#am i just fucked for modding now? nothing i do helps and i've followed all the advice i can find online

[taamlok]

yo does anyone know how to fix this

[bewitched-bullet]

You won't reply to me but I have to say something as well. They deleted their posts because followers (I'm one of them) explicitly asked them to delete them. You can check his blog to see.

I honestly feel you are creating so much hatred out of nothing. I am even afraid to show you my identity, knowing you will come after me if I do. Only because I have a different perspective on it all.

Didn't this whole discussion start with the supposed toxicity of the Sherlock mod? Who was trying to prevent an RPer from leaving? That's precisely what he did to John, according to John's posts on his blog (you have to read between the lines), perhaps to Mycroft even (dunno for sure). But who knows for sure they did? Isn't it logically that you beg someone not to leave because you want to continue what you're doing?

I saw the last post on the John blog and was quite moved. He always sounds like a very reasonable guy, unlike Sherlock, unlike you guys on here. Sorry.

So, we ask you to stop this crusade. I will also ask my friends to send you a message just in case. Stop it. You are hurting people who don't deserve it.

*le sigh*

I'm afraid you haven't been actually paying attention if you think I can see his blog. After our conversation in a comment section, the John mod blocked me. Which I posted about.

If you have read all my posts, etc you would see that I've answered every single ask except two. Even the spicy ones sent by Harriet mod as themselves and as anon and the 3 by the Mycroft/John mod as anonymous. Even, when John sent basically the same message 3 times (my inbox, ask, and tagging me (as John) ((which can be considered harassment)), I never "came after" them. Not like they have for most of the other mods, including ones OUTSIDE of their rp group.

Isn't. That. Interesting.

So, no, I'm not going to "come after" you for being polite and expressing yourself.

Now on to the good stuff.

So the John mod will flip-flop on what they strongly believe, on a whim, for a stranger.

Take note on that.

Looks like you are referencing the post Dump made? Allow me to remind you (which isn't my responsibility btw) what you are talking about if you are. Dump said that (paraphrasing):

"...consult-sherlock begged me to stay. They all contributed to my decision to block JOHN, SHERLOCK, AND MORIARTY."

If you want the exact verbiage, go look for it. It's in the tag "a scandal in tumblr".

We don't know the nature of the begging. And we can't ask the source because they specifically said to LEAVE THEM ALONE. Begging, is not inherently wrong? Not sure what you're insinuating here. Maybe you are assuming how they were begging was wrong? If you have any insider information on this I would very much be interested.

If you call avoidance, deflection, refusing to break character on a concerning issue (referring to when this was just about the fishy miscommunication) as "Reading between the lines", that's a personal problem for you. All that I mentioned in this paragraph are all red flags. Very red. On fire, red. And no one can help you see these till you're ready. That's why so many people stay with OBVIOUSLY (and sometimes not so publicly obvious) awful partners that mistreat them, why we excuse our (our as in as whole, not saying you and me specifically) abusive parents behavior, or side with an abusive government(s) that sanctions genocide.

As for being reasonable...I am reasonable. Till I'm not. I will never be reasonable to bullying/abuse. Especially when it involves little kids and old people. I will go fucking feral. And with this situation, after the pretzels John clearly twisted himself into, the PUBLIC harassment of Greg, yeah, for sure, I'm more in my feels in this. That being said, I haven't lost all rational thought. Cuz these are grown adults that are involved and feral me isn't needed.

I can easily adjust my stance on a situation don't have all information on. Because I'm intelligent like that.

Remember the Amber Heard case?

Thankfully, I could wait till a public court case to see all the evidence presented in an organized manner to make my judgements.

(cuz it's fucking hilarious)

However, so many people were upset at being "wrong". Ooooor they doubled down in their previous beliefs DESPITE the clear evidence. Its ok to change your views as new information and actual facts come out.

This is called critical thinking. (Side note: they were both abusive to each other but it's clear who "started" it. Reactive abuse it still abuse though, y'all. And if you see this in yourself, recognize it, get help, and you can improve. I believe that all people can become better versions of themselves...but that's because I can't squash the optimism that lives deep down inside me)

I'll keep this simple: there's no crusade. Just presentation of evidence, my knowledge, conclusions, and feels.

I'm rather allergic to holy wars that justify murder and genocide.

Oh? You're going to ask your friends to message me to stop? You mean you're gonna recruit people to try and bully me into submission? Gonna harass me if I don't do what you want? Gonna jumpstart your own foray into abuse?

Be careful, it's a slippery slope. And once you start sliding down it, it's incredibly hard to claw your way back up.

Side note: I'm not going to be anyone's brain, legs, fingers. All of you can think for yourselves, can find the info yourselves, and type things in yourselves. The information is there. Stop being lazy if you actually want to know

[menta11yi11]

Doctor's orders to pull back from social media as I keep having back to back panic attacks and wanting to kms.

I'm sure there's some folks on my public tumblr accounts that follow me only to get intel on me and not because they actually like me- and would love nothing more than for me to leap off a building. Yeah I'm a flawed person. I hurt a lot of people. I own up to that. I'm trying to be someone that at least tolerates my own existence in this realm. 🙃 but having folks on the Homestuck discord team telling me to "SHUT THE FUCK UP" and "DIE" for expressing a vague, nonconsequential fandom opinion (that wasn't even HS related) they don't like does not paint a good picture of how they'll handle knowing I've tried to kill myself over 8 times now. Bitch I'm like Deadpool the metanarrative will not let me end it. I'd love nothing more than to have never existed. You hate me so much, then fucking ban me from the discord and start your hate campaign like you did to my other trans system friends. Makin, you're pathetic. Just admit you have no compassion for folks with persistent mental health issues rather than acting like it's okay for you to harass people because you're the server administrator. You have enough simps laughing at your cruelty you think you're justified in these harassment campaigns. I don't think I've had a single positive interaction with you, and you can blame me being a 'snowflake' but at least I'm not inciting mentally ill people to kill themselves on your streams. I hope you lose the admin privileges and people realize what an actual asshole you are. I can't help that I have introjects of your friends. Do you think I woke up one day and decided to have amnesiac episodes where some brain ghosts take over my body and humiliate me publicly? That's like, a bit to you? I do have Andrew Hussie listed as an alter in my disability paperwork because they stepped up to stop me from ending things. Our (now) Hussie Royle is the reason we kept fighting to improve and become better people. You can think I'm cringe all you want, but it kept me alive. I can't know what source Hussie thinks of me as I've already attempted to reach out and apologize for crossing boundaries into parasocial delusional stuff. They didn't respond and they don't owe me one. I am, however, knowledgeable about what goes down in Homestuck VRC communities and have been helpful there as an informant and mod. You can dislike me and think I'm annoying and tight wound all you want but I'm not stepping back from my beliefs that people should be given compassion and time to be heard. I'm a socialist and I feel very strongly that we have a duty to protecting our communities and having transparency. Idk what weird shadow elder thing you've got going on within the HICU that I once wanted to be a part of, but I'm now realizing y'all are such a dysfunctional work family from an (outside but close neighbor) perspective.

I've been in enough grassroots organizing since 2014 that I can see the rot in the company.

I'm also a cult survivor, having been forced into the LDS (Mormon) church from 2001-2016 by my former legal guardians. I know what cult tactics are and I know how deep the abuse goes. Watch yourself before you have another well-documented video of abusive behavior. I don't play around with that shit. I held up my end of accountability, now it's your turn.

[innuendostudios]

I was invited to give a talk on GamerGate over Zoom in early 2021. I've long been frustrated that there isn't a good timeline of GG and its origins on YouTube. When people ask "what the hell was GG anyway?" they often get referred to my or Dan Olson's videos on the subject, but both of them were made while GG was ongoing, and presumed a degree of familiarity on the part of the audience. There was just too much to say about what was already happening to spend time getting the audience up to speed, and it was safe to assume our audiences had enough context to follow along. But time moves fast on the internet, and many people who now care about such things weren't there while it was happening, and are lacking the necessary context to follow the better videos. For a long time, I've only been able to direct them to RationalWiki's timeline, which is excellent but so exhaustively comprehensive that it's likely to scare off first-timers.

I realize an hourlong lecture isn't necessarily helping matters, but the first 20-or-so minutes of this video are my attempt at streamlining the timeline such that people can be up to speed on the most important stuff fairly quickly. The rest is talking about what it all meant, how it prefigured the Alt-Right, and using it to better understand digital radicalization.

This video was made with the help of Magdalen Rose, who edited the slides to the audio while I was laid up with a back injury. Go sub to her channel! And please back me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

FUCKING VIDEO GAMES? FUCKING VIDEO GAMES. THEY MADE DOZENS OF PEOPLE MISERABLE FOR YEARS OVER VIDEO GAMES! NOT EVEN FUCKING VIDEO GAMES, FUCKING ARTICLES ABOUT FUCKING VIDEO GAMES. THIS IS WHAT PASSES FOR LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT??

Hi! My name is Ian Danskin. I’m a video essayist and media artist. I run the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios, please like share and subscribe.

I’m here to talk to you about GamerGate, and I needed to get all that out of the way. I’m going to talk about what GamerGate was and how it prefigured The Alt-Right, and there are gonna be moments where you’re nodding along with me, going, “yeah, yeah I get it,” and then the sun’s gonna break through a crack in the wall and you’ll suddenly remember that all this is happening because some folks - mostly ladies - said some stuff - provably true stuff, I might add - about video games and a bunch of guys didn’t like it, and you’re gonna want to rip your hair out. By the end of this, you will have a better understanding of what happened, but it will never not be bullshit.

Also, oh my god, content warning. Racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, rape threats, threats of violence, domestic abuse - I’m not going to depict or describe at length any of the worst stuff, but it’s all in the mix. So if at any point you need to switch me off or mute me, you have my blessing.

Brace yourselves.

Some quick prehistory:

In 2012, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian ran a Kickstarter campaign for a YouTube series on sexist tropes in video games. And, partway through the campaign, 4chan found it and said “let’s ruin her life.” And a lot of the male general gaming public joined in. And by “ruin her life” I’m not talking 150 angry tweets including dozens of rape and death threats per week, though that was a thing. I’m talking bomb threats. I’m talking canceled speaking engagements because someone threatened to shoot up a school. I’m talking FBI investigation. The harassers faced no meaningful repercussions.

And in 2013, Zoe Quinn released Depression Quest, a free text game about living with depression. They received harassment off and on for the next year, most pointedly from an incel forum called Wizardchan that doxxed their phone number and made harassing phone calls telling them to kill themself. The harassers faced no meaningful repercussions.

(Also, quick note: Zoe Quinn is nonbinary and has come out since the events in question. When I call Zoe’s harassment misogynist, understand I am not calling Zoe a woman, but they were attacked by people who hate women because that’s how they were perceived. Had they been out at the time things probably would’ve gone down similarly, but on top of misogyny I’d be talking about nonbinary erasure and transphobia.)

Okay. Our story begins in August 2014. The August that never ended.

Depression Quest, after a prolonged period on Greenlight, finally releases on Steam as a free download with the option to pay what you want. In the days that follow, Zoe’s ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni, writes a nearly 10,000-word blog called The Zoe Post, in which he claims Quinn had been a shitty and unfaithful partner. (For reference, 10,000 words is long enough that the Hugos would consider it a novelette.) This is posted to forums on Penny Arcade and Something Awful, both of which immediately take it down, finding it, at best, a lot of toxic hearsay and, at worse, an invitation to harassment. So Gjoni workshops the post, adds a bunch of edgelord humor (and I am using the word “humor” very generously), and reposts it to three different subforums on 4chan.

We’re not going to litigate whether Zoe Quinn was a good partner. I don’t know or care. I don’t think anyone on this call is trying to date them so I’m not sure that’s our business. What is known is that the relationship lasted five months, and, after it ended, Gjoni began stalking Quinn. Gjoni has, in fact, laid out how he stalked Quinn in meticulous detail to interviewers and why he feels it was justified. It’s also been corroborated by a friend that Quinn briefly considered taking him back at a games conference in San Francisco, but he became violent during sex and Quinn left the apartment in the middle of the night with visible bruises.

Off of the abusive ex-boyfriend’s post, 4chan decides it’s going to make Zoe Quinn one of their next targets, and starts a private IRC channel to plan the campaign. The channel is called #BurgersAndFries, a reference to Gjoni claiming Quinn had cheated on him with five guys. A couple sentences in The Zoe Post - which Gjoni would later claim were a typo - imply that one of the five guys was games journalist Nathan Grayson and that Quinn had slept with him in exchange for a good review of Depression Quest. Given the anger that they’d seen drummed up against women in games with the previous Anita Sarkeesian hate mob, #BurgersAndFries decides to focus on this breach of “ethics in games journalism” as a cover story, many of them howling with laughter at the thought that male gamers would probably buy it. This way, destroying Quinn’s life and career and turning their community against them would appear an unfortunate byproduct of a legitimate consumer revolt; criticism of the harassment could even be framed as a distraction from the bigger issue. Gjoni himself is in the IRC channel telling them that this was the best hand to play.

The stated aim of many on #BurgersAndFries was to convince Quinn to commit suicide.

Two regulars in the IRC, YouTubers MundaneMatt and Internet Aristocrat, make videos about The Zoe Post. Incidentally, both these men had already made a lot of money off videos about Anita Sarkeesian. Matt’s is swiftly taken down with a DMCA claim, and he says that Quinn filed the claim themself. (For the record, in those days, YouTube didn’t tell you who filed DMCA claims against you.) Members of the IRC also reach out to YouTuber TotalBiscuit, who had been critical of Sarkeesian and dismissive of her harassment, and he tweets the story to his 350,000 followers, saying a game developer trading sex for a good review might not prove true, but was certainly plausible.

This is where GamerGate begins to get public traction.

Zoe Quinn is very swiftly doxxed, with their phone number, home address, nudes, and names and numbers of their family collected. Gjoni himself leaks their birth name. The Zoe Post, and the movement against Quinn - now dubbed “The Quinnspiracy” - make it to The Escapist and Reddit, which mods will have little luck removing. The Quinnspiracy declares war on any site that does take their threads down, most vehemently NeoGAF. People who defend Zoe against the harassment start getting doxxed themselves - Fez developer Phil Fish is doxxed so thoroughly, hackers get access to the root folder of his website.

In what I’m going to call This Should Have Been The End, Part 1, Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief at Kotaku where Nathan Grayson worked, in response to pressure not just from The Quinnspiracy but an increasing number of angry gamers buying The Quinnspiracy’s narrative, publishes a story. In it he verifies that Quinn and Grayson did date for several months, and that not only is there no review of Depression Quest anywhere on Kotaku, not by Grayson nor anyone else, but that Grayson did not write a single word about Quinn the entire time they were dating.

In response, The Quinnspiracy declares war on Kotaku. r/KotakuinAction is formed, which will become the primary site of organization outside of chanboards. The fact that their entire “movement” is based on a review that does not exist changes next to nothing.

Some people start to see The Quinnspiracy as potentially profitable. The Fine Young Capitalists get involved, a group ostensibly working to get women into video games but who have a Byzantine plan to do so wherein they crowdfund the budget and the woman who wins a competition gets to storyboard a game, but another company will make and she will get 8% of the profits, the rest going to a charity chosen by the top donor. 4chan becomes the top donor. They like TFYC because the head of the company has a vendetta against Zoe Quinn, who had previously called them out for their transphobic submission policy, and he falsely accused Quinn of having once doxxed him. 4chan feels backing an ostensibly feminist effort will be good PR, but can’t resist selecting a colon cancer charity because, they say, feminism is cancer and they want to be the cure to butthurt. They also get to design a character for the game, and so they create Vivian James, who will become the GamerGate mascot.

Manosphere YouTubers Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini launch a Patreon campaign for their antifeminist documentary The Sarkeesian Effect and come to The Quinnspiracy looking for $15,000 a month for an indefinite period to make it, which they get.

In what will prove genuinely awful timing, Anita Sarkeesian releases the second episode of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, and, despite not being a games journalist and having nothing to do with Quinn or Grayson, she is immediately roped into the narrative about how feminists are ruining games culture and becomes the second major target of harassment. Both she and Quinn soon have to leave their houses after having receiving dozens and dozens of death threats that include their home addresses.

After being courted by members of the IRC channel, Firefly star Adam Baldwin tweets a link to one of the Quinnspiracy videos and coins the hashtag #GamerGate. This is swiftly adopted by all involved.

In response to all this, Leigh Alexander writes a piece for Gamasutra arguing that the identity that these men are flocking to the “ethics in games journalism” narrative to defend no longer matters as a marketing demographic. Gaming and games culture is so large and so varied, and the “core gamer” audience of 18-34 white bros growing smaller and septic, that there was no reason, neither morally nor financially, to treat them as the primary audience anymore. Love of gaming is eternal, but, she declared, “gamers,” as an identity, “are over.” Eight more articles contextualizing GamerGate alongside misogyny and the gatekeeping of games culture come out across several websites in the following days. GamerGate frames these as a clear sign of [deep sigh] collusion to oppress gamers, proving that ethics in games journalism is, indeed, broken, and Leigh Alexander becomes the third major target of harassment. These become known as the “gamers are dead” articles - a phrase not one of them uses - and they make “get Leigh Alexander fired from Gamasutra” one of their primary goals.

Something I need you to understand is that it has, at this point, been two weeks.

Highlights from the next little bit: Alex Macris, a higher up at The Escapist’s parent company, expresses support for GamerGate; he will go on to write the first positive coverage at a major publication and cement The Escapist as GamerGate-friendly. Mike Cernovich, aka “Based Lawyer,” gets GamerGate’s attention by mocking Anita Sarkeesian; he will go on to hire a private investigator to stalk Zoe Quinn. GamerGate launches Operation Disrespectful Nod, an email campaign pressuring companies to pull advertising from websites that have criticized them. They leverage their POC members, getting them, any time someone points out the rampant racism and antisemitism among GamerGaters, to say “I am a person of color and I am #NotYourShield”; most of these “POC members” are fake accounts left over from a previous, racist disinformation campaign. Milo Yiannapoulos gets involved, writing positive coverage of GG despite having mocked gamers for precisely this behavior in the past, and gets so much traffic it pulls Breitbart News out of obscurity and makes it a significant player in modern conservative news media.

[Hey! Ian from the future here. This talk mostly addresses how GamerGate prefigured the Alt-Right strategically and philosophically, but if you want a more explicit, material connection: Breitbart News took its newfound notoriety to become, as its Executive Chair phrased it in 2016, "a platform for the Alt-Right." That Executive Chair was Steve Bannon, who threw the website's weight behind The Future President Who Shall Not Be Named, and, upon getting his attention, would then go on to become his campaign strategist and work in his Administration. So, if you're wondering how one of the central figures of the Alt-Right ended up in the White House, the answer is literally "GamerGate." Back to you, Ian from the past!]

In what I’m calling This Should Have Been The End, Part 2, Zoe Quinn announces that they have been lurking the #BurgersAndFries IRC channel since the beginning and releases dozens of screenshots showing harassment being planned and the selection of “ethics in games journalism” as a cover. #BurgersAndFries has a meltdown, everyone turns on each other, and the channel is abandoned. And they then start another IRC and things proceed.

It goes on like this. I’m not gonna cover everything. This is just the first month. It should be clear by now that this thing is kind of unkillable. And I worry I haven’t made it obvious that this is not just a chanboard and an IRC. Thousands of regular, every day gamers were buying the story and joining in. They were angry, and no amount of evidence that their anger was unfounded was going to change that. You could not mention or even allude to GamerGate and not get flooded with dozens, even hundreds of furious replies. These replies always included the hashtag so everyone monitoring it could join in, so all attempts at real conversation devolved into a hundred forking threads where some people expected you to talk to them while others hurled insults and slurs. And always the possibility that, if any one of them didn’t like what you said, you’d be the next target.

To combat this, some progressives offered up the hashtag #GameEthics to the people getting swept up in GamerGate, saying, “look, we get that you’re angry, and if you want to talk about ethics in games journalism, we can totally do that, but using your hashtag is literally putting us in danger; they calling the police on people saying there’s a hostage situation at their home addresses so they get sent armed SWAT teams, and if you’ll just use this other hashtag we can have the conversation you say you want to have in safety.” And I will ever stop being salty about what happened.

They refused. They wouldn’t cede any ground to what they saw as their opposition. It was so important to have the conversation on their terms that not only did they refuse to use #GameEthics, they spammed it with furry porn so no one could use it.

A few major events on the timeline before we move on: Christina Hoff Sommers, the Republican Party’s resident “feminist,” comes out criticizing Anita Sarkeesian and becomes a major GG figurehead, earning the title Based Mom. Zoe Quinn gets a restraining order against Eron Gjoni, which he repeatedly violates, to no consequence; GG will later crowdfund his legal fees. There’s this listserv called GameJournoPros where game journalists would talk about their jobs, and many are discussing their concerns over GamerGate, so Milo Yiannopoulos leaks it and this is framed as further “proof of collusion.” 4chan finally starts enforcing its “no dox” rules and shuts GamerGate threads down, so they migrate to 8chan, a site famous for hosting like a lot of child porn. Indie game developer Brianna Wu makes a passing joke about GamerGate on Twitter and they decide, seemingly on a whim, to make her one of the biggest targets in the entire movement; she soon has to leave her home as well. GamerGate gets endorsements from WikiLeaks, Infowars, white nationalist sites Stormfront and The Daily Stormer, and professional rapist RooshV. And hundreds of people get doxxed; an 8chan subforum called Baphomet is created primarily to host dox of GamerGate’s critics.

But by November, GamerGate popularity was cresting, as more and more mainstream media covered it negatively. Their last, big spike in popularity came when Anita Sarkeesian went on The Colbert Report and Stephen made fun of the movement. Their numbers never recovered after that.

Which is not to say GamerGate ended. It slowed down. The period of confusion where the mainstream world couldn’t tell whether it was a legitimate movement or not passed. But, again, most harassers faced no meaningful repercussions. Gamers who bought the lie about “ethics in games journalism” stayed mad that no one had ever taken them seriously, and harassers continued to grief their targets for years. The full timeline of GamerGate is an constant cycle of lies, harassment, operations, grift, and doxxing. Dead-enders are to this day still using the hashtag. And remember how Anita had nothing to do with ethics in games journalism or Zoe Quinn, and they just roped her in because they’d enjoyed harassing her before so why not? Every one of GamerGate’s targets knows that they may get dragged into some future harassment campaign just because. It’s already happened to several of them. They’re marked.

(sigh) Let’s take a breath.

Now that we know what GamerGate was, let’s talk about why it worked.

In the thick of GamerGate, I started compiling a list of tactics I saw them using. I wanted to make a video essay that was one part discussion of antifeminist backlash, and one part list of techniques these people use so we can better recognize and anticipate their behavior. That first part became six parts and the second part went on a back burner. It would eventually become my series, The Alt-Right Playbook. GamerGate is illustrative because most of what would become The Alt-Right Playbook was in use.

Two foundational principles of The Alt-Right Playbook are Control the Conversation and Never Play Defense. Make sure people are talking about what you want them to talk about, and take an aggressive posture so you look dominant even when you’re not making sense. For instance: once Zoe leaked the IRC chatlogs, a reasonable person could tell the average gater, “the originators of GamerGate were planning harassment from the very beginning.” But the gater would say, “you’re cherry-picking; not everyone was a harasser.”

Now, this is a bad argument - that’s not how you use “cherry-picking” - and it’s being framed as an accusation - you’re not just wrong, you’re dishonest - which makes you wanna defend yourself. But, if you do - if you tell them why that argument is crap - you’ve let the conversation move from “did the IRC plan harassment?” - a question of fact - to “are the harassers representative of the movement?” - a question of ethics. Like, yes, they are, but only within a certain moral framework. An ethics question has no provable answer, especially if people are willing to make a lot of terrible arguments. It is their goal to move any question with a definitive answer to a question of philosophy, to turn an argument they can’t win into an argument nobody can win.

The trick is to treat the question you asked like it’s already been answered and bait you into addressing the next question. By arguing about whether you’re cherry-picking, you’re accepting the premise that whether you’re cherry-picking is even relevant. Any time this happens, it’s good to pause and ask, “what did we just skip over?” Because that will tell you a lot.

What you skipped over is their admission that, yes, the IRC did plan harassment, but that’s only on them if most of the movement was in on it. Which is a load of crap - the rest of the IRC saw it happening, let it happen, it’s not like anybody warned Zoe, and shit, I’m having the cherry-picking argument! They got me! You see how tempting it is? But presumably the reason you brought the harassment up is because you want them to do something about it. At the very least, leave the movement, but ideally try and stop it. They don’t, strictly speaking, need to feel personally responsible to do that. And you might be thinking, well, maybe if I can get them take responsibility then they’ll do something, but you’d be falling for a different technique I call I Hate Mondays.

This is where people will acknowledge a terrible thing is happening, maybe even agree it’s bad, but they don’t believe anything can be done about it. They also don’t believe you believe anything can be done about it. Mondays suck, but they come around every week. This is never stated outright, but it’s why you’re arguing past each other. To them, the only reason to talk about the bad thing is to assign blame. Whose turn is it to get shit on for the unsolvable problem? Their argument about cherry-picking amounts to “1-2-3 not it.” And they are furious with you for trying to make them responsible for harassment they didn’t participate in.

The unspoken argument is that harassment is part of being on the internet. Every public figure deals with it. This ignores any concept of scale - why does one person get harassed more than another? - but you can’t argue with someone who views it as a binary: harassment either happens or it doesn’t, and, if it does, it’s a fact of life, and, if it happens to everyone, it’s not gendered. And this is not a strongly-held belief they’ve come to after years of soul-searching - this is what they’ve just decided they believe. They want to participate in GamerGate despite knowing its purpose, and this is what would need to be true for that to be ok.

Or maybe they’re just fucking with you! Maybe you can’t tell. Maybe they can’t tell, either. I call this one The Card Says Moops, where people say whatever they feel will score points in an argument and are so irony-poisoned they have no idea whether they actually believe it. A very useful trick if the thing you appear to believe is unconscionable. You can’t take what people like that say at face value; you can only intuit their beliefs from their actions. They say they believe this one minute and that another, but their behavior is always in accordance with that, not this.

In the negative space, their belief is, “The harassment of these women is okay. My anger about video games is more important. I may not be harassing them myself, but they do kind of deserve it.” They will never say this out loud in a serious conversation, though many will say it in an anonymous or irreverent space where they can later deny they meant it. But, whatever they say they believe, this is the worldview they are operating under.

Obscuring this means flipping through a lot of contradictory arguments. The harassment is being faked, or it’s not being faked but it’s being exaggerated, or it’s not being exaggerated but the target is provoking it to get attention, which means GamerGate harassers simultaneously don’t exist, exist in small numbers, and exist in such large numbers someone can build a career out of relying on them! It can be kind of fun to take all these arguments made in isolation and try to string together an actual position. Like, GamerGate would argue that Nathan Grayson having previously mentioned Zoe Quinn in an article about a canceled reality show counts as positive coverage, and since Grayson reached out to Quinn for comment it’s reasonable to assume they started dating before the article was published (which is earlier than they claim), and positive coverage did lead to greater popularity for Depression Quest. But if you untangle that, it’s like… okay, you’re saying Zoe Quinn slept with a journalist in exchange for four nonconsecutive sentences that said no more than “Zoe Quinn exists and made a game,” and the price of those four sentences was to date the journalist for months, all to get rich off a game that didn’t cost any money. That’s your movement?

And some, if cornered, would say, “yes, we believe women are just that shitty, that one would fuck a guy for months if it made them the tiniest bit more famous.” But they won’t lead with that. Because they know it won’t convince the normies, even the ones who want to be convinced. So they use a process I call The Ship of Theseus to, piece by piece, turn that sentence into “slept with a journalist in exchange for a good review” and argue that each part of the sentence is technically accurate. It’s trying to lie without lying. And, provided all the pieces of this sentence are discussed separately, and only in the context of how they justify this sentence, you can trick yourself into believing this sentence is mostly true.

So, like, why? This is clearly motivated reasoning; what’s the motivation? What was this going to accomplish?

The answer is nothing. Nothing, by design. GamerGate’s “official” channels - the subreddit and the handful of forums that didn’t shut them down - were rigidly opposed to any action more organized than an email campaign. They had a tiny handful of tangible demands - they wanted gaming websites to post public ethics policies and had a list of people they wanted fired - but their larger aim was the sea change in how games journalism operated, which nothing they were asking for could possibly give them. The kind of anger that convinces you this is a true statement is not going to be addressed by a few paragraphs about ethics and Leigh Alexander getting a new job. They wanted gaming sites to stop catering to women and “SJWs” - who were a sizable and growing source of traffic - and to get out of the pockets of companies that advertised on their websites - which was their primary source of income. So all Kotaku had to do to make them happy was solve capitalism!

Meanwhile, the unofficial channels, like 8chan and Baphomet, were planning op after op to get private information, spread lies with fake accounts, get disinformation trending, make people quit jobs, cancel gigs, and flee their homes. Concrete goals with clear results. All you had to do to feel productive was go rogue. In my video,

How to Radicalize a Normie, I describe how the Alt-Right encourages lone wolf behavior by whipping people up into a rage and then refusing to give them anything to do, while surrounding them with examples of people taking matters into their own hands. The same mechanism is in play here: the public-facing channels don’t condone harassment but also refuse to fight it, the private channels commit it under cover of anonymity, and there is a free flow of traffic between them for when the official channels’ impotence becomes unbearable.

What I hope I’m illustrating is how these techniques play off of each other, how they create a closed ecosystem that rational thought cannot enter. There’s a phrase we use on the internet that got thrown around a lot at the time:

you can’t logic someone out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.

Now, there are a few other big topics I think are relevant here, so I want to go through them one by one.

MEMEIFICATION

So a lot of interactions with GamerGate would involve a very insular knowledge base.

Like, you’d say something benign but progressive on Twitter.

A gater would show up in your mentions and say something aggressive and false.

You’d correct them. But then they’d come back and hit you with -

ah shit, sorry, this is a Loss meme.

If I were in front of a classroom I’d ask, show of hands, how many of you got that? I had to ask Twitter recently, does Gen Z know about Loss?!

If you don’t know what Loss is I’m not sure I can explain it to you. It’s this old, bad webcomic that was parodied so, so, so many times

that it was reduced to its barest essentials, to the point where any four panels with shapes in this arrangement is a Loss meme. For those of you in the know, you will recognize this anywhere, but have you ever tried to explain to someone who wasn’t in the know why this is really fuckin’ funny?

So, now… by the same process that this is a comics joke,

this is a rape joke.

I’m not gonna show the original image, but, once upon a time, someone made an animated GIF of the character Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z graphically raping Vegeta. 4chan loved it so much that it got posted daily, became known as the “daily dose,” until mods started deleting every incident of it. So they uploaded slightly edited version of it. Then they started uploading other images that had been edited with Piccolo’s color scheme. It got so abstracted that eventually any collection of purple and green pixels would be recognized as Piccolo Dick.

Apropos of nothing, GamerGate is a movement that insists it is not sexist in nature and it does not condone threats of rape against the women they don’t like. And this is their logo. This is their mascot.

If you’re familiar with the Daily Dose, the idea that GamerGate would never support Eron Gjoni if they believed he was a sexual abuser is so blatantly insincere it’s insulting… but imagine trying to explain to someone who’s not on 4chan how this sweater is a rape joke. Imagine having to explain it to a journalist. Imagine having to explain it to the judge enforcing your abuser’s restraining order.

Reactionaries use meme culture not just because they’re terminally online but also because it makes their behavior seem either benign or just confusing to outsiders. They find it hilarious that they can be really explicit and still fly under the radar. The Alt-Right did this with Pepe the Frog, the OK sign, even the milk glass emoji for a hot minute. The more inexplicable the meme, the better. You get the point where Stephen Miller is flashing Nazi signs from the White House and the Presidential re-eletion campaign is releasing 88 ads of exactly 14 words and there’s still a debate about whether the administration is racist. Because journalists aren’t going to get their heads around that. You tell them “1488 is a Nazi number,” it’s gonna seem a lot more plausible that you’re making shit up.

MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS

Online movements like GamerGate move at a speed and mutation rate too high for the mainstream world to keep up. And not just that they don’t understand the memes - they don’t understand the infrastructure.

In an attempt to cover GamerGate evenhandedly, George Wiedman of Super Bunnyhop interviewed a lawyer who specializes in journalistic ethics. He meant well; I really wish he hadn’t. You can see him trying to fit something like GamerGate into terms this silver-haired man who works in copyright law can understand. At one point he asks if it’s okay to fund the creative project of a potential journalistic source, to which the guy understandably says “no.”

What he’s alluding to here is the harassment of Jenn Frank. A few weeks into GamerGate, Jenn Frank writes a piece in The Guardian about sexism in tech that mentions Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. In another case of “here’s a strongly-held belief I just decided I have,” GamerGate says this is a breach of journalistic ethics because Frank backs Quinn on Patreon. They harass her so intensely she not only has to quit her job at The Guardian, for several months she quits journalism entirely.

Off the bat, calling a public figure central to a major event in the field a “journalistic source” is flatly wrong-headed. Quinn was not interviewed or even contacted for the article, they were in no way a “source”; they were a subject. But I want to talk about this phrase, “fund a creative project.” Patreon is functionally a subscription; it’s a way of buying things. It’s technically accurate that Frank is funding Quinn’s creative project, but only in the sense that you are funding Bob Dylan’s creative project if you listen to his music. And saying Frank therefore can’t write about Quinn is like saying a music journalist can’t cover a Bob Dylan concert if they’ve ever bought his albums.

And we could talk about the ways that Patreon, as compared with other funding models, can create a greater sense of intimacy, and we also could comment that, well, that’s how an increasing number of people consume media now, so that perspective should be present in journalism. But maybe it means we should cover that perspective differently? I don’t know. It’s an interesting subject. But none of that’s going on in this conversation because this guy doesn’t know what Patreon is. It was only a year old at this point. Patreon’s been a primary source of my income for 5 years and my parents still don’t know what it is. (I think they think I’m a freelancer?) This guy hears “funding a creative project” and he’s thinking an investor, someone who makes a profit off the source’s success.

The language of straight society hasn’t caught up with what’s happening, and that works in GamerGate’s favor.

In the years since GamerGate we have dozens of stories of people trying to explain Twitter harassment to a legal system that’s never heard of Twitter. People trying to explain death threats to cops whose only relationship to the internet is checking email, confusedly asking, “Why don’t you just not go online?” Like, yeah, release your text game about depression at GameStop for the PS3 and get it reviewed in the Boston Globe, problem solved.

You see this in the slowness of mainstream journalists to condemn the harassment - hell, even games journalists at first. Because what if it is a legitimate movement? What if the harassers are just a fringe element? What if there was misconduct? The people in a position to stop GamerGate don’t have to be convinced of their legitimacy, they just have to hesitate. They just have to be unsure. Remember how much happened in just the first two weeks, how it took only a month to become unkillable.

It’s the same hesitance that makes mainstream media, online platforms, and law enforcement underestimate The Alt-Right. They’re terrified of condemning a group as white nationalist terrorists because they’re confused, and what if they’re wrong? Or, in most cases, not even afraid they’re wrong, but afraid of the PR disaster if too much of the world thinks they’re wrong.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONTROL

A thing I’ve talked about in The Alt-Right Playbook is how these decentralized, ostensibly leaderless movements insulate themselves from responsibility. Harassment is never the movement’s fault because they never told anyone to harass and you can’t prove the harassers are legitimate members of the movement. The Alt-Right does this too - one of their catchphrases is “I disavow.” Since there are no formalized rules for membership, they can redraw boundaries on the fly; they can take credit for any successes and deny responsibility for any wrongdoing. Public membership is granted or revoked based on a person’s moment-to-moment utility.

It’s almost like… they’re cherry-picking.

The flipside of this is a lack of control. Since they never officially tell anyone to do anything but write emails, they have no means of stopping anyone from behaving counterproductively. The harassment of Jenn Frank was the first time GamerGate’s originators thought, “maybe we should ease off just to avoid bad publicity,” and they found they couldn’t. GamerGate had gotten too big, and too many people were clearly there for precisely this reason.

They also couldn’t control the infighting. When your goal is to harass women and you have all these contradictory justifications for why, you end up with a lot of competing beliefs. And, you know what? Angry white men who like harassing people don’t form healthy relationships! Several prominent members of GamerGate - including Internet Aristocrat - got driven out by factionalism; they were doxxed by their own people! Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini parted ways hating each other, with Aurini releasing chatlogs of him gaslighting Owen about accepting an endorsement from Roosh, and they released two competing edits of The Sarkeesian Effect.

I say this because it’s useful to know that these are alliances of convenience. If you know where the sore spots are, you can apply pressure to them.

LEADERS WITHOUT LEADERSHIP

One way movements like GamerGate deflect responsibility is by declaring, “We are a leaderless movement! We have no means to stop harassment.”

Which… any anarchist will tell you collective action is entirely possible without leaders. But they’ll also tell you, absent a system of distributing power equitably, you’re gonna have leaders, just not ones you elected.

A few months into GamerGate, Randi Lee Harper created the ggautoblocker. Here’s what it did: it took five prominent GamerGate figures - Adam Baldwin, Mike Cernovich, Christina Hoff Sommers, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Nick Monroe, formerly known as [sigh] PressFartToContinue - and generated a block list of everyone who followed at least two of them on Twitter. Now, this became something of an arms race; once GamerGate found out about it they made secondary accounts that followed different people, and more and more prominent figures appeared and had to get added to the list. But, when it first launched, the list generated from just these five people comprised an estimated 90-95% of GamerGate.

Hate to break it to you, guys, but if 90+ percent of your movement is following at least two of the same five people, those are your leaders. The attention economy has produced them. Power pools when left on its own.

This is another case where you have to ignore what people claim and look at what they do. The Alt-Right loves to say “we disavow Richard Spencer” and “Andrew Anglin doesn’t speak for us.”

But no matter what they say, pay attention to whom they’re taking cues from.

AD CAMPAIGN

George Lakoff has observed that one way the Left fails in opposition to the Right is that most liberal politicians and campaigners have degrees in things like law and political science, where conservative campaigners more often have degrees in advertising and communications. Liberals and leftists may have a better product to sell, but conservatives know how to sell products.

GamerGate less resembles a boots-on-the-ground political movement than an ad campaign. First they decide what their messaging strategy is going to be. Then the media arm starts publicizing it. They seek out celebrity endorsements. They get their own hashtag and mascot. They donate to charity and literally call it “public relations.” You can even see the move from The Quinnspiracy to GamerGate as a rebranding effort - when one name got too closely associated with harassment, they started insisting GamerGate was an entirely separate movement from The Quinnspiracy. I learned that trick from Stringer Bell’s economics class.

Now, we could stand to learn a thing or two from this. But I also wouldn’t want us to adopt this strategy whole hog; you should view moves like these as red flags. If you’re hesitating to condemn a movement because what if it’s legitimate, take a look at whether they’re selling ideology like it’s Pepsi.

PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING

One reason to insist you’re a consumer revolt rather than a harassment campaign is most people who want to harass need someone to give them permission, and need someone to tell them it’s normal.

Bob Altemeyer has this survey he uses to study authoritarianism. He divides respondents into people with low, average, and high authoritarian sentiments, and then tells them what the survey has measured and asks, “what score do you think is best to have: low, average, or high?”

People with low authoritarian sentiments say it’s best to be low. People with average authoritarian sentiments also say it’s best to be low. But people with high authoritarian sentiments? They say it’s best to be average. Altemeyer finds, across all his research, that reactionaries want to aggress, but only if it is socially acceptable. They want to know they are the in-group and be told who the out-group is. They don’t particularly care who the out-group is, Altemeyer finds they’ll aggress against any group an authority figure points to, even, if they don’t notice it, a group that contains them. They just have to believe the in-group is the norm.

This is why they have to believe games journalism is corrupt because of a handful of feminist media critics with outsized influence. Legitimate failures of journalism cannot be systemic problems rooted in how digital media is funded and consumed; there cannot be a legitimate market for social justice-y media. It has to be manipulation by the few. Because, if these things are common, then, even if you don’t like them, they’re normal. They’re part of the in-group. Reactionary politics is rebellion against things they dislike getting normalized, because they know, if they are normalized, they will have to accept them. Because the thing they care about most is being normal.

This is why the echo chamber, this is why Fox News, this is why the Far Right insists they are the “silent majority.” This is why they artificially inflate their numbers. This is why they insist facts are “biased.” They have to maintain the image that what are, in material terms, fringe beliefs are, in fact, held by the majority. This is why getting mocked by Stephen Colbert was such a blow to GamerGate. It makes it harder to believe the world at large agrees with them.

This is why, if you’re trying to change the world for the better, it’s pointless to ask their permission. Because, if you change the world around them, they will adapt even faster than you will.

THE ARGUMENT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO END

Casey Explosion has this really great Twitter thread comparing the Alt-Right to Scary Terry from Rick and Morty. His catchphrase is “you can run but you can’t hide, bitch.” And Rick and Morty finally escape him by hiding. And Morty’s all, “but he said we can’t hide,” and Rick is like, “why are we taking his word on this? if we could hide, he certainly wouldn’t tell us.”

The reason to argue with a GamerGater is on the implied agreement that, if you can convince them they’re part of a hate mob, they will leave. But look at the incentives here: they want to be in GamerGate, and you want them not to be. But they’re already in GamerGate. They’re not waiting on the outcome of this argument to participate. They’ve already got what they want; they don’t need to convince you GamerGate isn’t a hate mob.

This is why all their logic and rationalizations are shit, because they don’t need to be good. They’re not trying to win an argument. They’re trying to keep the argument going.

This has been a precept of conservative political strategy for decades. “You haven’t convinced us climate change is real and man-made, you need to do more studies.” They’re not pausing the use of fossil fuels until the results come in. “You haven’t convinced us there are no WMDs in Iraq, you need to collect more evidence.” They’re not suspending the war until you get back to them. “You haven’t convinced us that Reaganomic tax policy causes recessions, let’s just do it for another forty years and see what happens.” And when the proof comes in, they send us out for more, and we keep going.

The biggest indicator you can’t win a debate with a reactionary is they keep telling you you can. The biggest indicator protest and deplatforming works is they keep telling you in plays into their hands. The biggest indicator that you shouldn’t compromise with Republicans is they keep saying doing otherwise is stooping to their level. They’re not going to walk into the room and say, “Hi, my one weakness is reasoned argument, let’s pick a time and place to hash this out.”

And we fall for it because we’re trying to be decent people. Because we want to believe the truth always wins. We want to bargain in good faith, and they are weaponizing our good faith against us. Always dangling the carrot that the reason they’re like this is no one’s given them the right argument not to be. It’s all just a misunderstanding, and, really, it’s on us for not trying hard enough.

But they have no motivation to agree with us. Most of the people asking for debates have staked their careers on disagreeing with us. Conceding any point to the Left could cost them their livelihood.

WHY GAMES?

Let’s close with the big question: why games? And, honestly, the short answer is:

why not games?

Games culture has always presented itself as a hobby for young, white, middle class boys. It’s always been bigger and more diverse than that, but that’s how it was marketed, and that’s who most felt they belonged. As gaming grows bigger, there is suddenly room for those marginal voices that have always been there to make themselves heard. And, as gaming becomes more mainstream, it’s having its first brushes with serious critical analysis.

This makes the people who have long felt gaming was theirs and theirs alone anxious and a little angry. They’ve invested a lot of their identity in it and they don’t want it to change.

And what the Far Right sees in a sizable collection of aggrieved young men is an untapped market. This is why sites like Stormfront and Breitbart flocked to them. These are not liberals they have to convert, these people are, up til now, not politically engaged. The Right can be their first entry to politics.

The world was changing. Nerd properties were exploding into popular culture in tandem with media representation diversifying. And we were living with the first Black President. Any time an out-group looks like it might join the in-group, there is a self-protective backlash from the existing in-group. This had been brewing for a while, and, honestly, if it hadn’t boiled over in games, it would have boiled over somewhere else.

And, in the years since GamerGate, it has. The Far Right has tapped the comics, Star Wars, and sci-fi fandoms; they tried to get in with the furry community but failed spectacularly. They’re all over YouTube and, frankly, the atheist community was already in their pocket. Basically, if you’re in community with a bunch of young white guys who think they own the place, you might wanna have some talks with them sooner than later.

Anyway, if you want to know more about any of this stuff, RationalWiki’s timeline on GamerGate is pretty thorough. You can also watch my or Dan Olson’s videos on the subject. I’ll be putting the audio of this talk on YouTube and will put as many resources as I can in the show notes. The channel, again, is Innuendo Studios.

Sorry this was such a bummer.

Thank you for your time.

[itoshit]

Time slowly went by, days turning to nights. And nights turning to days. That day, when I left Vee, I didn't think it would have been the last time I saw her. But she left. My men found her quickly of course, some even offered me to bring her back to me. But the whole point was to not be in contact anymore. I refused to see any picture of her, to see what she was up to. Ran's reports were enough for me. My heart was hurting me, especially when I learnt the existence of her friend, Darren. I was in the private room of one of our clubs, and Ran showed me a picture of them together. She seemed happy, healthy. And I was glad to be out of her life at that moment because honestly, I shattered everything and everyone that I touched.

It was not too long after I cut our strings. I remember that night vividly because that was my very first step to hell. Drinking to forget what I saw, I apparently passed out. Sanzu was the one bringing me back home. My place didn't look good anymore, but I didn't care. No one would stay here except me anyway. I wasn't even sleeping in my bed anymore, not that I was sleeping in the first place. But I couldn't do it. Too hard. Her scent lingered everywhere in my room, in her room. The small amount of sleep that I had was spent on my couch. Christmas went by too, and nothing happened. Her coat and the concert ticket were left untouched in my bedroom, in a random drawer. That evening, I stayed alone in my apartment, trying to imagine what it would have been with Vee around. We would have probably been drinking and laughing, making out on my couch. I'm sure she would have wanted me to buy a Christmas tree, and we would have decorated it together. And the night would have finished somewhere in my apartment, both naked and drowning in each other's touch.

Six months have passed. I tried so hard to forget her face with the many girls trying to get into my pants. I tried so, so hard. But I've never been able to touch someone else. Vee was like a drug, and I was experiencing it. But I was so content for her, she looked like she was finally balancing everything in her life, and she was probably grateful for that. She probably didn't want me back in her life, and I would never dare to enter hers anyway. She must felt relief after all that ended up.

I went back to the Mikey I was before meeting Vee, the cold; heartless man I used to be. My black hair was the only different thing from that past.

Every night I recalled our moment spent together, the only vestige of her was in mind.

Well, my vision seemed to be quite subjective and false, because on few occasions, the guys talked to me. Kakucho, Sanzu, Takeomi and Ran were the ones telling me how I changed, in a bad way. To them, I was more reckless. There were probably right, not that it mattered anyway.

Dante and La Cosa Nostra became close allies, the first trying his best to ease my heart. He presented me to his wife and children, and they were probably the ones who helped me getting through all that shit.

My life didn't make sense anymore. Without Vee by my side, I could finally say it, I was nothing. A dead man walking. While she looked so... full of life.

I saw Senju multiple times, and what I said to Vee was obviously completely false. I've never let myself be tempted with her flirt. The Yamaguchi-gumi stayed on the low for a while too, making their presence known from time to time.

They attacked one of our clubs once, and I almost died in the process. That's maybe what the guys reproached me when they said that I was reckless. Luckily though, Sanzu helped me. Got shot close to the heart, would have died if he didn't push me at the last minute.

The not so discreet scar that I had on my chest was a daily reminder that life was, even for me, something ephemeral.

Tonight was no different than the other nights. Would drown myself in work, files, alcohol and memories of Vee. That scared me because I was slowly starting to forget the sound of her voice.

Mikey.

Hm?

You can't keep doing that

Doing what?

You're not living, you're just... surviving. Amico mio, it's not good. Even Luka noticed your pain, shall I remind you he's only 8? You need to do something.

Look Dante, I appreciate your concern but I'm working right now. Did you call me to say something else?

Your girl has been-

She's not mine anymore. I lost her long ago.

... Venus is going outside tonight. Ran told me and as requested from you, my men keep an eye on her. She hasn't been outside since you stopped talking. You should come and-

Scoffing at him, I rolled my eyes, forehead pressed against my hand.

Dante, just... don't. She's clearly better off without me, and the Yamaguchi-gumi understood she wasn't someone who counted for -

But that was a lie! Manjiro. You could try again with her! We could finish them off, and you two could be happy together. It's just-

No we won't. They got the message when we blew their hideout up. No needs to start something big like this once again, especially when we all know the finality of it.

And what is if if you're so sure of yourself? You know what? I'm gonna bring her to you tonight. You're always staying at your office, expect her and I to be here.

... Venus doesn't need me. She realised she didn't miss me, and that I was only a cancer in her life. I need to go, don't call me again. Thank you for what you did back then.

Hanging up, I left my phone on my desk, leaving my office, but not before asking my executives to meet me in our meeting room.

What's up Mikey?

All sat around me, I looked at them first, before speaking.

Just, thanks for what you did for me.

Snorting, Sanzu stared at me, pupils dilated.

Why does it look like farewells though?

You can leave, you have your evening off. Find some pussy to fuck, get drunk, get high. Do what you want. I want you all to be here tomorrow before 8am.

Groaning, Sanzu stood up, and was the first to leave the room.

You okay?

Of course I am Ran.

Nodding, he patted my shoulder while Rindou simply smiled at me.

Koko had an eyebrow raised.

What's up with you Mikey?

Nothing. You can go Hajime.

Eh? First time you're saying my name. But alright, goodnight Mikey

Now alone with Mochizuku and Takeomi, I turned to them.

Guess I'll head to the strip club then.

Go ahead Kanji

Door closing, I felt Takeomi's eyes on me.

What?

What are you up to Mikey?

Nothing, just need a night away from work. Why aren't you leaving?

Raising his hands in defeat, Takeomi stood up, and as he was going to exit the meeting's room, he stilled.

Manjiro. Don't do anything stupid yeah?

No worries.

Eventually alone, I sat back on the chair, chin on my crossed hands. Would I regret what I was about to do? Probably not. Vee gave me hope, showing me some good time. But I wasn't destined to happiness. My place was in darkness, in hell.

An hour passed, and directing myself to my office, I checked the security cameras. It was 9pm, everyone left the building, as I requested beforehand.

Turning one last time to my office, I suddenly imagined Vee here, with me. Taking my gun off my hoster, I put it on my desk. Closing the door behind me, I went to the roof.

The last time that I've been here was when Sanzu surprised me, and when I said to him that if I happened to die, he would take the lead.

Guess nothing has changed since then.

Approaching my feet from the edge, I looked behind, a flash blinding me for a while. The good old days, when I was Toman's leader, Ken-chin by my side. Takemichi, Mitsuya, Chifuyu, the Kawata twins and the others were below, acclaiming me.

How were they doing now? Did they find happiness? I hope so. Vee crossed my mind too, leaving a warm feeling in my heart.

Throwing a glance at the concrete, I felt cold sweat on my forehead.

I'm sorry, Venus

-Mikey

TO EXPLAIN MYSELF - I wanted to keep the final scene from the manga, when Bonten Mikey is with Takemichi. It's not to destroy the good mood at all, but I do think Mikey is someone who's extremely tortured in his life (as everyone knows lmao) so in this case, where him and you were an item and he had strong feelings toward you, obviously it will destroy him more. Hopefully it's not a triggering subject for you, if it is, I'm sorry bby 😔

see now mod… *exhales*

Yeah, I don’t know about this, Dee.

We stood outside the bar, which from the outside, looked pack to capacity already. Apprehension consumed me. Darren noticed, taking my hand into his and squeezing it.

Do you wanna go home? he asked gently. We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to.

I shook my head. If I couldn’t do this, with my best friend no less, I probably wouldn’t be able to do any social event.

No, I’m fine. But we are leaving before 11.

He winked at me.

Fuck yeah we are.

We walked in together at that, arm in arm. Eyes flitted to us and then away when they realized we weren’t anybody of importance. A few lingered on me, recognizing me from the news maybe. I ignored them, allowing Darren to introduce me to his friends. He was right, they were nice. We shared a few drinks, me only having one beer to the others four. After Natalie, I just didn’t trust drinking anymore. Or people in general, always looking outside of people’s actions for their hidden motives.

We left at ten as promised. I shoved Darren and a couple of his friends into separate Ubers since they were way too drunk for me to even trust them driving. After I managed to get transportation for the final drunkard that I was with that night, I started walking toward my own car. But I noticed something. Somebody was following me. Clutching onto the pocketknife I started carrying ever since I got back home, I steeled myself with the thought of pulling it out and taking a life if needed be.

As the person neared, my grip on the hilt was knuckle-white and tight, with little to no chance of slipping off. When they touched me, I spun around fast, placing the knife right beneath their throat. I was smart enough to avoid streetlights.

Who the fuck are you? I snarled, pressing the knife closer with each word I spoke.

The man threw up his hands quickly, but made no move to disarm me. I’m with Dante of La Casa Nostra.

Who?

Me, somebody spoke from our left. I chanced a look and found a man sitting in the back of a heavily tinted jeep. My heart sunk. I learned a long time ago that tinted jeeps were the poster cars for criminal organization and gang leaders to move around in. My name is Dante, Venus, and I came to you requesting help.

Funny way of asking for it, I bit, throwing a look to the man who was following me. And besides, I don’t think I can help you.

It’s about Mikey.

I froze, unsure how to answer for a few seconds, then eventually came up with a, I don’t know a Mikey.

We were there with the Yamaguchis, Venus. La Casa Nostra was a big help in aiding Bonten in that victory. Our sniper was the one that saved your life. So technically, you owe me.

Could I even argue that? I had a feeling that even if I wanted to, there was only stalling I could do before he lost his patience and just forced me to do what he wanted. Powerful men weren’t used to being challenged, after all. Slowly, I placed my knife in my pocket, but always kept it ready to grab in case I had to run. I walked up to the Jeep and hopped in beside Dante, keeping my distance at the same time.

What do you want?

I wanted to get straight to the point, go home if possible.

It’s Mikey, he sighed, pinching his nose as if even the thought of the man pained him to talk about. He’s… not doing so well. Not sleeping, barely eating, wasting away.

Have you ever stopped to consider he was always like that?

It honestly sounded like he was behaving just as he was—

But that was before you met him, Venus.

I clenched my jaw, remembering how he had started eating and sleeping at my request, soon not even needing me to tell him to do either at all. A certain beach date flashed into my mind and I shook my head to rid myself of the memory. Dante observed my reaction, and I wanted to pinch myself for giving an observable one.

Either way, I’m worried, Venus. Mikey is a good guy, an extraordinary ally, but with the way things are looking…I don’t think he’s going to survive much longer to be any of both. Which is why I offered to take you to him as a last resort.

Without my consent?

With or without, he admitted with a laugh. I’m that desperate. He’s not well, Venus. Even my children are concerned.

I gnawed on my thumbnail.

Bringing me to him might not fix him. They might make things worse. For both of us, I wanted to say.

Or they might make them better, he argued.

You couldn’t possibly know that.

I’m willing to take that risk.

I couldn’t answer that. Few things could talk down a stubborn man. I wasn’t one of them.

You know, I really think you and Manjiro belong together. You’re both just too stubborn to see that.

I didn’t reply to that, either. I would’ve agreed once. Manjiro made sure I couldn’t.

We arrived to the building and I was astounded by how distinctly I remembered it despite being away from it from so long. My mind went on that nurse who helped me escape. I wondered if they fired her.

Dante hopped out of the car the same time I did, using a fancy keycard to gain access into the building. Walking through it, I realized I never took the time to appreciate how large the space was. We reached the room where Dante said he’d be— the meeting room.

Mikey, I’m here as promised, Dante announced and I held my breath. I hadn’t the slightest clue what to say when I saw him, or whether what I’d say would be the right thing. Probably not, considering I wanted to curse him like a dog.

I still had time to think of something though. When Dante opened the door, nobody was there.

Am I being pranked? I asked Dante whose eyebrows were furrowed.

That’s strange. He hasn’t checked out of the building at all today so he’s still in here.

I looked around for a bit, feeling something amiss, and then I found the window looking out over the city. Dante, is there any room in this place that has a better view than this one?

No, this is the highest floor in the building. No view comes close. Why do you ask?

They all had something in common. This room, Mikey’s house’s design, the hotels he booked, down to the dates he scheduled— there was one common denominator.

The view. I snapped my fingers. Mikey likes the views!

But there’s no better view than… the roof. He’s on the roof.

I wasted no time, bolting out of the door. The elevator stopped just to the meeting room floor. Only stairs could take you up to the roof. I sprinted up them by God’s grace, barely even winded by the time I opened the door.

Good thing too, because the sight of Mikey took my breath away. It was only his back, the same black hair I had seen him in the last time fluttering in the wind. What worried me most was not where he was standing, feet firmly planted on the ledge. What worried me most was how relaxed he was on the ledge, as if he wasn’t staring a certain death right in the face. A strong enough wind would send him right to it. I couldn’t witness that. My feet moved on their own, fueled by adrenaline. I had barely reached him when he started to push himself over the ledge, but I caught him in time, gripping my shirt between his fingers and snatching him back with all my might. He fell back easily, too startled by the fact somebody was there to catch him to brace himself. He landed right atop of me in a heap of limbs. My hands were trembling. It was as if I had just realized how close I was to missing that chance to grab him. Tears came into my eyes, but I didn’t know if they were from anger or from fear.

You idiot, I whispered harshly through sobs. You fucking idiot.

[lesbian-ed]

(Not exactly lesbian related but your about says you answer feminism too) I found radical feminism about a year ago and since then I've watched most of my views go from liberal/ that annoying antifem/sjw to supporting this but I don't really feel like a feminist since I don't do any activism and I'm too scared to share my opinions on this, (1/2)

2/2 especially since everyone I interact with is one of the groups I used to be in I feel like it helped me accept me without makeup and with body hair and being a lesbian and just not being feminine but everyone makes fun of that I do (or don't do )those things now

I am not going to lie, anon. I frankly think that you are surrounded by a wrong group of people who aren’t good for you. Liberal feminists shout all about how there is individual freedom, and we should respect “choices!!!” but often choices are considered wrong and looked down upon if they don’t confirm to patriarchal standards. (Wear winged eyeliner and slay boys uvu!!!). I was in the same situation (aka being super into libfem/sjw stuff) and recently switched over to the rad fem ideology. It is because I realised there was nothing much of substance in it, except repeating the same phrases over and over again. The words were diluted down and lost their meaning.

To me, radical feminism challenges current systems and that’s where its power comes from. It is about tackling major problems that woman face globally instead of individual empowerment (which isn’t bad in itself, but it should not overpower major issues, like sex-trafficking, FGM, oppression under religion, etc.)

You need to look for new friends who agree with your new world view. It’s hard for me to communicate with people who I was formerly friends with, and I reckon it will be the same for you. Especially when you have been friends for years and shared so much with them. They might look down upon you as a traitor, a fake person who was just riding on the coat tails of the qu**r movement and is now showing their real face. I just avoid talking about feminism/qu**r issues/gender discourse with them. And talk about benign things like the weather or music. I do feel distant from them, but rad fem ideology is really important to me at this moment, and I can’t give it up.

You say you aren’t doing any activism, but the fact that you refuse to wear makeup and shave is a statement enough. Fuck people who make fun of you for not being feminine. You don’t need that kind of toxicity in your life. Do what gives you a personal sense of freedom and happiness. Educate yourself (which you have, congratulations!) and follow the ideology which most appeases to your understanding and your morality.

You can do this, I believe in you. 

/Mod F

[starbrightmaiden-a]

Don't you fucking gaslight me.

You wanna know something?

Before seeing you and your little friends in the Elia tag, I was never bothered by your ship. I don't hate Rhaegar, I've stated that time and time again in my posts. I don't hate Lyanna, I've stated that also.

I've rped with some FANTASTIC Rhaegars.

I've rped with some AMAZING Lyannas.

And they know who they are. They follow me as we speak.

They are some of my dear and most darling of friends. I've known most of them for nearly a decade now. They know my likes and dislikes better than any stranger, like yourself, can ever dream of knowing.

They know my current distaste in the ship and the characters do not stem from them nor is it aimed at them or their takes on the characters and the ship.

It's you and rhaelyas and rhaegarxlyanna who continuously tag invade with your crap and vomit all over Elia's tag. CONSTANTLY.

I do not go to your tags, if I'm given Rhaegar or Lyanna content it's from the dearly beloved friends I rp with.

If anyone's to blame ... it's not me.

I can't speak of the rest of the members in the Water Gardens, I don't have that right, but I can tell you who makes me upset ... It's YOU. Whose dribble and harassment and interacting with properly tagged posts that have NOTHING to do with you and yours that is making me slowly hate everything about your ship.

We have ignored you constantly for weeks on end until you decide to show up again. If someone is harassing you in your tags, then it's no one I'm following on here. If you're getting harassing anons maybe you need to look within your own fandom because sometimes fandoms can contain wolves in sheep clothing. If I am posting things on my blog that might be about you and are not tagged, stop looking at my blog. I have no need to go anon to speak to anyone. I am an adult, I say my truth to your face regardless of feelings. I cannot apologize for something I am not doing.

I created The Water Gardens discord server JUST to have a safe place to talk to other content creators with. Because anytime we share our thoughts in our tags, that are not tagged with your favorites or your ships, you invade these posts.

This is what you've driven us too.

YOU.

-----

You WANT know where the contents at?

It's being made.

We have a THREE month challenge being worked right now with multiple creators. Fics and graphics. We are sharing ideas and plans.

As you said, and I will give you this, it takes time and effort. The effort is being made, the time is being taken. I'm seeing WIPs every day from them.

When I'm not working or helping my father with his house renovations or modding my friend's twitch chat, I'm working on my WIPS.

Again I cannot speak for anyone else, I can only tell you what I've seen with my own eyes.

---

And yes, I took the time off of my wips to build up a discord server just to get away from the likes of you.

---

As for the week I want for Aegon and Rhaenys, it's not a direct attack on the Targling week. I was kind of excited about that until I realized who was going to be in it. Again this falls back on your lot, not mine.

Because yes the Targling week sure as hell felt like all you and yours wanted was notes. And that you were willing to use us and our love for Elia and her children to gain those. Because that is what I've gathered from every interaction I've seen between you and the multiple members in the Water Gardens.

But I'm going off topic there.

I wanted a week for Aegon and Rhaenys, FOR THEM AND ABOUT THEM, that didn't include everyone's favorite fan theory baby. And Jon being a Targaryen is only that right now. I do not consider the show canon. Now if GRRM ever deems himself to finish the books and does prove the fan theory right, you will have my apologies on my denial of that. I will be glad to eat my words.

Since I am not getting that week, I decided to make one myself.

Dates are NOT set yet.

It's likely going to be late September or early October. It all depends on what's best with my schedule.

But I am not deciding on dates right now at your demand.

You don't get to demand our work and our time and our efforts.

---

And maybe you shouldn't talk about about the 'health' of any fandom ... not when we're not the ones shipping a 14 to 16 year old with a man who is 7 to 8 years her senior.

---

One final thing: What do you REALLY want from the Elia fandom?

If it's for us to shut up and leave tumblr & ao3, you're not getting that.

If it's peace, I can't give you that for the whole fandom base. If you want peace, we can't be the only ones willing to give out an olive branch.

So what is that you want?

When content is coming from people who have a very visual history of shitting on Elia and her children and her homeland why on EARTH?! should we interact with it?

When they tell us we’re not allowed our headcanons but constantly flood our tags with hate when we don’t buy into theirs?

Why should we interact with their content?

[mlmshadowhuntersource-blog]

i've never written sexual alec/lydia, period and anyone who is perpetuating that has not read the fic in question. i am a queer woman but not mlm, so i can't speak faithfully to whether any of my fics have come across as fetishistic, but if they have i would welcome the feedback on how to grow and improve

Hi! I (mod Ira) have taken the liberty of providing some pointers to your writing. First, and most importantly, I’d like to discuss non-platonic Alec/Lydia in fic. Something much of fandom seems unable to understand is that Lydia and Alec’s relationship is inherently toxic. In the beginning of season one, we see Alec as a terrified closeted gay man, willing to commit suicide before being outed to anyone. Lydia knows he has feelings for Magnus before they get married, and goes through with it anyway. She was in a position of power over him, because she never expected him to back out of the marriage, and so takes advantage of him. After the wedding kiss, Alec says that Lydia letting him go saved his life.

Many non-mlm have trouble understanding that writing non-platonic Alec/Lydia is inherently homophobic. Lydia was more than Alec’s temporary beard. Lydia was a manipulative person who took advantage of Alec’s trauma to gain an Institute. Creating au’s in which they are planning to marry is trivializing the trauma and internalized homophobia from Alec’s experiences of living in such a deeply homophobic society. Mlm can write this in order to relate it to their own experiences, and some even find it helpful to work through their own related trauma. People who are not mlm shouldn’t use it as a plot device to further Alec and Magnus’s relationship.

I’d also like to discuss a common trope in malec fics. The infantilization of Alec Lightwood in order to make him more desirable for sex is fetishistic. This is seen in your fics No Sweeter Innocence and blow me (one last kiss). Sexual inexperience is different from being bashful, blushing and embarrassed, especially when the Alec we see on screen is nothing like that. Alec in canon would resent being coddled and being seen as an innocent baby who doesn’t understand what he wants enough to articulate asking to be taken to bed, why do you write him that way? 

Another issue we see is Magnus as the Ever Giving Partner while Alec sits around sucking him dry of affection. The balance between their affection is concerning. Why is Magnus the one constantly smothering Alec in love and pet-names while Alec is allowed to eat it up and never give back? Furthermore, there is again not much evidence in canon to support this. Alec is the one seen giving Magnus gifts, initiating intimacy, confessing his feelings first, and seeking Magnus out for company. Rarely is it the other way around. Why do you see Magnus as the one who lives and breathes affection and waxes poetic about Alec, and why do you see Alec as the one who has most of the orgasms and let’s Magnus coddle him? 

On a more personal note, we never said your fics were garbage. Many of your fics are very sweet, I enjoyed your Found Family ‘Verse quite a lot! And yes, we’re giving you feedback to improve your writing, like you asked, even though mlm don’t exist to keep non-mlm from being fetishistic. The amount of entitlement to ask for an explanation and then vague us on your blog before actually receiving a response is astounding. I hope this was helpful!!!

Hey, it’s Tyler here. If you’re still reading I have commentary, too. First off, I am going to say that I am at fault - I should have read your works before taking the word of someone else (who was a mlm so I did trust his word, and still do). It is totally on me for not fact checking and I will remember to fact check before I state things as fact. However, he was not wrong to say your works were fetishistic nor was he wrong in suggesting we not rec your fics. (There was fetishization in your fics and while there was not sexual Alec/Lydia, there was romantic Alec/Lydia).

Onto your fic: First Comes Love. As Ira mentioned earlier, Alec is infantilized a lot. But most notably is how you write him as if he’s unable to make decisions or do anything for himself when that isn’t the Alec we see on screen. You make Lydia the decision maker (which she is, canonically, but so is Alec) and you make Magnus… well, I wouldn’t call it predatory but it’s really uncomfortable how he flirts with Alec, notices Alec’s uncomfortable, stops briefly, and then starts flirting again. Yes, Magnus is flirty but I don’t believe he would flirt with anyone when he knows they’re uncomfortable. (I mean, canonically Magnus told Alec he would back off if he [Alec] could say he was in love/loved Lydia and canonically Magnus did tell Maryse he would leave if Alec told him to).

I know Ira didn’t read “First Comes Love” but the whole dynamic between Alec and Magnus was… well, I wouldn’t say it is predatory because I’m not a 100% sure it is but it is uncomfortable. I think what makes it uncomfortable is how Alec has been infantilized to a point where it is completely out of character for him.

However, I’m not here to tell you how to better that fic because I actually discourage it. I read your disclaimer but ignoring canon, the relationship you have written is extremely unhealthy. It is very one-sided, Lydia seems to be the voice in the relationship and the one who ‘runs’ the relationship to the point Alec doesn’t really have an opinion on anything.

Anyway, I want to talk about your disclaimer.

Updated A/N: Just to clarify, I tagged this fic as ‘alec/lydia’ and added an extra warning tag because I know some people don’t want to read alec/women regardless of context and I want to respect that.

Ask yourself why do people not want to read Alec/women regardless of context? It’s not just a matter of it being uncomfortable. Yes, it is uncomfortable but it is also extremely disrespectful. It is disrespectful because it is taking an experience that a lot of gay men relate to and may have been through and turned it into a plot device. Our lives, our experiences, are not meant to be used as plot devices in fanfiction and they are not meant to be used by non-mlm.

And furthermore, if you wanted to respect us not wanting to read Alec/women (or, for some, not even wanting to see Alec/women) you would not write it. Period. Full stop.

As a gay man, when I watched that episode I can’t even describe the amount of pain and discomfort I experienced because I thought Alec was going to marry Lydia. Just imagine the pain and discomfort I experienced as an outsider, as someone just watching a tv show, now amplify that by a 1000 and you probably have the exact feeling that Alec felt, that every mlm who was forced into a straight marriage/relationship.

However, two things about this story, 1) Alec is gay, 2) the only pairing presented romantically is Alec/Magnus. Not offended if it’s still not your cup of tea, but just want to make that clear if people are trying to judge from tags alone.

It isn’t, though. Alec/Lydia is presented as a romantic pairing. In the fic, they are engaged- that is an inherently romantic relationship. You cannot write a relationship where two characters are engaged or even married and then turn around and say, “oh but it’s not romantic” because those are romantic relationships.

That’s all I have to say on that and if you’re still around I also read “Blow Me (One Last Kiss).” But I have to agree with Ira on literally everything that he said. Also one thing they didn’t address is… please if you’re going to write smut, please say ‘dick’ or ‘penis’ - not length.

Also not to critique a smut scene because that was the last thing I thought I’d be doing at 6 o’clock on a Monday morning but I feel like it would be physically impossible for Alec to do what you’re saying he is doing. Unless Alec just doesn’t have a gag reflex.

On a personal note. I would like to say something about the vaguing which I didn’t really appreciate when I saw your blog. You messaged us, probably seeking an apology, and feedback. Which we were both very happy to give but after we saw your blog we were kind of… thrown. I can’t speak for Ira but for me, personally, I found it childish. Why message us then vague us or vague us then message us? I get vaguing, I vague people all the time, but I don’t turn around and message them - or vice versa.

I’m gonna be frank, had you not messaged us we never would have seen your vague and you know what that’s perfectly fine. You can talk shit about us and spread lies and over-exaggerate what I said (not Ira, because they weren’t a mod at the time) and I frankly don’t give a fuck. I would rather someone not message me giving off the air of politeness and civility and then turn around and talk shit. That’s fake as hell.

But onto your vague posts which I have some problems with because some of the things really rubbed me the wrong way. Specifically the amount of entitlement.

“apparently a sh mlm blog rec’d one of my fics but then removed it and like made a recant post basically saying someone had told them i write fetishistic fic and ‘sexual alec/lydia’ so they would never post any of my fic again.”

Specifically the “so they would never post any of my fic again” part rubbed me the wrong way. You are not entitled to our spaces and we do not owe it to you to promote your fic, especially if we don’t feel the material you are writing is something that should be promoted. We are not here to promote the fics of people who fetishize mlm or portray Alec/Lydia. Actually, our blog’s purpose is to raise up the voices of mlm and we aren’t obligated to promote anyone who isn’t mlm. But the fact that you felt entitled to our spaces is just beyond infuriating.

i dunno how many followers they have but they posted my ao3 tag and everything

As of this posting we have 108. And I didn’t “post [your] ao3 tag and everything.” I stated your ao3 username, yes, but I hardly call that “everything.” I posted what I did because I choose to try and take responsibility for my actions - as I am doing right now.

(and like, tbf i would try to be open to whatever criticism this person has on the first point because i’m not mlm obvs so i’m sure i’m not perfect by any stretch, but the second point could only be made by someone who’s literally never read my fic so..)

On this part… if someone asks us for feedback, I will give it to them. However, it is not our job to go out of our way to educate every single fetishistic or homophobic fic writer. Your job, as a writer and as someone portraying mlm when you are not a mlm, is to go out and do the research and educate yourself and make sure you’re not portraying us in a negative/fetishistic light. Not to sit back and publish your work until someone comes along and tells you, “hey this is fetishistic” or “this is homophobic.” Your job, as a writer, is to make sure that doesn’t happen.

And our job, as mlm, is to make sure we aren’t promoting fics that are homophobic and/or fetishistic. (And yes, you can be homophobic despite being a queer woman and stating that you’re a queer woman is not a get out of jail free card).

if you don’t want to read my fics that’s awesome but since you haven’t actually read them can you maybe not tell everyone else they’re garbage? thanks

Neither of us has said your fics are garbage so again with the twisting of our words and over-exaggeration. All I said was that someone brought it to my attention that you write fetishistic portrayals of mlm (which you do) and sexual Alec/Lydia (which you don’t, but you do write romantic Alec/Lydia) and that I would not rec your fics on a blog by mlm for mlm. And that is fully within my rights. We do not have to cater to you or any non-mlm.

I said anyone could follow as long as they are respectful of the fact that this is a safe space for mlm because I feel non-mlm should be able to hear our thoughts on how mlm are portrayed and see proper portrayals of mlm.

But I will not tolerate people feeling entitled to our spaces because the only people entitled to this space is mlm.

[lesbian-ed]

Can you give me one good reason to keep identifying as a lesbian? Because I've been out for the last two years and all I've gotten out of it are redicule, threats, an almost emotionless relationship, and a crippling sense of lonliness. I really don't want this anymore, and I'm considering just going to my parents and saying "fuck it, sure, you were right, I'm a straight girl" and work my way from there. Most everyone would like me better. Right now I'm not buying into the "it gets better" bs.

Hey honey, I’m so glad you reached out to us!

There’s a very simple answer for this, and I hate to be this blunt, but the reality is: stopping identifying as a lesbian won’t actually make you straight, in fact, it would make things worse for you. The lesbophobia would still be there (tho not directed towards you maybe? Although if you were out to people before they might still think you are into girls so they might still be lesbophobic towards you) the crippling sense of loneliness would still be there, because you’d still be a lesbian even if you lied to yourself, and on the relationship front, it would be even worse because you’d be with men you don’t actually want to be with.

If your environment isn’t supportive, then I’d advice not coming out to everyone (if there’s someone around you you haven’t come out to yet). As for your parents, if they give you a lot of shit for being a lesbian to the point of it this badly affecting your mental health, or if it can affect you in any way (like, economically, kicking you out or something similar) then maybe do pretend around them, but don’t do it out of shame for who you are, who you are is perfect and lovable and worth fighting for, do it just because you care about your safety and well-being.

Just because your last relationships was almost emotionless doesn’t mean that all of them will be like that. Sure, lesbian and bi women are human, and as such we have faults and our relationships aren’t always perfect, or maybe you were simply not compatible with your previous girlfriend. That’s no reason to believe that all of your relationships will be like that! At all! In fact there are many lesbians in incredibly happy, fulfilling and stable relationships! This is paired with the loneliness part, ofc you won’t know that if you don’t actually know any other lesbians, which is why I’d advice you to seek them out. An option is going to your local LGBT centre/org, tho nowadays those aren’t the most helpful towards lesbians, but maybe it is worth a shot? Another option is the internet. We gained over 500 followers in just a week! That’s how many lesbians there are desperate for lesbian positivity. Other blogs like ours have many more! And I can recommend them to you if you want, through that, and through Tumblr you can just connect with so many other lesbians (just leave a friendly comment on someone’s post, relationships and life-long friendships have started with that!) That will help you feel less alone and more supported. I have made so many lesbian friends and acquaintances just through this site and being on lesbian groups alone that I didn’t think it was possible, because I just didn’t think there were this many lesbians! 

They will help you feel better about yourself when the lesbophobia gets to be too much, I promise. 

It’s true that most people would like us better if we weren’t lesbians both from the right and the left and even supposedly “progressive” circles, but we can’t change what we are and even if we could, we shouldn’t, because there’s nothing wrong about exclusively being attracted to and loving women. So what do we do? Hate ourselves? Stop trying to live? Shut up and let them devour us? Even historical lesbians and gay men found shreds of happiness and love here and there, and now, things are better in the west, even if there’s still a lot of hate, so why shouldn’t there be a chance for you to be happy as you are?

I’ve been where you are, I still am in some ways, and I won’t tell you “it gets better” if that’s not what you want to hear (although for me and many others it was the case, you build strong friendships and relationships and communities with other lesbians, you learn to love yourself, you learn to deal with the hate, you learn to be able to be happy despite all the shit) BUT I can definitely tell you that if you start pretending that you’re straight out of shame, that it will get worse. Now, it’s up to you which one to choose.

And remember we’re always gonna be here for you when you feel let down anon! Always! 

Mod M :D