Over twenty years ago my big brother got me a job at a Taco Bell in the St. Louis suburbs-West County. He warned me that it was the “gay Taco Bell”, but since I was coming from the “gay Howard Johnson’s” I wasn’t shocked. It turns out it was the black trans women Taco Bell complete with black trans women in management. And they’d worked out an arrangement with the local teen Narcotics Anonymous group so that twice a week we would shut down the drive thru and the dining room and exclusively serve 60+ teens in various stages of recovery. And many of the women I worked with were in various stages of being out or transitioning and they were from all generations from teens to over 50. One woman I worked with had a regular corporate job presenting as a man 9-5 Mon-Fri and then came to Taco Bell and worked 6pm -2am Friday and Saturday night so she could be herself surrounded by other black transwomen in those stolen weekends. And we had customers come from all over the metro area because they knew they could be themselves in the dining room. I only worked there from 1999-2001 but for young me, this was a vital, formative experience. Some of the girls came from north city all the way out to the “gay Taco Bell” on Manchester in west county because they heard it was safe to work there. Like- I know times have changed but they haven’t changed much in 20 years. I’m still convinced that for lgbt youth, finding a job at your city’s version of the “gay Taco Bell” is key to survival.
Look I love unconditional devotion love stories as much as the next person, but there's really something so deliciously raw about conditional devotion.
I have served you and I have loved you for decades, but I will not give up my principles for you. You cut out part of my heart and took it with you down that path that you insist on walking, but you walk it alone. Even when the bleeding, gaping hole you left in my chest kills me, I will not follow you.
So this is a callout post. If you want to stop reading there that's cool, but I cannot let a raging misogynist, biphobe, transphobe, lesbophobe person parading as an upstanding queer artist keep getting platformed when he's said some heinous things, behaved terribly and begs for likes as if life is a popularity contest. Block me if you disagree but I'm writing this here as Tumblr is less ephemeral than other channels. Part of this post was originally posted here as a reply.
fragments/nights-at-crystarium/Jay have been posting misogynistic, biphobic, transphobic, lesbophobic, entitled comments and then claiming people are homophobic when they criticise him back. Please rethink if you want to keep supporting him.
A/N: warning this is a LONG POST and I have truncated it under the break. I have also added the most recent misogynistic rant at the top just below the biphobia.
Context: an anon send him a message about how Emet can only be gay, Japanese people don't understand queercoding and that people who ship femme character with him are delusional.
See here for why his Emet-Selch comment was biphobic at worst and misguided at best. (thank you @birues for bringing this to everyone's attention)
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Misogyny and Trans-exclusionary language
Jay HATES the idea that women want to share this space too. In addition to the Tumblr post above he posted this to his Patreon discord, which is not private as his patrons can access it. He laments that people make fem characters because it's default and he wishes they all would transition to men. He also jumps in to insult two artists with m/f Emet ships @nipuni and @ja-ck-du and calling their art hetslop:
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(continued with more of his terrible behaviour after the break)
Pattern of rancid behaviour over the years
Let's start with the laundry list of all the bad behaviour he's expressed through the YEARS. You can read this better on my reddit comment here which I posted in reply to a shill thread made by what most people agree as Jay's sockpuppet account on the ffxiv subreddit. All of these I had the displeasure of witnessing myself or have been corroborated by multiple people:
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Self-aggrandising behaviour
Here is Jay claiming that there aren't many queer creators in xiv which is INSANE because this is the queerest fandom I have ever seen. You can't sneeze without hitting a queer artist. He also calls himself a pillar of the community, which is HILARIOUS because I have never seen him uplift other creators. You can't be a pillar of the community if you don't engage with the community. Your sycophants don't count.
How can you victimise yourself to such a degree?
He also claimed that if he was a lesbian, all of these callout of his rancid behaviour won't happen, which is laughable because you ask any lesbian in this space what being femme entails, they'd tell you straight up that they have experienced misogyny, no less from people like you Jay.
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Entitlement
Jay being ungrateful that ONLY 25 people have shared his post, and then saying you deserve to not be helped when you need it unless you share his post because he's a poor comic artist earning $1.2k from patreon every month. Because not sharing a post from a popular artist is obviously equivalent to not helping someone in dire straits. If you have been around, you'd know that times are hard, especially when you're queer. He's wishing you ill for the offence of not pressing that repost button.
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Being ungrateful with a sprinkling of misogyny
Jay straight up insulting anon's wife because how dare she reads his comic when she hasn't played ShB because her mind would not comprehend the complexity of his plot. And this is AFTER he begs for followers, as he does with every single one of his goddamn post.
So which is it, are you going to appreciate people who read your comic or are you going to put up so many qualifiers you only deem them worthy of following you when they've ticked all of them?
Hey Jay, maybe you should connect to your readers in a genuine manner and not in bad faith where all you want is for them to stroke your ego whilst giving a facade of appreciation.
And maybe, just maybe, you should start uplifting your fellow queer creators before demanding everyone support you.
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If you've read this far, thank you. I hope if you have ever supported him in the past that you rethink if you want to still support him after this. I do not care how big his following is; I do care that mask off misogyny is being let loose in our space. It doesn't matter if you're queer or a woman, we should not sweep this under the rug especially during Pride Month.
Boo hoo i'll be able to add more physical storage to my phone and be able to change out batteries if they degrade as well as all these other optional features I won't have to touch
I love how they add totally absurd things no one is asking for to make the idea look crazy. And still, I must emphasize, failing to make this look like a bad idea.
"Is this what you want? Is this ugly stupid bullcrap what you want??" the biggest loudest idiot in the room asks, holding up a picture of the hottest looking shit I've ever seen
There has to be a fic where Rocky doesn’t make it but he left Grace the instructions to get back so Grace has to go and try to save Rocky’s people before his body gives out since he doesn’t know if he’ll make it before synthesizing food, while trying to communicate without Rocky, I’m imagining he does make it and him and Adrian have to mourn together while waiting to see if it worked and if Rocky and Grace’s planets are saved