#well libel should actually

[brydeswhale]

See, here’s the thing, if they don’t accuse you of being a horrible abuser who violates people’s freeze peach over voicing your personal taste in entertainment, how are they going to silence you if you start talking about real issues with transformative fandom, like the proliferation of CSA material, the racism, the harassment of actors/creators and fellow fans?

If they don’t silence you on your own blog, how are they going to silence other people who might want to voice less than toxically positive opinions on transformative fandom?

Make no mistake, whatever @bibliodiscotheque tells themselves, that’s the end goal. To stifle anything that might be taken as a criticism of fandom in general, so no one has to venture into the scary territory of “improving society somewhat”. Up to and including personal opinions on personal blogs.

Because “fandom is a safe space”!

why do modern aus exist. what compels people to look at fun characters in unique fictional settings and go omg but imagine if they were boring young adults living in a generic suburb

[jewreallythinkthat]

One of the reasons I think there has been such a breakdown between the "progressive" left and the Jewish community is actually something that I've watched before fostered in left wing spaces for well over a decade and that is looking for offence.

When someone says something antisemitic, that does not mean they are an antisemite. I remember when the BLM marches took place, people rightly pointed out that there is a lot of unconscious bias against PoC and that being called out for eating something you didn't realise was problematic does not mean you are actually racist, just that you need to think a bit more when talking about a subject which in many cases, doesn't affect you as such. The same principle should apply to antisemitism.

If I say someone has said something antisemitic, their first reaction (on the left wing - because the right will proudly nod that yes, it was antisemitic) is often "you're calling me an antisemite and trying to silence me, Zionist". This is not true. What I am saying is that you are saying something that is discriminatory, invoked blood libel, accused Jews of ruling the world etc etc. I fully believe most people do not realise they are doing this. The point of dog whistles is that you are not supposed to recognise them, that's how they propagate. Anti-jewish racism is one of the oldest forms of hatred and it stretches back multiple millennia so it makes sense that it's literally inside the common vernacular. That doesn't mean everyone using it is an antisemite.

Instead of immidiately jumping to the defensive, I wish people would take a moment to ask, in good faith, "why would a Jewish person find this antisemitic?" Take the opportunity to learn, to better themself. Do not assume every Jew is trying to silence you - assuming the worst every time of Jewish people is a type of antisemitism so please try and put yourself in their shoes and maybe even ask them to explain so you can do better in the future.

Just a general overview, here's a couple of ones to look out for (a non exhaustive list).

1. Replace the word "Zionist" in what has Ben said with "Jew". If it sounds like something leeched out of Nazi Germanh or the Soviet Union, it's probably going to be antisemitism.

2. Saying you don't think any country should exist but focusing exclusively on the destruction of Israel. The only thing that makes Israel unique is that it's a Jewish majority country. So why is that the only county you actively want to get rid of?

2.1 Holding Israel to a higher standard than any other country is antisemitic as laid out above in point 2.

3. Assuming the worst of Jews and Israel every time is antisemitism. It's no different to assuming Black people are always out to get you or all Muslims are terrorists. If it's racist to do this to one minority group, it is racist to do it to any.

4. Tokenizing extremists in a community (Ben Gvir and the West Bank settlers on the right wing in Israel, the Neturi Karta by the progressive left when discussing I/P) is racist. If you only listen to Jews who prove your point, you are actively excluding the majority of a community so you can beat them down, this is racist.

I don't like calling people antisemitic because most people are not actually that, what they are is uneducated on antisemetism because the majority of that education is not being done by Jews - let alone Jews who represent the majority of the community.

But if you refuse to talk to Jews in good faith when they try to explain why what you have said is antisemitic, you are running the risk of moving from "ignorant user of antisemetic language" to "antisemite" (also a note, ignorant not meaning stupid but rather that you do not know something).

[doberbutts]

A few weeks later and several things I think should happen in wake of everything with Khelif:

I wish she had made a more definitive statement about trans women in sports as well- not only her positioning of "I am a woman whether you like it or not" but also I wish she had made a statement saying that it shouldn't have mattered in the first place. However, with her country's laws, I understand why not.

I think it is good that she is seeking legal retribution from those who were her loudest attackers. Hopefully this will discourage these bad actors from doing it again. This is what people mean when they say you can lean on your privilege to make a change for others- by leaning on the fact that this is a very clear case of defamation and slander/libel, she's able to take aim at some of the loudest transmisogynists and tell them to shut the fuck up or else. This doesn't mean they won't try it again with someone who is actually transgender, but it does mean that there is now consequences for their actions.

I'm honestly glad she won gold. To prove definitively her own resilience, and to prove that it's weird to act like that about someone just because they don't fit your definition of feminine woman, and it doesn't make her "less than" anyone else to be her own person.

[matan4il]

what do you, as an Israeli, think of Standing Together? asking entirely in good faith because I see things supporting them a lot, but it's always from American Jews and (no offense to us), I don't totally trust that we're informed enough to know what we're talking about and what their perspective and usefulness truly is in the way that someone who actually lives there would. so many orgs are untrustworthy or covertly antisemitic and it made me curious for your perspective. thank you for everything. <3

Hi Nonnie!

Sorry it took me a moment to reply, but I hope my answer can still help you!

As an idea, Standing Together is a movement that I should have been all for. They are pro-coexistence, and so am I. There's no doubt in my mind that Jews aren't going anywhere, and neither are Arabs, and we are all better off working together for a good future for all. Supposedly, that's ST's message, so they absolutely should be an organization that I would be all for.

BUT from everything I've experienced, the narrative that they adopted is way more one-sided than their official stance, they're closer to being anti-Israel than balanced, which makes them problematic for me. Especially when you look at the individual actions and statements of many of this movement's leaders, it's evident that coexistence to them comes at the expense of historical facts, as well as certain Jewish rights. Obviously, the leaders' personal positions influence the movement's stance and actions.

For example, in this interview from Nov 2023, a Jewish leader of the movement falsely calls Israel's 2014 operation in Gaza against Hamas, "a war against Gaza and its people" (brief summary: Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Jewish teenagers in Judea and Samaria, Israel launched Operation Brother's Keeper during which it arrested some of Hamas' terrorists in that area looking for intel on where those 3 kids were and what happened to them, Hamas fired rockets from Gaza at Israel to get its terrorists released and used terror tunnels, including ones that crossed the border from Gaza into Israel, to kill and kidnap our people. That's what Israel ended up fighting against in Operation Protective Edge), while an Arab leader of ST defines their way as one which rejects "maintaining violent military control over millions of people," but says nothing against the terrorism that's used against millions of Israelis and Jews.

In terms of the recent war, since Oct 7 they have come out calling for a ceasefire now very early on in the war (I can't remember when they started it, but I know by Dec 7, 2023 they'd already put out a vid calling to stop the war, when really the ground operation only started about a month earlier, before it could possibly achieve anything), meaning this call was undermining Israel's right (and duty!) to defend its citizens, and asking us to surrender our goals of returning all the hostages and destroying Hamas' rule (only the latter can prevent Hamas from fulfilling its promise to carry out more massacres of the type that started this war, and has claimed so many lives on both sides). Another thing you can see in that vid is ST participating in spreading the false narrative that Israel is intentionally starving the Gazans (you can see the same thing in this poster, which says in Hebrew, "Thou shalt not starve." It's a poster for humanitarian aid they were supposedly bringing into Gaza, as if the IDF would ever let anyone bring anything they want unchecked into a war zone, or as if the amount of aid a few Israeli cars could bring is more than the hundreds of trucks Israel has been allowing in, checked. ST's just posturing and spreading an anti-Israel libel). Helping to spread a libel against one side is NOT being pro-coexistence. Imagine if they were spreading a libel that all Gazans are Hamas terrorists, and took part in the massacre! I think it's clear that, even if it's not simple to tell them apart, there are people in Gaza who are complicit, and people who are uninvolved and innocent. So if ST were spreading such a libel against Gazans, I'd oppose them. I am not going to do less when ST is spreading a libel against my own people.

I hope one day they correct course, but I can't currently support them. Give me REAL solidarity between Jews and Arabs, which sees and recognizes the humanity of both, not a repeat of the de-humanization of Jews, and a surrender of Jewish rights to an anti-Jewish narrative. That's not real peace, it's not real coexistence, it's a return to the way that we Jews have had to live for centuries in exile: always dependent on the good will (or lack of it) of the majority under whose will we lived, forced to bend ourselves, our rights, our dignity, too often even our very lives, to our subjugators, in the hope (and without any guarantees) that they will show us some kindness.

Many of the movement's leaders have not only expressed themselves in a way that reflects an acceptance of the anti-Israeli narrative, and took one-sided positions I can't agree with, they also acted in ways that have left me feeling quite unsafe.

For example, one of ST's founders, Yeela Raanan, joined and supported the violent Palestinian riots on Israel's border with Gaza, organized by Hamas, meant to breach the border fence, which started in 2018. Today we know these riots were a part of Hamas' preparations for the Oct 7, 2023 massacre, as they were getting the IDF used to them coming closer and closer to the fence. TBH, those of us listening to the statements of Hamas' leaders, we didn't need to wait for the border to be breached in order to know that it would be a bloodbath if they succeed. Sinwar's promise that they will reap out the hearts of Israelis with spoons from our chests was enough. Also, the repeated use during these riots of flags and kites with swastikas was pretty telling. So yeah, I can't trust anyone who supported that.

The movement is also financially supported in part by funds, such as the New Israel Fund, which finances a lot of good causes, but also many anti-Israel ones, and the German fund Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, which supports the antisemitic BDS movement (it's antisemitic first of all because one of its stated goals is to put an end to Israel as a Jewish state, another reason is their use of antisemitic tropes in characterizing the Jewish state).

The ironic thing is that, despite how imbalanced against Israel ST is, it was still the so-called pro-Palestinians who actually started a campaign to boycott the organization. Not because of anything specific ST said or did. It was simply for being an Israeli organization, showing the diversity of Israeli society, which is apparently bad 'coz it "normalizes" Israel's existence. That shows you the anti-Israel nature of this opposition, that no amount of willingness to cooperate with the de-humanization of Jews and erasure of our rights will ever be enough for people whose real motivation is antisemitism, that wishes to see an end to the Jewish state.

I hope this helps, Nonnie! Once more, my apologies for how long it's taken me to reply. Be well!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[avocado-writing]

For the smut one liners, I saw "Oh, you're hard to please," and the Deadpool in my brain automatically replied with "Just hard, actually"

You’ve been at this for twenty minutes. Your jaw is aching - it’s a good ache, of course, but still fucking hurts - your hand getting tired from picking up the slack. Wade peers down at you.

“Nooooo! Why’dya stop?” he whines, nudging his still hard dick against your face, leaving a smear of himself on your cheekbone. You roll your eyes.

“Baby, honestly? I thought you would have cum by now. Usually when I use my mouth on you it takes about twenty seconds.”

“Okay well that’s baseless libel about my stamina and I will see you in court.”

“You’re hard to please today is all, Wade!”

“Actually, just hard.”

You groan, but it’s silenced as he sits up to kiss you, then gently move you onto your back.

“Besides, if you needed a rest you should have just said, pookie. They call me the Merc with a mouth for a reason…”

You go to make a quip about how that’s because he never shuts the fuck up, but when he dives into you tongue-first, it gets silenced pretty quickly.

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

Why is the fact that Jesus and Jews were from Israel considered controversial? It’s what we’re taught at school (and for Christians - church) in the US.

I’m genuinely asking, this isn’t sarcastic. No one I know has ever disputed that fact before.

Hello!

You're referring to this post.

It's controversial because denying the connection of Jewish people (especially Ashkenazim but not only) to the land of Israel is a fundamental aspect of post-modern antisemitism.

Classical and modern antisemitism, particularly in Europe, relied on the Jewish people's foreignness to dehumanize them. It was obvious they were Not From Here, despite living there for centuries and longer, and many demanded that they Go Back To Where They Came From. And then they did.

But antisemitism didn't go away just because Israel was founded, it simply morphed, just like it had between its classical phase (centered on religious otherness, religious "crimes" and blood libels) and its modern phase (centered on race theory and economics).

Of course, right-wingers are still classically and modernly antisemitic. They usually don't bother to hide their hatred, it's pretty fundamental to their ideology and identity (though there are aspects of hiding, especially with holocaust denial). But the left has always been just as antisemitic as the right. But it has also grown in the post-modern age, after world war 2, with specific ideologies, centered around notions of humanism and the importance of human and minority rights. And antisemitism doesn't sit well with these notions, especially not after the holocaust... So something had to change. Unfortunately, it wasn't the antisemitism.

This is a classic cognitive dissonance; I feel something (hatred for Jews) that is inconsistent with my ideology (hating people based on their ethnicity is bad). In such instances you can either 1) work to change your actions (it doesn't matter what I feel, as long as I don't harm Jews, and eventually I might change my feelings for them); or 2) change your believes (Jews aren't a category worth protecting).

Now, "hating Jews" is still a big no-no in western left circles. Even now you can't actually directly say it (obviously this was true before October 7th. It seems like even these rules are changing as we speak). So westerners needed to do two things: 1) white-ify the Jewish people (especially the Ashkenazim) and 2) shift the focus on Israel.

The white-ification of the Jewish people is a major theme is western leftist circles in the past 70 years, especially in the US because of its complicated history with race and ethnicity, but it's prevalent in many other countries as well (it should be noted that Jewish people themselves have contributes to this phenomena for many reasons, but this is not the place for this discussion).

In the post-modern age, "whiteness" means "evil" and it is connected to European and western imperialism and colonization. So, essentially, they change what being a Jew is - a white person, as opposed to a Levantine person. This is where some of these people will do mental gymnastics to deny where Jews are originally from, whether denying modern Jews have anything to do with the historical ones (and many choose this route) or somehow both admitting they are from Israel but saying it doesn't matter because it happened a long time ago and then with the same breath talk about how Palestinians are the indigenous ancient people of the land (they are both indigenous, the world is just that stupid). Now, since white people are evil, they are open for criticism, especially if they are colonizers. And since Jews are white now, it makes no sense for them to live in the Middle East.

Which brings us to refocusing their criticism on Israel. Here, people have to walk a fine line between a legitimize political criticism of the Israeli government and the society itself throughout the years (and there are MANY justified criticisms...) and just being antisemitic. Unfortunately, western leftist circles tend to lean more heavily into the latter. And, again, as has been particularly evident for the last three weeks, their focus is on identifying Israel as colonizing enterprise, not just beyond the 67' Green Line, but by it's very nature of existence, since Jews are white now and don't belong there.

And now, once again, they call us to Go Back To Where We Came From (just to be very clear - Palestinians and the rest of the world are doing it as well), despite that part of the world literally saying "don't bring them here, they are not from here", like they always did, just like the post OP was sharing. Only those Europeans aren't saying "Jews are from the Land of Israel and they deserve to live there", they are just saying what the entire world has been saying for the past two thousand years - we don't want Jews anywhere, period.

They don't give a shit about where Jews are from. Some of them say we're from Europe for the sole purpose of destroying Israel. And they would gladly displace millions of Jews and send them to live again with the people who tried and nearly succeeded to annihilate us. Everyone else just don't care, as long as they can hurt us, but also refuse to accept us as their own. And trust me - if and god forbid when millions of Jews will once again become refugees, not a single nation around the world from which We Came From would take us in. Not one.

I know that people know where Jews are from, but the fact remains that huge sections of the world right now, especially on the left side of the political map, will actively deny it.

Because the truth is - the world doesn't give a shit what Jews are or are not. The world doesn't give a shit where Jews are from or aren't from. The world doesn't want Jews in Israel, and it doesn't want Jews anywhere else.

The only place the world deems the Jews to belong to is their graves.

[infiniteglitterfall]

the worst part about the i/p discourse

it's NOT the posters of Nazis with the swastikas on their flags replaced by stars of david. or the pages and pages of blood libel conspiracy theories in instagram posts about why local pride organizers are such big meanies. or the newfound insistence that jews just exaggerate and make up antisemitic incidents to smear the pro-palestine movement....

it's the fact that every. single. time. i try to post anything about any of these things, i end up in a rabbit hole SO DEEP IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET TO THE BOTTOM.

Yesterday, I saw a --

YOU SEE? I went to Reddit for a second to find the link to the post about the Melbourne protest this week that had people carrying the Nazi-star-of-David posters. But first, I saw a post that began, "All I see on social media and the news is more and more attacks. Who beat up a Jewish family here, who stabbed a 1 year old in front of a synagouge. Those are two examples, I've lost track of all of the other ones."

and I was like, SOMEONE STABBED A ONE YEAR OLD IN FRONT OF A SYNAGOGUE?!?!

And I started to look that up. AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Two days ago, I saw an article about Cincinnati Socialists setting up a table at North Kentucky Pride without asking, it sounds like, to hand out flyers saying the war in Gaza was Netanyahu's "Final Solution" for Palestinians. Cincinnati Pride organizers alerted the NKY Pride organizers, who kicked them out.

I was like, "okay, well, let's see what Cincinnati Socialists say about it." Then I discovered that their instagram not only "names and shames" the two Cincy Pride organizers and one NKY organizer. Which led to the Cincy ones getting so much harassment and violent threats that they resigned....

But also has a related post that goes on for pages and pages of pure blood libel.

So then I sat there fact-checking all their blood libel and finding out that not only was it untrue and impossible, but half the stuff they referenced didn't even exist.

Then I ended up fact-checking things in the "article" that they'd clearly used as their source. Fact-checking things I found while fact-checking those.

Trying to write a Facebook post about how fucked up it all was. Giving up on the Facebook post after several hours because it made more sense to write it on Tumblr, or at least to write it on Tumblr FIRST.

Then I'm also looking at the post they made "naming and shaming" the organizers, which is like... "the Cincy ones are partners! two days after Hamas's incredibly violent and brutal massacre, one of them changed his profile picture to a photo of them honeymooning IN ISRAEL two years ago! they did it through some group that COVERS A LOT OF THE COSTS FOR HONEYMOONS IN ISRAEL!!!!" and "the other one went to a protest of Hamas's massacre!!! with a sign saying to free the hostages!!!"

oh no. the fucking horror. truly how did these genocidal monsters even end up on the pride organizing committee. this is a shanda scandal.

then I'm responding to people's comments, trying to talk them down from horrible positions. telling people things like, "I know it's asking a LOT, but if people could grasp the idea that "going to Israel for your honeymoon" ISN'T "committing genocide," it would be really great. Or that wanting the hostages freed is actually something that both Israeli AND GAZAN protests have called for, and it's only Westerners who are opposed to it. Or that in fact, saying you "Stand with Israel," a few days after an incredibly brutal attack that burned multiple towns to the ground in one day, killed entire families and their pets, an attack which Hamas has promised to repeat "again and again and again" till Israel is violently destroyed... is opposing that attack, NOT calling for genocide."

then i'm like, "oh, i should edit these images to show the correct info, and i can explain that I drew arrows and added the correct info!" so then i'm doing that and working on writing alt text, and holy shit??? how many fucking hours??? did i spend on this?????? just because i read a frigging reddit post that linked to an article about it?????????

and like. i can go through and debunk all that shit in the comments. (and did. i responded to every single comment that believed this shit.) but ultimately, everyone who pulls this shit has way more reach than I do.

just. like. THAT'S ONE ORG IN ONE PLACE. And it was bad enough that I persevered and finished debunking it and commenting on it today and started telling people about it. Do you even know how many more of those I've seen?! How many I would see if I looked for them on purpose?!

The tsunami of deliberate disinformation is SO FUCKING BAD. All of it is SO FUCKING LAYERED. In any single bullshit post, there are SO MANY horrifically bad and wrong assumptions. So many of them are DESIGNED, BY HAMAS, to lead people down the path to "All Zionists should die! Israel should be violently destroyed!"

There were so many comments on a "Free Palestine Melbourne" group's instagram post (Sydney? Could've been Sydney) asking, pointedly, how many Jews are Zionists. What percentage of Jews are Zionists, again?

One (1) had a response telling them it doesn't matter what the percentage is, no percentage would justify collective punishment of Jews.

The rest all said things like, "Too many."

It feels like constantly being lied to. Just constantly being lied to about things I have looked up and verified myself from solid sources, now and in the past, by people I counted as my community.

Then just now I opened Instagram because I hadn't taken screenshots of a couple of the pics I wanted to add. And I'm hit with these:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by jewsinschool (@jewsinschool)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish on Campus (@jewishoncampus)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish and Proud (@jewishpridealways)

Then some brighter posts (including one of a baby bat!!) and then a post which sums up a lot of what I'm feeling right now.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jess Cook (@jessicagcoook)

It's like, yes, that, plus the uncomfortable sense that some people are getting thisclose to going, "Most Jews are Zionists anyway, so YEAH, I DO think most Jews deserve to die."

[ch4liz4rd-jpeg]

one of the absolutely most frustrating things in the western leftist attitude towards "zionism" is that they use zionism to describe something that has its own word. kahanism. but instead they choose to go through hoops to redefine a belief system that ISNT theirs to define. words change overtime, but westerners and goyim dont get to decide what a word that is culturally significant to jews means. and just because the tiny fraction of jews that are antizionist allow you to decide doesnt mean that the wider jewish community who are zionists agree with that.

lets also get one thing clear: zionism is an ancient jewish value. throughout the jewish peoples time in exile away from the land of israel, there was always a strong desire to return to zion, which refers to yerushalayim or the land of israel as a whole. just because someone jew in America might tell you "well i feel no connection to israel" DOESNT MEAN THAT EVERY JEW AGREES.

zionism is the belief that the jewish people deserve self determination in our ancient ancestral land, which encompasses the kingdom of israel and judah. that what it is at its very core. in modern definitions its the idea that the state of israel deserves to continue existing.

ive seen antizionists define zionism as "facism" just a Different ideology, or something along the lines of "kill palestinians" and "take over the world" no where in zionist belief do we think that jews must take over the world, or that palestinians must die for jews to live. or that the modern state of israel must be an exclusively jewish state. the founders of israel picked sovereignty snd safety over maximalism, meaning they chose to settle for the land given in the agreements ALTHOUGH a lot of the land that has our ancient history wasnt actually in our defined land which remains as such to this day.

now, kahanism. kahanism is in my eyes an appropriation of what zionism is. kahanism is an extreme right wing and racist take/"branch" of zionism. the idea that israel must be exclusively jewish, no arabs no muslims no christians, and many kahanists like ben gvir even believe that israel should reoccupy the gaza strip. kahanism ( the kach party) was banned from the knesset, israels parliament. but i think its with this move that our rotten politicians did to circumvent this ban is what has really fucked the perception of israel and zionism beyond repair alongside the propaganda about what zionism is. kahanists have essentially decided that kahanism is actually what truly zionist belief is, so they decide to call their movement a Zionist movement. so the "oztma yehudit" (jewish power, disgusting of them to call themselves this btw 😀😀) party peddles the idea that theyre a zionist movement when really, they are just kahanist and anti arab and anti palestinian. its not fucking "jewish power" to be racist. its maddening to me how many "zionists" are actually racist and bigoted and kahanist and then a lot of antizionists see them and say "look at so so, they say theyre zionist and theyre actually racist bigots who want to flatten gaza, every zionist believes that" and when you believe in palestinian self determination and the continued existence of israel and are thus a zionist, youre now morally wrong and inferior, when the perception of zionism is so beyond warped from its true definition. and as much as people will say "not all jews are zionists!" and "im not antisemetic im jusy antizionist!" its very clear how this has given a lot of closeted jew haters the chance to spew blood libel and misinformation. i do believe that there are well intentioned people in the anti israel/anti zionist/pro palestine movement. i truly truly want to believe that. and if you got this far and consider yourself pro palestine, look left snd right in your movement. learn about the old blood libel thst was used against jews for thousands of years thst is now beinh rehashed with more palatable language. there is a LOT of antisemitism in the palestinian movement, and if people who are truly not jew haters have to stand up for what is right to wash the movement clean of antisemitic libel and violence.

i couldnt find a place to fit this in the previous paragraph but israelis are constantly fighting bibis coalition, most israelis crave nothing more then our hostages back and bibi out of politics. our government has done literally nothing to actually help us for a long fucking time. it is incompetent snd we are in dire need to a better prime minister. im thinking of doing a post about how israeli elections, coalitions, parties and knesset works plus an overview of the parties and their ideologies at some point, so lmk if youd be interested

so, pro palestinian and dont hate jews or israelis? actually want to stand for peace?? seriously, put in the effort. because we cannot see you. you are overshadowed by people using the movement to be antisemitic and spread lies about the jewish people.

[jedi-enthusiast]

@confusledqueer apologizes for not responding sooner, it’s been a busy couple days and—honestly—I forgot for a bit.

Moving on-

—————

Me equating some of the things that anti-Jedi people say to antisemitism and, sometimes, outright Nazi-esque rhetoric is not “wild” or “a stretch,” as you’re implying.

Justification of their genocide, denial that it actually was a genocide, a belief that the genocided party “caused” their own genocide, and a belief that they genocided party were wrong or “led astray” while one person was sent to make things right- (via either making them change their ways or outright destroying them/their culture) -are all things I’ve seen people say about the Jedi…

…but they’re also things that people have actually said about Jews.

Take the example I put in the post of someone denying that the Jedi Purge was actually a genocide, and how—by changing “Jedi” to “Judaism” and “Force-religions” to “Abrahamic Faiths”—it sounds verbatim to Holocaust denial.

Or, as another example, people claiming that the Jedi “kidnapped kids to brainwash them”…don’t you see how that sounds like Blood Libel?

So me pointing out that a lot of stuff anti-Jedi people say sounds like antisemitic rhetoric isn’t a stretch, not when a lot of it sounds verbatim to what people are saying with the rise of antisemitism and stuff they have said in the past.

—————

Now, I’m not Jewish, but it’s not just me, your neighborhood White Girl™️, who’s pointing this stuff out.

Actual Jewish people have pointed out the alarming similarities between anti-Jedi rhetoric and straight up antisemitism. So, if you wanna argue about- “you shouldn’t compare real world discrimination to fictional stuff” -then you should probably take that into account.

Go ahead and try telling Jewish Star Wars fans to stop calling out antisemitic rhetoric in the fandom, I’m sure that’ll go down real well.

I also find it hilarious that you’re telling me to be careful about the rhetoric I use in a thread about how I shouldn’t point out that some of the rhetoric other people spout is basically antisemitism rebranded.

And my point in that post wasn’t- “since this is based off of a real world culture/religion, you can’t criticize it.”

My point was- “since this is based off of a real world culture/religion then you need to be careful about how you criticize it, otherwise you might unconsciously be spouting bigoted beliefs and antisemitic rhetoric because you don’t recognize that that’s what it is because you’re saying it about a fictional culture.”

By all means, I get that some people just don’t like the Jedi, that’s their prerogative and we all have our own tastes.

Criticize them, if you feel like it, but don’t go around spouting rebranded antisemitism to do it. I’m sure you can come up with plenty of things to complain about them for without doing so.

—————

Now, I can understand why you might be worried about the slippery slope from this to shit like actual censorship—which, I think we can all agree, is a bad thing. Or how you might think criticizing this could lead to the whole “fandom purity” debate.

My thing is, it all comes down to does it actually harm people?

Perpetuating harmful stereotypes via saying stuff like the Jewish based characters “steal children,” or “lost their way,” or “they caused/deserved their genocide”—that does cause actual harm.

Think about why the “angry black man” stereotype or the “cheating bisexual” stereotype are bad and people- (rightly) -push back against them. It’s the same thing here.

Shipping a problematic ship, calling a fictional serial killer “babygirl,” writing about dark topics*, headcanoning characters as gay or trans…none of that is actively harming people.

(*obviously when writing about dark topics you should tag appropriately so people can avoid triggers, but that’s another topic for another day)

That’s the difference.

And, for the record, I think letting people spout bigotry just because they’re saying it about something fictional is the more dangerous mindset than calling it out.

[eretzyisrael]

by Melanie Phillips

Five days after Britain’s Labour party won an overwhelming parliamentary majority in the general election, we can see the outline of what this is likely to mean for British Jews and their country’s relationship with Israel. That outline is not reassuring.

The new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, is said to have purged his party of antisemitism and has persuaded many British Jews that he has made Labour safe again for Jewish voters. On Sunday morning, he told the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas — antisemite, Holocaust denier and fan of Hitler’s wartime ally in the Middle East — that an independent state was the “undeniable right” of the Palestinian people and that “financial support for the Palestinian Authority” was one of his “immediate priorities”. 

He did not tell Abbas that a condition of this financial support was that the PA must stop paying financial rewards to terrorists and their families for murdering Israelis. Nor did he say that a condition of receiving more British taxpayers’ money was that the PA must end its indoctrination of Palestinian Arab children in Nazi-themed demonisation of the Jews, teaching them that their greatest ambition should be to murder Jews and steal all their land. 

Instead, Starmer proceeded to lecture Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin  Netanyahu, that there was a “clear and urgent” need for a ceasefire in Gaza as well as an immediate increase in the volume of humanitarian aid reaching civilians. As for the war being waged by Hezbollah in Lebanon against northern Israel, Starmer warned Netanyahu:

It was crucial all parties acted with caution.

What kind of “caution” does Starmer suggest is appropriate in the face of a threat of genocide by Hezbollah and its patron, Iran? Or to put it another way, with Hezbollah primed to unleash its armoury of 150,000 rockets and other missiles that can reach all of Israel, and with Iran itself along with Iraqi, Syrian and Houthi militias not to mention the terrorist armies of the “West Bank” all primed to attack Israel if it launches all-out war against Hezbollah, does Starmer really believe that Israel actually needs to be told to act “with caution”? 

Can he really not grasp that, given the daily onslaught over the past nine months from dozens of rockets, drones and guided missiles that have destroyed Israeli border towns, left swathes of northern Israel burning, made more than 60,000 Israelis refugees in their own country and kept other residents in the north trapped in their safe rooms (two Israelis were killed today by a Hezbollah rocket strike that hit their car) that if the Israelis abandon that “caution” it’s because they have no other choice?   

Starmer shows absolutely zero understanding that this crisis isn’t about Hamas, Hezbollah or the Palestinian Arabs. They are proxies and pawns in an Iranian war of extermination against Israel, the essential precursor to the destruction and conquest of America, Britain and the west. 

So little does he understand this that the new Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, is now poring over the government’s legal advice on whether to stop UK arms sales to Israel.

Once upon a time, Lammy was sympathetic to Israel. Now he is a foe. He has repeated what he said before the election, that Labour supports the request by the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant — and that if these Israelis came to the UK after such warrants were issued, Britain would arrest them.

This despite the fact that the claims upon which Khan relied were lies, distortions and blood libels drawn from Hamas-sympathising and Israel-bashing organisations, and were all demonstrably untrue.

[old-school-butch]

I was quite clearly being facetious, but you're so hell bent on being a smug dickhead, I guess. How about reports that Hamas accepted a deal that was brokered that included a return of all hostages, and Israel rejected it? Weren't you saying they just needed to return the hostages? Weren't you using that as a justification that it's okay for children to be murdered because those children should just get Hamas to return the hostages?

Riiiiiiight. You totally knew you were ingesting Qatari state propaganda, probably from those 'reports' you read about that big bad Israel waging war against a place entirely populated by children something something... and that's how Jews murder babies. Blood libel never ends, huh.

You're really skipping over the fact that taking civilian hostages is a war crime in the first place and that most countries, including the U.S., wouldn't negotiate with terrorists who did this at all. Israel is not only negotiating with terrorists, it's being asked to enter talks to establish them as governing a state on its borders which, again, is not something I see most countries ever being asked to contemplate.

I don't think this entire war was a good idea exactly because of this problem - you really, really shouldn't negotiate with terrorists because doing so allows them to stay in power, and terrorists are just gonna terror. Israel is already under pressure to rebuild Gaza, because no one expects Hamas to rebuild anything for some reason, but it opens up a world of problems. It would be better for Israel to cut its losses and just stop getting involved in Gaza at all - no rebuilding, don't hire Gazans in Israel, just set up a Palestinian state under the PA and make them actually do the work of governing. Everyone's a revolutionary until they have to write up a tax code and manage a health care and education system and actually try to care for their civilians. If UNWRA didn't take care of all that, Hamas or the PA might actually start thinking about their own people as more than a rich source of future martyrs. In fairness, Israel knows this and has asked the UN, US as well as several Arab states to take over governance of Gaza but no one wants the job, and now if Israel gets saddled with it, they will just get blamed for everything yet again. And is Israel is tasked with rebuilding Gaza while Hamas retains power? ...the countdown to the next war starts all over again. But unfortunately we're on this path now and there are limited ways out of it. I definitely think Israel is making mistakes here, but Hamas is acting exactly as terrorists should be expected to act, and when you dance with the devil all roads lead to war.

The problem with taking hostages is that they die in captivity over time, and although Hamas has never confirmed who they took, how many they have and how many are still alive, they are still trying to use hostages as leverage to stay in power and have their own fighters released. Israel is increasingly unwilling to let Hamas stay in power for what at this point? The return of a pile of dead bodies? Israel's government is under pressure by both the right wingers who want to continue and expand the war and the hostages' families who want their loved ones released. Bibi is focused on security, which makes sense, but is roadblocking any path to a Palestinian state which, as I said, I think is a huge mistake.

By the same token, Hamas only wants to exist so it can keep terrorizing Israel, and is indifferent to the cost of this war to its own population. They are still trying to win this war despite losing it in every technical measure you can think of. But if you don't mind thousands of your own people dying, or your soldiers all dying as martyrs and you certainly don't mind enemy civilians dying... well, its suddenly hard to lose the war. Seriously, what do you think would have to happen for Hamas to say 'oh wow, we've lost this. We should unconditionally surrender and work towards peace?' This is why negotiating with terrorists is a bad idea, they really have no motivation to ever stop using violence to achieve their political goals, but if they achieve their political goals... well the dying just keeps spreading. So, they still are ready to fight to win, and Israel will keep fighting to remove Hamas because it wants territorial security. And so, there will be more war, which is sad thing indeed.

Oh and while all you useful idiots are setting up your pro-terrorist encampments and protesting as if the U.S. is actually in a war and not pulling every diplomatic string is has to negotiate a peace, you should welcome your new dictator Trump before he's elected because once he gains power I am not convinced he will ever let it go and he keeps a detailed list of his political enemies. New opportunities will emerge for terrorists and other totalitarian regimes to build their empires, wars will rage and you will think longingly of these days when your biggest concern was a small, conventional war half the world away.

[omeryotam4]

Supporting genocide is still gross, no matter how much you try to shift your definitions to make the government that stole land, deliberately targeted aid workers, salted the water supply, killed tens of thousands of children in a couple of months, and hid mass civilian graves the victims.

That's just a whole bunch of blood libels bundled up in a single sentence.

Do you truly believe all that misinformation? When each and every one of those claims were made by Al Jazeera, funded by the same people who fund Hamas, and were debunked shortly after?

Land was never stolen. It was conquered in war. And may I remind you, it was taken from Jews by Arabs first, so who is the real "thief"?

Israel is not deliberately targeting aid workers. You probably talk about the famous car bombing, but you forgot to mention Hamas was using their vehicles before as transportation, and that they were identified as hamas by accident, AND that the IDF apologized, something no army ever does.

Salted the water supply? That they stopped on October 7th? After giving Gaza water on Israeli taxpayers money for decades? And Hamas literally ruined pipes leading water from Israel when the war started? You mental? We could've poisoned them ages ago but we wouldn't. On the other hand, "Jewish people are poisoning the water" is one of the oldest antisemitic blood libels in the book...

Hmm... tens of thousands of children... but how many of these were actually hamas combatants? They don't tell you that teenagers are holding the guns there. By the same logic, hamas is killing Israeli children almost all the time. But those children are Israeli, and they're wearing uniforms. How is one fair and the other isn't? Make it make sense.

Also ever heard of giving fake numbers? There are many people online who have calculated the numbers by the reports from gaza and these numbers don't add up. But I guess a terror organization is a reliable source...

These mass graves were made by gazans, and were not hidden- there are videos circling online of the Gazans making them.

Should we talk about real things that are happening, like Israeli people who were declared dead months after October 7th, because the terrorists burned them in masses and the remains were found in the mix that was left? Or the sisters that were tied together back to back then shot in the head? Or maybe the 30+ women that were found tied to trees after they were raped and shot there? Or the massive amount of women victims found with a broken pelvis? What about Omer Kedem Simantov? What about Rotem Kutz? What about their entire families that were wiped off the earth with them?

And what about the 133 hostages that are still being held under the most horrifying conditions? You think the Palestinian families that hide them in their basement are feeding them as well as they're eating? Letting them bathe as much as they're bathing? You think any of the women hostages is not being raped?

You are the definition of double standards. You are shining your antisemitic very loudly and clearly. And I do not tolerate people like you, who are content with the massacre, the real genocide that unfolded.

[jewish-sideblog]

I remember disliking the whole tumblr movement of looking for like… idk foucuaing on goblins and gnomes when talking about antisemitism? I felt like it created an environment where a lot of people could claim that antisemitism is that, the goblins, which is not that serious is it? Like it was very disingenuous, too. And constantly felt guilty because of that, like a sort of idk. Too serious and ungrateful person. One of the worst “I was right” moments in my life.

Genuinely, like. Obviously these days we're seeing a fuckton more people ignoring or participating in antisemitism in every field. But even back in the day it was hard to get people to focus on non-goblin antisemitism in fantasy fiction!

I distinctly remember back when Dimension 20's Unsleeping City came out that I had massive problems with the plot. An actual historical Jewish man, Robert Moses, is brought back from the dead because he is simply that greedy. He oversees a secret cabal of blood libel vampires. He controls city finances. He attempts a modern deicide with Santa Claus. He is kept alive by a phylactery that can only be opened with the passphrase "Greed Is Good".

All of that comes from Brennan Lee Mulligan, who clearly didn't intend that story to be an antisemitic charcuterie board. He's married to a Jew, and the other Jewish character in the setting is handled extremely well. But I guess actual antisemitic canards are invisible to goyim unless a goblin or a TERF is involved. They genuinely think that antisemitism has to be direct, overt and intentional-- it isn't! It's all around us! It's in most stories.

I feel like I have to do a PS here because otherwise people will take this the complete wrong way-- I like D20 and Unsleeping City and I don't think that anybody involved should be cancelled. This was just my personal awakening to the fact that the creators I like the most, and the creators who think they are being the most careful, can still put antisemitic shit in their stories. What I'm saying here is that we need a much broader public understanding of what is and isn't okay than "goblins are bad".

[invested-in-your-future]

If the war was hundred years ago why are faunus still discriminated against?

Look at our own world.

The big civil war thing in the US was ~159 years ago. That should have solved this slavery and discrimination stuff, right?

There are still sundown towns in the USA to this day.

Just saying "Welp, we won - everyone's equal now!" solves nothing.

That's just the world entering the "well TECHNICALLY it's not illegal to discriminate against" phase. Another "war" - this time within the bureaucracy machine and legislature - it's up to governments and elected officials to draft the laws that prevent discrimination as the people interested in that scuffle against those who don't.

That's also not the end of it - that's when the world enters the "dog whistles and microaggressions phase" when discrimination would get coated in lies and subterfuge by people acting between the lines of the law - and people acting outside of the law.

It was "technically" legal for anyone to run for Congress or any position of political power in the US - all that meant was an obscene amount of people of color being outright assassinated when they had attempted to. Even being "politically involved" like doing voter registration drives or protests would often make people a target of bigotry - just ask Medgar Evers - a notable campaigner for civil rights(and enforcement of voting rights) who was shot near his home 61 years ago. And that's two years before black women could actually vote everywhere in the US.

If the fight against discrimination was a war of any kind it would be a tug-of-war - a constant struggle back and forth where the moment you let up, the other side instantly takes hold and advances.

And it's not just with civil rights movement - the same pattern can be seen through all history with every case of discrimination, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Just think how old the blood libel propaganda is.

Just because The Great War "ended" doesn't mean that discrimination that fueled parts of it is suddenly gone. The fact that show never explores that properly is a shame.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

To further point out I don’t deny having a background I just deny having a deep connection to that background nor do I care to research it and reconnect

I understand that many people do feel such a connection to their roots, especially those who’s culture was/is under active threat,

Moreso what I view as a problem is the idea that older cultural or religious ideals are inherently more valuable then modern or secular ones,

Like as an example, I saw a post once pointing out that trying to justify trans people’s existence by proving historic examples shouldn’t be necessary since even if trans people are an entirely new phenomena that wouldn’t in any way invalidate their existence

Dear anti-theist anon,

please stop justifiying why it's ok to invalidate other's heritage and beliefs you've said racist and anti theist things and took out your christian trauma on my catholic friend and I would like you to stop getting block evades to send me anon asks on tumblr and to get a life

you are not a good person, explaining how you're morally justified and persecuted even by the evil theists and is started to get old, predictable. I as the canary in the coal mine am tired of the other shoe dropping and you lashing out at Jews as well as christians like Serpents did. You walk into a place that debunks blood libel and claim without evidence that religious people are out to get you and expect a Jew who gets told they are harrassing people in imposible ways to believe you?

You don't want to reconnect with the heritage American assimilation stripped from you? that sounds like your loss. There might be some fun food and costumes in there (as well as centuries of colonialism and war crimes).

But ok not your cup of tea, good for you!

I do agree with the last part that Appeal to tradition and Appeal to Modernity are equally stupid and the former can be weaponized into either xenophobia and racist nationalism or orientalism, exotification and the noble savage trope.

the "Jews can't be indigenous because Indigenous people belong and my racist argument falls apart". It doesn't matter who is indigenous. It doesn't matter if the practice is new or actually ancient.

finally I actually agree that claiming identities like 2 spirit and Hijra fafine, Ladyboy ect should not be conflated with the western concept of transgender and it's a racist false equivalce to do so. "your ancestors were trans" is actually a colonialist mantra of putting western labels on indigneous pratices to appeal to mostly white people.

so if you're seeing off your third block evade atheist anon, do not reply. Do not send me more asks. you will be blocked.

(But but you agreed with my take ? :( I know a broken clock is right twice, please leave me on a high note)

Get a life,

Cecil

[carriesthewind]

*Sigh.*

So Flamethrower, the writer I have previously discussed in these analyses, has apparently decided to escalate her claims against the OTW, and also to explicitly threaten legal action against other individuals who have made accusations about her behavior.* This is very funny, in large part because, as I noted previously, she appears to have a habit of sprinkling her writing with legal terms and pseudo-legalese without actually understanding it. Her threats to pursue legal action are hilarious in their obnoxious mix of unearned confidence, self-righteous victimhood, and legal incompetence. We are going to go through her letter and point and laugh, and then we are going to get serious and discuss what purpose posting this letter actually serves.

*She does not name these individuals or identify their “accusations” in her letter, but based on the context it appears she is referring to individuals who documented her violations of AO3’s terms of service, accused her of racism and antisemitism, and (probably primarily) the individual who accused her of serious interpersonal abuse, as well as other individuals who have backed up those allegations and made further allegations of misconduct and abusive behavior.

(Please note: I am going to be discussing a number of legal issues while analyzing this letter. Nothing in this post is intended to be or should be construed as legal advice. Furthermore, I do not have specific expertise in Florida law - if someone who is more familiar with practicing in that state wants to chime in, I would be happy to make additions to this post.)

 Always nice to start out with a grammatically incorrect salutation.

“I will be speaking to my lawyer” translates to, “I have not spoken to a lawyer.” It is generally a good idea, if you are going to make legal threats, especially legal threats against an organization with a vigorous legal department, ESPECIALLY if you then post those legal threats publicly, to speak to a lawyer before sending/posting anything.

In addition, “my lawyer” is interesting phrasing here. Generally, if you are referring to “my lawyer,” you are referring to a lawyer you have already retained (i.e. paid or promised to pay). If she has indeed already retained a lawyer, 1) it would seem to indicate she has significant funds available, 2) she has hired a scammer or a fool who thinks they can successfully get money out of the OTW, or 3) she has hired a biased friend who is working for free or a discount. And 4), either her attorney has foolishly given her the go ahead to both send this letter and post it publicly (which does not say much for that lawyer’s competence), or she is already working to undermine her attorney, possibly explicitly against that attorney’s advice. Alternatively, she’s deliberately misrepresenting the situation to make it seem like she has already found an attorney to pursue her cases when in fact she has not.

Now, in her second sentence, Flamethrower throws out some legal terms (slander, libel, and harassment) which she appears to be positioning as her legal claims against the OTW. The way she uses those terms, however, in both this sentence and throughout the letter, are going to require some unpacking.

First, there is no reason to separate libel and slander in this letter. They are two different forms of defamation, and while distinguishing which (or both) she is asserting would be important when filing a complaint,* there is no reason to not just say “defamation” here. It seems to indicate a mindset of “more legal words = good.”

*Since she at no point gives details as to what claims published or republished by the OTW are actually allegedly defamatory, it is possible that at some future date she could claim that some person she wants to sue expressed defamation verbally, as well as claiming they published defamatory claims on Fanlore.

Second, we need to talk about the ostensible purpose of sending a letter like this. Being extremely generous, we can call this an attempt by Flamethrower at a pre-litigation demand letter.* As part of a demand letter, a potential plaintiff generally needs to be able articulate the legal basis for the lawsuit or legal claim clearly enough to be actually claiming some potential cause of action** and demanding certain remedial action by the recipient.

*To quote from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, “A demand letter is a letter, usually written by an attorney on a client’s behalf, outlining the dispute between the two opposing parties and demanding that the recipient of the letter take or cease a certain action…Demand letters usually state the harm the client has suffered, the relief they request and may threaten the sender’s intent to accelerate the dispute via a lawsuit if the recipient does not respond according.”

**In order to sue someone, you need to have a thing called a “cause of action.” A cause of action is, to quote again from Cornell’s LII, “a set of predefined factual elements that allow for a legal remedy.” What does that mean? It means to pursue a civil lawsuit, you need two things: (1) you need to be able to show that certain facts exist, and (2) that the law provides you with a legal remedy (damages, injunctive relief, etc.) if those facts exist.

So here, Flamethrower appears to be articulating that she plans to pursue (or, well, plans to discuss maybe potentially pursuing) two causes of action against the OTW - defamation and harassment.

But here’s the problem. Because of the way the legal system works in the USA, causes of action vary from state to state. If you want to sue someone for a particular cause of action in a particular state, first you need to make sure that the thing you are claiming the potential defendant did is actually something you can sue them for in the state you are suing. Flamethrower, by her own account, lives in Florida, and plans (or is claiming to plan) to file her legal action in Florida.* And while a claim of defamation is a cause of action in Florida, “harassment,” generally, is not. You can’t sue someone for “harassment” in Florida.**

*I am not going to address any of the potential issues with jurisdiction, venue, or choice of law that would certainly arise should the writer actually attempt to file a lawsuit against the OTW, given the specific provisions regarding those issues in the OTW's ToS. While these things would be extremely relevant to the viability and process of any actual lawsuit, this isn’t a serious legal threat, so analyzing them would be a pointless and boring diversion. I only mention them to highlight how non-serious this legal “threat” is.

**Generally speaking, if you want to scare someone with a bullshit threat full of pseudo-legalese, you will get further if you google “can I sue someone for “X” in “state” first, or you might end up embarrassing yourself.

Now that said, while Flamethrower clearly, just based on these first two sentences, has no idea what she’s talking about, we are going to be extremely generous. While you can’t sue someone for “harassment” in Florida, you can sue for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED), and it is possible that the “outrageous conduct” underlying an IIED claim could include harassment. We will give her the massive benefit of the doubt and assume that when she is threatening to sue the OTW for harassment, she actually means she is threatening to sue them for IIED.

So, let’s see if she articulates what OTW has done that may constitute defamation or IIED. If she does, we can analyze the elements of those claims to see if she might have a viable cause of action against the OTW.

*SIGH*

(And just to be clear before we proceed - I am not cutting anything out. There is more to her letter below these paragraphs, but these two paragraphs are the full sum and substance of her claims against the OTW as articulated in this letter.)

We are going to start by breezing right by the truly incredible phrase, “harboring a Fanlore page,” other than to note again the inappropriate use of a pseudo-legal term for no other apparent reason than to try to boost her credibility and make the letter sound more “legal,” as well as the inappropriate use of “slander” to refer to a written wiki page. Instead, we are just going to see if there is anything in here to support a claim of defamation or of IIED. We are also going to be extremely generous in our analysis, and not require that she show, at this stage, some evidence of every element (e.g. I’m going to ignore the complete lack of claim of any damages due to any conduct by the OTW (or by anyone else), which would be an essential element to both these claims).

Flamethrower’s entire claim in this letter against OTW is that they have included, in a wiki page about Flamethrower, “allegations” and “falsehoods.” Unfortunately for us, Flamethrower fails to specifically identify any false claims on her Fanlore page. This is fatal both to her claim insofar as this letter is concerned and to our ability to analyze the viability of her planned litigation (or rather, the plan she might make after actually talking to a lawyer). Instead, since I am not going to go through the elements of defamation for every sentence on her page, I’m just going to describe the elements of defamation and then talk about her Fanlore page in broad terms. Should she actually give specifics for her claim at a later date, I will review her allegations at that point.

Broadly speaking, a defamation claim contains five elements: (1) a false statement purporting to be factual, (2) about the plaintiff, (3) communicated to a third party, (4) negligence in stating (or repeating or republishing) the fact, and (5) some damage or harm done as a result of the false statement. (This can be complicated in various ways and can vary from state to state, and the mens rea is different if the plaintiff is a public figure. But we are keeping this VERY basic for the purposes of this analysis.) As I already stated, we are going to ignore her failure to state any damages, and there is no debate that the information on the page is about Flamethrower and communicated to third parties.

So then, is any of her Fanlore page potentially false statements purporting to be factual? And if so, was OTW negligent in publishing (or republishing) them? Well, again, I’m not going to go through every single line of the page. But looking at the page as a whole, it seems like there would be serious problems with any attempt to claim defamation. First, many (if not most) of the statements on the page are clearly opinions. E.g., when the page refers to “the use of antisemitic jokes in Flamethrower's Harry Potter series "Of a Linear Circle”,” the question of whether the jokes were antisemitic is, legally speaking, a matter of opinion. Second, when the page makes factual claims (e.g. stating that Flamethrower said a quote or took an action), it generally links to clear evidence supporting that claim. Finally, while the page does contain a number of unsupported claims by mostly anonymous or pseudonymous individuals, these are either clearly marked as allegations or are contained in a section entitled “Reaction from other fans.” In order to try to use those claims to support a defamation suit against the OTW, Flamethrower would have to argue that those clearly marked allegations and reactions were published in such a way that the OTW was actually presenting them as factual (and that they were, in fact, false).

Furthermore, it’s worth noting here that while Flamethrower complains about the fact that her page is admin-locked, a review of the history of the page shows it was locked in order to *protect* Flamethrower, potentially cutting against any argument of negligence on the part of the OTW *even if* the page contains false factual statements. 

That is to say, she included evidence that appears to undermine her own claim in her letter for absolutely no reason (no legal cause of action is created if a user-edited wiki admin-locks a page to protect the subject of that page).

Before we move on, let’s take a quick look at IIED. There are four elements of IIED in Florida: (1) whether a defendant engaged in “extreme and outrageous conduct,” (2) either intending to cause severe emotional distress or with reckless disregard for the high probability of causing severe emotional distress, (3) the plaintiff experienced severe emotional distress, and (4) the extreme and outrageous conduct was a legal cause of the severe emotional distress. Under Florida law, “extreme and outrageous conduct,” to quote the Florida Bar’s civil jury instructions, “is behavior, which, under the circumstances, goes beyond all possible bounds of decency and is regarded as shocking, atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” While again, harassment might rise to this level of conduct, Flamethrower has utterly failed to allege any actual instances of harassment (or any other specific action) committed by the OTW (or by anyone else) that appear to rise to this level. Furthermore, once again, her own inclusion of the fact that her page is admin-locked would undermine her claim, since locking the page to prevent it from “veer[ing] into attack page territory” cuts directly against the necessary mens rea for an IIED claim. And again, while I’m going to be generous and ignore the fact that for now, she failed to state her actual damages, I will note for the benefit of those reading along that “severe emotional distress” isn’t just feeling bad; to quote again from the Florida Bar’s civil jury instructions, it is emotional distress that is so severe that “it is of such intensity or duration that no ordinary person should be expected to endure it.”

The first thing Flamethrower should discuss with her lawyer is whether or not she actually has a potentially viable case, before she thinks about sending additional letters.

Also, at no point does she say what she wants the OTW to actually Cease and Desist *doing*. Presumably she will say so in her Cease and Desist letter (should one actually be sent), but then what is the point of this letter? All she says is that the OTW “willing participated in a harassment campaign” but as we went through above, she doesn’t say why or how, other than having a page that includes reports of (some of) the allegations against her.

But here we come to the second attempt at a legal threat in this letter - not only is she threatening to sue the OTW, she is threatening to report the OTW for criminal harassment. Now, she is correct that harassment is a crime in Florida. Its definition and punishment is contained within Florida’s more general stalking charge (Fla. Stat. § 784.048). So let’s look at the relevant sections from that statute.

(Section (1)(c) is about threats and isn’t relevant here, as no threats against Flamethrower are contained in the OTW page or alleged to have occurred at any point.)

Does anything Flamethrower accuses the OTW of doing rise to the level of Harassment or Cyberstalking as used in this statute? NO! Clearly not! I could break down all the elements in detail, but the most important thing is that the course of conduct and/or communication that is alleged to be harassment must serve “no legitimate purpose.” Documenting allegations against Flamethrower and the reactions by the community may not serve a purpose that Flamethrower likes or agrees with, but they serve a legally legitimate purpose. In addition, while I can’t speak to whether any individual prosecutor’s offices in Florida may choose to “prosecute out of state offenders regarding this violation of the law,” that’s not really the relevant issue here? Because private citizens like Flamethrower are free to *report* what she believes to be a harassment crime to the authorities, but she cannot make them prosecute such an offense. Ultimately, even if she attempts to report the OTW for harassment for, again, keeping a wiki page documenting allegations against her and reactions by fans to those allegations, it will be up to the state to decide whether to pursue a case.*

(*Some states do allow individuals to file criminal complaints, but the prosecutor’s office will almost always still review those complaints and will be responsible for deciding whether to pursue or drop those cases. Regardless, Florida is not such a state and only the State may file criminal charges in Florida.)

That’s not the way any of this works! While a corporation can be charged with crimes, you can’t get an injunction for protective relief against a corporation the same way you can against an individual for things like harassment. Instead, if you bring a civil suit, you can request a temporary restraining order during the pendency of the suit, and can request injunctive relief if you win the civil case. So even if she were to seek (not deliver - you need to seek an injunction and have it granted before you can get it delivered) an injunction against the OTW, it would not be the first step toward anything; it would be several steps after filing a lawsuit. And again, Flamethrower cannot “fil[e] criminal harassment charges” against the OTW; only the State can file such charges.

Now, there is something else going on in this paragraph, and another kind of injunctive relief Flamethrower may be referring to seeking, not against the OTW, but against those other unnamed “participating harassment [sic] parties.” But we will set that aside for the moment and come back to it later.

Flamethrower has included her name in the sign-off of her publicly posted letter, but in the interests of avoiding bad-faith accusations of sharing her personal information, I will not include it here. Rather, I want to end this section by pointing out that although she says she hopes “this matter can otherwise be resolved swiftly,” she doesn’t provide any request or demand to the OTW that would indicate how it could be resolved! I called this a pre-litigation demand letter, but such a letter (1) needs to state a claim or harm, which as we’ve discussed, she doesn’t, and (2) needs to demand some action, and Flamethrower doesn’t do that anywhere in this letter! She doesn’t even ask the OTW to remove or hide her Fanlore page! This isn’t really a demand letter, because it’s not demanding any action. The OTW couldn’t respond to her request to “resolve” the matter even if they wanted to, because she doesn’t request anything! 

So now that we have pointed and laughed, let’s get serious and look at what purposes this letter could *actually* be serving. Although it is ostensibly written to the OTW, as discussed, it doesn’t demand any action from the OTW or point to any specific thing the OTW allegedly did; it just expresses anger that the OTW republished unspecified “allegations” and “accusations” that were allegedly part of a “group-led harassment” campaign. And Flamethrower didn’t just send this letter to the OTW; she published it publicly, on her blog. While I cannot know what is in Flamethrower’s mind, we can make some reasonable guesses as to the letter’s real purposes, based on its content and context.

The actual purpose of posting a letter like this is twofold, with two different audiences. One audience is her current True Believers, followers, and friends. The other audience is those other unnamed “participating harassment [sic] parties” we set aside earlier.

The purpose at letter like this serves to her current followers and friends is to reinforce both her victimhood and her authority. While her misuse of legal terms and pseudo-legalese is hilarious to anyone with minimal legal knowledge and is reading the letter with any degree of skepticism, for people who are already inclined to believe or trust her because she is their friend or they are a fan of her work, the use of these terms can make her seem more authoritative. Legal rights and issues are complicated, frequently obtuse, and many, if not most, people don’t fully understand them. People who use legal language confidently (even if they do not do so correctly) can use it to gain a veneer of intelligence* and expertise.

*Please note: I am only noting the assumed cultural connection between intelligence and use of legal language, not endorsing this assumption; the ability to understand legal language and concepts is not related to intelligence in any way.

Furthermore, by asserting to her followers that she will (or already has) contacted legal counsel, and that her complaints about the OTW and her other accusers rise to the level of civil and criminal liability, she is creating the impression that her complaints must be very serious and very real. This is a very common phenomenon: consider, if you read a headline stating “Celebrity X claims Y National Newspaper is lying about them,” vs a headline claiming, “Celebrity X prepares to sue Y National Newspaper for libel,” the later headline makes it seem like Celebrity X has a much stronger and more serious claim against Y National Newspaper, more like Celebrity X has been wronged in some way.

And her followers are demonstrably receiving the impression she is trying to send. For example, see this comment on her post of the letter:

In a separate posts, the same commenter repeats that the (still unspecified) accusations are “libelous,” quotes a definition of libel that they think is the “legal definition” but which merely defines libel as a form of defamation without defining or giving the elements of defamation, and says that they would personally be “happy to testify” (without apparently having any sense of what they could possibly be testifying about). By bringing the threat of legal action into the conversation, Flamethrower has successfully created the impression that the OTW/her accusers have committed some legally actionable offense against her.

The second purpose this letter serves is to attempt to threaten and intimidate the other audience for this letter, those unnamed “participating harassment [sic] parties.” These “parties” would appear to be, as previously indicated, the people who have, are, or are considering making allegations about the writer. The threat to these individuals in the letter is clear from the letter, despite the fact that it is ostensibly addressed to the OTW, not only because Flamethrower repeatedly brings up that she believes this is “a hate campaign” by her accusers, but because of the specific kind of legal action she is threatening. To repeat the relevant paragraph in her letter:

As stated above, you can’t get an injunction for protective relief against a corporation for things like harassment. However, Florida law does allow an individual to apply for an “injunction for protection against stalking,” which would include cyberstalking (Fla. Stat. § 784.0485). With that knowledge in mind, it appears that the only actual legal threat in this letter is, ironically, a threat to harass her accusers with baseless petitions for protective orders.

And again, her followers and friends received the message loud and clear. Flamethrower reblogged a post from the same commenter whose post I mentioned above, which names one of Flamethrower’s accusers (@jabberwockypie) in the post and tells her to “Get a lawyer.”

Now, on the one hand, this is very funny. Based on this letter and all publicly available evidence, Flamethrower has no viable grounds for an injunction for protection against any of her accusers. Among other considerations, even if some of her accusers are lying about her, “injunctions are not available to stop someone from uttering insults or falsehoods.” Logue v. Book, 297 So. 3d 605, 614 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2020).*

*(Also, if I may offer Flamethrower some personal advice, I would recommend that she discuss with her attorney the possibility that, should she proceed with filing litigation, those individuals may in turn file malicious prosecution claims against her once they defeat her facially frivolous claims. Again, this isn’t legal advice, but if I were thinking about filing malicious and baseless legal claims, especially when I have published a letter online admitting that the purpose of initiating such litigation would be to force my accusers to personally come to my state to appear in court, I would want to consult with a qualified attorney to get legal advice on this point.)

On the other hand, this is a despicable threat designed to frighten and intimidate people who allege they have been harmed by her into silence. Even in the unlikely scenario that Flamethrower manages to convince a lawyer to attempt to initiate litigation against the OTW, the OTW will be fine. The OTW has money and resources and legal counsel and will chew her up in court and destroy her without so much as a blip. However, if she files petitions for injunctions for protection against her accusers, even if those petitions are baseless, those accusers would have find a way to appear in court and find the resources for legal counsel themselves. Indeed, based on the above quoted paragraph, forcing her accusers to travel to Florida to appear in court would appear to be her main goal in filing such a petition.

In short, Flamethrower is attempting to bully her accusers with threats to file meritless legal claims against them, specifically so that those accusers will have to spend the money and resources to travel in person to Florida to fight those claims. Even if she does not actual file a petition, she will have achieved her purpose if she can make her accusers (or other potential accusers) fear such a petition may be filed, causing them anxiety and possibly chilling their speech.

She is using the threat of the legal system to attempt to bully people who have spoken out against her. It is, on a much smaller and clumsier scale, an attempt at the same kind of behavior we see with powerful figures like Harvey Weinstein who threaten to sue any accusers, and any paper who reports on those accusers, into silence.

And - by the way. If she does follow through on her threat to attempt to file baseless injunctions for protection (or any other civil suits) against individuals in order to harass and bully them, I will be happy to boost fundraising links and provide other assistance to those individuals as necessary, and I am sure many other people will be as well, to make it clear that our community will not stand for such behavior. Because despite what Flamethrower asserts, I believe that the fan community does despise vindictive bullying - it’s just that we recognize that she is the bully, not the victim.