#the james somerton of true crime

[scratchandplaster]

Carrion

Did you ever wonder why Sam voluntarily helped a cult leader? Well, the more you know...

CW: entitlement, exploitation and jealousy

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

F5, and the wheel spun. This fraction of a second brought hope to Sam, that maybe, just maybe the connection had been the problem. A display malfunction, a bug in their website's code that couldn't handle the mass of interest. In front of their nose, the numbers stood still.

The Toy Box Killer tapes were supposed to be a perfect hit on their audience's pampered palates, so why did nobody care today? Last week's episode only got 400 views, but Sam forgave their audience this embarrassing slip-up.

After all, the whole Dahmer thing had already been bled dry before they had even completed the script. Nobody could reinvent a person who was put through the wringer every other month in a TV special, so no hard feeling here.

But to have hours of that sick fuck and his man cave etched into their mind…for nothing? It didn't sit right with them.

F5, the wheel disappeared, and the numbers on display proved how painfully irrelevant Sam had become.

Look at me.

When they had launched their podcast The Murder - not the best pun, but worth a chuckle - every comment felt like salve on a sore. Finally, a project to spend excess time; a bit of Wikipedia here, another summarized article there and the words just gushed out of them and into their microphone. With every new résumé of a failed life, the praise kept coming in sweet bursts of the week.

Six months later now, more of their little crows fledged day by day. To Netflix, or AI reels, or to Casey from reallifehorrors.com, that dumb bitch who couldn't write an engaging script if her life depended on it. 

Look. At. Me.

Sam couldn't help to believe that they deserved more. More than 56, damn, let it be 5000 views and displeasure would still itch inside them. 

So, why not use that German cannibal who munched on his buddy's dick like it's a Slim Jim? What a fucking weirdo. A lot more interesting, though, a new clown for the digital freak show. 

Next week then, they pledged to the cold screen, let next week be more fruitful. Sam knew their merit was worth more than a few dozen faceless icons when speaking into the void of the world. 

Nevertheless, none of the one-trick ponies in their notes app ought to give them what the audience longed for.

No, Sam needed someone fresh. Someone unspoiled by the mainstream, the new Dahmer or Manson or Gacy hiding in the dark and begging to be dragged to the people screaming. A person they scouted. 

A beast yet unseen.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Thanks for reading 🤍 [Masterlist]

[shardofgod]

3/4ths of the way through hbomberguys plagiarism video

this is my literal first video of his. i have seen every video being discussed. christ alive

[nerdvi]

In the wake of the whole james somerton fiasco and inspired by this post, I wanted to share a few of my um, soft signs, like, orange flags to detect when someone is bullshitting you.

First of all, I am on the spectrum which means 1) I tend to take what people say at face value and 2) I have a strong sense of justice which makes me prone to biases, all of which combined means I am at perpetual risk of swallowing the bullshit.

So, what to do about it? You turn on the critical thinking and pay attention.

As one of my favorite youtubers, Hannah Alonzo, likes to say: "consider the source, remember the motive". Who is talking to you?? What do you know about them?? What biases might they have?? How do they interact with your own biases?? Where are they talking from?? Is it anger?? happinness? boredom?? Also, why are they talking to you? Are they trying to sell you something?? Are they trying to convince you and why?? How do they go about the finantial motivation, if present? If you have, in this case, a white cis gay man talking to you as it he has it the worst of the worst in the world, there's probably some exaggeration and you should start to wonder. There's a good chance he's bullshitting you.

How they talk about women and POC No, no, stay with me. There's a rule I had back when I was dating men: Always beware of how they treat their mother. With the exception of extremes like mama's boys and cases of abuse, how a man treats the woman with whom they have that familial bond is a good indicator of how they are going to treat you. Do they berate her? speak ill of her? are aggressive or controlling? do they dismiss her opinions? Same with creators, and by god I tell you, specially cis male creators, queer or otherwise, always always beware of how they speak of women, how they treat women, how they treat POC. Somerton had a weird vendetta against straight women. It went mostly unnoticed. Then, he was dismissive towards lesbians and other queer women and it was once again overlooked. Then he went ahead and made sinophobic content about genres and cultures he knows NOTHING about. Again, it went unchecked. What I am telling you is IT'S NOT NORMAL. Contempt about women and non white-western cultures is not normal and if someone has them as them as an enemy or a scapegoat, they're probably bullshitting you. Take what they say and fact check it, see for yourself.

If at any point in a video or an essay you find yourself thinking "wait, really??" then it's time to fact check. Is it a bit suspicious?? is your logic telling you that's not quite how this works?? Then take to google, my friend, they might be bullshitting you. At worst, you dodge a fake fact, at best, you learn way too much about a topic you were already interested in.

Beware of the lack of nuance. I can not stress this enough. We all love monochrome, but life and societal issues are never black and white. It's just impossible, there's too many factors to consider. If you are being presented situations or anecdotes as absolute truths, you're probably being bullshitted. If it's too good to be true, it is. If it sounds waaay too convenient, it probably is. A good researcher, a serious investigator, will always have some nuance because they have done the work and checked the sources. If someone provides you 1) no nuance and 2) no sources, THEY'RE BULLSHITTING YOU.

These are the ones I can come up with just of the top of my head, I'm sure there's more and please, add them. Remember that naivité isn't a crime, I'm fairly naive and that's made me distrustful, and these are some of the techniques I've found that help me navigate through a world of information without losing myself.

[ghosts-and-glory]

Going absolutely insane and feral for your YouTubers au. Not a fan of true crime in the murder way But A fan of true crime in the Cult ways and I think i would go absolutely feral if after hours and hours and video essays about a single cult leader, months later the youtuber and them get together. I'm insane about it.

Because like. Is this their way of flirting?

Have we been strung along??

I'd love to engage in your AUs in any meaningful way but so far it's just blasting lyrics in your inbox and frothing at the mouth alas

Anon, you’ve put it into perspective that the irl equivalent is if Hbomberguy and James Somerton announced they where dating tomorrow and I’m fucking crying lmao.

I have this interaction in my head where after The Lamb’s Narinder hit piece goes up Nari tweets them like “take the vid down or I leak your nudes.” And The Lamb replies with their only fans cause they’re that petty.

Compared to game narilamb where they flirt via murder, flirting via YouTube drama is small potatoes.

And honestly I appreciate every small amount of engagement. The fact that people even want to look my way makes me aaaaa

[scarletv0id]

I feel like I'm going insane.

Did James Somerton actually try to upload a regular video and get called out AGAIN by Hbomerguy for how he's just stealing from the True Crime community now?!

[ai-yo]

Currently watching the new HBomberguy video about YouTube plagurism ooh everybody is getting exposed. good to see James Somerton there I watched maybe one or 2 videos before then stopped when I noticed he was copying word for word articles and blog posts I read before.

It's like CherryBepsi said in her video The Problem With True Crime (I cite my sources unlike some people) YouTube videos aren't peer reviewed. It's wise to check their sources and read them yourself and all that good stuff

[ventblogtobedeleted]

im in this weird place where like, hm. i honestly do believe that James Somerton is in genuine pain and means what he says in his apology video?

but i also think that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. he downplays, he doesn't directly say the word plagiarism, he opens it with a deeply painful play towards sympathy that doesn't address anything. even if it's true, even if he believes what he's saying, it's not enough. it wasn't a good attempt at taking accountability. maybe it's harsh to ask someone to be professional while having a breakdown, but, he turned this into a profession, so??

i think people are right to call it manipulative, but i also don't think he's intending to be manipulative. manipulative people don't have a detached grand master plan, they just tend to know what works for them and fall back on it when panicking. maybe the fact that he took the video down so fast meant some part of him realized it wasnt a good public statement. now, why do i find myself hoping this acephobic misogynistic grifter is bettering himself? fuck man i don't know. his victims deserve more sympathy than he does. if he's anything, he's a victim of his own choices.

but also. idk. i wish the discussion of this would center on the fact that this is a systemic issue with how creatives are treated in a content-heavy information era. his crime is that he was really good at succeeding in a shit system. it makes sense for him to "not realize how many people he hurt"- he was just playing the capitalism game really well! surely, if this is just how it works, it can't be too bad! besides, be gay do crimes! ;P ;P ;P sometimes us queers have to break rules to get ahead!

(if you can't hear the sarcasm in all that this is me forcing you to hear it. sarcasm sarcasm sarcasm)

anyway. there's going to be more James Somertons. he's a symptom of a problem, not where the problem ends. bashing the hell out of the latest internet villain and making memes is fun and all (and probably a valid way to cope/contribute to the conversation) but i really hope people don't mistake tearing Somerton down with making a better world for artists.

[britneyshakespeare]

i know it's been like a year now and a lot has happened since hbomb and todd dropped their videos on james somerton and with todd's specifically there was a lot of discourse about "how did anyone believe some of these bullshit claims he made"....... but i think an underdiscussed one is that james somerton said it was racist that jeffrey dahmer fangirls mostly ship dahmer with his first victim steven hicks using some convoluted, tenuous logic already about the straight white female gaze that he, in general, was prone to making a lot of unsubstantiated attacks against. and that todd also didnt even necessarily find to be true (the supposed popularity of the hicks ship).

but. but. but. the man really did try to make a sociocultural critique based off of the supposed prejudices of true crime serial killer shippers. like with a straight face in full seriousness he did that. he said "you know whats wrong with jeffrey dahmer fangirls? theyre racist" like sir we are already talking about people who idolize jeffrey dahmer. im not sure youre selecting a fair or representative sample of like... anybody in any demographic or their prejudices.

[jimmythejiver]

I hope this James Somerton shit kills many of the same tumblr tropes I've quietly taken grievances at for years after being screamed at and called a conversion therapist and rapist for daring to be an asexual trans man in a relationship with a cis gay man. In no particular order:

All Asian media is inherently homophobic and oppressing western gay media from getting accolades or funded, bonus sinophobic conspiracies and Japanese censorship

Cis het white women fujoshi's to be mad about when it comes to making gay rep and it's consumption

The assumption all trans men and enbys are functionally the same as above and part of a conspiracy to destroy pure gay male culture

Using white women (since many examples turn out not to be so cis and het after all...) as an excuse to be misogynist instead of challenging racist dynamics

Gay Nazis

Sexless Russians

Ew fatties, fascist physique fawning

Fake protests, boycotts and censorship to be mad about when there are real incidents, they're just not always tied into your pet fake facts

Bob Iger

Nobody was sexually expressive before The Beatles, bonus points if you quietly whisper "except Elvis"

"All the good artists died of AIDs leaving the boring straight acting asexuals" fuck you

Bisexual and Asexual means straight

Lesbians always have it better than gay men

"Queer history is unknowable, so I'm a learn you a fake revisionist lesson" gatekeeping and grifting in general

Interest in true crime and particularly Jeffrey Dahmer is a red flag for white woman groupie behavior, homophobia and racism, can be, but come on, man, you're generalizing and also making up incidents to be mad at

Anyway if I have more, I'll add to this list, but I've lost sleep watching 6 hours of video content on fast speed to be up to date on this egregious shit. I also want to acknowledge that it's very possible I've spread some of the above shit unknowingly in the past, thinking maybe the white women as a shield for misogyny part. I try to curate my shit better, talk less and listen more since my initial whipped up anger at Trump voters.

With that said, every transphobic british housewife who told me I'm a raging misogynist who owes women an apology for throwing them under the bus for gay rights (when did this happen?), I'll forward your message to this fucker upstairs.

[jameswrites]

just gonna say it about the companion video

it is not well sourced, it is not well documented, it has fallacies in the arguments, and it is not a good companion video.

Fuck James Somerton, but "no it wasn't, that isn't true" in response to things that Might Not Be True (allegations of homosexuality in Nazi ranks and how you could get crimes blown past when sexual favors were given by men to men) but giving no sources... He continues through the first 18 minutes at least to not give sources, to "source" Wikipedia and to just say "well it seems obvious" about how own claims of the guy he's saying is awful.

Fuck James Somerton again, I cannot stress this enough.

But I've seen people calling this a compelling companion piece and I'm not only not impressed I'm finding myself wanting to see if some of this might actually be true.

Like, 3 the real reason Hitler murdered Ernst Rohm was because he was fat.

Ok this guy literally shows us a random newspaper, didn't source it, says Hitler claimed that the man being gay was part of it, but also this Todd guy suddenly psych yoink no that's just what Hitler SAID but it was Actually a power struggle that's all!! Trust him! Nothing is listed about the weight being a point of it, but the gay part absolutely is even mentioned to be maybe a reason "the reason for that is just a good old fashioned power struggle, it wasn't because he was gay, although Hitler used that as an excuse"

And you want us to trust YOUR sources!? Are you serious! You mock this very Mockable man, Todd, by using a "source: trust me bro" image, but not just once but twice in less than 18 minutes you fucking just Decide the claim isn't true, once with absolutely no source to back it up?

Nearly eery one of these so far has been a poorly sourced Trust me bro, in regards to someone who did that all the time.

I can't watch more of this. It's poorly done, it's obnoxious, and it's not even entertaining.

IDK what he normally does, music I think, but I'm not even remotely interested in what feels like baby's first video essay.

[windsroad]

been watching hbomberguy's new video... I knew there was lots of plagiarism in true crime youtube bc everyone is just parroting the same facts and ideas all the time

then when I got to the james somerton stuff I was like "oh this is the guy I watched a few videos of and then stopped bc the lighting and ultra wide screen were extremely pretentious"

THEN I see how much he plagiarizes, went to look at the videos I had seen to see if they were plagiarized (tried googling things he said like hbomberguy suggests) but found nothing, then I discover they are two of the videos he actually DIDN'T plagiarize. quite the journey

[vmures]

One of the things I think about in regards to James Somerton is acceptable targets. I am a true crime fan. A lot of people dislike true crime, they don't get it, blah blah. But because there's this dislike for true crime fans, James Somerton can just lie and say "yeah there's Dahmer fans who ship him with his victims" even though that is not true! And that's not even indicative of most people I would call Dahmer fans.

But people don't like true crime or its fans, so there's no way someone who is into can stand up and say "what the hell are you talking about?" without facing backlash.

TERFs are doing this same thing with tswift. They know she's disliked, they know no one likes gaylors, so they just make a bunch of vaguely sexist jokes and they get passed around. The TERFs get more followers for being "funny" against acceptable targets.

This gets applied to furries and trans people and ace people all the time!! Who is on the fringe of these already fringe groups? Those are who will be attacked by bad actors, be they people on the right or the left.

Yep. We need to accept that there are no acceptable targets. There are some people in this world I actively hate because of the harms they've caused and who I would not grieve if they died. However, I don't believe in the death penalty and think we need to turn to a restorative justice model rather than a punitive one.

Some people may not be able or willing to change, but that doesn't mean they should die. What's that old saying about equal retribution? "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind?"

It'd be really nice if we could keep the revenge and violent retribution fantasies to fantasy/fiction, please. One of the benefits of fiction is that it is a good mode to get that shit out of your system so you can move on with life.

[antacidsnake]

Something I absolutely hate is when terfs claim their bullshit rhetoric about queer people being too manly or male presenting doesn’t get people hurt. Like bitch I come from a farming town and a friend is one of THE butchest lesbians I know and she would automatically fail almost all tests of femininity and you think ruling up other cis women against masculine women won’t get people like my friend hurt? Idiotic.

And they never stop when you tell them that no one is forcing them to have sex with other people they don’t find attractive just don’t add on to the terf bullshit. Instead they take that personally!!! Like ma’am, y’all doorknob types accused me a cis man of “never being a man woman” bc I look like my mom with fuller lips (sorry mom it’s true) and I had long hair at the time. Y’all have no fucking way telling your ass from a hole in the ground but I’m supposed to trust you guys when you start making up people to be mad at?

I’m a bit more outspoken right now because I did just watch “a history of the queer panic defense” by James Somerton, very good video, very tragic video. It’s not that I had forgotten how difficult it is to prosecute someone who kills us (queer people), but it was a reminder that by fueling the bullshit arguing and making shit up you make it so easy for straight people to get away with it.

Fucking, I found out that despite there being a federal law that can list our attacks as hate crimes and can push for justice not even half of the fucking states have signed it into their state laws so so many attacks and crimes against us for not being straight or cis can be glossed over. The prosecutors in those cases can try to push it into a hate crime status to get justice but if the fucking murderer just plays nice they can get a reduced fucking sentence or the prosecution will fail bc there’s “no significant evidence this was a hate crime”.

And yes this is a wall of text Wednesday but come the fuck on!!! Why are terfs stupid about this? It’s frying my brain 😑

[rurifangirl]

for the ask game💅💅

3. Least favourite things to draw?

15. Biggest artist pet peeve?

21. Weirdest thing you've ever drawn?

22. When is your prime time to work on your art?

23. Do you listen to music or watch shows while you work? If so, what's your favourite?

24. How do you deal with artblock?

25. Based on your recent reference searches, what would the FBI assume about you?

Dudjskdjfh aight SO

3. Least favourite things to draw?

Feet. Gotta be them. I basically just do a polygon most of the time and Is partially the reason as to why i do halfbodies (it's also cus school but we don't talk bout It)

I also don't really like drawing folds?? Idk why, it's just stronger than me.

Also can't really draw veil and :(

15. Biggest artist pet peeve?

,,, that i don't really do the opposite canvas thing. It mainly comes cus I just wanna do stuff and don't bother after rendering butwgsjdj that's pretty much that.

Another thing that counts Is rly big parts of hair, that sometimes do cover up some mistakes i could've done (but in general i do prefer to exxagerate hair so😭😭), or just some lil wonkyness or adding that lil spiciness.

21. Weirdest thing you've ever drawn?

I don't even have explenation for these so suffer w mw

BUT if ya mean as of recently then it's idk prolly mad ruri

22. When is your prime time to work on your art?

Hskdkdjdj I think around an hour? At maximum 1:30, but there's times where I could finish slightly early depending on the piece.

23. Do you listen to music or watch shows while you work? If so, what's your favourite?

Absolutely do!! I've recently checked out people like Wendigoon, Shanspear, Just Stop, James Somerton and some other youtubers talking bout different stuff.

I now just listen to anything, though i still do watch Baily Sarian for her True crime series. I don't put on music cus id get too easly distracted shjdkfjd

24. How do you deal with artblock?

I suffer🥰🥰

25. Based on your recent reference searches, what would the FBI assume about you?

That i want to pose like a vampire, holding a nerf gun, in a magical girl uniform

I can't tell ya much more cus itd,, get pretty akward

[gothlovingoth]

Raclyffe Hall, iconic lesbian author best known for The Well of Loneliness, is one such lesbians whom James Somerton used as an example of lesbians not facing significant persecution while gay men did at the beginning of the last century.

While it is true that lesbianism was not outwardly criminalized like male homosexuality was in Britain, home country of Radclyffe Hall, lesbianism was no less stigmatized or pathologized. Case in point, Hall herself identified as a “congenital invert”, a term used by sexology at the time to describe individuals who had been homosexuals from birth. You’d be hard pressed to find better hard evidence of active discrimination agaisnt lesbians than sexology, a science, calling that attraction the same pathology they did male homosexuality. Women’s attraction to other women was neither accepted, acceptable, or free of consequences.

Furthermore, “Act of gross indecency between female persons” were illegal in Britain until 1921. Such crimes were to be pubished “in the same manner as any such act committed by male persons”. Lesbianism was also once put on the table to be fully criminalized as well, which doesn’t happen in a society that’s so chill and normal about lesbians.

That apparent lack of laws specifically targeting lesbianism (though there were laws, and Racyffe Hall was very much prosecuted, but put a pin in that for now) should also not lead to the conclusion that lesbians were simply more accepted because men just didn’t want to think about them. That hasty conclusion of James Somerton disregards the entire social and legal context of the time.

Women had far far less rights and freedom than men did. There was less of a need for laws to restrain lesbianism because female sexuality was already extremely stigmatized, pathologized to hell, and criminalized in various ways. It was already controlled by men through other mean than the law. This is the era where masturbating could get a women set in a mental asylum if her father or husband found out and disapproved—father or husband I say, thought it could also have been a brother or a tutor, because women were not full people, they always belonged to one man or another. If a woman was found to have affairs with other women, the incarceration awaiting her was less likely to be prison than an asylum, but it was incarceration nonetheless, and one carried out without a trial or a release date planed.

Men simply had a liberty to choose their sexual partners that no woman did. Sexuality as a whole was still very repressed and frowned upon, we’re talking of Britain less than a century after the Victorian era after all, but men’s sexuality was not seen as entirely and inherently evil, as a devious medical condition to be cured at any cost like women’s was. Since men had more rights from the start, it’s only natural that more laws would be necessary to restrain certain expressions of sexuality that would’ve been allowed had they been heterosexual.

Somerton also ignores laws that, although they did not target lesbians by name, would very much have affected lesbians and queer women. That would be laws against crossdressing, for instance or the mere fact that a landlord could refuse to sign a lease to a woman, and an employer could refused to hire an unmarried woman. There was no legal protection afforded to any queer persons, and queer women were not spared from discrimination on all levels.

A man could be bachelor all his life, but a woman would have a much harder time making it by without a husband. That alone, which was sanctioned by law in many ways, put pressure on lesbians and queer women without need for a specific anti lesbian laws.

But back to Radclyffe Hall

“ In August 1928, moralist James Douglas, editor of The Sunday Express, launched a scathing attack on Hall and her novel. In an editorial piece titled ‘A Book That Must Be Suppressed’, Douglas regarded the novel to be ‘an intolerable outrage – the first outrage of its kind in the annals of English fiction’ […] and argued that ‘the cleverness of the book intensifies its moral danger… The book must at once be withdrawn. I hope the author and the publishers will realise that they have made a grave mistake, and will without delay do all in their power to repair it.’ […] Douglas subsequently called on the Home Secretary, Viscount George Cave, to act in the instance that Hall and her publishers would not.

Rather than cease publishing, Jonathan Cape [Hall’s publisher] sent a copy of the novel to the Home Secretary in the hope that he would recognise its literary significance, and acknowledge the lack of obscenity within it. However, Viscount Cave informed Cape that he felt it would be ‘gravely detrimental to the public interest’ if they were to continue publishing and demanded that they should cease immediately, or face criminal charges. Publishing stopped momentarily while Jonathan Cape secretly leased the rights to French publishing house Pegasus Press. The novel’s controversy in the press had attracted global attention and demand was steadily increasing. But this did not go unnoticed, and on 3 October 1928 a warrant was issued to seize shipments of the text. As a result, hundreds of copies were obtained and later destroyed. ”

“ An obscenity trial was to follow on 9 November 1928. Fellow authors and creatives were outraged at the government’s actions, and publicly supported Hall and her novel. […] Many famous faces were present at court – as was Radclyffe Hall herself. But she did not speak, because she was not on trial – her novel was. Hall did not want the defense to deny the lesbian content of the text, but rather wanted the focus to be on the literary merit and significance of the book. ”

“ Sadly, the Chief Magistrate found the novel’s literary merit to be irrelevant, and on 16 November 1928 ordered that ‘The Well of Loneliness’ be destroyed. Hall was reported to have been visibly devastated by the outcome. Hall and her publisher quickly sought to appeal the ruling, but the original decision was upheld. ”

“ [I]t would be almost 20 years – six years after the death of Radclyffe Hall in 1943 – before ‘The Well of Loneliness’ would be published in the UK once again. ”

Quotes source which itself references and quotes the editorial piece as well as the legal documents such as a the warrant and the legal case. (I have taken the liberty to embolden sections that highlight the legal aspects of this case.)

Radclyffe Hall, open lesbian author, was prosecuted for her book about a lesbian relationship. Hall and her editor lost the case despite strong public support from other authors of the time. The Well of Loneliness was banned in the UK, and, before the trial even started, shipments of it were seized and burned.

James Somerton straight up lied about this crucial historical event for queer rights and queer recognition, because he saw that lesbians weren’t persecuted in the exact same way gay men were, and came to the conclusion that women just have it easier. So he used a famous example of a lesbian who was prosecuted for lesbianism as proof that queer women didn’t get prosecuted.

He didn’t care to find out the truth, or to find iut anything about what he was talking about. He doesn’t care about accurately representing queer history because doesn’t care about lesbian history, lesbians, or queer women in general.

I love all the dunking on James Somerton but I don’t think we’ve focused enough on all his lesbophobic rhetoric because the things he says are genuinely so astoundingly ahistorical and insensitive and it infuriates me that he was allowed to get away with it so long.

He literally said lesbians didn’t face police violence on the same scale as gay men when that’s just demonstrably untrue. Lesbians, ESPECIALLY butch, GNC, and trans lesbians, faced MASSIVE amounts of police violence AND STILL DO and if he gave a single shit about like. Women as people. Or even just LGBT history in general as he so proclaims to care about, he would know that. I’m going to start beating people to death with copies of Stone Butch Blues until they fucking listen

And I’d really love to know which fucking planet he lives on where lesbians apparently have all this great representation, and where we as lesbians are allowed to write our own stories, because I’m really not seeing that pretty much anywhere in mainstream media. I’m still seeing lesbians portrayed in stereotypical or fetishistic ways, and that’s when I see us portrayed at all. And yes cartoons are great and fine but there is so painfully little lesbian representation written by lesbians geared primarily towards adults.

But at this point, the wider community’s general lack of a reaction to lesbophobia in their ranks disappoints but doesn’t surprise me. It’s sad and somewhat astonishing that he’s escaped accountability for his lesbophobic comments up to this point, but again, not surprising. We need to stop letting our community, especially people like James Somerton who get held up as voices for the community, get away with lesbophobia.

[kaesaaurelia]

for the record while whining about the lack of research and bad research this fucker and his coauthor did I put together, for the poor discord people I was ranting at, a partial bibliography of books I read SPECIFICALLY TO WRITE ONE FANFIC. this does not include all the articles, videos, podcasts, music, and physical places I went to for research, nor does it include the stuff I'd read/watched/listened to/done previously that helped me form a base knowledge of the era and setting, or the other books I ended up using stuff from incidentally.

my point is not that I'm a great researcher or anything, my point is that there are people who FUCKING LOVE RESEARCH and I would give my eyeteeth to be able to make half the money doing that than James Somerton made shittily regurgitating other people's opinions and taking their experiences for his own, and like, I'm not even writing anything people will be relying on to provide them with factual information. I am, I want to emphasize, writing WHUMP WITH A SIDE OF GAY ANGEL/DEMON PORN AND ALSO A SIDE OF MY DUMB OCS WHOM I LOVE.

Anyway, the books:

Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams

The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America by Gus Russo *

The Gangs of Chicago: An Informal History of Chicago's Underworld by Herbert Asbury **

Chicago Transformed: World War I and the Windy City by Joseph Gustaitis

A Wild Kind of Boldness: The Chicago History Reader edited by Rosemary K. Adams

Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell

Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O'Banion, Chicago's Big Shot Before Al Capone by Rose Keefe ***

Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell ****

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* I genuinely don't know how solid the research in this is, I just wanted to get a better idea of the shape of the specific incidents I was writing about, but nothing pinged me as immediately stupid, unlike ONE of the books on this list.

** My note on Discord was "fuck this guy in particular he's my archnemesis actually," but I did read this book specifically for fic research and regretfully I am using a couple things from it, so on the list it goes. I then went on a whole rant on Discord, taking up our #youtube channel entirely with historic Chicago true crime drama, but like. They did ask. They did ask and I can rant a lot. Anyway fuck Herbert Asbury. He also wrote Gangs of New York and a number of other sensationalistic mid-century historical true crime books. Anyway he was a racist misogynist homophobic antisemitic piece of shit but now he's dead and I am going to give him a cameo the next time I set a fic in Hell because if Dante and Michelangelo could do that so can I. Fuck him in particular.

*** I find some of the research questionable but definitely a valuable source for my fic, on a niche topic (O'Banion's gang and cronies) so.

**** My note on Discord was to the effect that this is a fictional trilogy and that I didn't really recommend it to read for fun. It's meant to be a realistic portrait of an Irish-American boy/young man growing up and coming of age in early 20th century Chicago, and I specifically wanted to get a better grasp of that milieu, particularly with regards to racial and sexual attitudes, since that's the background of one of my OCs. If you do choose to read it, heavy content warnings for racism and sexual assault. Like, the protag commits hate crimes on-page and I learned like, three new antisemitic slurs -- and I am Jewish so I thought I knew them all. If you do want to read a fictional account of a shitty guy coming to a bad end in Chicago, I would instead recommend The Man With the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren. That one's about a Polish-American WWII veteran suffering from a heroin addiction. He is definitely still shitty and definitely still racist and antisemitic and all that, but it's less of a slog to me because Algren's prose fascinates me. I didn't read this book for fic research but it really spoke to me to the point where I do think it affected my writing for the better.

Help I'm still watching the Todd in the Shadows James Somerton video because I keep having to pause to rant about history, research, incredibly offensive statements about the survivors of the AIDS crisis, and making fun of his weird Bob Iger stanning and his Nazi fetish. I think maybe he actually should have stuck to plagiarism?