#<- there are dn posts on my dash and discord | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

b-a-pigeon · 2 years ago

Text

Well... okay.

As a general rule, I do not participate in Author Drama. I shared that tweet earlier because I post fairly often about the whiteness and racism of (queer) writing spaces and felt it was pertinent, not because I care to weigh in on interpersonal conflict between two people I do not know.

That said: I feel weird about how DN approached me after my post, and I want to speak to that. [Cut for length]

I frankly did not realize that they followed me on here and would have soft blocked them had I known; I had no intention of them seeing that post on their own dash, and it's fully my bad that they did. But anyway... DN sent me a message immediately after I posted the screenshot encouraging me to seek out the evidence and draw my own conclusions about their conflict with Freydís. I said I'd hear them out, because I really do have zero context beyond Rainbow Crate's statement.

In response, DN sent a series of screenshots of their own Discord messages relaying the situation to someone else with no further evidence or explanation. These messages included a lot of detailed and personal information on their mental health; some obviously minimizing language, eg referring to gossiping about Freydís in a professional author's Discord server as "being a silly bean"; and several personal insults to Freydis, including calling them immature and pathetic.

They further characterized a message from Freydís's publicist as both "threatening" and "insulting." Freydís has publicly shared (in this thread) what I assume to be this email as well as other correspondence, and I personally consider that a gross exaggeration. Compare this description to the actual text of the email:

Again, I'm not trying to weigh in on who's right and who's wrong; I still feel as though I'm lacking context here. I think there is something to be said about the fact that Freydís has a publicist to navigate this situation while DN is responding personally. Rainbow Crate has corroborated Freydís's claims of "inappropriate behavior," at least, and it does seem true that DN has continued to talk shit about Freydís through their professional accounts months after they ceased communication and blocked each other. Beyond that, I cannot say.

What I will say is that I find the way DN approached me highly unprofessional & inappropriate. Asking for context is not an invitation to trauma dump about your mental health or to say ugly things about someone who you have beef with who I don't even know, including mischaracterizing a very professional email as insulting and threatening while doing the "I'm just a smol innocent bean" routine wrt your own behavior.

White people self-victimizing/infantilizing while painting POC with whom they are in conflict as overly aggressive and cruel is one of many ways that white people make professional & social spaces hostile to people of color. This has happened to me before, and it fucking hurts seeing people you know, trust, and work with uncritically buy into the narrative of you as violent aggressor just because a white person's feelings were hurt, regardless of the truth. It's very easy for me to spot this pattern of behavior and I have zero patience for it.

I post this not as a call-out or call to action for anyone to boycott or cut ties with DN; Freydís themself seems more interested in getting DN to just stop posting about them than affecting their career. I just wanted to share this information for the benefit of anyone who cares and also as a shining example of what not to do in my DMs. Okay, thanks.

#Probably all I will say on the matter!

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