I really hope you get help. After reading your magazine “article” on the new Harry Potter game it is extremely clear how hateful you are. The sociopath traits that you display when weighing the value of your friendship is terrifying. I think your magazine and writing career would have more of a take off if you just wrote about games and left the political narrative out of it. Not a bad writer at all. You just need to grow up and stop playing the victim card.
Typically I don’t even answer asks like this, and if I do I mainly take a tone of mockery or derision, as is appropriate when a stranger barges in to shout some unsolicited bullshit in my direction. But this ask? It’s fascinating enough to devote some attention to this evening. So let’s talk about it.
So that we’re all on the same page, here’s the article anon brings up, from September 2022. I’d recommend taking some time to read it, but you don’t have to for our purposes.
“I really hope you get help.” Starting off with the implication that I am mentally ill? A real power move. Establishes your own humanity while whittling my own down just a little bit. Thank you so much for your pity; I’ll be sure to seek therapy just because you’ve said this.
Okay, that was a bit too derisive. Let’s bring it back a little.
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“After reading your magazine ‘article’ on the new Harry Potter game it is extremely clear how hateful you are.” Lmao let’s start with the scare quotes around “article.” Buddy, you know that “article” is just a basic non-colloquial descriptor for a post made on a website, right? If you had put scare quotes around “magazine” that would have made more sense. But anyway, this article makes it clear how hateful I am. I’m curious how that works, because I took great pains not to make purposefully inflammatory statements in the piece. The whole piece was essentially asking cis people to either have empathy for, and stand in solidarity with, their trans friends or be honest with themselves about why they prioritized their own comfort over those relationships.
If this qualifies somehow as “hate” then the only conclusion I can come to is that when it comes to cis allies, nothing is more important to them than their own feelings and comfort. If the mere suggestion not to buy a video game that funnels money into a transphobe’s pockets goes too far, is “hateful,” then what even is the point of having allies?
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“The sociopath traits that you display when weighing the value of your friendship is terrifying.” This sentence rules. Like it unironically fucking whips. I’ve been laughing at it for an hour. I ask (in the piece) for people to value their friends over material comforts like buying a single video game, and Anon here has twisted that into “the sociopath traits that (I) display when weighing the value of (my) friendship.” I am so interested to know which evaluative tool you used to determine my sociopathy. I am desperate to learn which sociopath traits I’m even displaying here. Like, are you talking about the section where I describe performative allyship and performative friendship? Are you talking about the piece overall? Please send me a follow-up with clarification and the test results from the psych eval you did on me. I am positively dying to hear back from you on this.
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“I think your magazine and writing career would have more of a take off if you just wrote about games and left the political narrative out of it.” This makes a lot of assumptions about the reasons I write and what I view as “success” as a writer. But just to be clear, you were terrified of me and my apparent sociopathy just a sentence ago; why would you be giving me career advice? The priorities aren’t prioritizing here.
At any rate, it might not be that big of a flex but I got two pieces in Bullet Points Monthly and four pieces in PC Gamer last year; that happened in great part because I generally don’t leave the “political narrative” out of my writing. The editors I’ve worked with have worked with me because of my writing and not in spite of it. The work I do in No Escape is recognized because I am political. It’s not for everyone, and if you don’t like it, that’s totally okay! But just to be very clear: being political has absolutely not hurt me so far, and based on how the year is going, I don’t expect it to moving forward.
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“Not a bad writer at all.” Aww thank you bestie <3
“You just need to grow up and stop playing the victim card.” LMAO. There it is. Again I have to note how far we’ve de-escalated from you calling me a sociopath three sentences ago. But anyway, this is by far not the first time someone has crawled into my inbox to say some shit like this. There are some Big Assumptions you’re making about the position I’m writing from, but ultimately what this response comes down to every time I get it is that you don’t want to think about anything political. Certainly not when it comes to your presumably favorite series of children’s books, definitely not when it comes to video games. It makes you uncomfortable that your comfort objects exist in a political context at all. And like, I’m sorry for you, but if anyone needs to grow up here, it’s not me.
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At any rate: I can’t wait to learn how I display terrifying sociopathic traits. That shit is genuinely so funny to me.
I completely forgot to do this, but I wanted to round this out with something you can spend your money on that isn’t JK Rowling’s bullshit, a bundle of 69 video and tabletop games that take place in magical settings or are otherwise similar to the so-called “Wizarding World.” It’s the Trans Witches are Witches Bundle on Itch.io!