such that we pay extra attention to their posts, as well as the other account you flagged as a potential alt.

> If we notice anything in the future we can follow up on it more directly.

> Thank you for being so passionate and thorough about trying to make sure the YWP forums are a safe space, and let me know if you have any questions or want to talk anything through more.

This response was torn apart by the users, and 12 hours later people noticed that the threads the predator created had been taken down. However, there was no comment in the public moderation thread on the situation, and the users had no idea whether the account had been banned or not. This caused a mass panic, and several users pulled back or left the platform due to safety concerns.

Early on the 6th of October, a user tried to goad the moderators into responding to the mess by posting a message to the mods in the official announcements forum, which was supposed to be mod-only:

> There is always an explosion of newbies in November, and you have children as young as 13 here. And your inaction is making the site dangerous. We are being forced to defend ourselves against something we should not be dealing with because you can't be bothered.

> This is more than inaction. This is dangerous incompetence. And don't respond to this with another 'we'll do better' apology, because they never last. I've seen this cycle too many times. Tell us that he's gone, that we don't have to worry about him, and tell us what you're doing to make sure this doesn't happen again. And stop forcing children to be the adults in your place.

However, this post remained up for around 12 hours. At that point, the moderation decided to close the forums for a week, giving the users only a day’s notice. And when they reopened, they threatened to make the forums for writing topics only. Although they walked this back due to user pressure and claimed it was due lack of staff, it came off to some users as a punishment for complaining.

There were more incidents over the next month, and these were mentioned in the retrospective thread, which came as a complete shock to the adults, who had been told that a large part of the funding was going to the YWP. Some began to call for the moderators to resign:

> I sincerely hope they are all drafting their resignation letters. we won’t even give them grief this time for writing it together and recycling the same wording.

> they had their chance to listen to their users, to develop action plans and timeline and to publicly respond. they chose not to do that and knowingly let abuse and harm continue on their watches. both here and on ywp.

> resign or get fired. either way this is no longer their house, they are being evicted.

**The Nanopocalypse.**

The Nanowrimo Board intervened in the evening of the 12th of the November, having been contacted by users in the retrospective thread. They immediately set the main forums to read only barring threads they made to discuss the many issues. However the YWP forums were not immediately closed, and so the users from the retrospective reported back on RTAE.

Two hours after the main forums were closed, a YWP user received a message from the Director of Programs threatening to ban the user. Moments later this user and two others were temporarily banned from the forums. And the forums exploded on both sides. On the main forums:

> Do something for these YWP kids being banned for speaking up about their abuse.

And on the YWP:

> no cause if you're so threatened by MINORS joking at your expense take a good long look in the mirror

The same user on commented on the main thread:

> Just so yall know, the ywp is honestly going to hell rn. People are getting banned, some of the people who talked to you yesterday got banned for saying enough. I got warnings for saying that adults shouldn’t be threatened by teens making jokes. It’s a really bad situation and a lot of people are stressed and overwhelmed

One user commented on how bad the YWP had gotten as follows:

>FOR REAL !!! i joined when i was 16?? THE FIRST FUCKING THING I DID WAS MODERATE. i had to skip the classic nano ywp cringe newbie stage because i had to swoop into an argument that was obvious a moderator wasn’t going to ever deal with. and i did that for like the year and a half i was on nano. and like i don’t give a shit in the sense it doesn’t hold a candle to being 14 and moderating for three years straight but. the amount of power hierarchies the ywp has because of us who. play mod. it’s stressful and not fun and i would not wish it upon my worst enemies. this might be petty but? i’d pay real money that none of the staff team remembers me despite me doing their jobs since the moment i clicked create account

> i have not seen a single case of

someone getting fairly banned, nor of someone problematic and upsetting having consequences for their

actions.

>nano is a weird place because a lot of shit happened offsite (ex; my connection to [redacted]. the nanoer who was lying and trauma dumping to me and some of my close friends. that all happened in “adult nano” dms. but we were open about it. and even with multiple call-out posts in places with chats that don’t bury posts often and theoretically ones mods should be checking? nothing was done.) but the guessing game on when mods finally arrive to a scene is awful. the brace for impact everyone collectively did when

someone finally showed up? was awful. these are teenagers. and when these teens can’t trust the moderators who’re supposed to be monitoring their website, who are they supposed to trust?

A few hours into the board thread, YWP users called out one of the accounts on the main forum for being a predator. The group confirmed that this person had been removed from the YWP but that they had been allowed to remain on the main site. Users confronted this account directly:

> correct me if i’m wrong (i’m not) but i do remember you being one of (if not the most) manipulative, spiteful, maliciously incompetent people i have ever encountered. do you, perchance, remember all the times you told that little 15 year old the sexual things you wanted to do to her? i remember. i remember everything you said. i might not be able to prove all of it but we know. we didn’t forget. playing dumb won’t save you now, boy.

> don’t you dare sit here and pretend this was an okay thing for you to do. you got suspended but you’re still here talking aren’t you ?? it’s two years old we still have the very same predator (most people active in the lounge in the last year or two [in the ywp] knows you. no one who knows you likes you.) roaming the adult site. how is this not an issue that needs to be addressed?

The account was suspended a few days later.

That night, the board confirmed that they were unaware that the YWP was a separate site, and the YWP forums were shut. With no read only mode on the YWP, it erupted into chaos. Users said their goodbyes, and some expressed their anger with the moderation for how they turned out. This led to the Director of Programs threatening to close the forums early, despite the users only having a few hours to say goodbye anyway. One user put it as simply as:

> me when my entire community of the last three years is being ripped away lol

And the last three posts?

> FUCK THE MODS FR

> im gonna miss this website so much. love you all and its not our fault this is happening, it’s the mods stay safe stay amazing and love you all, youre the best.

> Im so sorry the mods destroyed this. hate that we have to lose this beautiful thing because of them. I have one last

thing to say:

>FUCK. THE. MODS.

> Imao

And with that, the weekend from hell was over.

But the Nanopocalypse had barely begun.

**It wasn't just kids that were abused.**

The board threads went down a few rabbit holes, but it was a testimony on the 28th of November that started the next fire. This came from an ML, and spoke of a situation a decade before.

> In 2012 (might have been 2011) I had an adult participant explain the explicit omegaverse erotica that she was writing to a 14 year old. She then left her laptop open to go and get a drink, with the instruction “i’m not telling you to read it, but I’m not not telling you that, and if I just leave my laptop open and you happen to see it, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

> The teenager approached me before NaNo the next year and told me about this. She said that it made her extremely uncomfortable and that the adult participant had spent a lot of time telling her how clever she (the teen) was, how she was more mature than other teens, and how other adults just didn’t understand. Which is all classic grooming. The teen asked if this person was going to be at events that year, because she didn’t want to see her again.

> I contacted HQ with this, and asked if they would back me up if I told this person that they were no longer welcome at our events.

> The response I got was that not only would they not back me up, I was not allowed to ban this person from our events because they had to be held in a public space and be open to anyone who wanted to come and write.

> the teenager never came to another in-person event.

> The adult in question came back, and that year groomed and sexually assaulted a 17-year-old who she met at our events. I didn’t learn about this until several months afterwards. I once again contacted HQ, and was told that I still couldn’t ask her to stay away from our region because the incident took place after our event and we weren’t allowed to ban people based on behaviour outside the scope of our events

>I then posed the question: If the abusive ex of one of our wrimos turned up at an event, with the apparent intent to write with us, could I ask them to leave?

> Once again the answer was no, unless there was evidence of a police report, or the ex became abusive during the event. It was heavily implied that the victim ought to leave if they were uncomfortable.

> I had no training in how to handle this kind of thing, and I received the opposite of support.

> Having heard stories from other MLs I am convinced that the only reason I was not removed from the position is that I chose not to fight them.

The ML spoke more about trainings regarding racism.

>It’s been videos (I think 2 were workshops, but they were only run in US timezones so the rest of us just had to watch the videos and read transcripts) which have so far been exclusively on a US-centric approach to race and racism. One of the first 2 was run by a white person with a… questionable background… And [Director of Community Engagement]’s response to that being raised as an issue boiled down to “we have some MLs who won’t listen if it’s a black person”. Honestly, if you can’t handle being taught about racial issues by a person of that race, maybe you shouldn’t be in a position of power?

> We have the ML Agreement (which, until very recently, forbade MLs from criticising NaNoWriMo in any way. So recently that [Director of Community Engagement] used that clause to remove at least one ML in the last year without knowing/remembering that they took that out).

The discussion quickly pivoted to the treatment of MLs, and to the ML discord server. This was considered unofficial, but needed to get in touch with the Director of Community Engagement, who oversaw the MLs. The user who broke the news about Mod X gave a summary of the problems there:

> A ML was banned from the ML discord for suspicion of "leaking information shared in the ML discord with non-MLs".

> I've seen the (frankly a bit baffling) accusation by MLs (both on and off the main discord) that I have ulterior motives in bringing light to the issues facing the NaNoWriMo organization, so I'll reiterate - again - that l'm only one of a very large group of users over multiple offsite platforms who have been documenting these issues.

> The only reason I'm fairly visible in this situation is because it was decided my twitter platform was the best chance to bring wider attention to the issues in a way HQ would listen to (since efforts here on the forums were being shut down, silenced or obfuscated). I want to note that it's extremely concerning that the default in the ML discord is to focus on "someone leaking information or sneaking into our server" rather than address the systemic problems that have led to so many MLs feeling like they need to seek outside help for their treatment by the ML community. Not to mention the harm of indulging that paranoia when energy would be better focused on strategies to address the crisis facing the NaNo community.

> The main ML discord has obtained a list of users on NaNoWriMo discord servers that allow open criticism of HQ, and is kicking any ML who appears on the member list of the dissenting servers.

However, it seems that only two MLs were kicked for being in a dissenting server.

The kicked ML explained:

> I was kicked out for supposedly sharing screenshots from the ML discord with other people. I only know this, because when I said "hey, I can't find the ml discord any more" another ML went 'holy shit, that was you?' and told me what was being said about me.

> They also told me that what I had supposedly done was not against the rules at the time. [server admin] changed the rules after she kicked me out for "breaking" them.

There was another ML testimony that deserves its own section and we’ll get to in a second, but a response to it brought a new and horrifying light on the actions of the Director of Community Engagement.

> I’ve mentioned I was co-ML 2018, 2019, and 2020. My region had no ML for 2021 because my previous co-ML and I protested how [Director of Community Engagement] treated me.

> So. I am autistic as fuck. I am also physically disabled, and legally blind. We were promised access to the new 2019 forums months before NaNo, since we were MLs.

> I got access two weeks before NaNo.

> Two weeks, for my blind, autistic ass to figure out these very non-intuitive forums before time to kick things off.

> Clearly, this was not really a possibility for me. Because, again, autistic and blind.

> So my co-ML and I decided that I would handle all the online-but-offsite things (Facebook and the discord server I’d set up the year before) while he handled in-person and on-site things. This worked out great for us; our region was well taken care of between the two of us.

> I put so much love and care into my region’s discord server when I created it in 2018 (I had unexpectedly moved a few hours from my region in October, so the three of us co-MLs for that year worked out together what I would do to still hold my end of things up). I was cheering people on on the daily, running daily virtual write-ins for anyone who wanted to pop in and write with me. Any time my co-ML had a physical write-in, I scheduled a virtual one for the same time for anyone who couldn’t go in person

for whatever reason, and a co-ML would connect on their device so that the in-person and the virtual participants could talk to each other before time to write. For the 16th, I scheduled a full 24 hours virtual write-in that people could pop in and out of as they wanted to try to double up their word counts (I ran it the full 24 hours myself and then went to bed afterwards). I was even able to run some of the virtual write-ins from the hospital. I had so many people thank me for it, because they lived too far to make it in person easily, or they worked nights, or they were disabled, or they were immunocompromised so couldn’t go in person.

> Since that worked so well, I also did it for 2019, except even more because I loved my region and I love my people. I love cheering people on. I love helping them figure out a sticky problem in their project. I love just celebrating that they wrote, whether they wrote a full 50k or not, they tried this impossible thing and they did their best and that’s what NaNo is about. I worked my ass off in 2019 to make up for the fact that I couldn’t deal with the new site. Because, once again, I am autistic and blind.

> But also, before I move on to 2020, let’s talk about some of the gaslighting bullshit that HQ fed us. And yes, it was gaslighting I do not use that term lightly.

There was no validator. We were promised there would be a validator. We tell our regions “don’t worry, we’ve been promised there’ll be a validator, it should be ready in a few days”. Then HQ says “oh, sorry, it’ll be a little longer, you’ll have it by the end of the month, though, we super promise”. So we tell our regions, “sorry, it’s not going to be a couple days but they promise we’ll have it by the end of the month”. HQ was still telling us to tell our regions that the validator would be there by the end of the month even after HQ had decided there would be no fucking validator, not even by the end of the month, just never. When we were like “the fuck??? why would you tell us this, then???” we were told that we had just misunderstood what they meant. Gaslighting. That is actual fucking gaslighting.

> So now let’s go to 2020. Two successful years running my Region’s discord - and we added a Whole [country] discord, too! Go us!!!

> I re-apply to co-ML again. Don’t hear anything, assume that I didn’t hear anything because I was approved. In May, Sarah posts in the ML Facebook that if we re-applied and didn’t get an email from her to email her and let her know. So I emailed her. She had forgotten to email me. She had set my application aside because was I sure I could be a good ML since I had barely posted to the site in 2019. The year that the entire site changed and my blind autistic ass could not navigate it. I explained the situation, that I hadn’t been able to navigate the site so my co-ML and I had divvied things up so that I could run all the online-but-offsite things, etc. I told her about the region Discord and all the virtual write-ins.

> [Director of Community Engagement] says that all my efforts the previous years don’t count because it’s not on the site. That off-site can’t be moderated so it’s really discouraged that regions have anything online but offsite. She emailed my co-ML to tell them that she’d find a co-ML that could support them better. My co-ML responded along the lines

of “if you take [ML] away from me, I fucking quit”. So [Director of Community Engagement] tells them that I’m on probation but not to let me know. Which. They did anyway because they’re also one of my best friends and platonic life partners.

> I’m fine now, it’s been three years, I can deal. But when I say that being told that everything I’d set up didn’t count, that broke me. I had worked so hard, literally from the fucking hospital, to be told that it didn’t count. That the thing that I had set up as an accommodation for disabled or immunocompromised didn’t count.

> We MLed for 2020, because we finish our commitments. When 2021 rolled around and no one volunteered to ML, I still took care of my region. I still ran the discord, I still ran the virtual events, I still answered their questions and cheered them on. Because I’m not going to leave my people out to dry even if the person in charge doesn’t care.

> So. That was 2019 and the early parts of 2020. And it’s why I will never ML again while [Director of Community Engagement] is in charge.

> When I volunteered as a moderator, it’s because I genuinely wanted to help the community that I care so

much about. But I volunteered under [Community Manager]. [Community Manager] wasn’t perfect, but [Community Manager] cared. Whatever her

failings, she fucking cared about us. I told [Community Manager] when I disagreed with her, but I did it to her face and I tried to be kind. (Not necessarily nice, but kind. Because kind will tell you when you’re fucking up. Nice will not.)

> Right before NaNo started, I was no longer helping [Community Manager], I was now having to answer to [Director of Community Engagement]. So maybe I was more reactive than I would have been had [Director of Community Engagement] not broken me three years ago. Because of that, I tried to temper my reactions more, to make sure that I was reacting to the actual thing and not to who was saying it.

I have had it confirmed since I quit that [Director of Community Engagement] saw me as a problem and was trying to make me quit. And, well, she succeeded. Because I did quit when [Director of Community Engagement] said that mods would now be silencing any criticism of HQ.

> I love this community, or I would have left in 2020. I love the people, and I love the spirit of NaNo. I love that the spirit of NaNo lives in all of us, that we all have this little flame inside all of us that’s part of the bigger fire. I love that we come together to cheer each other on, and help each other when we’re stuck.

> But fuck the way MLs like me were treated. If I was treated this way, I bet there are others.

As of writing this, the Director of Community Engagement is still in her position and still oversees MLs.

So the MLs had to tolerate ableism and racism to do their jobs. And it only got worse. Let’s go back to that other testimony, which revealed:

**That time HQ made a game with a terrorist in it.**

Yep.

> In 2017 the staff decided to roll out an in-office game they had apparently played amongst themselves to the wider public.

> This game was a treasure hunt type activity, where one had to stop a terrorist called Ivan the Icy from blowing up NaNo and the world.

> This hunt included a now removed video of a very convincingly dressed man monologue at the camera about how he was going to bomb NaNo. So convincing in fact it took very long into the video before signs of it being fake emerged.

> Several faked emails sent to you, in that same vein that eventually led to a hidden page on the site where you had to disarm a bomb. Failing to do so would make it explode. Granted, upon exploding it filled your screen with penguins, but until then it was far too realistic.

> This was not communicated to MLs prior to sending out. Nothing had been mentioned. If it had we could have told them why this was a bad idea. The game might work in office where everyone knows each other’s sensitivities and humour (although even then one can wonder why this topic), but on a global scale this is tone deaf at best.

> MLs were the ones who raised the alarm and contacted HQ as quickly as we noticed. We had to explain in detail the potential ramifications, after which action was taken. We then helped NaNo cover this up.

> Note that at this point we had already lost so much faith in HQ that we were actively brainstorming how we could potentially flag it to youtube and facebook to get the video taken down if HQ would not respond to us as they often didn’t.

> To explain just how tone deaf this game was. The very convincing video was posted (not used) on 9/11. This was the year after the bombing in Brussels during NaNo. Two years after the bombing and shootings in Paris that had the Parisian Wrimos stuck in a write-in near the bomb site and active shooters for hours. And the same year a bomb had been detonated in the Manchester arena.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, a user who was on the YWP at the time confirmed that there was a YWP element:

> I didn’t find out that this came up in conversation yesterday until today but I feel like I need to add that the YWP had a dedicated forum thread to Ivan the Icy and was encouraged to participate and solve the terrorism scavenger hunt

> Yeah the terrorism scavenger hunt was a whole thing. I couldn’t even solve it because it was so heavily locked behind Facebook so I didn’t find out the full implications until the “apology” was sent out, but we on the YWP had an entire forum thread created by the mods (I want to say [YWP lead]) dedicated to solving it

So. That was a thing. Moving on.

**The board drank HQ’s kool-aid.**

The board was originally relatively helpful when they first intervened, but things soon took a turn. They took a break over American Thanksgiving [20th-26th November], and the responses soured following the break. The first clue of this was their defensive attitude towards the Executive Director’s $128K salary, when users figured out that since Nanowrimo ran a ‘salary first, operating budget second’ model, the operating budget was around $88K.

However, it was a comment about what Nanowrimo meant to the board member replying that started the anti-board attitude:

> Until two weeks ago, I had never used the forums; they just aren’t my thing. I mention all of this to say that not everybody who is part of this community hinges their experience, sense of belonging, or sense of value for NaNoWriMo on the forums. Part of my love for/experience of NaNo was doing a weekend writing retreat every November. I have very fond memories of these the years I did them. NaNo takes different forms for different people.

And when questioned about how this came across from an economic perspective, the elaboration was as follows:

> I am going on a writing retreat this weekend with my regular crew. It involves renting an AirBnB and each of us paying $200-$300 plus preparing one meal during the course of the weekend.

The fact that the first thing given as what nano meant to the board was a $200 writing retreat came off as inconsiderate in part due to reasons I’ll discuss later.

The next red flag was a reply in response to the idea having staff credentials in their account bios:

> Frankly, this isn’t a huge priority given that we’re asking staff to focus on other issues and since it’s pretty easy to look people up on LinkedIn. In a previous thread, someone posted the LinkedIn profiles of staffers.

> Again, we don’t view ourselves as concealing this information. Our staff bios are pretty standard and this information is available online.

However, users quickly pointed out that since the board member used their pen name, they couldn’t find their LinkedIn.

A few comments in a question and answer thread were also received poorly:

> The Board recognizes that people want answers now. After all, THEY ARE SHOUTING AT US IN ALL CAPS.

> We get that people ARE UPSET but we can’t do much about unrealistic expectations.

However, it was one of their last responses that really cemented their downfall:

> That is not what [other user] said. Please answer the actual question that was asked.

> And get better at reading comprehension, christ.

> Thank you for proving why the forums are so hard to moderate and for giving the Board reason to consider that we might never be able to make them safe. Because how can anybody feel safe when confronted with vicious sarcasm after committing the utterly human fallibility of misreading?

The board stopped responding that weekend and closed the remaining threads on the 4th of December.

Well. Almost all of them. A few hours later users noticed that the ‘about the Nanowrimo board category’ thread wasn’t locked. Users scrambled to post a final goodbye to the forums in a similar manner to the YWP shutdown a few weeks before.

> It has been an honour being in the trenches with so many of you. I’m sorry that it’s coming down to this, but here is where we are.

> So many of us did not deserve the way we were treated. So many of us were failed by a staff that should have done better.

> And I will never NOT be angry that protecting [Mod X] was more important than protecting children.

And with the battlefield closed, everyone retreated to their discords to discuss.

**The donation begging.**

Despite making between $1-$2 million a year, Nanowrimo always seemed desperate for more money. The first sign of this was the aforementioned Inkitt donor situation, but the second was ‘double-up donation weekend’, where donors got twice as much goodies for donating. This was during the 4th and 5th of November, and while the actual number of emails sent is disputed, one user simply said:

> too fucking many

However it was probably between 8-11. Over two days. And people have alleged that they sent more in other days.

Graphics from a recent presentation also revealed that they were trying to solicit donations from people in poverty. The graphic said to donate less if

> * Love NaNoWriMo and want to support us alongside 8,000 annual community donors!

> * Have little to no savings

> * Work more than one job to meet your basic needs

> * Have dependents (children, elderly loved ones, household partners, neighbors, etc.)

Another graphic suggested that people making $12K a year should donate $300 a year.

However, it was revealed after the forums were shut that Nanowrimo had been soliciting donations from users of the YWP since 2016, and that it had been a regular thing since 2018. And only once did they add a disclaimer:

> P.S. Today is #Giving Tuesday, and this year NaNoWriMo has received a $20,000 matching donation. So if you know someone who might want to support our organization, encourage them to donate today and double their impact!

The emails did in fact link to the Nanowrimo store.

**And then the memes attacked.**

When the forums were shut on December 4th, the some regional forums ran by MLs were allowed to remain. However, around the 11th of December, a lifeboat group received intel that the regional forums were soon to close. The day following, there was a rush of posts in the regional forums from members of this group alerting regional members of this. There were also allegations that the Director of Community Engagement had her own reasons for shutting the forums down.

> The decision to close the regional forums over the holidays was indisputably an "oh fuck" maneuver. It was NOT to shield MLs from emergency situations that they wouldn't be able to handle in Sarah's absence. It was NOT out of concern for the MLs.

> And I have proof.

> On November 30th, [Director of Community Engagement] reached out to the MLs who had chosen to keep their forums open. She asked if we still wanted to keep them open. **And she presented us with the following additional options:**

> * 1) Set it to "only MLs can start threads"

> * **2) Set it to "only MLs can post" (i.e. use it only for announcements or record keeping)**

> * 3) Set some or all existing open threads to "slow mode" so they can't be posted in as frequently

> * 4) Close some or all of the existing open threads

> **Option 2 would have eliminated this concern entirely.** My region is set to Announcements-only right now. No one else can post there. So, unless the MLs themselves were the concern, there would have been no need to close the forums *entirely*.

> Except... some MLs *are* giving HQ the migraine of their lives. **They need to silence ALL dissident voices, including those of MLs.**

> Hopefully you can view the form [Director of Community Engagement] sent MLs on November 30th here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdTbrRNrhfFV6HoXVUMWghomicP7xzvqWdLxC-R6cJ7Q8pfFA/viewform

And one member put it as:

> At this point I'm so confused, but what I see is HQ continuing to fuck up.

On the eve of the 15th of December, as the regional forums were taken down, the group discovered a thread on a regional forum, dedicated to memes about the Nanowrimo challenge. They flooded it with anti-HQ memes, in a last middle finger to HQ. A large amount of the memes consisted of promotional pictures of staff with humorous captions, such as The Good Place quote ‘I took the form of a 45 year old white man for a reason. I can only fail up.’, with the Executive Director photoshopped on. However, there was one that was purely text, from a YWP member:

> she nano on my wrimo till i shut down the forums

As the memes winded down, users settled in for a night of watching the forums go down. It was a long night, with users posting haikus to pass the time.

> Just a reminder

> The forums will shut down soon

> Save the threads you want

>Save the threads. You want

> Community, but darkness

>Prevails. Just for now.

However, some forums were never closed and are still open to this day.

**The smouldering remains.**

The entire YWP staff has gone, as has the social media manager. The Executive Director has been ‘demoted’ to Financial Stewardship Director. The current Executive Director is the board member that works under a pen name.

Nanowrimo has yet to reopen the forums, and besides disabling the ability to self-identify as an educator on the YWP, have yet to implement any of the changes that they promised.

More information can be found at r/nanowrimo, which is an unofficial Nano group without staff involvement.

#nanowrimo controversy #antinanowrimo #nano #nanopocalypse #nanowrimo #so fuck nanowrimo #Fuck this got long #Hobby drama

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steadycoffeeflow · 5 months ago

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So NaNo staff issued a note to the community that you can read in full over on their website.

As already noted by others, there's no acknowledgement that their earlier statements were couched in false social injustice and co-opted language they shouldn't have. Just the apology for "lack of context" when they came out in wholesale support of AI.

I want to make it entirely clear: It is not "selective intolerance" to be against training models that plagiarize writers' work and threaten the welfare of writers, be they hobbyists or professionals.

NaNoWriMo issuing a statement that's not apologetic in the slightest, to a community well-versed in subtext and tone, is just another indication this org is dead in the water. Their opening line claims that telling people to stop stealing authors' works without permission is "vitriolic", I mean, come the fuck on.

Yet, they're claiming to be neutral.

If you want to give them the benefit of the doubt, AI is a very broad term, so it's possible they didn't mean generative AI.

But to that, I say, this statement was as good a time as any to at least define what the hell they initially meant. And they didn't do that. Instead, they did what I called out earlier: both-sidsing, limp wristed prattle days after the fact (it took Ellipsus all of half a day to issue their statement, alongside much of their board of writers, who are also volunteers by the way).

"We absolutely believe that AI must be discussed and that its ethical use must be advocated-for. What we don’t believe is that NaNoWriMo belongs at the forefront of that conversation. That debate should continue to thrive within the greater writing community as technologies continue to evolve."

Guys, you made yourselves the forefront of the conversation. And that thriving community engagement that had been fostered for over twenty years was summarily nuked when NaNo failed to protect children from harm, let's not forget that. This ideological concept where NaNo comes out, fists flying with accusations of classism and ableism because people take legitimate issue against plagiarism, then rolls right over decrying how vitriolic people are being in response to their antagonisms?

Just an idea, don't support thieves, don't speak over the disabled community, and maybe, just maybe, don't fuck around. Cause with the number of sponsors that have dropped and national media coverage this story has gotten (but lol, totally not at the forefront guys, too much heat for such a silly small thing, y'all are totally blowing this out of proportion let's, oh, take the heat off when we were the ones who turned the stove on in the first fucking place (I am American in an election cycle year I am losing my fucking mind)) I believe NaNo is entering the "find out" stage.

Back to the earlier point of what exactly I'm taking issue with...

Many "AI" features that have been umbrella'd under this term already were available in some form or another for several decades, existing as programs or features of software. Just because some tech bro rolls out an update and slaps AI in front of their API doesn't mean the tool is actually "AI".

But if you want to discuss the merits of Microsoft's Clippy being an AI program, let's fuckin' go.

Full disclosure: I deleted my NaNo account. My MLs were booted in April with no warning nor discussion, and my local community is doing it's own thing independent of NaNo.

We can support and cheer each other on just fine without the groomers and plagiarists.

Also, again, what the fuck does "advocated-for" mean who over there is hyphenating random shit? This is coming from a kenning enthusiast, please what the hell is happening over there??

I'm coming out of my cage and things are not fine, I'm screaming at NaNo "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!"

If you haven't already been made aware how borked NaNoWriMo is, in the past 24 hours they've released an endorsement of AI after partnering with an AI software program.

The problem is, much of what they're saying is outright bullshit, and I don't even need to get into the nature of belittling the very writers they claim they're sticking up for by talking over them. It's an exploitation of a community, using them as a PR meat shield.

Because it should be awfully apparent NaNo's goal isn't to foster a healthy writing community. If that were the true goal, their missteps for the past year following the child harm allegations wouldn't be happening. Rather, instead, it's more likely the reason every company has relentlessly pursued and pushed AI: $$$

I don't think I'm entirely off base to say money is the reason AI is mucking up much of our creative spaces. At the peak of this fervor, you could load up some listicle titled '5 Ways AI Boosts Your Side Hustle' or some YouTuber claiming to make thousands a month with their AI writing, as if it were that easy to make a living writing and silly authors have just been leaving money on the table.

The mad gold rush that followed impacted literary magazines and publishing spaces, such as Clarkesworld Magazine freezing submissions as they were inundated with poorly written nonsense. The people behind NaNoWriMo, however, apparently believe Clarkesworld Magazine is just being classist and ableist in their anti-AI stance. Yes. Certainly because of those reasons.

And not because their submissions jumped an untenable amount, almost 500% from their usual submission intake, and cost the lit mag staff untold amounts of mental harm (as well as a very real number amount of staffing hours and financial costs to combat this problem).

But to that, NaNo Org argues that AI is cost-effective, actually!

Which, we're back to the opening argument that NaNo is full of shit (in case you didn't realize that citation link was sarcasm and not evidence in support of NaNo's stance). It may be free to the end user to access AI, notwithstanding the many many models one can buy including NaNo's own sponsor, but the financial damages being incurred by the use of this tech is anything but. The fact NaNo glosses through this in three little bullet points is insulting.

But what really has gotten me to write off about this on a mostly dead Tumblr blog, is that I've worked in the publishing industry all of my adult life and I've been a part of the creative writing community about as long as NaNo claims to. Hell, part of my contract freelance work has been to go through slush piles and evaluate, by hand, if the submission utilized AI or not. Full transparency, that work has helped me get through medical bills this year.

Yet that's my point. Someone had to rearrange their budgets to hire many people like me to combat rampant AI-generated submissions, from college admission offices to literary magazines to other publishers. What could have gone toward the print run of a special issue or increasing the marketing budget of a debut author now has to go making sure illegal, plagiarized work isn't being unwittingly published and endorsed. It's not classist to take a stand against a technology that's disruptive enough to put people out of business, but NaNo takes aim and fires off some bullshit claim they're pro-indie authors.

You might be thinking, "But Steady, if the business can't adapt to the market, they shouldn't exist!"

And to that I say, not every single little thing needs to have a financial commodity price tag slapped onto it. Not everything needs to make money. Things have a right to exist without a price tag stickered on them. The onus of this situation is because NaNo partnered with an AI sponsor. They're outright seeking to make money out of this. Because they're well aware of the PR fiasco, they're high-grounding the situation by claiming they're sticking up for the little guys, while outright taking money from a harmful billion dollar industry.

Meanwhile, the little guy will find no publisher will touch their work, that their writing has no copyright protections attached to them, and they'll be blacklisted by those they stole the work from. NaNo claims this is unfair; sorry folks, that's just how it works. Stealing from your fellow writers tends to get those same writers to rally against you.

I don't need to be told that the publishing industry has issues, that fanfiction writers are made fun of and lambasted. But most of those issues stem from and feed right back into the very problem NaNo is claiming to stand against: The financial commodity of writing.

NaNo has everything to gain by you believing them and using their sponsorship coupon so you can generate works as a writer that have no copyright protections and likely violated the copyrights of fellow writers works in doing so (I can play the bolded words game too, you pricks (see their update in response to the massive backlash this stance has generated online)).

The final point I have to say, is that in NaNo's defense they claim their online workshops are just full to the brim! See the demand! Look, look with your special eyes how popular AI is!! You fools, this is the future at hand!!!

Except, I, an avid anti-AI writer and publishing professional, attend webinars about AI all the damned time. Mostly to understand what new angle or developments we'll have to defend against. Every single one of these publishing industry or writing webinars are, in the end, a sales pitch to get you to pay them rather than a fellow freelancer.

Notwithstanding, it's a marketing and sales 101 faux pas to mistake interest in a thing, eyes on screens and butts in seats, for tacit endorsement in said thing. Besides the obvious point that people most impacted by this tech would be interested in learning more about it, there's the very real possibility that the same crowd who drives clicks to Forbes and YouTube videos is partially the same crowd that flocks to these NaNo webinars seeking to make a quick, effortless buck.

So, in the end, NaNo isn't speaking to writers. They're speaking to people looking to exploit a blind spot in an industry in order to make $$$ in our Capitalist Hellscape. And in NaNo's rush to join that race, they're trampling over the community they've grown and fostered for over 20 years.

The insinuation of this entire statement is that NaNo is standing tall for the "little guy" that the writing community has just let wilt and suffer for years, neglected and unheard. And it's totally not that NaNo nuked their own forums, a free, accessible resource for such writers to utilize, and without warning fired all of their volunteer staff all because they dropped the ball in moderation and safety checks (I'm not touching on whether the groomer is still working for NaNo since that situation is tainted by rumors, sensationalism, and directly conflicting stories).

And topping this all off with a pithy little cherry on this shit sundae: "For all of those reasons, we absolutely do not condemn AI, and we recognize and respect writers who believe that AI tools are right for them. We recognize that some members of our community stand staunchly against AI for themselves, and that's perfectly fine. As individuals, we have the freedom to make our own decisions."

So not only does NaNo condone plagiarism and theft, they're quick to both-sides the issue, only to immediately say "we're all free to make our own decisions!" Not said is the heavy implication, "oh but if you stand against AI you're a classist, ableist dickhead!" Which, if it wasn't obvious, is so far removed from the truth it's insulting.

In short, fuck NaNoWriMo.

Also what the fuck does "further-proof" mean.

#nanopocalypse #I'm dead serious on hearing Clippy arguments #I want motions on my desk before end of the week #the tech bros just reinvented public transit again I mean Clippy #it's Clippy all the way down #NaNoWriMo AI #on writing #fuck NaNoWriMo

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rjalker · 3 years ago

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What's the point in having Juleka have a speech impediment /(?) if everyone except the audience can magically understand what she's saying? Like?? No one ever has to ask her to clarify or anything. They all just magically know what she's saying like the punchline of the joke is that she's mumbling incoherently and I guess it's funny? Or they're trying to get brownie points for it? Except it's never actually shown that it causes Juleka any problems except for when the writing demands something be Marinette's fault (even though it's literally not).

Juleka should have trouble communicating with people. Like. This is the bare minimum??? Why have her have trouble speaking if it's...just there as a joke? Why not have it just be Rose who can understand Juleka because they're so close and she's figured out how to interpret what Juleka's trying to say? Why not have Juleka text people or write things down or hell, even learn LSF aka French sign language???

There's so much that could be done with a character like Juleka that will never be done in Miraculous Ladybug. We've already seen how these people treat completely nonverbal character's like Adrien's bodyguard, he gets fucking compared to an animal and is only known either as "Adrien's bodyguard" or "the gorilla", because according to the writers, nonverbal people aren't really people and thus don't even deserve to have names -.-

Juleka clearly struggles with verbalizing and communicating other people, and instead of doing literally anything to take this seriously and show how she and her friends have adapted to this, everyone can just magically understand her except the audience, because apparently it's funny.

Especially when Juleka gets a Miraculous and the tiger kwami immediately proceeds to yell at her and pester her for not speaking clearly enough -.-

I've always been annoyed by Juleka's whole character before, and could never put my finger on exactly why. Finally figured it out. It's the fucking ableism. She doesn't have trouble speaking because the writers care, she has trouble speaking because the writers think it's funny.

#discussion of ableism #Miraculous Ladybug #juleka couffaine #Miraculous Ladybug ableism #ML writers ableism #ML writers salt #ML writers guillotine

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critical-thinking-is-mandatory · 4 years ago

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you know what i’m having Feelings TM about lila now so here we go.

once again: it’s so messed up that she’s been labelled an irredeemable evil villain who doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings or anything and is gonna be the next hawkmoth or whatever because??? she’s told some lies???

like i get it. we know she’s lying and it’s frustrating (she’s also presented as some kind of genius manipulator which? still haven’t actually seen evidence for but whatever) but uh. just because lila lied about being friends with marinette/ladybug doesn’t necessarily mean she’s lying about literally everything else.

like it’s one thing for marinette to take what lila says with a grain of salt, and warn the rest of the class to do the same, and another thing totally to then uhh charge around levelling accusations of faking injuries and disabilities.

like, i get it, we (the audience) know lila is lying, we know marinette is justified in her disbelief.

but what marinette did was out of line and possibly the only time she wasn’t punished for her actions by the narrative.

because like, lol, obviously the girl that Marinette doesn’t like has to be faking her disabilities because *checks notes* only Good TM disabled people are allowed to be disabled and Lila is Bad therefore she’s lying about having disabilities which is hmmm. a stereotype. about disabled people. that they’re faking. for accomodations. because they’re lazy. which is exactly what we’re being shown.

because Obviously you just Know if someone is disabled and there aren’t literally many many kinds of disabilities out there that people cannot see. And what a great idea it is to show our heroine busting the evil little liar about lying about having invisible disabilities simply because she doesn’t like her. Just. Bruh.

#ml salt #ml writers salt #ml fandom salt #marinette salt #lila #lila rossi #ableism

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mlwritingprompts · 4 years ago

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The chameleon prompt was rejected, because it’s demonizing Alya when she not only did nothing wrong, but actively did the right thing.

Here’s an explanation. it’s pretty long.

This prompt wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the other things I’ve seen, but it’s still not okay, and like I said, OOC.

I’m not angry at the person who submitted the prompt, because they were trying to write it correctly, but it was missing the mark, and just the same misconceptions and harmful ideas that run rampant in this fandom

this was supposed to be short I’m incapable of summarizing:

Marinette is not upset about moving her seat. She does not feel abandoned or betrayed. She does not feel like her friends don’t like her.

She’s overjoyed at first when she thinks it was all done for her benefit, and when she learns that it’s so a disabled student can sit at the front, she’s still 100000% fine with it, she’s just confused about who they’re talking about. It’s not a big deal to her at all once she finds out it wasn’t so she could sit next to Adrien.

It is only when she finds out the disabled student in question is Lila that she get angry.

And then she proceeds to be ableist, by arguing that she, an able-bodied person with no hearing or vision issues, should not have to move her seat so a disabled person can sit at the front so they can participate in class.

Marinette had no problem with helping a disabled student until she learned that the disabled student in question is someone she doesn’t like. Marinette was being ableist, and her friends rightfully got angry with her for doing so!

Friends are not supposed to support you when you’re being a bigot. And that’s what Marinette was being in Chameleon. She was being an ableist bigot.

She doesn’t like Lila, so she decided that that means that Lila is faking being disabled. And that is ableist. That make Marinette a bigot.

It doesn’t matter that the show did it first, or that the show tries to convince you that Marinette’s behavior is okay because Lila really is lying.

The in-universe justification does not justify the ableism being portrayed as a good thing.

It is an ableist myth that people “fake” being disabled so that they can “have things handed to them” or so they can “get help they don’t really need”.

If you don’t like someone, and that means you say they’re faking being disabled? You are ableist. You are a bigot. You are the bad guy.

It does not matter that Lila is actually lying. Just like it does not matter that the writers portray Adrien sexually harassing Marinette as a good thing.

Lila lying about being disabled is ableist in and of itself on the part of the writers. They are PURPOSEFULLY perpetuating the myth that people pretend to be disabled so they get whatever they want!

They are PURPOSEFULLY perpetuating the myth that disabled people are scammers and fakers and liars who are preying on the sympathy of good people!

It is your responsibility to not be ableist. It is your responsibility to do better than the writers of the show.

If you don’t want to be ableist, do not have Lila pretend to be disabled in your fics, or have her actually be disabled, and have Marinette face consequences for her ableist behavior.

Whether that’s her friends actually giving her the cold shoulder, confronting her about her bigotry, or even Ms. Bustier / the principal calling her parents, and them sitting her down to explain to her why her behavior is okay, something needs to happen to make Marinette realize how horrible she’s being.

Just because you don’t like someone doesn’t mean they’re faking being disabled.

Just because you think someone “doesn’t look” disabled doesn’t mean they’re faking being disabled.

Accommodating disabled people is not bad, or evil, or wrong, even if it means an abled person has to give up their seat or is inconvenienced or annoyed.

Alya and the rest of the class did nothing wrong. Marinette was so late to school she almost got locked out of the building, even though she literally lives next door to it and has no excuse for being so late. She was so late they probably thought she was staying home sick.

Accomodating disabled students is not wrong. It’s not bad. it’s not a betrayal. It’s not about how abled people feel.

Even if Marinette felt like her friends were “abandoning” her with the seat change--which she did not--it still wouldn’t matter!

Her wanting to keep her normal seat (which she literally didn’t care about until she learned it was for Lila!) is not more important than a disabled student being allowed to participate in class!

The whole premise of the “conflict” in this episode is ableist, both in the ableist myth it perpetuates, and the way the conflict is handled. The episode demonizes the people who are willing to accommodate disabled people, and praises the person who throws a fit over it and accuses them of faking.

The episode is ableist. The writers are ableist. It is your responsibility to do better.

Do not demonize the class for wanting to accommodate a disabled student.

Do not praise Marinette for accusing someone of faking their disability.

Do not praise Marinette for deciding that Lila isn’t really disabled because she doesn’t like her.

Do not praise the demonization of disabled people. Do not praise the demonization of accomodations. Do not praise the myth that disabled people are liars and scammers.

Do not praise Marinette for being ableist.

#bold text #swearing tw #ableism #ml fandom salt #marientte salt #actual Marinette salt #ml writers salt #ml writers guillotine #Show!Miraculous #Show!Marinette #Show!Adrien

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rjalker · 3 years ago

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[ID: The "you can excuse racism?" Meme, edited so that the first character has Adrien Agreste's winking face, saying, "I can excuse bullying and harassment, but I draw the line at anyting keeping me from dating Marinette."

The second character replies, "You can excuse bullying and harassment?!". End ID.]

Also the fact that the show's been using Marinette's inability to confess to Adrien this whole time to humiliate her endlessly and acting like it's hilarious and funny and ridiculous...

But now they're literally going to reveal that she has actual fucking PTSD and is literally having actual panic attacks beacuse she's literally traumatizied?????

After all this time of humiliating her for comedy they're now going to reveal that she's literally traumatized??? They're doing this now, after they already had Marinette's teacher shaming her for standing up to her bully and not being the better person to set a good example?????

Fucking Pokemon Sun and Moon's anime did this shit too with Lill(ie? y?? idfk) being scared of Pokemon. She was attacked by a Pokemon when she was younger, and now she's afraid of them.

And during the whole fucking show they act like she's being stupid and ridiculous and over the top dramatic. Until the five seconds when they shame you and demand you feel bad for making fun of her trauma. And then five minutes later they go back to literally mocking her for her literal trauma response.

And now fucking ML's going to do the same thing except it's even worse because they're literally only doing it to make Adrien look good. This whole fucking thing will be spun to show how much Adwien ~~~cares so much~~~ about Marinette that he'll break up with his childhood friend for her like a real hero!!! /sarcasm.

This is just misogynistic and ableist as all fucking hell.

Especially because you know the second the episode is over they're going to go straight back to mocking her endlessly for what they've now revealed is literally a trauma response.

Are you freaking serious? What will supposedly be the final nail in the coffin for A*ri*n and Ch*oe’s friendship will be him learning that her bullying of Marinette and the trauma it caused her is why she had so much trouble confessing to him? Meaning that, since apparently this season is when he finally becomes interested in her, it will ONCE AGAIN boil down to what inconviences A*ri*n and A*ri*en alone?! *sigh* I can’t believe I managed to still get angry. BraVO, Ass***k.

#ml spoilers #ML bible leak #misogyny #ableism #replies #Adrien salt #ML writers guillotine #ML writers ableism #ml writers misogyny #Miraculous LAdybug #Miraculous LAdybug ableism #Miraculous Ladybug misogyny

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badmousestuff-blog · 6 years ago

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Caela’s Report

The Reactionary Nightmare of the CPGB-ML

Prelude: A Flawed Declaration

MOTION 8: “Identity politics are anti-Marxian and a harmful diversion from the class struggle”

Motion 8, passed by the CPGB-ML, is thoroughly anti-materialist and profoundly reactionary. In this, the party dogwhistles at “LGBT ideology” being harmful to the working class, who are nebulously defined. This motion says nothing but declares loudly a lack of solidarity with struggles of gender and sexuality, alienating not only those oppressed on those grounds but those who are allied with them. The party seems unconcerned with allying with those masses concerned with the wellbeing of LGBT people, instead using the language of conservatism (“identity politics”) to signal this message:

There Are No Gays In The USSR!

“Why gay rights is not a class issue”

If we are to believe the party, the question of gay rights is not only “not a class question”, but also solvable by the communist revolution in itself. When class antagonism ends, the line goes, then LGBT people will be liberated by proxy. These two statements, however, carry an internal contradiction: if LGBT people are not an oppressed class, as people of colour and women are, then the antagonism towards them will not be resolved by revolution. If they are an oppressed class, then the CPGB-ML is failing in its duty to support all classes oppressed by capitalism, and is thus not only failing tactically but theoretically.

However, this contradiction is not resolved with self-criticism, or improvement of the party line, but through dismissal and ignorance – the worst failure of any communist party. Instead, the party chides LGBT people, and the activists supporting their rights, not merely as reactionaries (as they continue to go on later), but are contrasted against the ultimately nebulous term “ordinary people” - the framing of this implying that abnormality and difference is in itself harmful – consciously or not, the party has taken the conservative line of ignorance and repulsion. This does nothing to improve the lives of LGBT people, many of whom are working class precisely because they are discriminated against by capitalists, many, especially trans people, taking up sex work as the only available option. To stand in solidarity with all oppressed classes means to stand for LGBT rights and liberation, and if one ignores the problem it does not go away. “There are no invalids in the USSR!” means nothing to those disabled people specifically oppressed by bad, exclusionary and anti-materialist policy.

The Root of Left Reaction: The Worker as Biotruth

“The reactionary nightmare of ‘gender fluidity’”

Here we find the largest flaw in CPGB-ML’s ideology, in fact, the one from which myriad other flaws originate – the worker, “ordinary”, is not allowed to be corrupted by the outsider, the abnormal. This takes the class status of the worker and turns it into a crude biopolitics, in which the body of the worker, not their status, is at the forefront. In that sense, though they take some token stand against racism, their assertion that “class is the primary struggle” (said directly to a person of colour asking about racial oppression) makes sense. To the CPGB-ML, all oppression consists of class oppression, and everything else is a corruption, a “harmful distraction.” There is a preference for immediate physicality over psychology – which is why, in part, the party denounces trans people.

In this article, the party demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the material conditons not only of LGBT people, but all those who are not oppressed strictly along economic lines. There is a preference given to immediate physicality – the worker’s arm over the worker’s mind. Ultimately, the line on which the CPGB-ML stand is “the worker”, those who are producing in some capacity. Placing the ability to work at the forefront of one’s politics, especially in an age where so many cannot work, is a privilege only the able-bodied can afford. A Communist revolution, without a plan for those most marginalised by capital and thus the least likely to work, is doomed to fail. A politics that does not take into account the mental health of the masses is a rejection of materialism and thus counter- revolutionary in one of its core ideas. Disregarding the importance of mental health, the article states:

There is even a movement termed ‘ableism’ or ‘trans-ableism’. There exist people who say: “I look as if I’ve got two arms and two legs, but actually in reality, I feel like I was born disabled.”

The writer simply cannot comprehend that there exist invisible disabilities, and things that prevent work that aren’t removed limbs. To the party, the worker is thus conceived as machinery – something whose value lies in working at peak efficiency. This is capitalist logic and should be stamped out of any revolutionary theory, instead valuing people inherently as members of a communist society.

On gender, the writer of this article uses vague truisms to point to what may seem like intuitive answers – however, in simplifying the argument so much, it becomes easy to rebut. Geometry and biology are entirely seperate fields, let alone geometry and psychology – the attempt to say “why can’t a circle self-identify as a square” falls flat, because a circle is not an organism. Thus, the question of “is there a material reality” is a thinly-veiled attempt to get the reader to agree to their conception of reality, and what is material. The hammer does not operate without an arm to drive it, and the arm does not operate without a mind to will it. Creating a staw opponent who argues that “there is no material reality” is a fundamental failure in understanding anything outside of the writer’s experience. In that sense, the writer, and by proxy the party, places the individual conception of reality above the masses – they are not following the research, not conducting their own, and thus relying solely on prejudice. Again, this returns to the hand and the mind – both need each other, and the party disregards one, failing to see an entire side of the process. The article proceeds not dialectically, but via assertion – though the writer brags about being an adherent to the dialectical process, they do not practice it. Similarly, just as the party states their anti-racism, their members cannot avoid white chauvinism and pushing people of colour away from the party. For example, this excerpt:

It’s very useful not to trust muslims or not to trust Pakistanis or not to trust Afro-Americans, or “I don’t really like that Nigerian who lives next door to me, they’re a bit different aren’t they?” Well, if people rub along with each other, they get over that don’t they?

The writer goes on to assert that race itself is a construction of the bourgoisie, and should thus be disregarded in revolutionary movements for a unified class line. However, if one were to conceive of capital itself in the same way, then the logic becomes apparently flawed; constructions of the bourgeoisie need to be acknowledged and worked through, not discarded on the altar of progress. Every time a movement fails to acknowledge this, it fails the masses.

Thus, onto gender, a construction of the modern era. Countless examples of non-binary genders have existed in pre- modern societies, especially outside of Europe and its empire; I need not list them here, but examples include Two- Spirit people of First Nations descent, the Waria of Indonesia, the Hirja of India, etc. - all of these conceptions arose independently of one another, long before capital established itself. If we are searching for material reality, the gender binary seems to fly in the face of it – it arises as the Other of the dominant class (men). Gender is a historically contingent category, and is a process of becoming (as Simone de Beauvoir describes) a gender, rather than being born it. Even the sex binary is fundamentally flawed and ideological, as intersex people are routinely violated at birth to enforce it. This binary is purely in the realm of ideas, and as such is anti-materialist. To embrace gender divergence, even gender fluidity, as the title of the article states but does not elaborate on, aligns perfectly with a historically materialist conception of history. The writer accuses trans people of being purely idealist – I have demonstrated that it is in fact the opposite – enforcing the gender and sex binaries are firmly anti-materialist. The division of the working class is not in the removal of these binaries, they are those binaries.

So, I ask, when you routinely ask why women and people of colour do not come to your side, and when you’re constantly accused of queerphobia, do you not perform the self-criticism necessary to grow, and realise that your policies are alienating the masses? Why do you meet the idea of the number of trans people being ten percent, not with engagement, but with rejection and incredulity, inventing some narrative that trans people are telling gay people that they are trans?

There are two answers to this question: one, that your party is ignorant of the facts, and has not done the research necessary to engage with this issue, and has regardless written an article and held a party congress on the issue. The other option is that your party holds a resentment to queer people (thinly veiled over with empty statements of acceptance) many of whom are working-class specifically by modes of capitalist oppression. Both of these solutions render the CPGB-ML unable to represent the masses, and thus unfit to call itself a party of the proletariat.

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nanowrimo · 7 years ago

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NaNo Prep: Four Questions to Ask Yourself When Writing Diverse Characters

We’ve officially entered NaNo Prep season, and this week we’ve asked some participants for their thoughts about building strong characters. Today, Municipal Liaison Aurora Hurd shares some tips on how to responsibly create diverse characters:

So, you want to write a novel and you want it to represent the world around you. This inevitably means writing about characters who may not be like you in their identity and/or background. Below is a list of questions to keep in mind while creating characters different from yourself:

1. Are you using stereotypes without meaning to?

Sometimes it is obvious if you are slipping into a stereotype, sometimes it is not. The best way to avoid stereotypes is to write well rounded characters. If you know your character’s greatest goal, their greatest weakness, what makes them happy and sad, it is harder, if not impossible, to write stereotypes. But if you are still not sure if you are falling into a problematic trope, research is your friend. There is a lot of writing on what to watch out for when it comes to stereotypes big and small (for example, on the long history of writing villains as gay or gender-nonconforming—equating such traits to being evil). Use your favorite search engine to check and use the tips from the other posts this week to build complex characters.

2. Ask yourself, would you want someone of the background/identity you are writing about to read your book?

If the answer is no, then you have a huge red flag that a lot of work needs to be done. First, make a list of why that is. Then, it is time to hit the books (or the internet) and it is time to talk to people. Ask people in the community you are writing about what they would like to see in characters. Ask them what they do not want to see. Then go back to your writing.

3. Have you read books by authors of this identity?

If not, now is a wonderful time! Not only does this support other authors, and authors that are often overlooked by bigger publishing companies, but it is also research, as all reading is. Reading diversely helps in writing diversely. Here are some good places to start: http://readdiversebooks.com/ and http://weneeddiversebooks.org/.

4. Finally, ask yourself why are you writing this character this way?

This may be the hardest one to answer, because it may take some digging into yourself. If your answer is that this is just who the character is, you have answered all the above questions, and you have done your research, you are on track. But be careful of falling into roles like that of the white savior. Having good representation is powerful, but having people of a majority identity write about minority characters dealing with racism, homophobia, or ableism is not. This is because not only will it not come off as authentic, there is a high probability of getting things wrong. This is not to say only ‘write what you know,’ but to ‘stay in your lane’ and ‘do your homework.’

I want to finish this by thanking you for writing diverse characters! It is more important than ever for books to represent the world and the people within it. Representation matters, it builds understanding and acceptance which help dismantle systems of oppression when done right. Keep these questions in mind and get ready to write this November!

Aurora Hurd is a bisexual writer of all things in the realms of the fantastic. She is an ML for USA :: Vermont, and is currently seeking her MFA in Creative Writing. For more writing, visit Aurora on Twitter and Tumblr.

Top image licensed under Creative Commons by Edward Peters on Flickr.

#nanowrimo #nano prep #nanowrimo 2017 #by oll guest #aurora hurd #writing #character #diversity #characters

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gryficowa · 1 year ago

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Bro

"You're a shitty person and you don't accept a well-presented disability"

Do I need to say much? This seriously has vibes of that bike comic book meme

#cartoon #cartoonist #ml salt #ml fandom salt #ml writers salt #ml writing critical #ml writing salt #thomas astruc salt #ableism #anti thomas astruc #Lmao #stupid

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endlessequity · 5 years ago

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Here are two truths. Firstly, everyone has the power to change the world. Secondly, that change is unique to you; it is something that only you can bring to the table, which is all the more reason why the world is better for it and you. Audre Lorde not only exemplified this, but preached this sentiment through her life as a prolific writer in prose, poetry, and essays. A self-described black, lesbian, mother, warrior, and poet, her works reached many through her raw, thought-provoking, and utterly human writing. Her best known poems are her observations and resulting anger at the systemic discrimination she experienced throughout her life as a black lesbian. Her core beliefs were the celebration of rather than the condemnation of differences, as well as the integrality of intersectionality. She inspired writers and genres to come, set up/inspired foundations, wrote groundbreaking collections, and took strong political stances. She carved a space for herself in literature when one had not existed before. She made herself heard. She is proof that you can change the world in your own way and by doing what you love most. In her case, that was poetry. With a pen and paper, Lorde’s work revolutionized, changed, and bettered the world.

Audre Lorde was born on February 18th, 1934, in New York City. Born as Audrey, she dropped the last letter of her name as a child, preferring the symmetry it gave her full name. Lorde had a difficult childhood growing up. She grew up in Harlem, during the Great Depression, had eyesight so poor that she was considered legally blind, and had the condition often referred to as “tongue-tied” that altered her speech development. Poetry was what she used to express her thoughts, feelings, and emotions, often finding herself reciting poetry when asked how she was feeling or what she thought about something. When she could not find how she was feeling in the poetry she was reading, she began writing her own poetry. In eighth grade, she wrote her first poem, and in high school, she published her first poem in Seventeen magazine. From there, she earned her BA from Hunter College, got her MLS from Columbia, had two children, worked as a librarian, and began and fell in love with teaching. Teaching not only inspired a new generation of black poets, but Lorde herself; she wrote more and had anthologies published, and was encouraged to delve into and explore her identity as a lesbian. Throughout her career, she became well-known as a prolific writer and activist. She advocated for many social and political movements through her words, leaving a lasting impact with her groundbreaking contributions to not only writing, but activism, the civil rights movements, and feminism.

Lorde politicized and embraced every aspect of her identity, empowering herself and others. Like previously mentioned, her most well-known works were ones of anger at the social injustices she faced. She expressed her thoughts and experiences on a variety of forms of oppression, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and, towards the end of her life as she battled cancer, ableism. The first large aspect of Lorde’s writing and career was her work in combating racism. As a black woman, Lorde experienced racism; she often felt and wrote about feeling excluded in spaces such as white academia and lesbian bars. On the matter, she wrote: “It was hard enough to be Black, to be Black and female, to be Black, female, and gay. To be Black, female, gay, and out of the closet in a white environment, even to the extent of dancing in the Bagatelle, was considered by many Black lesbians to be simply suicidal.” She wrote more about combating racism than her experiences with racism, however. For example, her essay collection “The Master’s Tools Will Not Dismantle The Master’s House” explored the intersections between race, gender, and sexuality, more specifically ideas of survival and what it means for each facet of her identity.

Lorde’s writing connects directly to the Critical Race Theory. She wrote greatly about race and her identity as a black woman, strongly believing in the power of embracing one’s identity. Her discussion and openness regarding how racism affected her life in all ways connects to the micro and macro social levels in which racism displays itself in. By reaffirming her identity, she took pride in her race and ethnicity as a black woman. This highlights once more her key values of celebrating oneself and what makes us different is what makes us special, but takes it another step forward. Lorde took the shame and inferiority that racism has attached to the black identity and openly refused it. Her love for her identity was in and of itself an act of revolution, as she explains in this quote: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.” This idea spread, resonated, and inspired many to do the same. In specific connection to the Critical Race Theory, her work applies to the first tenet. The first tenet states that racism is ordinary in society; this can be applied to Lorde’s general work, as she wrote about her experiences as a black woman and the isolation, oppression, and discrimination she regularly experienced as a black lesbian. One of her most famous poems, “Power”, was in response to a police officer’s murder of a ten year-old black child and subsequent acquittal. This poem spread and became very popular. Through works like these, works that openly expressed anger and pain while condemning these racist acts, she sent her message to a bigger and international audience, and bravely and openly spoke against these vile and racist acts in a time where such a thing was not as common as it is today. Furthermore, she directly connected the first tenet of the Critical Race Theory that stated that racism is ordinary with this poem by showing how racism should not be ordinary and accepted as normal.

She also gave more platforms to women of colour, opening doors that had not existed before. In 1981, Lorde and one of her friends, fellow writer Barbara Smith, founded Kitchen Table: Women of Colour Press. The first of its kind, it was dedicated to including, promoting, and encouraging the writings of women of colour. Lorde then became more concerned about black women’s plight in South Africa in regards to apartheid, leading to her creation of Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa. She remained an active voice for these women for the rest of her career. Lorde also critiqued second wave feminism for its homophobia, racism, and lack of inclusion of all types of women. She stressed the need for intersectionality, reiterating many times in her career that gender oppression is inseparable from other forms of oppression, and highlighted that feminism at that time only examined the white, heterosexual experience, thereby othering LGBTQ women and women of colour. She believed that women were taught to, in her exact words, “either ignore our differences or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change” which was a result from the patriarchy. The unity of all women would help overcome this social injustice. Combatting this through understanding and empathizing with one another’s differences in circumstance, identity, and experiences was essential. She addressed that a tool of patriarchy is the separation of women, countering that with stressing the importance, once more, of unity, and a core aspect of feminism that women are stronger together. She aimed to use her voice for women without voices, “ … I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence would save us, but it won’t.” Her criticisms shone a light on the problematic and exclusive nature of feminism and strongly impacted the waves of feminism to come. Closer to the end of her life, Lorde spoke about disabilities as well with her ongoing, fourteen year-long battle with cancer. In terms of the Critical Disability Theory, Lorde herself was representation, showing multidimensionality through her openness about her health and her account of her experience with breast cancer and her mastectomy in her 1980 The Cancer Journals. She broke the silence and stigma around physical illnesses, linking her experience with cancer back to her central idea of the celebration of differences.

In 1992, after an open battle with cancer, Lorde died. She was survived by her partner and two children, surrounded by her family and friends in the comfort of her New York home. Her legacy will always live in not only from her seven collections of poetry and essays, topics ranging from lesbian relationships, parenting, violence, racism, homophobia, and love, but also her various speeches, teachings, and her longlasting impact on activism. Her words brought light to civil activism and helped reshape feminism into a more intersectional and inclusive movement. Her ideas on using empathy, love, equity, and understanding as tools to combat social injustice live on in today’s social justice movements, inspiring today’s writers and activists, political theories, and social movements. She took pride in every aspect of identity; her poetry will always live on and encourage more people to revolutionize against inequality through self-love, speaking up, and celebrating one another. Audre Lorde changed the world in a way only she could do, with beautiful and honest prose. She remained an active fighter for the rest of her days, even through cancer, shown in the last ever entry of her diary: “I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my nose-holes – everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I am going to go out like a fucking meteor!”

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