Catherynne M. Valente
patreon
In Which Many People Tell Me How Much They Look Forward to My Death
🕑 Added 2025-09-13 23:29:38 +0000 UTCSo.
There's a reason I try to keep my political writing away from Patreon unless one of you really wants to read it.
I want this place to be cozy. I want us to talk about art and love and life and good things that still shine in the dark. I value so deeply that the way this little community treats each other is simply different than the rest of the internet.
Because sometimes when I say something political, even if people didn't actually read it, things get very scary.
It’s been a fantastic 24 hours, I’ll tell you what.
I posted an essay about the Kirk shooting to Substack that I VERY DELIBERATELY didn't put here because it wasn't cozy whatsofuckingever and rumors were flying and we don't need that here in the clubhouse. No one asked, so I still haven't and now I kind of don't want to even talk about it at all, except that lets them win.
Honestly, on Friday night, when a tsunami of unhinged violent Purge-hooligan shit came flying at me on X, a site I barely use except to crosspost the occasional quip or promote a new piece of work, I genuinely thought it was because of what I’d posted an hour before, which was this: White on white crime is a tragic epidemic sweeping the country. How many more will we lose to white gang violence and rightwing turf wars?It’s the culture, you know. These white celebrities glamorize a criminal lifestyle & young inner-suburb kids get trapped in the school-to-influencer pipeline.
And I sighed, and chuckled, a little ruefully, because of course that riled them up, Cat, you should have known and kind of did. The people who cry IT’S JUST A JOKE when their lord and savior tells a reporter about a new group of people he wants to murder can’t recognize satire even when it’s wearing an oversized sombrero with SATIRE stitched on it in neon green fuzzy yarn.
Yeah…so that wasn’t it.
Somehow.
What had happened was—and I say this with an exhaustion no simile can encompass—Mr. Elon Musk his own full-chested self quote-tweeted someone compiling a list of “Microsoft employees” who had “celebrated” Kirk’s death to be marked for retribution.
And my name was right there in the screenshot.
Now, first of all, was that screenshot, or literally anything I’ve said on the topic, celebrating anything? Absolutely fucking not.
It was a screenshot of Andrew Tate calling for Civil War (because that’s perfectly all right) and a comment on influencers freaking out as CEOs did post-Luigi, and a link to the Charles In Charge, Apparently essay on Substack. An essay that they definitely didn’t fucking read, because it was under a paywall, so I know exactly who the new folks who got a subscription to read it are.
Second…do I work for Microsoft? I mean...you guys know what I do better than anybody on the internet. But, I guess, sort of, if you’ve warmed up and you’re ready for a stretch?
I work for all kinds of people—that’s how freelancing works. I don’t work for Microsoft per se, but I have written three short stories, in three years, for World of Warcraft, and thus, Blizzard.
You see? It all becomes clear. Gamergate, as, I suppose, was always inevitable, never left our basement, psychologically speaking. I touched a game or two while being a woman, so I am very fun to try to carve up online. The list started as Blizzard employees (still not an employee, #Team1099) and I guess someone thought that didn’t sounds serious enough.
So long story short, I’ve received a number of threats in the last 24 hours, ranging from hopeful prayers for my personal ruination and “firing” from “Microsoft” to full on death threats. Ooh, and I’ve been called a cunt more in 24 hours than ever before!
I’m a big girl, I’ve been on the internet longer than 22 years, and you know that means I’ve had my share of death threats, rape threats, every kind of threat. I’m used to it.
But this has been…unsettling. X is a much darker place than Twitter was, and I don’t even just mean the amount of porn that poured in with the threats. And what’s happening right now, where the right is calling for wholesale slaughter of any and all liberals and having zero repercussions, but people are being fired for being insufficiently sad about Charlie Kirk on Al Gore’s internet, is through the fucking looking glass, even for America, which hasn’t ever really seen the proper side of the looking glass to begin with.
I’m a tough old bitch, but I’ve been shakier than I’d like over the last day.
Has Musk deleted the tweet? No, but the person he was quote tweeting has. Microsoft tweeted that they were taking it seriously and investigating. Have I been “fired”? Not yet, and I can’t be, because again, I’m not an employee, though I certainly could lose my contract. Am I particularly worried about that happening? I’d rather not lose a contract, but if my work for Warcraft was a huge part of how I feed Bastian I’d probably…you know…have worked for them a little more.
Am I worried I’m going to be killed, or that the people tagging in the FBI to hit the alarums over a link to a stupid fucking Substack essay that, once again, they definitely didn’t read because it was under a paywall? Not…really? They’d have to take a boat and that’s too hard even for appliance repairfolk out here. And these people clearly have no idea who I am or what I do and just think I’m some random Microsoft DEI hire because they’re all gloating about how fired I’m going to be come Monday, which, even if it happens, isn’t exactly going to devastate my life the way they hope.
But it sure throws me for several recursive loops. I guess I thought that paywall kept me a little safer than it does. But I guess just being a woman and talking is enough, they do not in any way have to hear what I say to want me gone.
I have screenshots, and I've posted them elsewhere, but I just don't even want to bring that energy in here at all! They don't deserve it, and I don't want to look at those words any more than I already have. If so many people can, without a flicker of dissonance, call me a terrorist while literally trying to terrorize me into silence, get me “fired,” and dox me to groypers because they don’t like what they imagine I must have said…well. What is there to say?
It’s died down somewhat. I haven’t engaged or apologized, because that’s how we do now. We’ll see what happens Monday, I guess. We’ll see what happens now that the shooter, shockingly, turned out to be a white straight right wing terminally online weirdo sheriff’s son who hated Kirk for not being Nazi enough.
Who could possibly have seen this stunning turn of events coming?
In the meantime, I just feel very quiet and anxious. Not as anxious for me as I am for all of us. I’m not sure it matters who Tyler Robinson is (and he’s not dead, at some point people will just…ask him) when the right went so mask-off so quickly and elected officials were publicly tweeting about killing all Democrats. Half the nation. More than half, as there’s more registered Dems than GOP. Because they imagined in their dreams that one liberal killed a podcaster.
They aren’t going to put that rabbit back in the hat. Mostly because they don’t want to, and when I said no one was as excited about Kirk’s death as MAGA, I wasn’t fucking wrong, was I? They’re celebrating. We’re terrified. God, we're terrified.
This is just…what celebrations look like to Nazis.
They didn’t even read it. But I need to die. I simply cannot get my head around that. I could’ve said Charlie Kirk was my very best friend under that paywall. They have no idea. I’m used to being blasted into space for daring to speak—but usually the blasters do actually know what they’re mad about. No longer necessary, it seems. And that is where we are now. I don’t see a lot of routes back.
Does that means I’m going to stop yelling about fascism, literally anywhere on the internet, even, sometimes, if it feels right, here on Patreon? No, and, additionally, go fuck yourself, fascists. They’re not done being murderous psychotic hypocritical assholes with the emotional regulation of an electrocuted cat in heat, so I’m not done calling them out.
Back in the time known as the day, if you weren’t getting a death threat every once in awhile, you were barely using the internet. But no one used their real names, so they usually stayed at about the volume and efficacy of a fart in the wind.
But I’ll tell ya. Being told how you’ll die does hit a little different when you have a small child.
For now, I’ll leave you with the ray of hilarious hope that was the most recent piece of poo flung at me on that nasty smear of a website.
Kids say the darnedest thingsAw, bless your heart! Baby, you go right ahead. I love that for you! In fact, I invite all your friends, every single conservative in the world, to do the same. Royalties is royalties no matter what you do with it. Please do go ahead with your powerful, manly, devastating plan to pay me for your baby tantrum.
I'll be okay, guys. Hopefully. Hopefully we all will. Don't lose that hope. It's what we've got to work with.
I'll be back on with cute photos and excerpts and a new essay and everything soon. For now I think I'm going to go stare at the ocean for awhile. The ocean VERY rarely calls me a stupid cunt.
She's such a sweetheart that way.
Comments
EarleRiser
My sympathies. Space Oddity is still on my TBR but I'll be sharing a Fairyland book with my daughter soon.
Jamie Wallace
Thank you for always speaking up. I know it's not easy. I'm so sorry that these asshats come at you that way. It must be very scary. As moronic as they are, they can still represent a very real threat. I am grateful that they never manage to render you speechless because your words bring me comfort and hope. This has been a very, very dark time. This issue has brought to light so many surprising and unpleasant revelations about people I thought I knew. Here in our little town, a school nurse who posted comments on his own social media on his own time posted some fairly benign comments and has now been put on leave. Huge numbers of my neighbors are calling for his immediate firing and for his pension to be revoked. They are like a ravening mob with pitchforks and torches. I've never seen anything like it. I hope we all come through this in one piece and with a better outlook that currently appears to be in the cards. Sending love and solidarity. xo
