Brandon O'Brien @therisingtithes@wandering.shop

Listen to survivors. Use your own discernment. Listen to survivors. Share notes with your colleagues. Listen to survivors. Trust your instincts.

Here's another thing:

as flattering as it may seem while these industries are reckoning with the harm happening in their communities,

perhaps it is wise to not share lists of people you think are good folk.

Consider that abusers and their proxies thrive on those lists.

Here's all I can say:

I stand with those coming forward.

I hope their words don't just challenge one company, but expose & burn out the wickedness lurking behind the entire space--behind the entire premise of who holds power in creative & outreach spaces, & how they do.

I'm obviously too emotional about this. Since seeing all the other industries have this same reckoning, I've been angry & tired. The way people react to my story doesn't help, nor how it's tied up in other people deflecting their own wrongs, using other survivors as shields.

But I'm particularly tired to see the same small bundle of enablers in their own right position themselves as protectors like they don't have to answer for the things they've done to shut other people down & discredit their stories.

I'm fucking angry. Not only to know some downplayed abuse to their own colleagues when asked about it. Not only to see long-needed resources be placed as stopgaps or shields from potential consequences. Not only for the silence.

I need this week--the last few weeks, even--to just stop for a moment and let a fella off.

Good news:
I got my copies of The Best of Uncanny!

Bad news:
One of them inexplicably seems to have spent some time in some water.

Bittersweet news:
At least the aforementioned wasn’t the signed one.

I’m having the most peculiar experience in the ‘chat’ function of Fantastic Cats and its this close to making me drop a game that has been giving me great joy in this shit time.

Ah very, very tired, allyuh.

In any case, here are some kitties.

It’s been a wild season.

If you may, do me a favour:

pray for someone you haven’t seen or spoken to in a while. A colleague you haven’t spoken to since lockdown. A relative in another part of the world. An old friend you miss.

Put some good energy in the world for them.

I still have a lot of feelings about BNA, especially its ending. I’m this close to trying to do a phone-cam video essay.

BNA is a weird example of an anthropomorphic animal anime in that it has much clearer individual things to say about marginalised experiences by being *less* defined and making less perfect analogies to real life writ large.

Also, the baseball episode is CHOICE. Watch BNA.

To whom it may concern:

BNA: Brand New Animal is apparently finally coming to Netflix next week. If you’re into Trigger at its most Trigger, you’re in for a treat.

In the midst of this overwhelming week, here’s what’s going on in Fantastic Cats.

This package has been in transit since February. Just… give me the damn thing, Universe. I’m tired.

I really get out of my bed and travel all that way to find out the post office website lied and they don’t open on Saturdays. If this package that has been lying in their clutches since the first week of June returns to sender before I see it, I will be most upset.

Folks owe it to their spaces to be willing to take someone to one side and say, “That was off. Cut it out.” Anywhere that two friends can’t or refuse to do that is already a risky place—a place where manipulation is more than willing to fester unopposed.

And by diversion, I mean:
• acting as abusers’ proxies;
• whatabouting;
• splitting hairs about legality;
• saying you’re shocked by one person’s actions, but not questioning the culture within your space, even when folks have pointed it out before & gotten shut down.

Men with industry authority need to be more sincere about the work to talk to & take responsibility for their friends when allegations of abuse come to light.

Men who say they will as diversion from that work need to be more sincere about passing their batons to others.

Working this week has been in some ways harder than every other week thus far.

Which sucks in particular because it's also been the week when I've been proudest of some of the things I've written and wish I could have kept that momentum.